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"If he's holed up in the woods somewhere--"
"The woods?" Berry laughed. "He'd have to be crazy."
"You said he was."
"I said he was unhinged."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"No."
"What's the difference?"
"Constancy. Crazy is a state of being. Unhinged is a reaction."
"Catching you with Lofland sent him over the edge."
"He didn't 'catch' me with Ben. He caught me in the shower. Alone."
"Right. When I got there, you were still wet." He kept his eyes fixed on hers for several beats before moving on. "You told Sheriff Drummond you'd seen Starks rattled like that only once before. When was that?"
"At the beginning of the summer. Just before I moved to Merritt."
"Starks wigged out on you, and that was the final straw?"
"Exactly. I got scared."
"Do you think he's sinking deeper into psychosis?"
"I have no idea. I'm not a psychiatrist. What I can tell you is that, ordinarily, Oren isn't a raving maniac."
He propped one booted foot on his opposite knee and crossed his arms over his wide chest. "Describe to me what he's like. Ordinarily."
"Well,
one thing he's not is an outdoorsman. I can't see him taking cover in a well-protected campground, much less the woods. You can chalk that off your list."
"Okay, where do you think he ran to?"
She bent her head and rubbed her forehead. "I don't know, Deputy Nyland."
"Call me Ski."
She looked across at him but didn't address the topic of names. "Oren's persnickety. Orderly."
"Obsessive-compulsive?"
"Close," she said with an absent nod. "I used to tease him about his desk being the cleanest of any at Delray. Everything in its place. His mind works in an orderly fashion, too."
"For instance?"
"For instance, during a discussion over a project, I could jump around from point to point, but Oren wouldn't move from point A to point B until point A had been reviewed, discussed, and approved one hundred percent. He would go back to something a dozen times until it met with his satisfaction."
"What you're telling me is that he'll keep coming back until he gets it right."
"Yes," she said huskily. "Until I'm dead."
"I'll do my best to keep that from happening."
