Adriana looked skeptical as she scanned his profile. “If you were a serial killer, wouldn’t you be more…clan-destine than to post a profile?”
“It’s the appearance of innocence that makes it effective.”
“So he’s trolling for women on the Internet.”
“Right. He has to overcome the limitations of being married and living in a remote area, and a computer gives him far more possibilities than he’d have without it. Not only that, it enables him to remain anonymous.”
“Wow, when you put it like that, dating sites are ideal. So, from his perspective, where’d he go wrong?”
“He should’ve met April somewhere farther away, where he was less likely to be recognized. Instead, he had her come to a bar he frequents, and the bartender saw her getting into his truck. Otherwise, I never would’ve been able to trace Harry to Butch.”
“Besides providing an abundant supply of women, these dating services allow for some serious foreplay,” Adriana mused.
Francesca winked. “Now you’re thinking like a sociopath. That might be part of his ritual, part of the fun.”
“So he’s kind of like a fisherman who gets a bite, then plays with his catch as he slowly reels it in.”
“That seems accurate.”
“It’s disturbing!”
“The reality is disturbing,” Francesca said.
Adriana tapped the page as she continued to read. “Where do you think he got the name Harry Statham?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”
Adriana dropped the sheet into the space between them. “I thought you were off the case.”
“I am.”
“You’re not going to accept that?”
If she pursued the investigation, she could be charged with a crime. Finch had made that clear. But if she walked away, she’d feel she was letting Jillian and Vince—and April—down. “Maybe.”
“This Butch guy is scary, Fran,” Adriana said. “So’s his weird brother-in-law. I say you leave it alone. And what about your other cases? Don’t you have enough to keep you busy?”
“I have plenty to do. I haven’t made it through my voice mail in days.” She hadn’t been running or doing anything else she normally did, either. “But—”
“But nothing,” Adriana broke in. “Play it safe.” She held up Butch’s picture. “Why provoke him? He’s already shown up here once.”
Reminded of Butch’s last visit, Francesca rolled over to check the phone. Still dead. But she had her iPhone; she wasn’t cut off, like before. “He could come after me again.”
Jonah had considered it unlikely, and Francesca wanted to believe him. But she knew the animosity Butch felt toward her might not disappear so quickly. What if making her look bad with that interview on TV didn’t satisfy his desire for revenge? What if it had only whetted his appetite for more? He’d tried to hurt her, if not kill her, last night when he turned Demon loose….
Adriana sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”
Francesca thought about the panties she’d passed on to Jonah. Would Butch realize they were gone? Would he suspect that she’d taken them? If so, what would he do about it? If he responded violently, she didn’t want Adriana to be at risk, too. “You can’t stay with me. You have a family. Stan leaves at, what…six-thirty every morning? Who’ll be there with the boys after he goes?”
“He can go in late.”
“He wouldn’t like it. He uses that time to go over his patients’ files.”
“One morning won’t set him too far behind.”
“One night might not make any difference, either, so there’s no need to put him out.”
“Then…what will you do? I don’t want you to be here alone. Or…is Jonah coming back?” She started reassembling Butch’s file as if she’d never performed such an interesting task.
Francesca wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that gave Adriana away. She’d waited long enough before mentioning Jonah, and she’d kept the reference casual. Over the years, they’d had similar discussions about any number of men. Are you going to see him again…? Don’t tell me he’s spending the night…! So, how was it…? Is it serious?
And yet this conversation felt different. If Francesca hadn’t been able to read Adriana quite so well, maybe she could go on pretending Adriana was no more interested in Jonah than in all the other men Francesca had dated over the years. But Francesca had been through this with Adriana once before. She couldn’t be fooled a second time.
Suddenly doubting everything she’d ever believed about what had happened between Adriana and Jonah, other than the fact that a baby had been created, she clasped her hands in her lap. “You’re in love with your husband, aren’t you, Adriana?”
Adriana shifted uncomfortably. “Of course. You know Stan and I are happy. Why do you ask?”
Why? Because there was love, and then there was love. Regardless of Adriana’s denials and protests, did she still care for Jonah?
Although Francesca had been reluctant to discuss him with Adriana for fear the truth would ruin their friendship, she felt compelled to finally broach the subject. She wanted to hear what Adriana had to say about Jonah and Stan, needed to know why what’d happened ten years ago had happened—probably because it no longer seemed fair to place so much of the blame on Jonah. She supposed she’d originally done it because his betrayal hurt more. And doing so made it possible for her to save at least one of the two relationships that meant so much to her. But the time she’d spent with him this week had convinced her that he couldn’t be defined by that incident alone.
In order to be fair—to Jonah, to Adriana and to herself—Francesca felt she needed to look at the past a little more objectively.
Realizing the answers to the questions she had to ask wouldn’t be easy to hear, she took Adriana’s hand as if physical contact might thwart an emotional separation. “What happened that night?”
Adriana’s fingers remained limp in her grasp but she didn’t pull away. “I—I told you. We’ve gone over this.”
“You told me you made a mistake. That because of the alcohol you’d both consumed, things got out of control. You said you were sorry and never meant for it to happen.”