Paranoid(111)

Tears threatened again. “I thought you might understand, but I guess you don’t!” With that, she turned and fled back to her room.

Rachel took a step toward her, but Cade grabbed the crook of her arm just as the door banged shut. “I need to talk to her.”

“We both do, but let her cool off and think about it,” he suggested. “Anything else is going to blow into a major fight. Now, tell me about Bruce Hollander.”

“Right. God, I’d nearly forgotten about him with all the drama. I have the information,” she said, and was one step ahead of him. At the stairs, Cade, spying Dylan in the living room watching TV, hesitated.

“Hey, bud,” he said.

“Hi.” Dylan rolled his eyes. “I heard what was going on in the kitchen and thought I’d, you know, let the storm pass.”

“Good thinking.”

“Hey,” Rachel said, “let Reno in, would you?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t move.

“Now?” Cade added.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” He actually climbed off the couch and turned off the TV before heading toward the back of the house. Rachel continued leading Cade to her office. For a few minutes she’d been caught up in her daughter’s teenaged angst, but now, the threat of Hollander returned. Full force.

In the office she rolled out her desk chair and clicked on the information she’d gathered on Hollander, including his picture before and after being photoshopped. Cade told her the department was already searching for him and how Cade himself had run into the guy who posed as someone named Frank Quinn who claimed he’d been searching for his missing dog.

“I was talking to him. Let him go,” Cade said, “even though initially I had a bad vibe from him.”

“So you were here then, and again last night?” Dear God, had it been less than twenty-four hours since Harper and Xander had found Annessa? It seemed like a lifetime. “Watching my house?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever think to tell me?”

“I figured you’d be pissed.”

“I would have been, but wouldn’t I have seen you and thought someone was watching the place, you know, casing it or me or the kids?”

“Okay, that would have been a problem.”

“To put it mildly.”

“But did you? See me?”

“Well . . . no . . .”

“And wouldn’t you have recognized my pickup?”

“In the dark? Probably. But I still would have ended up pissed.”

He actually grinned. “One of your most endearing qualities.”

“You are a bastard. You know that, don’t you?”

“I think it’s A-one bastard. But yeah.”

God, she hated it when he was being charming, or self-deprecating or clever. And she didn’t like thinking that the beard shadow on his face was actually kind of sexy. As he leaned over her shoulder to look at her computer screen, she saw the way his hair curled near the back of his ear. She’d always found that little whorl intriguing.

Stop this now!

*

Harper was pissed.

What were her parents thinking?

Ganging up on her?

Everything in her life was turning to shit and she hated that Xander was so far away. Her heart ached and she kept looking at her phone, hoping he’d text her, but so far, nothing but radio silence.

It occurred to her that he might just want to break up with her. There were tons of cute girls in college; he didn’t need a high school girl with a lot of problems who lived like a million miles away. Sitting up in bed, she texted him again, hoping that she didn’t appear desperate, which, of course, she was.

He hadn’t texted since they’d left the police department early this morning and she was dying—dying—to hear from him.

She’d already called and left two voice messages asking him to call her back, and then there were various texts, which she scrolled through: *

The first: That was so awful and bizarre. Where are you? Are you okay?

Next: Miss U

An hour later: Is something wrong? Text or IM me.

Maybe he’d lost his phone or it was out of battery or charging or whatever . . . still she was miserable.

She’d written again: I heard that you had to move back to Eugene. That sucks!!!

*

Still nothing. Hours later. It just wasn’t like him. Had the police taken his phone? Had it been lost in the chaos of finding the dying woman at that horrible old church that had become a crime scene? She shuddered thinking of it now.

For a second she wondered if something had happened to him and her stomach soured at the thought. No, no, no! Xander was tall and smart and . . . he was fine. And probably was just over her. Her heart squeezed and she felt like breaking into a million pieces but didn’t much like that approach.

No, there had to be another way. Had to be.

Then, miracle of miracles, he texted back.

And all her worries and pain disappeared.





CHAPTER 34


Cade’s phone rang just as he reached for his third slice of pizza. He had actually taken time to eat dinner with the family, allowing his daughter, who was in a much better mood, to drive to get take-out. Harper had improved since the last time she’d been at the wheel but still seemed to have the same love of speed he did. They had returned home to sit familiarly around the kitchen table as they had for years, each grabbing pieces from two of their favorite pies—meat lover’s versus vegetarian—Dylan devouring slice after slice.