The next morning, I woke up to find that Michael was outside working on his car again. I stood at my bedroom window, watching him going
at the bumper with the power sander like rust removal was an Olympic sport. He’s going to destroy that car, I thought. Restoration was not Michael’s strong suit.
“You’re up.”
I turned from the window to face Sloane, who was sitting up in her own bed. “I’m up.”
“What are you looking at?”
I grasped for a way to avoid answering the question, but came up empty. “Michael,” I said.
Sloane studied me for a moment, the way an archaeologist might look at paintings on the wall of a cave. Given the way her brain worked, she probably would have had better luck reading hieroglyphics.
“You and Michael,” Sloane said slowly.
“There’s nothing going on with Michael and me.” My reply was immediate.
Sloane tilted her head to one side. “You and Dean?” “There’s nothing going on with Dean and me.”
Sloane stared at me for another three seconds, and then: “I give up.” Clearly, she’d expended her capacity for girl talk. Thank God. She
disappeared into the closet, and I was halfway out the door before I remembered my promise.
“I may be going somewhere today,” I told her. “With Dean.” Sloane popped out of the closet, half-dressed. “But you said—”
“Not like that,” I cut in hastily. “For the case. I’m not sure what the plan is, but I’m getting ready to find out.” I paused. “I promised I’d deal you in next time. This is me dealing you in.”
Sloane pulled on a shirt. She was quiet for several seconds. When she spoke, she beamed. “Consider me dealt.”
We found Dean in the kitchen with Lia, who was sitting on the kitchen counter, wearing white pajamas and red high heels. Her hair was loose and uncombed. The two of them were talking softly enough that I couldn’t make out the words.
Lia caught sight of me over Dean’s shoulder, and with an unholy glint in her eye, she hopped off the counter. Her heels didn’t so much as wobble when she landed.
“Lover boy here says you stopped him from doing something stupid last night.” Lia smirked. “Personally, I don’t want to know how you persuaded him to hold his horses. Horses were held. Let’s save my tender ears the details, shall we?”
“Lia,” Dean barked.
Sloane raised her hand. “I have questions about these tender details.” “Later,” Lia told Sloane. She reached over and patted Dean’s cheek. He
narrowed his eyes, and she folded her hands primly in front of her body. “I’ll behave,” she promised. “Scout’s honor.”
Dean muttered something under his breath.
“Blush. Grimace. Smirk.” Michael strolled into the room, labeling each of us as he passed. “And Sloane is perplexed. I miss all the fun.”
I could practically feel him trying not to read anything into Dean’s grimace and my blush. Michael was trying to give me space. Unfortunately, he couldn’t turn off his ability, any more than I could turn off mine.
“Townsend.” Dean cleared his throat.
Michael turned his full attention to the other boy. “You need something,” he said, studying the set of Dean’s jaw, the thin line of his lips. “You really hate asking.” Michael smiled. “It’s like a Band-Aid—just pull it off.”
“He needs a ride,” Lia said so Dean wouldn’t have to. “And you’re going to give it to him.”
“Am I?” Michael did a passable job of sounding surprised.
“I’d appreciate it.” Dean shot Lia a look, which I read to mean Stay out of it.
“And where, pray tell, are we going?” Michael asked.
“To talk to someone.” Dean clearly didn’t feel like sharing more than that. I expected Michael to draw this out, to actually make Dean ask, but Michael just stared at him for several seconds and then nodded.
“No comments on my driving,” Michael said lightly. “And you owe me.” “Deal.”
“Excellent.” Lia looked altogether too pleased with herself. “So Michael will go with Dean and Cassie, and Sloane and I will provide the distraction.”
“I like this plan,” Sloane declared brightly. “I can be very distracting.”
Michael and Dean weren’t so enthused. “Cassie’s not going.” The two of them spoke in unison.
“Well, this is awkward,” Lia commented, looking from one boy to the other. “Are you two going to start braiding each other’s hair next?”
Someday, I was fairly certain that Lia would write a book entitled
Making an Awkward Situation Worse.
“Cassie’s a big girl,” Lia continued. “She can make decisions for herself.
If she wants to go, she can go.”
I wasn’t sure why she was so gung ho on my accompanying them, or why she was volunteering to stay home herself.
“Dean and I are both profilers,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t that make me kind of redundant?” The only thing I would bring to this venture was objectivity. Lia’s ability made her the more obvious choice.
“No offense”—Lia began her next sentence in a way that more or less guaranteed the next words out of her mouth would be insulting—”but you simply cannot lie, Cassie. Agent Sterling got the truth about our last little adventure out of you so quickly, it’s embarrassing. Really. If you stay here, you’ll get us all caught. Besides,” she added, a smirk settling over her features, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum over here will be less likely to get themselves killed—or to kill each other—if you’re along for the ride.”
I thought of Lia and Michael dancing together just to get a rise out of Dean, and Michael’s inability to keep from poking bears with sticks.
Michael, Lia, and Dean locked in a car together would be a disaster. “Dibs on being Tweedledee,” Michael said blithely.
“Fine,” I told Lia. “I’ll go with them.”
For a moment, I thought Dean would protest, but he didn’t. “I’m ready when you two are,” he said gruffly.
Michael smiled, first at Dean, then at me. “I was born ready.”
We passed the ride to Broken Springs, Virginia, in tense and uncomfortable silence.
“Okay, I’m calling it,” Michael announced when the quiet got to be too much. “I’m turning on the radio. There will be singing. I would not be opposed to car-dancing. But the next person whose facial expression
approaches ‘brood’ is getting punched in the nose. Unless it’s Cassie. If it’s Cassie, I punch Dean in the nose.”
A strangled sound came from Dean’s direction. It took me a second to realize that the garbled sound was laughter. The threat was so very Michael
—completely irreverent, even though I had no doubt he’d follow through with it.
“Fine,” I said, “no brooding, but no radio, either. We should talk.”
Both of the occupants of the front seat seemed somewhat alarmed by that suggestion.
“About the case,” I clarified. “We should talk about the case. What do we know about this woman we’re going to see?”
“Trina Simms,” Dean said. “According to the visitor logs Agent Sterling showed me, she’s visited my father with increasing frequency over the past three years.” He gritted his teeth. “There’s reason to believe that it may be romantic, at least on her part.”
I didn’t ask Dean to elaborate on what that reason was. Neither did Michael.
“I doubt she knew him before he was incarcerated,” Dean continued, saying each word like it didn’t matter—because if he let it, it would matter too much. “She’s in her forties. In all likelihood, she’s either convinced herself that he’s innocent or that the women he killed deserved to die.”
The real question wasn’t how Trina Simms had justified her interest in a man most people considered a monster. The real question was whether or not she was a killer herself. If so, had she considered the murders a romantic gesture? Had she thought Dean’s dad would be proud of her? That it would bring them closer together?
I knew instinctively Daniel Redding didn’t care about this woman. He didn’t care about people, period. He was callous. Unemotional. The closest he could come to love was whatever it was he felt for Dean, and that was
more narcissistic than anything else. Dean was worth caring about only because Dean was his.
“What’s our game plan?” Michael asked. “Do we just knock on the front door?”
Dean shrugged. “You got a better idea?”
“This is your rodeo,” Michael told him. “I’m just the driver.” “It would be better if I went in alone,” Dean said.
I opened my mouth to tell him that he wasn’t going anywhere alone, but Michael beat me to it.
“No can do, cowboy. They call it the buddy system for a reason. Besides, Cassie would try to go after you, and then I would go after her, so on and so forth….” Michael trailed off ominously.
“Fine,” Dean capitulated. “We go in as a group. I’ll tell her you’re my friends.”
“A clever ruse,” Michael commented. It hit me then that Michael hadn’t agreed to drive Dean here for me, or for Lia. Despite everything he’d told me about their history, he’d done it for Dean.
“I’ll do the talking,” Dean said. “If we’re lucky, she’ll be so fixated on me that she won’t be able to pay attention to either of you. If you can get a read on her, great. We get in. We get out. With luck, we’ll be home before anyone realizes we’ve left.”
On the surface, the plan sounded simple, but lucky wasn’t an adjective I would have applied to a single person in this car. That thought lingered in my mind as Michael drove past a sign: WELCOME TO BROKEN SPRINGS,
POPULATION 4,140.
