“Then why waste your time hating me? Let bygones be bygones so we can deal with the issue at hand.”
“You’re asking me to forgive you.”
“Nothing that generous. I’m merely asking you to pretend we’re work associates with no history.”
Her dark eyes flashed with emotion. “That won’t change who or what you are.”
The regret he’d suffered for his behavior suddenly felt so fresh it seemed as if he’d betrayed her only yesterday. But there was no taking it back, and if he was going to have any chance of protecting Francesca, they had to get beyond previous hurts and old anger. If Butch and April were connected to the Dead Mule Canyon slayings, they’d have a better shot if everyone cooperated.
“I’m not asking you to fall back into bed with me,” he said.
Her chin went up. “Good thing. You know how far you’d get with that.”
“I do,” he said softly, and the honesty in his admission seemed to defuse her anger.
Slumping in her seat, she stared down at her bare toes, the nails painted a sparkly gold. “Fine. I guess you’re all I’ve got to work with. So we’ll just—” she took a deep breath “—keep it professional until this case is solved.”
“Great. Now that we’ve called a truce—” he indicated the house “—why not go in and get some rest? I’ll keep the big bad wolf from the door while you’re out of commission. And when you get up, you can show me everything you’ve collected on April Bonner. That’s probably the best place to start. At least we know her identity and that she had a connection to Vaughn.”
“You mean…you’re going to stay?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. You’re about to keel over. You need sleep.” He needed sleep, too, but he hoped his fatigue wasn’t quite as apparent. At least he hadn’t been stalked and scared half to death during the night.
She was tempted to accept the offer; he could tell by the way she nibbled at her swollen lip. “If you stay, that doesn’t make us friends.”
“I thought we just established that we’re work associates.”
“Temporary work associates.”
“So…what do you have to lose? Want to get some sleep or not?”
Fatigue won out. “That’d be nice,” she admitted. “For a few hours. But don’t let me sleep too long. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Check out while you can. If this goes the way I think it might, you’re going to need it,” he said, and opened the newspaper.
Reluctant to see evidence of her life, everything he’d missed in the past ten years, Jonah remained on the porch. But all the little things he’d wondered about since he’d last seen her ran through his mind until he gave up and went inside, where he could study the photographs on her walls and tables and guess at the people in those photographs as well as their significance to her.
One showed her and her mother skiing. In another, she stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial. She had a guy with her, someone important judging by the way they held each other, eyes dancing as they laughed into the camera.
Frowning, Jonah decided the guy looked too…oily for her. But the two of them appeared to be having a great time. Was the mystery man a politician? A lobbyist? What had taken them to Washington, D.C.? And was this person still in her life? If so, why hadn’t she asked him to stay with her last night? For that matter, why hadn’t she gone to his place? Even more curious, where was he this morning, when she really needed him?
Jonah’s eyes flicked to the next picture, which showed the same dude. He must’ve been special to Francesca. Maybe he still was. Maybe he traveled a lot and was out of town….
A photograph of Francesca with her brother and her folks sat on the wet bar. They were in a little bistro that made him think they’d gone to Italy as they’d always wanted. There was a second picture of a younger Francesca with another guy—not the politician; before the politician—posing at the Grand Canyon. All of this suggested she’d spent the past ten years dating and traveling, not just working. She seemed to have gotten along fine without him.
That made him feel slightly better. It also made him feel slightly worse. But he didn’t want to consider why.
He noticed some other photographs on the fireplace mantel, turned to examine them and froze. The first one was of Adriana. It’d been years since he could remember what she looked like. Now that he was reminded, he realized that Summer showed a marked resemblance to her mother. She had the same dark blond hair and blue eyes, the same shape to her nose and face. But even at the age of nine, Summer was tall, and she was rail-thin, like he’d been growing up.
His throat so dry he could hardly swallow, he shifted his gaze to the other people in the picture. A man stood behind and to the right of Adriana, and there were kids—two boys. Obviously, she was married and had a family. In gold embossing along the bottom, it said, “The Covington Family, Adriana, Stan, Levi and Tyler—Merry Christmas, 2009.” Stan was her husband. Only five foot eight or so, he was still quite a bit taller than she was. With a severely receding hairline, he appeared to be a few years older, too. Truth be told, he wasn’t the handsomest guy in the world, but the kids were cute. Jonah hoped Adriana was happy. He hadn’t meant to affect her life to the degree that he had. He’d been so busy self-destructing he hadn’t worried about what the splatter might mean for those around him. And the way she’d always watched him, with those hungry eyes…. She’d thought she hid her feelings well. As far as anyone else was concerned, maybe that was true. But he could sense that she had a crush on him.
Would he have exploited her feelings if he hadn’t been drunk that night? He wanted to believe he wouldn’t have. But who could say? Maybe he really was that big an ass**le.
Pulling his eyes away, he forced himself to stop looking at Francesca’s pictures. His past weighed heavily enough on him. Every month, when he wrote a check to the Williamses, he wished he’d been a better person. Not because he begrudged his daughter the money. Paying for items Burt and Sylvia might not be able to afford had been his idea, his way of trying to shoulder the responsibility for his choices. Although Summer’s adoptive parents had at first refused his help, they’d changed their minds once they realized he meant well and would keep his word not to interfere in their lives or try to contact her. So far he’d sent her to band camp, bought her a flute, covered some of her school clothes and paid the hospital bill when she broke her ankle in soccer. He guessed the Williamses pocketed the extra, because he’d sent a lot more than that, but he didn’t care. Every once in a while they rewarded him for his financial support by sending him photographs, copies of her report cards or a picture she’d drawn in school. And that meant a lot to him. He knew the money didn’t make up for what he’d done, but at least he was doing everything he could to compensate.