Page 52

CHAPTER 52

DAVE SUMMERLY WAS WAITING on my front steps when I arrived, once again talking on his phone. He wrote a number on the back of his forearm with a pen while the device was clamped between his ear and shoulder.

I’d been so distracted by Dave’s text that when Baby asked me to drop her on a corner so she could get an Uber and go to Arthur’s, I did, not really thinking about it. Back home, I parked and opened the door for Dave, who was still on his phone. He hung up and immediately powered out a quick series of messages without saying hello or even looking at me. He smelled of sweat and dirt and there were fine scratches on the backs of his hands and mud on the soles of his boots.

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked when he finally looked up from his phone.

“I went back out with a couple of crews looking for the note,” Summerly said. “I walked the brush. I climbed down into a goddamn ditch. We found some old pieces of a handgun and two dead raccoons but no note at the scene or anywhere nearby. If it ever existed.”

“Pretty thorough,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I did it for you.” Summerly put his hands on my shoulders. “Rhonda, I know you believe in this guy. I didn’t want you coming back to me telling me I didn’t search hard enough.”

I didn’t know what to say. Every inch of me was sizzling at his touch.

“What was so urgent?” I asked.

For a moment, the big man struggled. “Brogan gave me the death-knock job. I came straight here after seeing Daisy’s parents. I just ... ” He shook his head, chewed his lip. “I’m sorry. I know it’s selfish, and you and me, we’re sort of ... ”

“What?”

“I just needed to see you, Rhonda.”

We tore each other’s clothes off. It gets like that with me, at least sometimes. When I’m hurt or sad or furious, I’m driven to binge on food or work or exercise or men. I shoved the both of us into the shower and then into the bed, and for a while I was able to think about something other than what we’d both seen out at the foot of the mountains, something other than Alex Brindle’s guilt and panic, George Crawley’s innocent loyalty, and Troy Hansen’s raw, raw pain. I was able to focus on my hand gripping Summerly’s hair and not on that body bag on the gurney. I pulled Summerly into me and kissed him and forgot all about what kind of hell Mark and Summer Rayburn were walking through at that very moment.

The escape didn’t last long. Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the kitchen rustling up something for us to eat. Dave came in and ran a hand up my back, then headed for the fridge.

“We actually do need to talk,” I said.

“About what?”

I pointed to the cardboard box I’d put on the kitchen table, the box Troy had given me.

“That,” I said.