Page 149 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

She smiled and lifted her own glass. “Friends. Yes.”

“That’s a good start.”

Start? Jules reached for his empty plate. “Since you cooked, I’ll load the dishwasher. Then I think we should watch that movie.”

He gazed at her a few seconds longer, as though contemplating whether to let her get away with the evasion. Then he pushed back his chair and grabbed the salad bowl. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll start a fire and make popcorn.”

If she had to be in protective custody, Jules really couldn’t complain about the circumstances. As she carried the dishes to the kitchen, Dante’s words—that’s a good start—floated around in her mind.

Maybe he was right. After the conversation they’d just had and the way he had been there for her throughout this entire ordeal—and now that she knew thatFrat Boyactually had been an aberration—it was possible that something might be starting up between them.

The question was, what, exactly, was that something, and was she ready for it to happen?

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Well.Dante had definitely not planned to share all that with Jules. When she’d asked, though, it had struck him how much he wanted to tell her about Carina and the journey of grief and sorrow he had been on since that terrible day. Jules’ empathy and compassion had helped, and he didn’t regret it.

They’d laughed their way throughHow to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and it did feel as though something had eased between them. Still, Jules had a pretty good guard up. Would he ever be able to break through it?

Today had been mostly relaxing. It had rained all morning and most of the afternoon, so they had raided his mother’s stash of novels on the shelves next to the fireplace and read for a few hours, even played a lengthy game of Scrabble. Now the rain had tapered off to a damp mist drifting slowly along the surface of the lake and hiding the mountains behind a gauzy gray veil. Dante was back at the barbeque, diligently grilling their steaks to perfection while keeping an eye on the potatoes baking on the upper rack.

The evening was warmer than the one before, and once everything was ready, they took their places at the table on the patio again, a lantern glowing on the table to drive back thegloominess. After a few minutes of light conversation, Dante reached for the bottle of steak sauce. As much as he hated to probe still-raw wounds, if there was any chance it could help Jules, he would. “Do you want to tell me what happened between you and our suspect in that burning house?”

Her face blanched slightly as she set down the bite of steak she’d been about to pop into her mouth.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready.”

She sighed. “No, it’s okay. Maybe something I tell you could help us identify him.”

“Maybe.” Dante set the sauce on the table without pouring any, giving her his full attention.

“First of all, he’s aware I have aphantasia.”

“How do you know?”

She took a sip of water before wrapping her fingers around the glass. “When I went into the master bedroom ensuite, it was really hazy, but I could see that someone had written across the smoke stains on the wall.”

Dante frowned. “Written what?”

She did that thing that fascinated him so much—wrinkled her forehead as she appeared to flip through the notes in her mind like cards on a Rolodex, searching for the right one. “You can’t picture my face. But I know yours.”

Chills rippled across his flesh like the waves out on the lake. “Wow. That guy has some serious mental issues.”

Jules let out a short laugh that held very little humor. “No kidding.”

“What happened after that?”

“He came into the room behind me and snapped a cuff around my wrist and then around the towel bar before I knew what was happening. When I turned around, I could see his eyes in the mask, but I wanted to see more, so I tried to yank off the respirator. He grabbed my wrist and shoved it against the walland then stepped close enough to pin me, the way he had in the alley with that other poor woman.”

Dante clenched his teeth hard enough they ached. “That had to be terrifying.”

“It was, for a few seconds. The worst part was feeling, in the midst of intense heat, an otherworldly cold in the air, and the whole room being filled with this…”

Dante leaned forward. “What?”

“Evil, I guess. I felt it in the alley that night, too, as though this guy, whoever he is, has some invisible cape swishing around him that was manufactured in the pit of hell.”