That was the extent of their mealtime conversation.

When he’d demolished his sandwich and several handfuls of chips, he wiped his mouth and hands, balled up the napkin, uncapped his bottle of water, took a long drink from it, and returned it nearly empty to the table. Folding his arms across his chest, he stared at her for ponderous seconds, then said, “What the fuck?”

“I know it seems an odd—”

“No. No, odd would be you wanting to put statues of cartoon characters along the expanded veranda. That would be odd. This,” he said, stabbing the table with his index finger, “seems calculated.”

Of all the words she had anticipated—crazy, fickle, addlepated, just plain dumb—calculated wasn’t among them. “Calculated?”

“Yeah, planned. Devised to make a fool of me.” His eyes were as hot as twin blue flames.

At a loss, she said, “Why would that have been my intention, when I didn’t even know you?”

“Who sent you to me?”

“What?”

“Who. Sent. Y—”

“I heard you. I just don’t know what you mean by it. Nobody sent me to you.”

“I’m supposed to believe that you picked me at random.”

“I did.”

“Off the internet?”

“Why do you doubt that?”

“Nobody referred you? Or suggested me to you?”

“No. But what difference would it have made if someone had?”

“You had never heard of me before you saw my name in that list of contractors?”

“No,” she said with force. “But clearly you suspect otherwise. Why?”

“Because this sounds like a cruel practical joke played by someone of my acquaintance who thrives on this sort of shit. You might have been an unwitting partner—”

“I didn’t partner with anybody.”

“Who have you talked to about me?”

“No one except the bartender, Don, and the woman, Lois, I met there. She approached me, not the other way around.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Well, no,” she said, correcting herself. “Lisa.”

“Right, right. Sister dear. I overheard her opinion of me. She advised you to keep away. But here you are.” He extended his arms from his sides in a grand gesture that encompassed the room and beyond. “Why didn’t you take your sister’s advice and have nothing else to do with me?”

Before she could speak, he held up a halting hand. “You know what? On second thought, I don’t care what your game is. You want your house leveled, get somebody else. I suggest a wrecking crew. Efficient. Cost effective.”

“I considered doing just that. But I don’t want the demolition to be noticed. I don’t want anybody to know what I’m doing until it’s done.”

He laughed shortly. “Now that’s odd. But, whatever. I’m out. Thanks for wasting my time. The hour spent on the walk-through. The—”

“You came to me for the walk-through, remember?”

“—estimates I worked up.”

“Which you haven’t submitted.”

“I was going to bring them over to you in the morning.”

“Was that when you were going to show me the drawings?”

“I hadn’t decided.”

“My decision isn’t a reflection of your ideas. They’re excellent. The finished product would’ve been beautiful.”

He shrugged off the compliment.

“You put a lot of thought and time into those drawings. I’ll compensate you for doing them. And, as we agreed, you’ll get one hundred dollars for working up the estimates on the basic repairs.”

“Keep your money,” he said angrily. “We’ll be even-steven if you tell me why you changed your mind.”

“I’ll answer as I have to all your personal questions. None of your business.”

His features turned even more fulminating. “Right. It isn’t. As of now.” He scraped back his chair and carried his empty plate to the sink. “Hate to be rude, but today’s been a bugger. I’m going to bed.”

She made no move to leave.

Acting indifferent, he said, “Turn out the lights before you go.”

“First, talk me through that night when you were arrested and my father disappeared.”

Ledge had gotten no farther than the doorway leading into the rest of the house when Arden’s words stopped him cold, with the exception of his heartbeat, which spiked.

He took a moment to school his features before turning around. She had remained exactly as she’d been, except that now her hands were on the table, clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. She seemed to have braced herself to hear whatever was coming, no matter how unsavory it might be.

He steeled himself and, without inflection, asked, “What do you want to know?”

“Were you selling marijuana that night?”

“No. I told you, I was framed.”

“By whom?”

He questioned the wisdom of full disclosure, but reasoned that if he was honest on some points, he could hedge on the more consequential ones.

He said, “You got peeved because I was unreachable today, but other than that question about Crystal, which was obvious fishing about my love life—”

“You flatter yourself.”

“—you didn’t ask why I couldn’t be reached.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“If I don’t, it’ll sound worse coming from somebody else.”

“Does it relate to what we’re supposed to be talking about?”

“Roundaboutly.”

“Well?”

“I spent the better part of the day in jail.”

She reacted as though he’d told her that Martians had landed. He returned to the table and resumed his seat across from her. “I was arrested after getting into a scuffle.”

She recovered enough to ask, “With…?”

“The district attorney.” Judging by how flabbergasted she looked, he thought her reaction was genuine.

“Where did this altercation take place?”

“In his office at the courthouse.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Who started it?”

“Me.”

“What in the world were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of beating the crap out of him.”

“Over what?”

“We go way back. Bitter dislike for each other. We’ve had an ongoing grudge since we were kids.”

“What provoked you today?”

“That’s personal and irrelevant.”

“I doubt that.”

He frowned. “Enough to say, he’s a sneaky bastard. He plays dirty pool and pulls dirty tricks. I thought he might be the one in cahoots with you on this house business.”

“I’m not in cahoots with anybody, and I don’t know the district attorney. What’s his name?”

Looking directly into her eyes to test her reaction, he said, “Rusty Dyle.”

“I remember a Sheriff Dyle from when I was little.”

“Mervin. Now deceased. Rusty is his son. Ever run across him?”

“I wouldn’t have had occasion to.”

“Hmm.” He continued to watch her closely. She seemed curious, interested, but didn’t appear to be lying.

“You want to know about that night I was arrested?” he said. “It was Rusty who put the weed in my car. I can’t prove it. I don’t know how he managed to do it without my knowledge, but I’m certain he was behind it.

“I don’t know if he bribed those two deputies who arrested me, or if he tipped them anonymously, but it makes no difference. He saw to it that I got caught with enough evidence to make it look like I was dealing. I wasn’t. God as my witness, Arden.”

Looking startled, she angled back in her chair.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No. I do. It’s just, that’s the first time you’ve called me by name.”

Her name had been constantly pinballing inside his head for the past couple of days, so it surprised him now to realize that he hadn’t addressed her by it. But he didn’t comment on it. What was he supposed to say? That he’d sighed her name, moaned it, in more than a few lurid fantasies?

She indicated his cheekbone. “That looks more serious than a scuffle.”

He drew a breath, let it out. “It was.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s a dull roar. The whiskey helped.”

She pushed her glass across the table toward him. “You’re welcome to the rest.”

“No, thanks. I’ve done all the bingeing I’m going to do tonight.”

“Well, you did have a bugger of a day.”

“Jail, you mean?”

She nodded.

“I was left to stew for several hours. Wasn’t that bad.”

“Did you post bail?”

“No, Rusty had a change of heart. Declined to press charges.”

“That was decent of him.”

He scoffed. “Decent, my ass. It was self-serving.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said grimly. “But I’m sure I’ll find out.”

“Dirty pool.”

“Count on it.”

He wondered if now was the time to tell her that he suspected Rusty of being the party surveilling her house every night. If he did, though, she would press him to explain why he would think that. He couldn’t tell her without wading into the deep end. He could get in over his head real fast.

And he would be inviting more trouble for himself and everyone around him if he pointed the finger at Rusty, and the accusation was later proven to be false.