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I make my way around to the passenger side and reach for the paper “What is it?”
“Don’t,” she shakes her head, holding it away from me.
“Don’t what?” I reach for it again. “Jen, let me see.”
She lets go and I pull it to me, wondering if I forgot toclose the gate again, and it’s another advertisement or sales promotion. But when I see what it is I freeze.
“It’s probably a prank,” she says quickly. “I swear that guy…”
Blood whooshes in my ears as she mentions Royce’s name, but I don’t hear the rest of what she’s saying because a chill has raced down my spine, rendering me immobile.
It’s a MISSING persons flier, only it’s got my picture, with my name, date of birth, and height and weight. But the last detail is the one that makes me want to throw up. It’s a date and it says TBD.
“Come on.” I fold it up and put it in my back pocket. “We’ve got candy and slashers calling our name.
Chapter 21
Ellery
“Any news from the lab?” I ask, setting aside the paper in my hand, and reaching for another.
Cruz and I are spending the night like we have the past few—holed up in my room, looking through the papers from Elmhurst. He’s just taken a break to put on some music and is looking through my collection on the other side of the room.
“Not yet.” He shakes his head and sets the tape in his hand down, then reaches for another.
I haven’t told him about the flier I found on my car yet, and don’t plan to. I have a feeling the ‘let the anger go’ rule would fly out the window if he knew who I suspected had done it.
Also, he’s been fidgety tonight and a part of me wonders if spending so much time with me is boring him. I’m sure he’d rather be out with the guys, doing something else.
“If you need to go…” I look up at him from under lowered lashes.
“What?” He looks over his shoulder and smiles. “No way. I’m where I want to be.”
His answer sends butterflies flitting my stomach and I can’t help but smile back.
“I promise, as soon as they get back to me, I’ll let you know.”
I nod and look back down.
I’m anxious to hear what they have to say. If the percentage of steroids found in my father’s blood is beyond normal, it would be hard to ignore.
When Cruz first suggested that my father may have taken them because of an affair he was having with a younger woman, the idea seemed so far-fetched, I didn’t want to give it anythought. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible.
My parents may have appeared to have a picture-perfect marriage to all who knew them, but I’d sensed an undercurrent of tension between the two over the years, on more than one occasion. They’d get into fights over his frequent travel to DC and the position it put her in to represent the Butler name on her own. While his work would often keep him in the office late at night, and canceling plans they had together.
It sometimes felt like they were more business associates than husband and wife—their marriage a merger of beauty and power—and I wondered if that is how marriage was, when the love and passion died.
One thing they never disagreed on, however, was their devotion to me, and when Daddy died, Momma did everything she could to protect me from the fallout. I know the tears she shed were more for me, then they were for her own grief, and it made me wonder if she ever felt the kind of love that made you weak in the knees and left you breathless.
When Momma met Cruz’s dad, I had my answer. She lit up when Antonio was around, and she never stopped smiling. He was smart and funny, and possessed a kindness that was a mirror to hers. I couldn’t help but like him because he adored her and treated her like a queen, and that was all I cared about. That Momma was happy.
Regardless of what went on between her and Daddy, I didn’t think he would ever have an affair with some by the hour hooker. In fact, Momma was adamant Daddy wasn’t cheating on her, even when the tabloids painted him as a drug obsessed, unfaithful politician.
Yet now that there were findings in his autopsy that could validate those old tabloid claims, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Garbage, garbage, garbage,” Cruz says while flipping through my stack of tapes. “Don’t you have any CDs, Butler?”
“They’re in the cabinet below.” I point to the bottom shelf of my wall unit.
