“My pleasure. Listen,” he called after her, “this is as far as I can go. They poisoned the water out there and I can’t follow you now. If you do see Powell, will you give him a message for me?” “Sure,” she said, turning around. “Tell him I have his boots in my truck. In case he’s looking for ’em.” Chey smiled. It felt wrong on her face, but she liked it all the same. “I’ll do that.”

“Jay came over as soon as Violet called him; she didn’t even have to give him a reason. He was there in less than ten minutes.Of course, he’d heard about what had happened to Hailey. Everyone had. Buckley was a small town, and news traveled fast . . . especially bad news.When he got there she told him what she was thinking about doing. It was nothing dangerous, at least as far as she was concerned, and she hadn’t expected Jay to disagree with her about it. So when he did, she was more than a little bit surprised by his stubborn reaction.“No way,” he insisted, and his voice left little room for argument. “There is no way you’re going to go around looking for this guy.”Violet was shocked by the tone of his voice, and by the harsh look he shot at her. She thought maybe he misunderstood her plan, so she tried to explain it to him again. “Jay, I’m only going to public places, like malls and parks, to see if I can get a feeling for who this guy is. Who knows, maybe he goes to places like that to find them, maybe he hands out there waiting to pick out a girl to . . . you know, kidnap.” She tried to make her argument sound logical, but there was a desperate edge to her voice. “I’m not going out alone . . . you can go with me. We’ll just hang out at different places to see if we can find him. And if we do, we’ll call my uncle. It’s not like we’d do anything stupid.”“’Anything stupid’ would be going out to look for a killer. I won’t let you go looking for trouble, Violet. This guy is dangerous, and you need to leave it to the cops. They know what they’re doing. And they’re armed.” He sounded like he thought she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had, but she had already made her decision.“Look, I’m doing this. I was just asking you to come along with me.”“You’re not,” he insisted. “Even if I have to tell your uncle and your parents what you’re planning. I promise you, you’re not doing it.”She could feel her temper flaring. “You can’t stop me, Jay. If you tell on me, then I’ll lie. I’ll bat my eyes innocently and promise not to go looking for this guy. But I swear to you that every chance I get, even if I have to sneak out of the house to do it, I will be trying to find him.” She stood up, meaning to glare back at him, but instead found herself craning her neck just so she could see his face. The awkward position didn’t steal nay of her thunder. She refused to back down. “I mean it, Jay. You can’t stop me.”Jay glared incredulously back at her. Emotions ranging from disbelief to frustration and back to disbelief again flashed darkly across his face. He seemed to be fighting with himself now. But when she heard him sigh, and then saw him raking his hand restlessly through his hair, she knew she’d won. His icy determination seemed to melt right before her eyes.“Damn it, Violet.” He sighed brusquely, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. “What choice do I have?” he asked as he practically squeezed the life out of her.She wasn’t sure how to react to him now. It definitely wasn’t a tender hug, but the close contact made her undisclosed desires stir all the same. She couldn’t help wondering if he felt even a fraction of what she did.His arms were strong, and she felt safe in the circle of them. She’d never imaged that she could feel so comfortable and so uncomfortable at the same time. She waited within the space of his embrace to see where this was going.“So, how is this going to work?” he demanded roughly against the top of her head.”

“You go in, I go in.""Listen---"He took her face in his hands."You go, I go. That's non-negotiable. If we're to get blasted to hell or poisoned into lunatics, we do it together.""Crap, Crap. You have to look less rich and gorgeous."God help him, she made him grin. "I'll do what I can.”

“As she lifted her own backpack over the side of the black, heavy-duty dodge pickup, Owen took it out of her hands and set it beside the one-man tent and sleeping bag the FBI had provided for him.“I could have done that,” she said.“Sure you could. But my daddy taught me a gentleman always helps a lady.” Bay was so startled at what he’d said, and the chagrined way he’s said it, that she laughed. “Oh, my god. Chauvinism is alive and well—”“We call it chivalry, or Southern courtesy, ma’am,” he said. She realized he was heading around the truck to open the door for her.She stepped in front of him and said, “It’s going to be a long trip if you refuse to let me pull my weight. I can get my own door, Mr. Blackthorne.”For a minute, she thought he was going to make an issue of it. Then he touched the brim of his hat, shot her a rakish grin that turned her insides to mush, and said, “Whatever you say, Mizz Creed.”She was so flustered, she took a half step backward, slid into the seat when he opened the door for her after all, and said, “My friends call me Bay.”Bay flushed as she realized what she’d said. As he came around the hood and got in, she said, “That is—I mean—you know what I mean!”He belted himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine, before he turned to her and said, “My friends call me Owe. You can call me Owen.”She stared at him disbelief. “Oh. You. Blackthorne, you.”

“I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still...?"She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?"He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me."She looked down, her vision blurring.What's the matter?"Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again."I what? Did I say something wrong?"No." She smiled. "You said something right.”

“She was at a cash register, screaming at a customer. She was, in fact, calling this customer a bitch. I touched her arm and said, “I have to go now.” She laid her hand on my shoulder, squeezed it gently, and continued her conversation, saying, “Don’t tell the store president I called you a bitch. Tell him I called you a fucking bitch, because that’s exactly what you are. Now get out of my sight before I do something we both regret.”