D.D. stepped closer, until he could smell the scent of the soap she had used for her morning shower. She had blonde curly hair, not unlike Sandy’s. Beautiful hair, Ree had said, no doubt already missing her mother.

“Tell me where she is,” D.D. whispered next to his ear. “Just tell me where Sandy is, Jason, and I’ll bring her home to Ree.”

He leaned closer, so close his lips might have brushed the curve of her cheek, and he could feel the slight involuntary quiver of her body. “Ask Ethan Hastings,” he whispered.

D.D. recoiled. “You’re blaming a thirteen-year-old boy?” she asked incredulously.

“Never underestimate youth,” he said, stony-faced. “Why, the things I did at that age …”

D.D.’s features had shuttered closed. “Jason,” she said tersely, “for a smart man, you’re being very stupid.”

“Because I won’t let you arrest me?”

“No, because you’re not connecting the dots. Let me put it this way By your own admission, you’re not the one who harmed your wife—”

“True.”

“Yet by your daughter’s admission, someone entered your home Wednesday night and harmed Sandy.”

His voice was rougher this time. “True.”

“Your daughter knows something, Jason. More than she’s willing to say. Marianne Jackson is convinced of it. So am I. And I’m telling you now, that girl gets so much as an unexplained freckle and I will pursue you to hell and back.”

He didn’t answer anymore. Mostly because he was too shocked to speak. “You mean … you mean …”

“We’re watching you. Every minute of every hour of every day. You keep that girl safe.”

He got it then, not just the threat, but more subtly, the detective’s warning. Ree was the last person to see Sandy alive. Ree knew more than she was currently willing or able to say. Ree held the key to the puzzle.

Meaning whoever harmed Sandy had one helluva incentive….

Jason couldn’t finish the thought. His chest had grown too tight. Fear or rage? It was too hard to tell. Maybe, for a man like him, those emotions were one and the same.

“No one will harm my child,” he heard himself say. “I will keep my daughter safe.”

D.D. just looked at him. “Yeah? And how many times did you think the same thing about your wife?”

Jason Jones stalked off. D.D. didn’t follow. She returned to the principal’s office, where she and Miller had another go at Ethan, with pretty much the same results. Ethan Hastings was convinced that Jason Jones was pure evil, yet could not offer a single compelling reason why Sandra Jones might claim her husband was dangerous. The boy had found his heroine, and in Jason Jones, the dragon guarding the keep.