He figured he had that coming.

“I met Don,” she said. “He was very pleasant.”

“A job requirement.”

“We had an enlightening chat.”

“Don didn’t tell you that I was in the store that day, because he doesn’t know. You must’ve chatted with someone else.”

“Lois Miller.”

“Don’t know her.”

“Well, Lois knows you. You’re hard to mistake.”

He couldn’t account for the emphasis she placed on that, although she looked him up and down as she said it.

“You should remember her. Seventy-ish. You were right there with her. The whole time, she said. You, she, and another woman. Younger. Dressed for yoga. Is any of this jogging your memory?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “I remember.”

“So?”

“The older lady hovered. The younger one went into action. She helped you to lie back. I was there to sort of…” He held out his hands, palms up. “Keep you off the floor.”

She looked at him curiously, making him wonder just how descriptive this Lois person had been. Had she told Arden that he’d rested her head in the hollow where his rib cage divided, that his hands had cradled her shoulder blades while that younger woman coached her on breathing?

He remembered looking at the gray-haired lady to get her read on what was happening and receiving only a worried frown and a sad shake of her head.

That might have been when he’d slid his hand from beneath Arden’s back long enough to brush a silky, stray curl off her cheek. The sequence of events during that eternal wait for the ambulance ran together and blurred in his memory, but he remembered the feel of her hair. Too well.

“Lois told me that you attacked a man for taking my picture.”

“Attacked? No.”

“Verbally.”

“He was a jackal.”

It had been a crass invasion of Arden’s privacy for the guy to take her picture in those circumstances, but Ledge conceded that he might have overreacted. Unknowingly, the fellow had triggered a memory of Afghanistan. Pinned down and helpless to prevent it, Ledge had watched as men photographed soldiers already dead, their bodies butchered post-mortem, some American, some their own countrymen.

“No mercy for jackals,” he mumbled.

He could tell by Arden’s expression that she didn’t grasp the subtext, but she didn’t deviate from the subject. “You stayed in the store with Lois and a few others, waiting to find out…” She let the rest go unspoken.

“It seemed the decent thing to do.”

She was still regarding him in that curious, almost wary, manner. “Well, this explains how you recognized me yesterday when I came to your shop,” she said. “But it makes me wonder why you didn’t take credit for your involvement that day.”

“Because only a prick would take credit.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“Sensitive subject like that, I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

She nodded, but not like she wholeheartedly accepted that explanation. Shaking off the pensive demeanor, she drew herself up straighter. “My visitor drove past.”

“When?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“Damn. I got here an hour too late.”

“You’ve been lying in wait?”

“Down there by the road, hoping I’d catch him at it.”

“That explains the camo getup.”

“For all the good it did me. Are you sure it was your regular?”

“Yes, I recognize the sound of the motor.”

“What’s it sound like?”

She gave a shrug of confusion. “A car. But it does have a distinctive sound.”

He tried to make sense of that, but it escaped him.

“Where’s your truck?”

“Parked in the cypress grove.” He thumbed in the general direction. “I used a road that brought me in from the west to the back of your property. I walked from there.”

“So I wouldn’t know you were here.”

“So he wouldn’t know.”

“I doubt he would have spotted you. Out there in the dark, you would have been well concealed.”

Had she put on that ungodly outfit to conceal herself from him? If so, she’d been too late. He’d gotten a tantalizing eyeful while she was waggling that nine-millimeter at him. Underneath her short nightgown, the dips and distentions had been impossible not to notice, and even more impossible to ignore. As was the disturbance they’d created below his belt.

“Well?”

He realized she had continued talking while his mind had drifted to shapely bare legs and a slipping shoulder strap. “I’m sorry, what?”

Exasperated, she said, “Did you come here tonight to see if the bogeyman was real or a figment of my imagination?”

“I believe he’s real.”

“Thank you for taking my word for it.”

“I didn’t. Animal instinct.”

“Oh, really? Is your animal instinct so reliable that you always act on it?”

He waited a beat. “Not always.” Another beat. “Bad as I want to.”

His suggestiveness wasn’t intentional. Or maybe it was. But in any case, the words caused a subtle but definite shift, not only a straying from the topic of discussion, but a change in the current between them, a thickening of the room’s atmosphere. He felt the increase of air pressure in every cell of his body. The ticking of the wall clock seemed to be keeping beat with something other than passing seconds.

She must have sensed it, too, because she didn’t say anything, or move, and her eyes stayed locked with his, as though any reaction might trigger something uncertain and unsafe.

Then her cell phone jangled, and she jumped like she’d been scalded.

She shuffled backward away from him and glanced down at the phone where it lay on the table. “My sister. I’d better get it.” She picked up the phone and clicked in. “Hi.”

“Were you asleep?”

Still looking directly at him, Arden said, “No, I’m wide awake.”

The voice coming through the phone was as clear as a bell to him, but Arden didn’t retreat to conduct the conversation in private, so he didn’t retreat to grant her privacy. He propped himself against the counter and watched Arden closely, hoping to gain a clue as to why she seemed to have such a complex relationship with her sister.

Lisa said, “Well, what I have to tell you certainly won’t help your insomnia.”

“Then can it keep until morning?”

“You need to hear this now.” Arden looked ready to protest, but Lisa didn’t give her a chance. “After we talked today, I had one of our people who runs background checks on potential employees do one on Ledge Burnet. She discovered something startling.”

Arden blinked several times, but otherwise remained as she was.

Lisa took a deep breath. For effect, he thought. Then she said, “This guy is bad news. He was arrested on a drug charge—”

“I already know that.”

“But did you know that his second offense occurred on the same night that Dad disappeared?”

Arden’s lips parted in shock. By an act of will, Ledge kept his expression impassive.

“The same night, Arden,” Lisa repeated with emphasis.

Arden swallowed. “Are you sure?”

“It’s a matter of record. I had one of our legal team double-check.”

Her lips remained open. She was breathing through them. “I fail to see—”

“Think about it.” Lisa sounded as though she wanted to shake her. “In Dullsville, USA, where big news is who catches the largest bass of the month, in a single night a major burglary and a likely murder took place, both of which our father was alleged to have committed. That same night, this prior offender was out and about dealing drugs. Only marijuana, but still.”

Arden continued to stare straight into his eyes as she pieced together the components. “But what…what possible connection could there be?”

“I have no idea,” Lisa said. “But at the very least it’s a bizarre coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Arden didn’t say anything, only continued to search his eyes.

Lisa pressed on. “Furthermore, when he came clean with you about his criminal record, he didn’t say, ‘Oh, and by the way, get this. This is a weird coincidence.’ Wouldn’t that have been the time to mention it?”

Arden gave it thought, then said, “We didn’t learn about the burglary and the allegations against Dad until the following Monday. If Ledge was in custody over the weekend, maybe he never knew about the coincidental timing, either.”

“I’d find that very unlikely.” Lisa paused, then said, “No, he had to have known. Everyone did. Even if he was in jail, news like that would have been circulating. He had to have known,” she insisted.

“And it’s suspicious that he didn’t make reference to it when the opportunity presented itself. He owned up to his crime, but left out the most interesting aspect. He didn’t want you to know, or he would have told you. I think you should be asking yourself why.”

In a barely audible voice, Arden said, “I am asking myself why.”

“Well, good! That’s wise. You should have nothing more to do with him, at least not until we’ve had a chance to explore the matter.”

“I’m supposed to let him know by noon tomorrow whether or not I’m hiring him. I owe him that courtesy.”

“You don’t owe him a damn thing.”