“Did he want to come home?”

“Didn’t matter,” Marco said as we reached his Explorer. “If Bart told them boys to jump, they jumped.”

“Does Max resent his father?” It struck me that his father might not be the only one he resented for hijacking his future. “Does he resent Wyatt for giving it all up and leaving it to him to take up the mantle?” Was that the cause of the brothers’ rift?

“Those are two very good questions I don’t have the answers to,” he said, then opened his car door and tossed his crutches into the backseat. When I got inside, he asked, “Why the interest? What does Wyatt say about all of this?”

“Wyatt refuses to tell me anything about anything. In fact, Wyatt and I are done.”

“When the hell did that happen?” he asked. “And more importantly, why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He sent me an ornery grin. “So does that mean you’re available now?”

I laughed, but my heart hurt at the reminder. “Too soon, Marco.”

“Well, if you’re lookin’ for a fling, I’m your guy.”

Laughing again, more softly this time, I said, “I’m not really a fling kind of woman.”

His grin spread, his eyes lighting up. “I guessed that about ya, but you can’t blame a guy for tryin’.” He backed up the SUV and turned around, heading toward the lane. Just like before, he drove close to the trees, as far off the drive as possible.

“What are we going to do about Lula?” I asked.

He shot me a quick glance before returning his gaze to the road. “There’s nothing to be done. I told you that already.”

“No, you told me no deputies will take the case seriously, but you and I both believe she didn’t voluntarily leave.”

His hand shot up into the air like a stop sign. “Now, hold on there! I never committed to that theory.”

“You and I both know that someone in a big truck came to her house and took her with them. What do you plan to do about it?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m still on medical leave.” But his hesitation seemed a little forced, as if he thought we shouldn’t look into this rather than that we’d be wasting our time. I wondered if he was concerned that Todd Bingham might be tied to Lula’s disappearing act.

“And you told me that you’re bored to death.”

“I can’t investigate a case while I’m on leave, Carly.”

“Well, then let’s cut to the chase. I don’t think it will take us long to figure out who took her,” I said, my voice firm. “All it’s gonna take is paying someone a visit.”

His back stiffened and his eyes flew wide. “Oh, hell no, Carly Moore. You are not gonna go talk to Todd Bingham!”

“He’s the most logical person to have taken her, and I plan to ask him where she is.”

“He’s liable to shoot you the moment you show up on his doorstep.”

I gave him a fake sweet smile. “Not if a certain off-duty deputy drives me to his front door.”

“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “No fuckin’ way.”

“Then I’ll go on my own. Now tell me where to find him.”

“There’s no way I’m sending you to your death!”

“He’s not going to kill me, Marco. He and Hank worked out some kind of deal that protects me from Bingham. If he hurts me, Hank will have his head.”

Marco narrowed his eyes. “How the hell did Hank Chalmers work out a deal like that?” He was shaking his head before I could respond. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. And I’m not takin’ you, so give up this fool idea right now.”

I shot him a glare. “You do realize that I can find him with or without your help. All I have to do is head back to town and start askin’ people.”

“You’d really consider visitin’ him on your own?”

“If he’s got Lula, you bet your ass I will.”

Marco released a loud groan, shaking his head in disgust. “I’m gonna regret this decision, but fine. I’ll do it, but that will be the end of it, you hear?”

I flashed him a smile, never agreeing, but hoping he didn’t figure that out.

“Get in your car and drive it to Max’s,” he said, obviously unhappy. “We’ll leave your car there, and I’ll run you out to Bingham’s. But I’m tellin’ you, you’re playin’ with fire.”

“Then I guess I need to bring a fire extinguisher,” I said with fake enthusiasm as I got out of his car.

Now I just needed to figure out what that was.

Chapter Ten

Marco followed me into town, then let his SUV idle on the street while he waited for me to park my car in the tavern’s back parking lot.

When I approached his car and opened the passenger door, he said, “I take it you haven’t changed your mind yet?”

“Nope,” I said, refusing to look him in the eye as I said it. Truthfully, I’d had plenty of second thoughts about meeting Bingham face-to-face away from the watchful eyes of Hank and Max. Sure, we’d had a one-on-one meeting at the library with no one else around, but this was different. I was barging onto Bingham’s turf uninvited.

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done, Carly Moore,” Marco said as he pulled away from the curb. “I didn’t take you for the crazy type. Maybe that’s why Wyatt broke up with you.”

I nearly corrected him about who’d broken up with whom, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. “Guess you’ll have to ask Wyatt yourself.”

I paid close attention to where he drove, noting that he took Highway 25 out toward White Rabbit Holler but he turned right onto a county road a couple of miles before I usually turned left. We drove another few minutes before I realized we weren’t on a county road. This was private property.

“Does Bingham own this land?”

“It’s been in his family for generations. The Binghams used to give the Drummonds a run for their money back in the day—as recent as the Prohibition era, making moonshine—but Floyd Bingham, Todd’s daddy, was the laziest man around and a mean drunk to boot. Ran it all into the ground.”

“Guess all this privacy makes it easier for Todd to make people disappear,” I teased, but I was so nervous it came out flat.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a few bodies buried on his land,” Marco said, slowing down as he approached a gravel road and turned left. “And some of ’em were probably left by his father. He may have been lazy, but he was an evil son of a bitch.” He shook his head. “Max and me went to school with Todd’s younger brother, Rodney, and one day Rodney stopped comin’. They sent a truant officer to find out where he was, but Floyd said that Rodney had run off to live with his momma down in Hickory, North Carolina. Ain’t nobody believed that for a minute. Todd’s momma died of mysterious circumstances when Todd was about twelve—then Floyd remarried a young thing a few months later. Rumor had it she was barely sixteen. After a few years, I guess she’d had enough beatin’ and rapin’ because she took off in the middle of the night and left Rodney behind. Kid was about five. Floyd told everyone that she wanted no part of her former life, especially not some snot-nosed kid. Everyone suspected her only way to escape was to leave her son.”