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Raven blocked my path into the lobby of Blue Rose Designs. She had fury in her eyes and took a bladed stance as if she were thinking about punching me in the face. I curled my own fists ready to defend myself. Raven noticed. She set her jaw to the side.

“If I wanted to knock you on your ass,” she said, “you’d already be kissing the pavement. I’m not sure you’re worth the trouble.”

“You don’t like me. I get it. You think you’re protecting Boone, I get that too. But something’s going on you wouldn’t understand and it would be a waste of my time trying to explain it. If Boone doesn’t want to talk to me, he can tell me so himself. I have an appointment.”

I dared her to put her hands on me as I brushed past her and strode down the hallway to Boone’s office.

“Boone!” I called out.

“You can’t just …” Raven started after me. I ignored her.

I went to Boone’s office door and knocked. “It’s Mercy Gale. I know you know I’m here.”

“If you don’t …” Raven raised her voice but got cut off mid-sentence when Boone opened the door.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Mercy called and told me she was on her way.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Raven protested.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “This won’t take long.”

“Twenty minutes,” she said. “Then you need to get out to the Scio Church reno.”

Boone nodded, then opened his door wider to let me in, then shut it behind me.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s keyed up today. She didn’t even want me to come into the office. It’s her birthday. You could say I’m in the doghouse.”

“That wasn’t about her birthday. She really doesn’t want you talking about your father.”

He clenched his jaw, but sat behind his desk, inviting me to take a chair in front of him. I did. I pulled out the thick envelope containing the originals of Derrek Sidney’s letters and placed them on the desk. I’d already printed out two copies as well as scanned every one.

“Thank you for those,” I said.

“Did they help?”

“I’m not sure yet.” I had copies of two letters in particular that I wanted to show him. They were both written roughly two months before the Deadwater Lake murders. They contained the most obvious language that Sidney had been replying to this particular fan. I showed them to Boone.

“You can take your time,” I said. Boone didn’t even glance down.

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to get from these?”

“They’re different. I believe your dad was corresponding to someone on the outside. It’s a long shot, but I have a theory that the writer of these letters may have been the one who assisted your dad after he escaped custody.”

“You need to stop calling him that.”

“Fine,” I said. “Sidney then. Please take a look at them.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe it’ll jog your own memory about that time in your father’s … in Sidney’s life.”

“If you came all the way out here to ask me that, you won’t like my answer. I didn’t have a relationship with that man. I would have been the last person he would have confided in.”

There it was. Part of my purpose in meeting him face to face again was to see if he’d lie. It was a tactic my father used on cross-examination. Commit the witness to the lie, then watch him squirm when you prove the real truth to the jury right in front of him. Only I was the only member of the jury today.

“You weren’t speaking to him?” I asked.

“We had no relationship,” Boone repeated. Not exactly a complete denial.