Chris grinned. “I entered Hector Herrera.”
“But he’s dead.”
“True enough, but I got a hit with that inquiry, and the family member in the sublisting is a woman by the name of Bonita Bates.”
“The sister?”
“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.”
“But why—”
Chris held up a quieting hand, and Maddie contained her impatience—barely.
“Evidently Hector’s sister uses his name and number as her own telephone number. I surmise that she may have been widowed at some point and wound up living with her brother until his passing. Women living alone often retain their phone listing under the man of the household as a means of protection.”
Maddie snorted. “Not much protection if you could expose her ploy with a few keystrokes. So much for personal privacy.”
“It’s largely an illusion in this electronic age.”
“Not comforting with all the crazies out there.”
Chris rolled his shoulders. “Makes you look higher than your own resources for a sense of safety.”
“Tell that to my dead comrades in arms...and my brother, too.” Maddie tasted the bitterness rolling off her tongue, but she couldn’t stop the words.
Chris’s steady gaze oozed sympathy. Maddie dropped her attention to the low-napped carpet beneath their feet.
“It’s okay to be angry, Maddie. I’m angry, too.”
She peered up at him. There was no judgment on his face. She sucked in a long, deep breath. “Let’s keep hunting for justice. Okay? Maybe then I can...”
Maybe then she could what? Resolve her grief? Find peace? Forgive God? How clichéd was all of that?
“You shouldn’t feel guilty because you survived. It wasn’t your fault. Any of it.”
Huh? Maddie blinked and froze.
Chris strode away between the shelving. She shook off her paralysis and scampered after him. The guy was going to get himself killed if he dropped verbal bombs on her and then pranced away from the protection of his unofficial bodyguard. She caught up with Chris, tugged his arm to slow him down, then passed him, gaze roving, assessing, marking potential threats and possible cover. They exited the library, and Maddie thumbed Ginger’s remote start button. The Oldsmobile purred to life, and they walked over and climbed inside.
She glared toward her passenger. “So, Mr. Therapist, what makes you think I feel guilty for living?”
“Because I did—for months. My whole perception of reality and what’s truly important shifted that night. Finally, I figured that for my survival to matter, I needed to expose the truth about what happened that night.”
“The real truth? Not just whatever dirt you can scrounge that will shoot you up the celebrity ladder?”
Chris’s blue gaze darkened, but he didn’t look away from her charged stare. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Maddie squelched a reluctant grin that tugged at the corners of her lips. “You’re not on the witness stand, you know.”
“But I feel like I’m on trial.”
She looked away from him and headed Ginger out of the parking lot. “Which direction now?”
A heavy sigh let her know that her nonanswer had stung. Maddie’s heart squeezed in her chest. He had no idea how much she wanted to believe him, and for that very reason, she needed to keep her guard up until the truth he was talking about became crystal clear to her.
Chris consulted his phone and rattled off directions to a neighborhood on the south side of the city very near the Rio Grande and the lawless bastion of drug runners—Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
“Prime location for someone tied in with moving drugs,” Chris said.
“No argument there. Maybe we’re onto something after all.”
A sensation like a feather brushing down her spine sent a shiver through her frame. Could she really hope they would find answers and win free of the threat that had dogged her steps for so long that carefree moments were bittersweet memories?
A half hour later they pulled up in front of a small brick bungalow fronted by a low, open porch. The house looked well kept, though the door and windows wore bars, and the yard was brown and dead.
“I’m going to introduce myself by name,” Chris said. “It’s a gamble, considering we’re trying to avoid killers on our trail, but knowledge of my identity could produce a telltale reaction of guilt and fear... That is, if this Bonita Bates played a part in the betrayal.”
Maddie nodded. “And if she didn’t, a little name-dropping from someone who might publicize her book could get her to talk freely. Maybe she’ll say something that will give us a lead. I think it’s worth the risk.”
Chris’s answering grin shot tingles through her.
They got out of the car, and Maddie came around to stand on the cracked sidewalk beside Chris. The man stared at the house, then suddenly jerked and rocked back. Maddie gripped his arm. The muscles beneath her hand were rigid. She followed the line of his gaze toward the side of the house where a white-haired woman in a wheelchair rolled slowly down a long ramp toward them.
Then she looked up at Chris’s drawn face. What did she see there? Guilt? Fear? Sorrow?
“Serena, I’m so sorry.” The words pulsed from his lips, barely audible.
Who was Serena? Something nipped Maddie’s insides. Jealousy? No way! But his reaction was guilt. Definitely. The emotion they’d been talking about less than an hour ago. What was it about this woman that raked raw shame to the surface of this man’s iron composure?
* * *
The vise squeezing his arm brought Chris back to the present—away from the remembered flash and thunder of a single gunshot and the blood. So much precious blood. He glanced down. That was no vise. It was Maddie’s white-knuckled grip around his biceps.
“What was that all about?” She took her hand away while he scrubbed his fingertips across his forehead and inhaled a deep breath.
“Bad memory. Sorry about that,” he said.
“What—”
“Let’s just say that the Rio isn’t the only time a bullet has nearly taken me out.”
Maddie’s brow furrowed and her mouth opened, but Chris walked away from her toward the woman in the wheelchair, who had stopped at the bottom of the ramp to survey them with wary eyes. The dumpling-shaped woman dressed in a T-shirt and lightweight sweatpants really looked nothing like his petite, elegant Serena. It was just the wheelchair and the bone-white hair that had thrown him back in time. This person was old enough to warrant the snowy locks that frizzed around her head, not like the vibrant young woman with her whole life ahead of her who went white in a single day and landed in a wheelchair because he had trusted the wrong person. If he’d needed any reminder that his attraction to Maddie was a recipe for disaster, this was it.
“Hi, I’m Christopher Mason, a reporter from World News.” He stopped in front of the woman’s chair and extended his hand. “I’m interested in the memoir you published about your brother’s experiences in Vietnam.”
The sixtysomething woman’s cautious expression melted into a smile, and she offered a weak but steady handshake. “World News! What do you know about that?”
Her gaze showed no alarm. Either Bonita Bates wasn’t in on the conspiracy, or she was the uncrowned queen of subterfuge. Apparently, she hadn’t seen the news reports of