“I’m convinced now that Riley was attacked,” I say, “and that she almost died. But I still can’t let go of the way she came across at times. Maybe ... maybe the evasiveness I picked up has to do with Ruck.”
“That she’s mistaken about him?”
“Yes. It would have been such a relief for her back then to discover her rapist had been apprehended, and so maybe she convinced herself that Ruck was the guy. But at the same time, she might have niggling doubts about him, and those leaked out when she was talking to us.”
Logan cocks his head. “Well, his mug shot was all over the news, and the power of suggestion could have taken over.”
“Right, you hear about that kind of thing happening. Look, I want to believe Ruck did it, but what if he was never on any kind of rampage in Cartersville?”
“But what would that mean, then?” he says. “That there was some other serial killer in the area that weekend, and he attacked both girls with the same MO as Ruck’s?”
“You’re right. That makes no sense at all.”
Logan rests an elbow on the table and exhales into his fist. “What we need is a follow-up with Halligan to see where he stands on all of this. It’s late, but let me text him and say we want to talk tomorrow.”
I watch as he digs his phone from his pocket and taps out the message. I’m glad I confessed my lingering worries about Riley and wonder, sitting there, if I should also tell him about my encounter with Handler and all my concerns on that front. But I decide against it. As I told Harry, I don’t have a good reason to suspect Handler of sleeping with Mel, so why inject that ugly thought into Logan’s head tonight?
The salad arrives, and then, as soon as we finish, the chicken piccata appears. Logan digs in with relish as if we’ve driven to some far-flung Michelin-starred restaurant where it’s taken months to get a reservation.
“See, it’s quite good, isn’t it?” he announces after a few bites. “They haven’t dredged the damn thing in a ton of flour and turned it into a congealed mass.”
“Delicious,” I say, though under the circumstances, it’s hard to really relish it.
“Remember that period when Mel was nine or ten, and all she seemed to want was chicken piccata?”
“Yeah. She’d beg you to make it every week, sometimes twice.”
“But then she’d order it out, too. Always when we went to Monte’s, that place on MacDougal.”
I look off, feeling a swell of emotion and hoping I can contain it.
“God, I loved the Monte years,” I say. “That was before Mel decided she hated me.”
“Bree, she didn’t hate you. How can you say that?”
“Come on, Logan, you werethere. Whatever connection we’d had when she was young was gone by the time she was thirteen. From then on, I could do almost nothing right in her eyes.”
He swipes at the air with his hand, dismissing the idea. “That was all about her being an adolescent. Of course Mel loved you, but like any teenager, she sucked at showing it.”
“The adolescent Mel didn’t have any trouble showingyoushe cared.”
“Well, that’s because I was her father, not her mother. I’m no shrink, but I know it’s supposedly a whole different ball game between mothers and daughters.”
It’s more or less the same wisdom he used to impart years ago, when he was working hard to reassure me. I have to hand this to my ex: he never gloated about his own closeness with Melanie, never found any way to rub in my failure.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Not maybe. I’m sure everything would have changed once Mel was an adult. She had a total love of words and books, just like you. Think of what you two would have shared.”
“I can never be sure of it, though, can I?”
My voice has cracked as I’ve been speaking, a warning from my body that it doesn’t like the topic.
“Yes, youcanbe. Bree, I can’t let you think this way.”
We’re sitting catty-corner, our forearms only a few inches apart on the table, and suddenly he’s laying his hand over mine.
And without any warning at all, I’m overwhelmed with a rush of desire.
