She took a step toward him, thinking to touch him. Give him some sort of support. He backed away. Actually circled around until the entire breakfast bar sat between them. The move sliced into her. Cut right through.
He finally stopped looking around and moving and generally not looking at her, and faced her head-on. “Your dad has been searching the name.”
“Wait . . .” She hadn’t expected him to say that. For a second the words just sat there in her brain. “What?”
“Wren.”
She kept trying to shake the cobwebs out. “He doesn’t know that name. He knows Brian Jacobs.”
“Exactly.”
Dread spilled over her. She felt it wash over her and seep into every muscle. She didn’t know what was coming, but she knew it would end with a fiery explosion. “What are you saying?”
“That he has the boxes, your files. He has your research.”
The strangling haze refused to lift. “That’s not possible.”
“We both know it is.”
It took her an extra second to snap out of her stupor. When she did, fury screeched through her brain. He was actually blaming her father for . . . that couldn’t be. “No. That’s ridiculous. My father wouldn’t scare me and steal from me. I must have messed up and said it.”
“That didn’t happen. You wouldn’t make that mistake when the stakes are so high.”
She’d tried not to. She made a conscious effort to stick to Wren, but she was human. Her father shouldn’t be blamed for her mistake.
Something choked her throat. She had to fight to not throw up. Force her body to stay still while she got this out. “Sometimes . . . sometimes I get excited and—”
“Look at me.” In two steps he was in front of her with his hands on her forearms.
She shook her head. Tried to push out all the thoughts jamming up inside of her right now. “There’s a logical explanation.”
“He wasn’t in the house that night.”
The jump in topics threw her. “What, when Tiffany went missing? Yes, he was. I was there. I saw him.”
“No.” He squeezed her arms then his hands dropped to his sides. “I’ve watched the videotape questioning, Emery. That is not what you said. The detective said it.”
“Because it happened.” She backed up. Ran right into the stove. “It absolutely did.”
“Listen—”
“No, I don’t get what you’re doing.” She scrambled out of his path when he started walking toward her. She knocked mail off the counter as she raced to the other side of the bar. Far away from him. “Why are you saying these things?”
Every word cut into her. He hated her father and had this twisted theory. But the accusations couldn’t be true. She never expected Wren to strike like this. It wasn’t who he was . . . or maybe she didn’t know him at all. She’d spent all day thinking about him, trying to believe she was falling in love with him, and he was plotting this.
“You hired me to—”
“No.” She held up her hand in a feeble attempt to shove the words away. “I didn’t hire you to do anything. I thought you took Tiffany.”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Neither did my father.” She waited for all the explanations to start tumbling out. She only came up with one. “Our dads were best friends. We were related. For God’s sake, Tiffany is his niece. There was no reason for him to . . . no.”
“He hated her.”
“He hated the guy at the gas station, but he didn’t kill him.” She screamed the words at him.
The more even and in control he looked, the more furious she became. She wanted to pound on his chest and make him feel something. Make him apologize.
“Emery.” He took another step toward her.
She held out both hands this time. “This is about you.”
Her mind raced. She needed to understand how this happened. Everything had been so good this morning. A few hours apart and he was attacking everything she believed in.
“You’re twisting this. You want to find an answer, I get that.” She tried to think about who he was and how he reasoned things out, but his accusations still didn’t make sense.
Pain flashed in his eyes as he shook his head. “You know that’s not it. I would never make something up.”
“Like your name or your history? God, Levi. You lie every single day by pretending to be someone you’re not.”
His face went blank. “You’re lashing out.”
“You’re damn right. Just because your father is a killer doesn’t mean mine is.” Her voice shook as she screamed. “Don’t suck me into your reclusive sickness.”
For a second nothing moved. The big house went silent. The television was on in the other room, but the mumble of voices faded into the background.
“We, ah, need to back up and think about this.” He rubbed his forehead.
No, he didn’t get to play the injured party here. “I’m done thinking and talking.”
“Tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow I’ll be gone at work and then maybe at Caroline’s house. You can sit here all alone with your conspiracy nonsense.” She couldn’t imagine looking across the table at him. Sleeping with him. Her mind recoiled at the idea. “Tonight I’ll be in one of the other bedrooms.”
She started to walk away, but it took all of her energy to get her legs to move.