Page 112 of Death on Riddle Road

“It’s really more her secret than mine.She didn’t — doesn’t — want to be known as the author ofAbandon All.She wanted to continue her other writing — time and elbow room.But my not telling you, it was also about you.”

“Me?”

“You being back in law enforcement.I was all set to tell you when the sheriff’s department hired you.”

He looked a little blank.

I blurted out my concerns, which I’d thought through so many times it came out as one long sentence, ending with “...bad for your career because the department won’t like your association with me, if you have to tell them now that you know officially.”

I stopped because he was chuckling.

“You think the North Bend County Sheriff’s Department cares who did or did not write a book — evenAbandon All?Not to mention it’s my personal life.Personal.You think Travis Kelce asked the Kansas City Chiefs before he started dating Taylor Swift?I guarantee he did not.A man’s gotta do what a man’s got to do.”

My turn to chuckle at his grandiose tone.

But it faded quickly.“Still, we’ve established I was a liar and associating with me—”

“I’m associating with you, all right.Come hell or high water and that includes the sheriff’s department.”

Some might not consider that the most romantic declaration, but it put a lump in my throat.

“As for lying,” he continued, “are you back on whether you needed short nails to write and you didn’t have them when you were out in public as the author ofAbandon All?”

“Both.Either.”

He shook his head.“You didn’t lie about that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I knew when you were lying.Like about teaching.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not a very good liar.”

“Hey, nobody ever suspected that person didn’t writeAbandon All,” I protested, then wondered why I was defending my lying ability.

“They weren’t looking for inconsistencies.From that first day, it was clear to me you’d never spent a day in the classroom.”

“But you’d already recognized me from all those interviews.”

“Not right away.I knew something was off.Checked for Sheila Mackey, who was nowhere to be found.When I sat back and started thinking about how I’d reacted to you...”

He kissed my temple.

“That’s when the possible connection to the author ofAbandon Allscratched at me.I wasn’t a hundred percent sure—” He gave a short, negative jerk of his head.“My brain wasn’t.My gut was.”

That shivered something deep in me, that he’d connected the different parts of me, and recognized the whole.

“But I was lying.”

“Not about the core.Besides, I wasn’t drawn to you because you were lying.I was drawn to you because you were you.Partly you.From the first time I saw you — heard you.There on that screen, behind what else you presented, I thought I recognized the...structureof the person.Sort of like you and this house.Seeing past what other people have done to it to what was meant to be.

“You knew you belonged in this house.I knew I wanted to marry the woman who was behind the façade — a very nice façade, but a façade — in those interviews.”

“Marry?”

“Oh, yeah, I think so.Don’t you?”