Which of course could be nonexistent. It might have been a ploy to get me to lunch.

“We’ve been through this,” I said. “You were moving too fast for me. I’m so much younger. I’m not ready for something so permanent.”

“I’m willing to slow down.”

No, you’re not. You’re looking for second wife. I know your story.

Of course those words didn’t leave the back of my throat.

Because it didn’t matter. Not now.

“I’m sorry. I’ve met someone else.”

He wrinkled his forehead. “So soon?”

“Blaine, you went out with Alice Engle two days after we broke up.”

“That? I was mentoring her.”

This time I let my eyeroll through. “Not buying it. Sorry.”

“I’m serious. She’s a law clerk. You know that.”

“She’s also my age. And gorgeous. And smart. Just your type.”

He opened his mouth, but I gestured him to stop.

“Please, Blaine. I can’t date you anymore. I hope that doesn’t keep you from giving me whatever information you have that you think I need.”

26

Roy

If nausea had an image, it would be the one in my mind right now.

My baby sister, six years old, my sick father hovering over her, touching her.

Hurting her.

Rock, my brother I hardly knew—the man with the hardest exterior I’d ever seen—had been reduced to a few tears while telling the story.

He’d gone out of his head at fourteen, when testosterone was raging through his body, urging him to take risks, when his brain didn’t let him see past tomorrow.

He’d gone after the bastard with a knife.

I didn’t know whether to be frightened of my brother or to applaud him.

In reality, I felt both.

But that had been adolescent Rock. The Rock of today, other than an arrest for a biker brawl he hadn’t started, had kept his nose clean.

He didn’t speak highly of Buffington Academy, the military school our father had sent him to. I could only imagine what he’d gone through there. Of course, it was probably better than juvenile hall, where he would have gone if my parents had pressed charges.

All those years…

Reid and I locked gazes.

“God. Riley,” Reid said, his eyes glassy. “We always thought she was his favorite.”

“He took her on all those special trips.” I gulped back the breakfast that threatened to emerge on the table in front of me.

“My room was next to hers,” Rock said absently. “There was no way either of you could know.”

“Still,” I said. “How could we have been so blind? So envious of everything he lavished on her?”

“We need to find her,” Reid said. “Get her the help she needs.”

“Except she doesn’t want to be found,” Rock said. “The two of you have told me that more than once.”

“But she needs—”