Operation Reunion. Justine Davis

than Dane’s arm tightening around her.

      “Yes. But I’m not going to fall apart talking about it. I really don’t wallow it in every day.”

      She managed not to glance at Dane, although that wasn’t really fair; he’d never accused her of wallowing, only of letting this overwhelm her own life.

      “I never disputed that Chad was there,” she said. “He still came to the house often, even though he’d moved out. He’d sneak in through the den window and then head to the kitchen to get food.”

      “So you think that’s what he intended that night? To raid the fridge?” Quinn asked.

      She nodded. “And he found them lying there in the den, panicked and ran.”

      “Leaving you to deal alone, as usual,” Dane said.

      Kayla stiffened. Dane let out a compressed breath. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll stop. I promised you one last shot, and I meant it.”

      Neither Quinn nor Hayley commented on the moment of tension, although Cutter let out a low whine as if he’d sensed it and didn’t like it. After a moment, Quinn nodded.

      “I’ll need some things from you,” he said. “Names of Chad’s friends, his interests. Then the same about your parents.”

      Kayla frowned slightly. “That was all in the reports.”

      Quinn smiled. “Sam bends the rules occasionally, but letting those reports leave the building without me jumping through all the hoops would be outright breakage. That we’ll have to do through regular channels.”

      “Sorry,” Kayla said. “Of course.”

      “Plus, I’d like to save bugging the local LEOs for things we can’t get anywhere else. They’re a bit understaffed.”

      “Back at the time, they were thinking about dissolving the department and going back to contracting with the sheriff because they were so strapped and short-handed,” Dane said. “Maybe that’s partly why they didn’t pour a lot of energy into this after Chad ran.”

      Kayla wanted to hug him for that; it was the most supportive thing he’d said lately.

      “I know once they verified where I’d been at the time of the murders,” Dane went on, “they didn’t have time to talk to me much.”

      “Except when you’d push them, for me.”

      He deserved that acknowledgment, Kayla thought. For a long time, longer than most would, Dane had been right there with her, at the forefront, pushing, nagging, pressing the police. Dane gave her a smile that further warmed a heart that had been nearly frozen by his departure two weeks ago. He’d really asked so little of her, she thought. And she’d abused that.

      “It got so they hated to see us coming,” Dane said.

      “Can’t blame them,” Quinn said. “It’s a small department, they’ve got a huge case on their hands and they have no resources or experience dealing with that kind of thing. Sam said Detective Adams was a good guy, but he was out of his depth on this. And by the time he asked for help, what trail there was had gone cold.”

      “He knows that,” Kayla said quietly. “He admitted that to me last year, when he retired. He feels guilty about it.”

      Dane gave her a sideways look. “You never told me that.”

      “You didn’t want to hear anything about it by then,” Kayla said, carefully keeping any sort of accusation out of her voice; Dane was back at her side, and she simply had to keep him there. She knew that now, that nothing mattered more.

      “I’ll need the same info from you, too,” Quinn said to Dane. “Anything and everything you can remember.”

      Dane nodded.

      “And no comparing lists,” Hayley said. “You each have your own memories and viewpoint, and we need them as pure as possible.”

      Kayla nodded, although the words made her a little nervous. Dane and Chad’s mutual dislike was going to color Dane’s recollections. But he was doing it, cooperating, which was more than she’d had this morning. She didn’t ever want to feel that alone again.

      She would keep her promise as Dane was keeping his, she vowed. She would pour all she had into this last-ditch effort, she would do whatever Quinn and Hayley said was necessary and, in the end, she would accept the results.

      And then, she swore silently, she would do what Dane had wanted her to do for a very long time now.

      She would move on.