Two months before the argument.
He closed his eyes.
Faith. He’d lost that, somewhere between Afghanistan and Montana.
Or maybe it was just waiting to be found again.“When weseek you,we’ll find you.”
Maybe, he’d just been afraid to seek and find something that might mess up the plans he had for his life.
Lead him somewhere where he’d get in over his head.
He closed the journal, returned the photo album to the box, and stored it back in the closet.
The journal he put by his bed, the framed picture on top.
And one word clung to him as he lay down and stared at the ceiling.
Find.
13
That’s whatshegot for going to sleep with an investigation churning in her head.
Harley had stared at the ceiling fan for so long, she didn’t know when she finally dropped off.
Just that, suddenly she was standing on the shore of their lake, the water black and cold. And on the other shore, her father. She knew him as clearly as if he’d called her name out of heaven and woken her up. He stood alive and whole, his familiar red-and-black flannel jacket stark against a rising early morning lake mist. The scene held that peculiar dream logic ... of course he’d walk into her thoughts with his calm, sheriff’s voice.
Of course he’d have answers.
“Dad?” Her voice echoed wrong, like she was underwater.
He waved his hand, and she tried to lift hers through a sort of soup. Struggled.
Then his mouth moved, forming words that dissolved into vapor.
“I can’t hear you!” She tried to step into the water, to cross, but her feet were cemented on shore. “Dad, please—”
He pointed behind her, urgency in his gesture.
“What?”
Again his lips moved, this time forming shapes she almost recognized. Almost—
The fog thickened, wrapping around his chest, his shoulders. Dark water lapped at his boots.
“No! Dad, wait—”
She might have even shouted.
Her eyes snapped open, the image of her father still vivid.
Moonlight spilled through gauzy curtains, painting silver stripes across unfamiliar walls. Right. She was still at the Bowies’. Maybe she should have gone home last night, but...
But Jericho. And the way he’d kissed her and...
She didn’t want to be alone. Maybe not ever again.
Orlando’s weight shifted at the foot of the bed. His head lifted, ears pricked toward her face.
