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Seeing such a tasty dish go to waste was disappointing.
Dragging her mind from the food, she blinked at H. “Squealer?”
“The one who told Z about the plan to assassinate him,” Daire answered, removing the sink cover.
“You don’t have to answer her questions,” H said.
“Yes,” Tess said, relaxing, spreading both hands on the table. “H thinks I should be a good little female and simply cower in whatever hidey-hole he finds for me.”
“Not a bad plan,” Daire said, putting the plates in the sink, then turning to retrieve H’s, which was now empty. “Call him Harry. Only people who don’t know him call him H unless we’re in the field.”
Should she thank him for the advice? No. Their scales weren’t tipped anywhere near gratitude.
“And women who birthed his children,” she said instead. “That’s how you signed your letters to mom.”
“Details were risky. Contact was risky… It was ridiculous. I should’ve known better,” Harry said. After a breath, he straightened up. “Where are they? The letters?”
Oh… ah. Closing her mouth, the next confession would not be easy. “Actually, I…”
Daire grabbed a towel to dry his hands and crouched. He flipped up the kick-plate under the kitchen unit and then stood, tossing a familiar cosmetics case onto the table. Stunned again, her stupor was instant. Some part of her suspected him as the thief when he’d quoted the letters to Harry. But for him to be so blatant about producing them…
Harry put a hand over the case and slid out of the dinette. “Excuse me.”
Just like that, he left the trailer. The letters were personal to him and her mother. It was sort of comforting to know he wanted to be alone while revisiting those memories. Except after the echo of the door closing silenced, the air settled. She and Daire were alone in the trailer.
Alone.
TWENTY-EIGHT
DAIRE WAS FINISHING up with the dishes. Tess considered going outside, but didn’t want it to appear like she was following Harry. Going to the bedroom wouldn’t achieve anything either.
Just like in the truck with Harry, instead of being silent for silent’s sake, she’d get answers instead.
“You want to tell me how you did it?” she asked, receiving no response. “You were there when my mom died. You were with her… You didn’t think that I’d be interested in that?”
“I thought you’d be dead before it ever came up.”
Another thorn in her crown. “You wanted him to kill me? Why not just do it yourself? You had opportunity.” She’d slept naked next to him for a month, there’d been plenty of opportunities. Except he chose not to answer again. “You can at least tell me how you ended up at Buckhorn?”
“Got myself hired,” he said. “Yeah, I was there when your mom died… I was on scene, hung back, watched it all unfold and saw who towed the wreck.”
“And you knew I’d come looking for it?”
“Figured you would,” he said, draining the water.
Tess leaped from the dinette to grab the towel for the dishes before he could. He didn’t make eye contact, but she smiled anyway. One small battle. Yet the victory was sweet.
“And if I didn’t?”
“Then it didn’t matter,” he said. “I’d have found another way.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, drying the plate, then putting it away. “Why? You couldn’t have known that my mom…” Before the words left her tongue, she figured it out. “Goddamnit… You put the cards there. It wasn’t my mom at all.” No response. She exhaled a laugh. “Man, it must have driven you nuts that I took so long to figure out the numbers.” His silence tormented her irritation. “Figgs? You set that up?” A chilling thought shuddered through her. “He disappeared. Did you—”
“Paid him to go on vacation,” he said, dropping into Harry’s vacant dinette seat.
Instead of tucking his legs under the table, he kept both feet planted in the aisle, manspreading all over the place. Everything he did seemed designed to irritate her. Honestly, Danny never took up so much room. Maybe she just didn’t notice it so much when she had no problem occupying the same space.
Letting him know that his behavior was getting to her would give him too much satisfaction.
