CHAPTER FIVE #2
Had he replayed that moment in the truck? Would he have kissed me? My gaze dropped to his mouth and those soft lips. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about a kiss? Would it take the pain away?
Vance’s tongue darted out, just a quick, small lick of his bottom lip, and desire coiled in my belly.
I tore my eyes away, dropping them to his empty plate. He’d devoured the sandwich and chocolate croissant I’d brought him over for lunch. His coffee mug was empty and in need of a refill.
“I’ll get you more coffee.”
“Lyla.” He stopped me and nodded to the seat opposite his. “Sit down.”
I sank into the chair.
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’m mad.”
To everyone else in my life, I’d lie through my teeth, promising I was fine. Pretending to be myself. It was easy to give Vance the truth.
“Part of me wishes they hadn’t given up so soon. The other part hopes this means they’re out of your way.”
His expression changed. He looked almost . . . bewildered?
“What?”
“Nothing.” He waved it off, then dropped his gaze to the table.
Beneath his plate was a map marred with red lines and circles. “What’s this?”
He set the plate on the table beside ours, shifting his mug out of the way too. Then he spun the map my direction, pointing to a red X beside a curved blue line. The river.
The point of attack.
From that X, he’d drawn what looked like a bike wheel, each spoke converging at the central point. Two of the segments he’d shaded in with more red.
“I’ve ruled out these areas. This one with the highway.” He pointed to a shaded section. “And this one that surrounds Quincy. Cormac wouldn’t venture that close to heavily populated areas unless he was desperate.”
“What makes you think he’s not desperate?”
“He’s got food. Water. Everything he needs to survive in the wilderness. The only reason I’d expect him near a town or people would be for medical supplies. You didn’t notice him injured, did you?”
“No. Not that I could tell.”
“My plan is to start here.” He pointed at the map again, this time to the area that led straight north from that red X. “It’s the roughest terrain. If he’s hiding his scent, it would be easiest here where the mountains are dense and steep.”
“So section by section, you’ll search for him.”
Vance nodded. “Exactly.”
“Do you really think he’s out there?”
“I don’t know. But if there’s a chance he is, I won’t stop looking.”
Not just for my sake. But his. “Who is he? What did he do?”
Vance turned his face toward the window, staring out through the glass. For a moment, I didn’t think he’d answer me. “He murdered his wife. And his daughters.”
I gasped so loudly that the couple having coffee three tables away glanced our direction. “Oh my God. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Vance said, lowering his voice. “No one does.”
Was that why Vance was here? Was this a quest to get answers?
He stiffened, those broad shoulders curling inward as he leaned his elbows on the table. His focus stayed firmly on the map, like he was attempting to conjure Cormac out of the paper.
“From the outside, they were the perfect, loving family. He was a model husband and father. Took his wife out on a date every Wednesday. Coached his oldest daughter’s softball team. When it first happened, there were a lot of people who refused to believe he was the killer.”
“I guess you never really know what happens behind closed doors.”
“No. I guess not,” he murmured.
“How, um . . . how did he kill them?” Did I really want to know?
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “He lived on the lake. Had a dock. Boat. He drove his three daughters to the middle of the lake during a thunderstorm and threw them in the water. They drowned.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth to cover my gasp this time. What kind of father would do that? Those poor girls. “And his wife?”
Vance dropped his gaze to my neck.
Strangled.
He’d strangled his wife.
My hand drifted from my mouth to the cloth covering my throat. It burned, not from what Cormac had done, but the threat of tears.
“Why did he let me go?” I’d asked that question so many times it was beginning to crawl beneath my skin. “It makes no sense.”
“Agreed,” Vance muttered, rubbing at his jaw, like his beard was new and he was still testing out the feel of it beneath his palm.
“It’s all blurry,” I said. “I’ve thought about that day so many times I feel like I can’t tell what was real and what I’ve made up in my head at this point. But I feel like there was this moment when he looked . . . scared? Sad?”
Vance’s gaze shifted to the window again, letting it sink in. “I’m sorry, Lyla.”
There was so much behind that apology. “It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
The pain in his voice, the guilt, sent me deeper into my seat. He really felt responsible, didn’t he? That because Cormac had escaped years ago, it was his fault that I’d been attacked.
“How did he get away?” I asked.
Vance lifted a shoulder.
I waited, hoping he’d explain, but that shrug was all the answer he’d give. So I stood and collected his dishes. But before I left his table, I paused and took in his profile.
That granite jaw was clenched. He looked lost in an anger four years in the making as he stared through the glass.
“What will you do when you find him?” Not if, when.
“Whatever I need to do.” The menace, the hatred, in his voice was unsettling.
A chill spread through my veins as I carried his dishes to the kitchen.
When I returned to the counter, Vance’s chair was empty.