“My sister.”
“Where is Betty?” He glanced at the window. “Her light went out right after yours did.”
“Because I shut it off,” Jane said. “Betty had left it on when she was picked up for her date.”
He clamped his back teeth together at the anger that rose up in him. A different level of anger that he didn’t know what to relate it to because he’d never known anything quite like it.
“With the man she’s going to marry,” Jane said. “She’s already engaged to him.”
He breathed through his nose at the hard ball that formed beneath his rib cage. “Engaged?”
“Yes. To James Bauer.”
“The man who builds houses for your father?”
“Yes.”
He balled his hands into fists. Engaged. “Where are they?”
Jane tilted her head back farther so the floppy brim of her yellow hat didn’t cover her eyes. “Why? What are you doing here?”
“Do you know where they are?”
She looked at him for a long moment before nodding. “Yes.”
He took her arm again, and they walked toward his car.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To find them.”
“Ducky!”
Henry’s insides were a colliding mixture of burning anger and icy clarification. Engaged. That certainly hadn’t taken her long. Or had she known that when... She must have. He’d heard her father had put the word out for rich men to marry his daughters. That was why she’d wanted to have fun, to... His throat burned. She’d duped him all right, but it had had nothing to do with the case.
There was a burning pain in his chest, right where his heart was.
He didn’t know it could hurt like this, but what he did know was that a woman engaged to one man and seducing another, didn’t have a heart.
“The restaurant is near the newspaper office,” Jane said once they were both in the car.
He flipped the car around and headed into town. He flipped his mind around, too. “Do you know where Lane is?”
“Why?” Jane asked. “Do you know Lane?”
“Yes, and I know he got married yesterday. Did they go out of town for a honeymoon?” He hoped that was the case.
“No. He and Patsy are spending a few days in a cabin in the woods.”
“Where? What cabin?”
She leaned forward and stared at him. “Why?”
“I just need to know where the cabin is. It’s important.”
“Not far from here,” Jane said. “It’s on my father’s property.”
Henry cursed beneath his breath. It had to be the cabin that he’d stayed in, and that wasn’t a safe spot. Elkin must know about it. Just down the hill from it was where they’d knocked him out.
“What’s this all about?” Jane asked. “You aren’t just looking for my sister because you like her, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” He held his breath for a moment at how things could change hour to hour and minute to minute. He had liked Betty, still did if the truth must be known, but he’d never really known what to think about her. All the way from a coincidence to someone he needed to protect, she made him feel things he’d never felt before. “I’m an FBI agent, and believe your family may be in danger.”
“Danger? What kind of danger?”
“Does the name Curtis Elkin mean anything to you?”
“No. Should it?”
“No one’s ever mentioned it?”
“No! What kind of danger?”
The buildings had been rolling by for blocks, and he kept one eye on the rearview mirror and one on the road all the way, not knowing if Elkin was already watching him or not. “Serious danger.” He glanced at the businesses lining the street. “Where’s this restaurant?”
“Right over there.” She pointed toward the left. “There’s James’s car, and...and that’s Lane’s car!”
He had no idea what Lane drove. “Are you sure?”
“Yes! Pull over. Pull over!”
Jane was already holding on to the door handle. “We have to talk before going in the restaurant,” he said while pulling the car around the block. He couldn’t go inside. There was no telling if Elkin was following Lane, either.
“About what?”
“James Bauer.” He wanted to know more about that man, but would find that information out from sources other than Betty’s family. “This is serious, could be very dangerous and only family can know about it.”
“And you.”
“And the Bureau,” he clarified, while coming up with a plan of where they could meet. It couldn’t be inside, or the hotel—they were both too public. His only option was the abandoned house. The Bureau hadn’t been involved in the bust of the mob boss, Burrows’s uncle, so Elkin may not know about the house. Even if he did, the tunnel would be safe.
The keys to the house and tunnel had been on his key ring, the one he’d dropped on the floor of his car when he’d gotten hit over the head. LeRoy had given them back to him with his other items from the cabin. He hoped that meant Elkin didn’t know about the house or tunnel.
Huffing out a breath, he knew he didn’t have an option in not trusting Jane, either. “All right, this is what you are going to do.”
Jane listened as he told her to get rid of Bauer, however she had to, and to tell Lane to meet him at the abandoned house. Because he didn’t want them all together, he also told her to bring Betty to his car.
As Jane climbed out of the car, and he thought of seeing Betty, Henry’s emotions caught up with him, yet he was calm, accepting what had been, and what would be, which was exactly what he’d wanted.
No, it was what he needed. She was engaged. He was fine with that because that was not something he could ever have offered her. It shouldn’t have angered him in the first place.
He was to blame in all that had happened. He should have walked away from her that first night. Would have had it been anyone else.
He braced himself when the door of the restaurant opened, and let out a sigh of relief when it wasn’t her. The man walked to the car
