“Where will we go?” I asked. I obviously wasn’t going anywhere with him. But as it was sinking in that he was actually here, I was beginning to be afraid of him. I needed to keep him here. Someone would come home eventually. Someone could help. If I got in a car with him…

“Panama,” he said. “We’ll eventually get you a new identity, but you’re fine for now.”

He said it like this was just so ordinary, like I was going to say, Sure, honey, I’d love to hop a plane to another country and change my identity. Well, if he’d been doing this for the past two decades, maybe it did feel ordinary to him. The thought sent a shiver up my spine. I had to stall. I couldn’t leave this house with him. Who knew what he was capable of?

“So where have you been all this time?” I asked as breezily as I could muster. “Panama?”

“Panama for a bit, the Caymans, Brazil.” He paused. “It worked pretty well because I was able to get a new identity—passport, the works—and manage offshore accounts for my dad.”

That was when the nausea set in. Dan Isaacs and Capstone and Charlotte and Bill were swirling around in my head. Jeremy was the missing connector here. I just couldn’t figure out exactly how.

“Have you been home to Juniper Shores at all?”

“I’ve been back now and then, yeah. Mostly because I was dying to see you.”

Recognition washed over me. “So I’m not crazy! I have been seeing you!”

He laughed and reached out for my hand. I wanted to snatch it away, but I couldn’t quite say why. Hadn’t I dreamed that this impossibility was somehow possible? And now, here we were. “Sorry about that.” He grimaced. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Al. Seeing you with other men hurt.”

I squinted at him. I wanted to say, I planned your funeral, but I didn’t want to get off track. “So you’ve been working for your dad?” I asked like we were estranged lovers just catching up.

“Yeah. But, well…” He bit his lip.

And suddenly, a switch flipped inside me. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t that kind, sandy-haired kid I’d fallen in love with. Maybe he never had been what he seemed. But a couple of decades and a lot of life experience had lent me the clarity to see that whatever was going on here wasn’t okay. And I needed to know every detail of it.

This was a part I had to play. I reached out and took his hand. “Jer-bear, you can tell me anything. You know that. I’m your safe place.”