Page 49 of Hunter or Hunted

Charlotte gave Ava one of those tight-lipped, mothering smiles and squeezed her daughter’s shoulder. “We’ll talk this all through later. Could you please go help your dad, sweetie?”

Mouth ajar, Ava’s shoulders slumped. She glanced at her mom, then Gwen, then Evan. Defeated, she said something under her breath and headed for the door.

“Teenagers.” Charlotte exhaled slowly, staring Evan and me down with a glance. She settled on me. “Are you two friends?”

I laid a hand on the small of Gwen’s back. “Zoey is my girlfriend.”

“Oh, sure.” She gave Evan a smile, a bit more legitimate than the one she’d worn earlier. “Evan, where are your manners? Get this young man a drink.”

Because she wanted to speak to Gwen in private. She wanted to tell her what and what not to say in front of her daughter. She wanted to tell her that Delilah’s photo was larger than the corner Gwen saw of it.

But I didn’t mind. I wanted a moment in private with Evan anyway.

Gwen didn’t seem to mind either. “Would you mind getting me a glass of wine, baby?”

As we left the viewing room and headed down the hall, Evan started on the small talk. “Montana, huh? That’s a long drive.”

“Too long, yeah,” I agreed, letting him stay half a stride ahead. He seemed to appreciate that. “We flew. Only a couple hours by plane.”

“Not too bad of a trip then. I bet the view of those mountains is badass up there.”

Without sparing too many glances, I paid specific attention to his demeanor. The way he carried himself beside me compared to the way he’d held himself beside Ava and Charlotte.

Next to the women, his shoulders were softer, his eyes sweeter.

Now, his chin pointed to the sky, chest poked out. His long-sleeve button-up looked tight around his upper arms. Like he was flexing. Reminding me that he was the alpha in this interaction.

“Badass from the ground too,” I said. “You ever been?”

“Nah, not much of a mountain guy.” At the end of the hall, he led us down a flight of stairs. Mahogany wainscoting and checkered carpet quieted any of the low chatter in the viewing rooms behind us. “I try to hit Miami every spring though.”

“Try LA one of these days. People talk a lot of shit, but it beats Miami by a landslide.”

“Allie always wanted to go to LA.” Rounding the bend to the final half flight of steps, Evan’s strong, manly demeanor remained, but his voice changed. Softened, maybe? “Promised her I would take her there one day. Guess I’m a liar.”

Considering the way Charlotte fawned over him, despite knowing he had—at the very least—groomed and abused her daughter? Yeah. He was a liar.

He stepped off the stairs and veered through the doorway on our right. A line formed behind an old wooden bar. Nothing fancy, but a decent little spot for the grieving to drink their sorrows away. He headed for the bar and took a seat on the red, worn in leather stool. I settled in beside him.

“Did you meet her?” His posture lightened once more, like it had with Ava and Charlotte. “Allie, I mean. You said your girl was real close with her, so you would have at some point.”

“A couple times, yeah.” I shrugged. “You know how it is. ‘Allie just came in, can I call you back later?’ Oh, ‘Allie has no one to hang out with at the tree lighting, do you mind if she comes?’”

His eyes squinted for a millisecond. The baby blues came back. “Right. Yeah, I guess I just—shit, man.” He crossed one arm against his chest and rubbed from his brows down the bridge of his nose with the other. A sound left him. I couldn’t tell if it was a deep breath or another one of those crocodile sobs. “I’m just a mess right now. I keep trying to imagine what the past couple months of her life were like, what she was doing, and I keep coming back to the worst possibilities.”

What she was doing. Not what she was going through. Not what led to her killing herself.

What she was doing without him.

There were two roads this conversation could take. One would assure him that I had no suspicions, which was the right path if I were certain he’d killed her. As of yet, I wasn’t.

The other would point me toward Gwen’s conclusion.

“She was happy,” I said.

His shoulders firmed the slightest bit. The corner of his eye twitched. It reminded me of the face my dad made in public when I had done something wrong and would pay for it later.

“She seemed happy to me, at least.” After that modifier, his baby blues returned. “She made a lot of good friends. She was working at a daycare in town. I don’t know, man, I would’ve never seen it coming.”