I took a breath. “My uncle left Dallas around the time Mom died. I know he wasn’t at the funeral, because I looked for him. He’d always been so nice to me. I don’t know if he knew I was his child, but I’d like to think he didn’t. That he wouldn’t have knowingly left me with a murdering sociopath. But then again, maybe he never left at all. Maybe my father had him killed.”

“Carly.” Marco’s voice sounded strangled.

“But your insight has made me re-examine my past relationships. I’ve never been in love, not really. The only person I felt comfortable committing to was Jake, because he’d been my best friend for years and I was sure I could trust him.”

A new thought struck me.

I was repeating the exact same pattern with Marco.

“What?” he asked, noticing the change in me.

These feelings I’d noticed the past few days, were they my broken psyche’s way of finding a relationship? Was I doomed to repeat every mistake of my past?

“What are you thinkin’, Carly?” he asked, his question laced with anxiety.

No, I might be repeating my previous pattern, but Marco wasn’t Jake. And there was no reason we couldn’t remain friends. Just friends. These feelings I was experiencing couldn’t be trusted—they’d tarnish and tear something beautiful. Not that Marco was looking for that anyway. His relationship patterns were just as messed up as mine.

I gave him a smile. “I’m thinkin’ that you’re a very insightful man. More so than most. I’m thinkin’ that I have terrible judgment in men, so I’m very lucky to have stumbled into a friendship with such a good one,” I said with a laugh.

“I’m not Jake,” Marco said. “And I’m not Wyatt.”

“No,” I said. “You’re Marco, and I need you in my life. I don’t want to screw that up.”

He glanced at me, his eyes filled with sadness. “I need you too, and I would never do anything to risk losing you.” He shifted his gaze back to the road. “When I said I’ll never lie to you, I meant it. No secrets. I won’t give you a reason to distrust me.”

“Thank you.” I reached over and took his hand, squeezing tight. Some days Marco felt like my lifeline. But there was an implicit danger in relying on anyone that much—if I lost him, this, where would I be?

I didn’t want to go to that dark place again, not when we still had so much to accomplish. “I think we should talk to Bingham after we see Hank. I want to ask him about Heather’s car.” I frowned. “Do we know what make and model car she drove?”

“I’m pretty sure that Wyatt was driving her car when he was arrested. I have a copy of the police report at home, but I think it was a late model Chevy Cavalier.”

“Do we need to go by and get the report?” I asked.

“You could always ask Wyatt.”

“I don’t know where he’s holed up. Only Lula does, although if he’s hidin’ on Bingham’s land, we could look for him there.”

“It’s up to you,” he said. “We can go see Hank, then drop by my house for the report. But I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to visit Bingham unannounced. He tolerated an appointment. He might not be so keen on a drop-by visit.” Before I could respond, he added, “I’m not sure how much mileage you’ll have with the Lula card, so don’t be countin’ on that.”

I had been.

“Let’s just see what Hank says before we decide what to do next,” I said. He agreed, and we spent the rest of the ride rehashing everything Mitzi and May had told me, not coming up with any new leads. For the first time since I’d started poking into this mess, I didn’t have any new threads to pull. I wasn’t sure what to do next other than talk to Hank and possibly Bingham and try to find out the identity of the banker. It felt like a dead end, although I refused to think of it that way. Whatever his flaws, Wyatt didn’t deserve to suffer for a crime someone else had committed.

Hank was sitting in front of his TV, watching one of the afternoon talk shows he seemed to love so much. He glanced up at me in surprise. “What are you doin’ home? I thought you were workin’ all day.” He braced his hands on the arms of his recliner and sat up straighter when he saw Marco was with me. “Max didn’t fire you again, did he?”

“No,” I said, walking around the sofa and sitting on the end next to him. “Nothing like that. I took the afternoon off to look into Heather’s murder.”

He glanced up at Marco, who still stood by the door. “You here as a deputy sheriff or Carly’s friend?”

“Carly’s friend, sir,” he said respectfully.

Hank motioned him over. “Then come sit down. No need for you to guard the door.”

Marco cracked a grin as he moved around the sofa to sit next to me.

“I take it you have questions,” Hank said, clicking off the TV.

“Yeah.”

He held his hands wide. “Ask away. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“When you were running your drug kingdom,” I said, “you said you limited it to pot and pills. I remember you saying you didn’t have the stomach to cook meth and that oxy was too hard to get. But surely people wanted those things.”

He made a face. “True, but they had to leave the area to get it. I didn’t tolerate anyone sellin’ that nonsense while I was in charge.”

“What about roofies?” Marco asked. “Or ecstasy?”

Hank’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t give a shit about what you did in the past, Hank,” Marco said. “There’s plenty of bad shit floatin’ around now to keep us busy.”

Hank didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Did the people buying drugs ever come straight to you?” I asked.

“No. Wouldn’t bring the business into my home, and they had no reason to come to my place of business. There were too many other men around for anyone to get through.”

Did Hank used to have bodyguards? Or maybe they were just his workers who acted tough. Either way, I had to wonder where they were now. Working for Bingham?

“So if someone was lookin’ for something specific, would they go to their dealer and ask?” I said.

“This might go a little faster if you just spit out what you’re tryin’ to ask,” Hank said gruffly.

The man I knew was all bark and no bite when it came to me, although I’d seen him shoot a man dead while protecting me, so I knew he was capable of violence.

“The Drummonds paid Heather five thousand dollars to leave, but she was cooking up a plan to stay. A witness claims to have overheard her talking on the phone, telling the other person she needed drugs to put someone in a compromising position without them waking up.”

“And you think she called me?” he asked, his brow raised.

“Maybe. Or made the request of someone who could ask you. Do you remember anyone making any unusual requests around the time Heather left?”

“That question presumes I knew Heather, let alone gave a shit about her leavin’ town. So the short answer is I have no idea what kind of requests were made back then. I didn’t usually handle the little things. I was the big picture guy.”