“Mick kept an eye on her in the meantime?”
Shee cringed. “Um...”
“No?”
“Not exactly.” She held up her palms, trying to calm him as if he were an angry buffalo preparing to charge. His expression didn’t look dissimilar. “He was busy looking for who killed Grace and who was after me and we didn’t know if maybe he was a target...”
Mason’s blue eyes lit like natural gas flames. Shee worried if she dropped one more unpleasant fact, his training might kick in and he’d snap her neck with his pinky or something.
He closed his lids and took a deep breath.
“So Charlotte grew up with Estelle?” he asked without opening his eyes.
Shit.
“Estelle died not long after Charlotte showed up.” She mumbled the words, hoping they were inaudible.
Mason lowered his shoulders. His fury seemed to have shifted to resignation.
Shee worried she’d broken his brain.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Somehow, his new calm felt scarier than all the muscle tightening and teeth gritting.
“Well...” She searched for a shred of good news. “She was safe. She remained in Estelle’s house, and from what I understand, the neighborhood brought her up—”
“Like a stray cat?” His tone hit a crescendo. He jerked it back to earth by hissing the word cat.
Shee swallowed.
Now that you mention it...
“I only just found out about that bit,” she added.
He nodded. “Of course. You were running around the country, saving everyone but your own daughter.”
Shee flinched.
Ouch.
She reminded herself she didn’t have the right to be offended. “I guess that’s fair. But...”
“But what?”
She paused.
I’ve never said these words out loud before.
Her bottom lip trembled and she pressed it against the top one to stop it as she stared at her lap. “I thought I was a curse. I didn’t want to get her killed—the way I’d gotten Grace killed. The way Mick looked at me—”
No. Too much. She couldn’t go there again and tried to start over.
“You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to understand any of this.” Mason ran a hand over his hair.
He fell silent and as the speakers crackled and the captain announced their arrival, she felt herself morphing back into a persona non grata.
Where I deserve to be.
Shee wanted off the plane. She wanted to grab Mason, shake him, beg him to forgive her. She couldn’t sit, trapped, staring at the pain and betrayal in his eyes any longer. No more than she’d been able to watch it in her father’s eyes.
When the plane landed, they marched to the overnight parking garage without exchanging another word. Mason’s icy silence gnawed at Shee, but some tiny part of her felt freed. The worst thing she could imagine, telling Mason about Charlotte, had happened. The thing that had given her anxiety dreams for twenty-seven years was over. Now, whatever he decided—
“Wait.” Shee’s hand shot out to grab Mason’s arm.
He stopped. “What?”
She pulled him to face her. “Pretend we’re talking.”
“We are talking.”
“There’s a car parked across from our aisle, four down, at your seven. It belongs to a private investigator who stopped by the hotel yesterday.”
“What? When?”
“When you were at the beach with Archie.”
He looked daggers at her. “Do you tell me anything?”
“I wasn’t sure I could trust you yet.”
“Right. Because I’m the one with a history of lies and subterfuge.”
“Can we not do this now?”
Mason tapped his closed fist against his forehead. “Is he dangerous?”
“No. He’s a shiny new P.I., and seems pretty useless, but I want to find out who he’s working for. He could have been the one to send someone to Viggo’s.” As she spoke, her anger grew.
Screw this day.
She dropped her bag to the cement. “You know what? I’m going to confront this joker right now.”
“Shee, wait—”
She dodged to avoid Mason’s attempt to stop her and strode across the parking lot toward Logan Sandoval’s car. His engine started and she broke into a sprint.
No you don’t you, sunova—
Shee threw herself across his trunk, trying to sound as much like a collision as possible. He slammed on his brakes. Rolling to the driver side, she found her feet and pounded on his window.
“Open this window, you little shit!”
Logan peered through the glass at her, grimacing. He put the car in park.
The window lowered.
“Can I help you?” he asked, entirely too smugly for a boy about to have a hurricane of frustration released on his ass.
“Cut the bullshit, Logan. Why are you following me?”
At the sound of his name, Logan’s eyes bulged as if someone had tweaked them from behind like a clown horn. He grimaced, shoulders slumping. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
Shee reached inside and grabbed the young man by his shirt collar, jerking him toward the open window.
“I am not in the mood—”
“Get off me!” The young man slapped at her face and Shee jerked back to avoid contact. She struggled to hold his collar as he wrestled to pry off her fingers.
“Get off me, you crazy b—”
“Hey!” Mason’s roar sounded an inch from Shee’s head.
Logan stopped wrestling and went pie-eyed at the sight of the SEAL.
“Cut it out. Both of you.”
Shee and Logan remained entangled, still but straining, gazes locked.
Mason tapped Shee’s arm.
“Shee, I swear to—”
“Fine.” She released the kid.
“She started it,” said Logan, adjusting his stretched collar.
Shee slapped her chest with a flat palm. “I started it? You’re following me.”
Shee didn’t want to calm down. Logan was such a welcome distraction she wanted to beat the snot out of him and hug him at the same time.
“Who are you?” asked Mason.
“Logan Sandoval, teenage detective,” spat Shee.
Mason shot her a
