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“Who’s that?” her father asked.
“The consultant from California.”
“What, I don’t have a name anymore?” Jonah said.
“Call me if you come up with anything,” she said into the phone, and disconnected before responding to Jonah. “Did you really want me to tell him your name?”
Jonah watched her drop her phone into her purse. “I thought we’d decided to let bygones be bygones.”
“We decided that. My father never agreed.”
“He’s still holding a grudge?”
“What do you think?”
Frowning, he hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “You had to tell ’em, huh?”
His comment made her angry. “Wait a second,” she said. “Don’t act as if I was disloyal to you.”
His eyes were troubled when they met hers. “God, Fran, haven’t you ever screwed up? Done something you regret?”
She couldn’t take the torture on his face. She wanted to forgive him, knew in that minute that she could forgive him. But if she let go of the past, she’d only fall for him again, and she couldn’t allow that. Why set herself up for more hurt and disappointment?
Scrambling to shore up her crumbling resentment, she threw back her shoulders. “Nothing that resulted in a child.”
He stared at the ground for several seconds before meeting her gaze again. “Thanks for reminding me.”
Pressing her palm to her forehead, she searched for the words to explain. “Look, I told them because…” Because she’d needed them. She’d lost her boyfriend and her best friend at the same time. And once she’d chosen to hang on to her friendship with Adriana, she’d had to tolerate a pregnancy that should never have happened, had to watch Adriana give birth to the child of the man she loved. Her parents were the ones who’d helped her make sense of it all, who’d helped her rebuild the part of her that’d been so damaged. “Because I never thought we’d see each other again. It’s not as if I ever expected…this.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You were right to do what you did.”
She was pretty sure he was being sincere. And it was true; if he’d been faithful to her, she would’ve had nothing to tell. So why did it feel as if she was the one who’d wronged him?
Turning away, he hit the button that unlocked the doors of her car. “You driving or am I?”
Grateful for the change of subject, the return to business, she tried to tell herself that whatever residual emotions remained between them didn’t matter. They couldn’t ever be together. So what if she could forgive him? She’d never be able to trust him. The way he attracted women, who was to say the urge to cheat wouldn’t prove too great someday, just like it had with Adriana? “Where are we going?”
“To talk to Bianca’s family and friends, try to figure out how she ended up buried in Dead Mule Canyon and see if anyone remembers her associating with a guy named Butch Vaughn.”
“What if he used an alias?”
“We’ll get as far as we can with a description.”
“Finch and Hunsacker won’t have a problem with us following up on this lead?”
“I just cleared it with Finch. They’re busy at the Rio Grande and they need the help.”
“How far is Bianca’s last known address from here?”
“According to my GPS, about twenty minutes.” That wasn’t really close to the salvage yard, but it wasn’t terribly far, either.
“I’ll drive,” she said. Then maybe she’d be less tempted to stare at him and remember what it’d been like to feel as if her next breath depended on his.
* * *
The man who came to the apartment door had a head of curly dark hair, a full beard and an earring in one ear. From the sweat dampening his T-shirt, the weight set in the living room and the clank of iron they’d heard when they first approached the door, it was obvious that they’d interrupted him while he was lifting.
Jonah took the lead. “Terrance Andersen?”
