There was no way I could pretend like this had never happened. Especially since Max had been acting so guilty.

He knew something about Lula.

We went downstairs, which was slow going for Marco. When he got to the bottom, he headed to the bar, and I wondered if he was going to pour himself a drink at nearly ten a.m., but instead he grabbed the phone out from under the counter. He dialed a number from memory and waited.

“Tiny? This is Marco. Y’all might need to close today. Max is havin’ another episode.” He paused for a moment. “Yeah. How about I put up a sign? Will you call Ruth?” He paused again. “Nah, I’ll take care of lettin’ Carly know.” A couple of seconds passed. “I’ll check on him later and let you know.”

Marco hung up and leaned on the counter for several seconds, looking like he was on the verge of breaking down. Finally, he turned to me, his eyes glassy. “Max is a lot of things, but he’s not a murderer or a kidnapper.”

I nearly broke into tears. “I’ve only known him for a little while, and even I know that.”

“I’m strugglin’ here, Carly. Max knows more than he’s tellin’ us.”

“I know.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

That snapped him out of his limbo, and he returned the phone to its place under the counter. “No. I’m even more determined to find out what happened. If for no other reason than to clear his conscience.”

But if Max knew something about Lula’s disappearance, was easing his conscience possible?

“We need to hang a sign,” Marco said, looking weary. “Can you make it and tape it in the window?”

“Yeah. Sure.” But the more I thought about all of this, the more it didn’t feel right. Marco acted like this had happened before. He’d told Tiny that Max was having another episode. Was Max an alcoholic who had downward spirals that shut him off from the world temporarily?

How often did this happen?

Had anyone tried to intervene?

I got a sheet of printer paper, a marker, and tape from Max’s office, then took them out to the dining room. Sitting down at a table, I uncapped the marker and said, “What do you want it to say?”

“Closed due to illness,” he said in a tight voice.

I started writing, the tip of the marker making a squeaky noise on the white paper. “No reopening date?”

“No. Better to wait and see how long it takes for him to hit bottom first.”

My chest tightened. “So this has happened before.”

He hesitated. “A time or two.”

“How long does it last?”

“Usually a few days, but one time a few years ago it lingered for a full week. Ruth was fit to be tied with that one.”

I looked up at him. “Marco, it sounds like Max is an alcoholic.”

He shook his head. “Max has had a shit life, and an even shittier father. Wyatt may have escaped that man’s hold, but Max is trapped in a headlock. Some days he can’t handle the stress and the pressure and he…escapes.”

“Seems like a shitty way to live. He did not look like he was enjoying his little vacay from life.”

“It is a shitty way to live, and he’s doin’ the best he can given the circumstances.” I heard an edge of irritation in his voice.

“And what are those?”

“He was never supposed to live this life. He had plans. Dreams. His mother had set money aside for him to start a business after college graduation. We were going to go to Nashville. He was going to start a live-music tavern, and I was going to help him. But then his daddy came callin’, sayin’ the golden boy had fallen from his throne and the spare was now the heir. Max was just supposed to drop everything and jump.”

“And he did,” I said. “He dropped out of school and came home.”

“That bastard wouldn’t even let him finish his last semester,” Marco said in disgust. “Wouldn’t wait three months. He had to go home now.”

“Why didn’t he say no?” I asked.

Marco released a bitter laugh. “You don’t say no to Bart Drummond, especially if you’re a Drummond boy.”

“But he wasn’t living here. He’d already escaped. He could have finished school and carried on with his plans.”

“And he likely would have if not for one person.”

“Who?”

“I was with Max when he got the call. In a stone-cold voice, he told his father to go to hell. But then Emily came to Knoxville a few days later. She just showed up at the front door to our apartment. She told me that she needed to speak to Max alone and could I please give them some privacy. If it had been Bart, I would have told him to go fuck himself, but it was Emily, so I left.

When I came back an hour later, Max was drunker than shit. Sure, he’s always been a drinker, but that night he got blackout drunk. He was trashed. I asked him what had happened, and he said he didn’t want to talk about it. He was like that for three days, didn’t go to class, didn’t shower or leave the apartment, just drank himself into a stupor. Then I came home from class one afternoon and found him packing up his clothes. When I asked what he was doing, he told me he was goin’ home.”

“What did she say to change his mind?”

“I have no idea. He refused to tell me, but once he’d made the decision to go home, there was no reasoning with him.”

“You came back too,” I said.

“Not until after I graduated a few months later.”

“But you didn’t have to come back,” I said. “You could have escaped.”

“Without Max?” He shook his head and sagged into his crutches. “I meant what I said upstairs. We’re like brothers. More so than his real one.”

Part of me wanted to defend Wyatt, but from what he’d told me himself, the brothers hadn’t spoken for years until Seth’s death.

Marco let out a long sigh. “Hang the sign. We’ve got an investigation to run.”

“So we’re not letting this go?”

“No,” he said, his voice gruff.

“But this isn’t an official investigation. Now that Greta’s gone too, the sheriff’s department might take this situation seriously. Do you want me to call them?”

“No,” he said, so sharply I jumped.

He rubbed his forehead, then added, “Not yet. It’s too soon for them to look into Greta, and we both know they won’t do anything about Lula.”

“Do you think Greta was kidnapped for knowing too much about Lula?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “We need to go see Melody and get more answers.”

I agreed, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was now trying to find Lula and Greta to protect his friend, because I was certain Max was involved in this somehow. It was only a matter of how deep.

Chapter Seventeen

Marco may have gotten Melody’s number, but he didn’t call her before we left the tavern. I didn’t question him—he was the deputy, and he knew her besides. He likely had his reasons. On the way to Ewing, we passed the state park where we’d had our showdown with Carson Purdy. Marco cast a quick glance in that direction and a tiny shudder rippled through his body.