“Thanks, Carnita,” I said. “I’ll take a look.” She headed back to her desk while I carried the book back to the table and took a small notebook out of my purse, taking notes. I’d been working for about fifteen minutes when I felt someone brush by me then take a seat on the opposite side of the table.

My heart kick-started when I realized it was Bingham.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “This public enough for you?”

I didn’t answer.

He removed his phone from his coat pocket and opened the screen. Once he had his clock app open, he set the timer for ten minutes.

“I believe we agreed on ten minutes?” he asked with a quirked brow, setting the phone down between us without starting the timer. I suspected he was a good decade and a half older than me, but it wasn’t obvious from his appearance—until you looked in his eyes. His eyes bore the weight of all the hard living he’d done. They were hard and dark, and I could tell they’d seen things that would likely give me nightmares. And he’d been the cause of many of them.

“That’s right,” I said, hoping I sounded assertive and not as terrified as I felt. “But do you think it’s smart having this conversation in a library where everyone can hear us?”

He gestured to the area behind me. “There’s no one here. Just you and me.”

I turned around, and sure enough, Carnita and the people who had been using the computers were nowhere to be seen.

When I spun back to face him, he was grinning. “I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me, but I’m not as scary as everyone claims.”

I gave him a sideways glance, trying to pretend I wasn’t afraid of him. “I suspect you’re an intelligent man. A stupid man wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now.”

He grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as one.” I took a breath. “An intelligent man would read the person he was interviewing and adjust his attitude to put them at ease…or to intimidate them. Whichever the situation required.”

He scooted his chair back and crossed his legs, which were too long to comfortably fit under the small table. He wasn’t a huge man, but the chairs were on the dainty side, making him look like he’d stepped onto the set of an Alice in Wonderland production. “And what does this situation call for?”

I leaned back in my chair as well. “I’m not some hardened criminal, so you’ll try to appeal to my reasonable side. If that doesn’t work, you’ll pull out the intimidation, but you would prefer to start with the soft approach.”

He laughed. “You see that in an episode of Law and Order?”

“No. That’s how I’d do it.”

He laughed again. “You sure you’re not that drug runner from Atlanta?”

I gestured to his phone. “Shouldn’t that be running now?”

His eyes lit up with amusement, and he reached for the phone, pressing the start button. “How’d you end up movin’ in with Hank Chalmers?”

“I went to visit him in the hospital and found out that he wouldn’t be able to come home unless someone brought him back to Drum. I needed a place to stay, so we worked out a barter.”

“Why’d you go see him?”

“I held his grandson’s hand while he died. I thought Hank might like to meet the person who’d comforted Seth in his last moments.” I figured his next questions would be about those last moments, so I was surprised when he didn’t address it.

“Seems like Hank’s pretty taken with you for only knowin’ you a couple of days.”

I shrugged and quoted Shakespeare. “‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.’”

His eyes narrowed. “Only you’re not sleepin’ with him.”

I groaned in disgust. “What is everyone’s fascination with me sleepin’ with Hank? He’s old enough to be my father and crotchety enough to be my grandfather.”

“No, you’re hookin’ up with Wyatt Drummond.”

I forced myself to shake my head. “You heard wrong.”

“That wasn’t you kissin’ the man outside the library?” he asked with a grin. He gestured to his phone. “I’ve got a photo if you’d like to see it.”

My chest tightened. I was certain a man like Bingham did everything for a reason, which meant he had a reason for mentioning Wyatt. But the bigger concern was that he or one of his cronies had been stalking me.

“You’ve spent thirty seconds discussing your take on my personal life. Is that really how you want to use your time?”

His smile fell and his face became expressionless except for the hard glint in his eyes. “I’m just tryin’ to figure you out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. You want to talk about the night Seth died, so I suggest we get right to it, because I’m holding you to the ten minutes.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you saw?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard the story by now.”

“That you woke up and found him dyin’? I call bullshit.”

“So what do you think I saw?”

“You saw him get killed. For all I know, you’re the one who took the drugs.”

“I thought we’d already confirmed that I’m not a drug dealer from Georgia,” I said. “It was a coincidence that my car broke down the same night the dealer was supposed to come to Drum.”

“The dealer was supposed to stay at the Alpine Inn, and you were there too. You’re the only stranger who rented a room that night.”

“What about on the weekend?” I asked. “Seems Max doesn’t get much traffic. Someone could have rented a room, hidden the stash in it, then notified the buyers a day or two later.”

“Wouldn’t be smart to leave that much product unsupervised,” Bingham said. “Especially since Max sometimes rents those rooms at an hourly rate.”

Gross. “So you’re suggesting the person never showed?” I asked.

“Seems to me,” he said slowly, “that the real dealer wouldn’t make as much fuss as you did when you came to town. Then again, what do I know?” He winked and shot me a wry grin.

Did he think I was the dealer after all? “If the dealer never showed, then why were Cecil and his friends searching the rooms? Why was Seth there?”

“Because I told him I expected a drug deal to go down there. I already suspected there were traitors in my midst, and I didn’t want to clue them in. So I told the boy I’d make it worth his while if he went as my eyes and ears.”

“You asked a teenage boy to watch hardened criminals in the middle of a transaction?” I asked, outraged.

He shrugged. “The boy wasn’t as innocent as you might think. He’d done a few things that could have gotten him into trouble.”

Something about the way he said it caught my attention. “You threatened to expose him.”

He scoffed. “I didn’t need to threaten him with anything. He agreed to be my eyes and ears, but I warned him not to interfere. I can’t help thinkin’ he tried to apprehend them.”