“But how would Ajax get hooked up with Brink?” I asked. Then I answered my own question. “Ruby.”

Darrell nodded. “And remember, when Brink was killed, Ajax tried to steer us toward Norm and away from any connections that involved the mine or the lawsuit. He didn’t want anything pointing at him.”

“Except we’re just guessing. We can’t prove any of it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Darrell said. He went to the phone in the motel room and accessed an outside line.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“The sheriff of Mittel County.”

Those words sucked the air out of my chest. I hoped that Darrell didn’t notice. My face flushed. I sweated. I felt a roaring in my ears. Tom Ginn. The young, handsome sheriff of Mittel County. The man whose face I could easily picture, as if it had been only yesterday that I’d met him, not almost nine months earlier. The man whose arms I could feel around me, his body wrapped up in mine. The man who had saved me in the space of the few hours we’d spent together.

“Why call him?” I gasped, choking on my words, hating myself for being so obvious, even though Darrell had no idea what was happening to me.

“He can look up the file on the liquor store robbery seven years ago.”

“Yes. Sure. Of course.”

I wanted to rip the phone out of his hands. And at the same time, I wanted to make that call myself and talk to Tom and thank him for being there and tell him all my secrets. But too much time had gone by. I was part of his past.

“Are you all right?” Darrell asked, because I couldn’t hide the emotions flooding across my face.

“Fine.”

“Do you need a doctor? Is it time?”

“No.” But it was almost time. You were almost here, Shelby. I could feel it. Was it a sign that on that day of all days, Tom Ginn would become a part of my life again?

“Are you sure?” Darrell asked.

“I’m fine,” I said again.

“Okay.”

Darrell dialed our office and asked for the name and phone number for the sheriff of Mittel County. He announced the number out loud as he wrote it down, but I knew it by heart, because I’d dialed that number dozens of times from my home this year before putting the phone done without even letting it ring.

When Darrell made his next call, I sat right beside him, listening.

“Sheriff Ginn, please,” Darrell said to the woman who answered.

Seconds later, in the dead silence of the motel room, I heard that voice. Two words on the phone, barely louder than static on the line, but they were like a broadcast from a loudspeaker in my mind. “Tom Ginn.”

Could Darrell see my reaction? Could he see my whole body tremble and my heart stop beating?