“Yeah,” I said more calmly than I felt. “You seem to be extraordinarily good at that.”

“You talked to Abby.”

“I did.”

“And Mitzi’s husband won’t let you near her.”

“Was that her husband?” I asked nonchalantly before I took another bite.

“Probably. I don’t know him. Only that she got married.” He paused. “So what are you gonna do now?”

“What can I do?” I said with a shrug. “You gave me two leads and I followed them. Now I’m at a dead end.” I didn’t really believe that, but part of me wanted to see him sweat.

“Seriously? You’re giving up?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

The way he said it pissed me off, but I just shrugged. “This is your problem, Wyatt. Not mine.”

“You were all over Lula’s disappearance,” he snapped. “Chasing every lead. You were like a bulldog.”

My fury spilled over, more of it than had been provoked by his remarks, and I realized I’d been holding on to it for months. “Don’t you dare go there.”

His eyes lit up. “There’s the Carly I know.”

I got to my feet, worried if I stayed here any longer I’d resort to physical violence. “Don’t you pretend like you know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

Except that wasn’t quite true. He knew plenty about me. I just didn’t know him.

“I thought you wanted answers,” he said, lowering his voice. “If you don’t want to help me, fine. But at least get your answers.”

“Fool me once, shame on you,” I said with a sneer. “Fool me twice, shame on me. I don’t believe for one minute that you’re gonna tell me anything. You’re playing me, just like your father plays everyone. Guess you’re more like him than you thought.”

I spun around and stomped toward my car, throwing my ice cream in a trash can with a satisfying thump. As I opened my door, I called out, “Stop following me or I’ll call the sheriff’s department and have you arrested for stalking.”

“Yeah, I bet your new boyfriend would be first in line to put me in handcuffs.”

I nearly corrected him for the umpteenth time, and it was tempting to tell him that Marco was fully aware that Wyatt was tailing me. Instead, I said nothing at all. The less he knew, the better.

I would have loved a minute to pull myself together, but he was watching my every move and I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction, so I headed straight to the nursing home. Grabbing my reusable shopping bag, I headed inside, continuing on even as I noticed Wyatt pulling into the back lot. I couldn’t say I blamed him for following me. I had no idea what Hank would ask for a blood price, and Wyatt had been foolish to agree to it. Especially if he was going to withhold key information about Heather’s disappearance.

Gladys was sitting at her usual table with her grumpy friend, Roberta. I still wasn’t sure whether they were truly friends, or two people who’d formed an acquaintance over puzzles. Some days they didn’t seem to like each other all that much.

Gladys’s face lit up when she saw me approaching. “There’s my girl.”

“Hey, Gladys,” I said, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Roberta.”

Roberta scowled. “Tryin’ to buy our affection with jigsaw puzzles again?”

I gave her a cheesy smile as I pulled out a box with a tropical scene on the cover and set it on the table next to the puzzle they were working on. They’d only gotten the border and a few sections of the inside pieced together. “Is it working?”

Her scowl deepened.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” I said with a forced cheeriness that was excessive even for me.

“What’s goin’ on?” Gladys asked, her cloudy eyes pinned on me. “What’s got you upset? Does it have anything to do with the fact you haven’t been here for weeks?”

“No. I haven’t been coming around because the new construction at the Drummond resort site has brought a bunch of workers into town. I’ve been working doubles every day for weeks. But Max finally hired someone to help out, and I don’t have to go in until three today.”

“And you came to see us?” Roberta grumped as her arthritic hands fumbled to open the box.

I took it from her and used my car key to slit open the paper seal. “I was running some errands in Ewing, so I decided to stop by and pay a visit.” I darted a glance down the hall, then returned my attention to the box as I worked on another side. “I also want to speak to Thelma Tureen.”

“Greta was here just the other day,” Gladys said, picking up the box for the puzzle they’d started and sweeping the loose pieces inside. I wasn’t surprised they were abandoning it for the new one. They spent so much time building puzzles, they’d pieced together most of the ones owned by Greener Pastures at least a dozen times. “Brought her some pretty flowers.”

Roberta started to break apart the border of the old puzzle. “The kind you get at grocery stores.”

“Well, it sounds very sweet,” I said. “Greta’s a good granddaughter.”

“And so are you,” Gladys said, reaching over to pinch my cheek. A few visits back, she’d told me that I spent more time with her than her real family and declared me to be her adopted granddaughter. “And how is that handsome Marco doin’?”

“He’s great. In fact, he’s going to be moonlighting at the tavern for a while. He said to tell you hi.”

“I take it he’s workin’ as a deputy today?” Gladys asked, helping Roberta break apart the puzzle. “Otherwise he’d be here with you.”

I chuckled. “Yes, he’s working, but I had lunch with him.”

“I do love a man in uniform,” Roberta mumbled under her breath, and my brow shot up as I turned to Gladys.

She tried to stifle a smile. This was the first hint Roberta had given that she liked Marco…or anyone for that matter. But there was no denying Marco did have charm.

“It’s a shame you two aren’t screwin’,” Gladys said as she swept the last of the pieces into the box.

“Gladys,” I said with a sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you that we’re just friends?”

She glanced up. “Then why aren’t you screwin’?”

It seemed like everyone was asking me that lately. “I’m not really sure,” I said, deciding to be honest. “A lot of reasons, I guess.”

“Such as?” Gladys asked thoughtfully as she set the box aside.

I sighed again. “Well, for one thing, Marco told me he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy, and I told him I wasn’t a fling kind of girl.”

“And when did he tell you that?”

“Early last December, when we were looking for Greta.”

“And when was the last time he hooked up with another woman?”

“I don’t know,” I said, really not liking the direction this was going. “This morning he said it had been a few months, but according to him it was because he’d cycled through so many women. He wants to pace himself.”