“Carly…”

I shifted in my seat to face him. “I don’t get it. A couple of nights ago, you trusted me to handle Todd Bingham on my own. Why don’t you trust me with this?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said. “But I don’t think you appreciate the danger you’re puttin’ yourself in.”

“What made you so concerned about it? Your visit with Max?”

“That and your conversation about Shane Jones.” He shrugged off my look of disapproval. “It’s not like I was trying to eavesdrop. Marco’s louder than an auctioneer. And he did tell me to wait right outside.”

“Marco has a deputy friend looking into him.”

“Why was this guy following you?” he asked. “Because his excuse for dropping by the garage was total bullshit.”

“He wanted a carburetor?” I asked. He shot me a quick glance, his brow raised, and I explained, “I stopped by your office before I left, but your door was partially closed. I heard you on the phone asking about one, but I didn’t wait because of Marco.”

“Who looked just fine when I walked in a few minutes ago.”

“Come on, Wyatt. You saw him behind the garage, and he got a lot worse after we left. I was so worried about him that I called his doctor, who told me to watch for signs of internal bleeding, which was why I went to Ewing for a blood pressure cuff. In any case, Marco slept for at least a couple of hours, and by the time I got back, he looked much better.”

When he didn’t respond, I said, “He was shot less than a month ago. He had major surgery and his spleen was removed. He did too much today, and it wiped him out. He wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on me, for whatever reason you’ve concocted in your head.”

“Are you gonna stop investigatin’ Lula’s disappearance?”

“No,” I said flatly. “Marco’s going to pick me up tomorrow morning, and we’re going to keep looking into it.”

“Why don’t you let the sheriff’s department handle it?”

“Because they won’t,” I said, starting to get angry, but I knew my anger was only partially for him. A good portion of it was reserved for the sheriff’s department. “Both Ginger and Angie at Watson’s Café reported Greta’s disappearance, and last I heard, they wouldn’t look into it.”

“They won’t look into it yet,” he said, “Junior told me, but the forty-eight hours should be up soon. They’ll get started then.”

“You really believe that? Because I’ve seen how the sheriff’s department works around here. Even if they do take the case, I doubt they’ll give it half as much attention as we’ve given it.”

“It’s too dangerous, Carly.”

It was dangerous, and I wasn’t stupid. It scared the snot out of me.

But I was getting used to being scared. I’d been running for months now, and I’d risked my life attempting to find justice for Seth. Fear was a given. And something else was motivating me now, something I couldn’t possibly ignore. A lump filled my throat.

“Greta’s gone because of me, Wyatt.” My voice broke. “Someone took her because I was asking questions about Lula. I’m responsible for her being taken.”

I’d been trying not to think about it, but the thought had been there with me all day.

His voice softened. “You are not responsible, Carly.”

“No one would have taken her if I hadn’t been asking questions.”

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, all the fight had bled out of him. “Do you really think Max is part of all this?”

“He’s part of it in some way. We just haven’t figured out how.”

And part of me didn’t want to.

Chapter Twenty-Four

We were silent for the rest of the drive. I was trying to make all the information Marco and I had found fit together, and I was sure Wyatt was thinking about what we’d told him. He might be estranged from his brother, but it was obvious that he cared.

When Wyatt pulled up in front of Hank’s house, he turned off the engine and started to open the door but stopped when he realized I wasn’t moving.

He shifted sideways to face me, the vinyl under his legs creaking.

I kept my gaze fixed on the windshield. “Why are you and Max at odds? You were close as kids. What happened to tear you apart?”

He sat still for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer, but he finally said, “It’s not one thing. It’s the culmination of a lot of things. Our father always treated us differently. Max called me the golden boy. He claimed I could do no wrong in our father’s eyes, while Max was always in trouble.”

He shifted in his seat again, stretching out his legs and resting his wrist on the steering wheel while he released a bitter laugh. “It was true. Our father always made it clear I would take over the family businesses, and he prepared me for it from a young age. He didn’t spend any time on Max. In my father’s eyes, there was no point to it. So Max saw no point in trying to follow the rules.

“Believe it or not, we were still close. We were still brothers, and I understood his pain.” He took a breath. “It helped when Max went away to college. Even though he had Marco as a tether to this place, it was the first time he’d finally had a chance to live his life out from underneath the shadow of the Drum legacy. Nobody gave a shit that his family owned the middling Drummond distillery, and the logging business was long gone. Max was finally free, and he thrived there. He was making plans to move to Nashville with Marco after graduation. He was happy.”

“So what happened? Your arrest?”

“Like I said, a lot of things. He resented that our father forced him to come home to take over the bar.”

“But how could he force him?” I asked. “He was in his last semester of college. If Bart threatened to cut him off financially, Max could have found a job to help cover the rent and food.”

“Max’s relationship with our father has always been complicated. While Max hated the way he was treated, part of him still wanted our father to love him. So when Bart came callin’, my brother came runnin’ home.”

I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t that easy for him. He didn’t come back until your mother went to see him.”

Wyatt’s body froze. “What?”

“You didn’t know?” I asked. “That’s the story Marco told me. He got your dad’s call and blew him off. But your mother came to see him, and he went on a bender. He left to go home a few days after that.”

Wyatt sat still, staring out the windshield. “I have to go.”

“You have to go talk to Max?” I waited several seconds for him to respond, and when he didn’t, I shook my head and reached for the door handle. “Screw you, Wyatt.” Jerking the door open, I jumped out and slammed it shut behind me.

He was out of the truck and at the front of the hood before I got there. “What the hell, Carly? You want me to open up, and I did, but it’s still not enough?”

Shaking with frustration, I shouted, “No! It’s not enough. I asked a yes or no question, and you refused to answer. A yes or no question about whether you’re going to see your brother!”