“Why won’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t do anything illegal, okay? I just needed to get away for a while. Fun and sun, that’s all.”

“And you couldn’t call?”

“I didn’t want to. Whether you know it or not, Mason, you’re not my keeper.” She fished into her purse, pulled out a tube of pale pink lipstick and applied it without benefit of a mirror. “And don’t give me any guff about a promise to Mom, okay? It doesn’t wash anymore. I’m way too grownup to have an older brother breathing down my neck.” She slipped the cap onto her lipstick tube and tossed it back into the messy interior of her bag.

Mason, starting the engine, was still suspicious.

“You know, Mason, you should lighten up.” She found a decorative elastic band, scraped back her hair and snapped the band into place. “You’re starting to imagine things.”

He jammed the truck into gear and drove through the parked cars. Sunlight glinted off windshields and fenders, while people with bags of every sort and size clustered in knots at stations for the shuttle. Was he imagining things? He didn’t think so. He cared about his sister even though she’d given him nothing but grief ever since he could remember.

“You know, Patty,” he said as he slowed to pay for his short stay in the parking lot. He handed the attendant in the booth a ten-dollar bill and waited for change. “It wouldn’t hurt you to settle down.”

She laughed as the gate opened and he drove through. “Oh, yeah, what’s this? You know the old saying, the pot calling the kettle black or some such hogwash. You could take some of that advice yourself.”

He slid his sister a knowing glance. “How did Jarrod find you?”

At the mention of Jarrod Smith’s name, Patty’s expression changed. She avoided Mason’s eyes. “You know your old friend. He could find a black cat in a dark room on a moonless night.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t come back with you.”

Patty lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t invite him,” she said and reached into her bag for a pack of gum. She made a big show of unwrapping a stick before plopping it into her mouth. “I think he said he’d be back in a few days, in time for his mother’s wedding. I didn’t really pay a lot of attention. He made sure I got on the flight and I took off.”

She seemed to take sudden interest in the other cars on the freeway as Mason melded his truck into the flow of traffic, then slid lower in the seat, as if she intended to get a little shut-eye. “Jarrod did tell me that you were seeing Bliss Cawthorne again,” she said.

“She’s back in town.”

“Is that good news or bad?”