Whatever big reveal Daria was going for here wasn’t working. Maddie had spilled all of this days ago. Connor could go online and search for the details if he wanted to. He didn’t because Maddie back then didn’t interest him nearly as much as Maddie now. The facts might fill in the holes and help him understand why she was so self-protective and spooked. But he’d rather hear what he needed to know directly from her.

“You’re the one who convinced the prosecutor I didn’t know what was going on in that office.” Maddie’s voice sounded hollow and confused. “We were friends.”

Daria shrugged. “I thought so.”

Silence pounded through the room. The tension ratcheted up with each verbal volley and now it crushed in on them.

“Let’s back up,” Ben said, breaking through the suffocating quiet. “You admit you hired Owen Pritchard to follow Maddie.”

“I knew her as Ellen, but yes.”

Connor saw Jenna look at Sylvia. The two of them didn’t say a word but they watched and listened. He got the impression neither woman missed a thing. Jenna seemed to be assessing the situation and Ben at the same time. Her employee. The one who might be able to break through to Daria and end this.

“Did you know she was in witness protection?” Connor asked because that point pricked at him. It couldn’t have been easy to find someone who didn’t want to be found. Not when she’d had the full force of WITSEC behind her until very recently.

Daria’s dark gaze landed on him. “As she just pointed out, I helped get her in.”

“Which makes me wonder why you needed the PI.” Ben didn’t ask. He made a statement.

“She disappeared. The questions I had didn’t.”

A cryptic answer. It was on purpose and that’s the piece Connor couldn’t figure out. He assumed Maddie held back pieces when she’d told the story of that night in her old office. The story sounded too neat. With all those bullets flying the ending turned out too clean.

“What were your orders to Owen?” Ben asked.

“Track Maddie . . .” Daria smiled. “Is that what I should call you? Do you have a lot of different names now?”

The snide edge to her tone ticked Connor off. “Track her? Once he saw her, why not call you? We have phones here.”

“She didn’t want to be found. It took time to hunt her down and when I did I had to figure out how to approach because she had a new life now.” Daria’s gaze traveled over Connor. Up and down, not giving anything away. “And recently added you to the mix.”

“You decided to sneak on the island and follow her instead of having a talk,” Ben said.