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surprised that she’s gone just to cover for her and throw you off her trail?”
    She’d met this man less than fifteen minutes ago, yet he was suspecting her motives?
    Questioning her honesty? Reading into her arrival a lot of underhanded scheming that wasn’t there?
    “First of all, no. I wouldn’t do that for anyone. I don’t believe hiding from a problem is a way to solve it.” Oh, what a liar she was. “Second, that would assume Lisa has a problem to hide from, and in all our time together, I never knew her to hide from anything.”
    “Meaning?” he prompted, the tic in his jaw giving away…something. She’d made him mad. She didn’t believe for a moment that she had frightened him. She couldn’t see this man being afraid of anything. She also couldn’t see him brushing off what was effectively a challenge.
    “Meaning, if anything was going on with her, you would know better than me. I haven’t talked to her in ages. My last contact from her, in fact, was a note she dropped me a week or so ago.”
    “And that’s what brought you here?”
    That note had been what she’d latched on to, what she’d used as a reason to make the trip. But that wasn’t what he was asking. And his question seemed less like casual conversation and more like bait dangling from a hook.
    “She told me to visit whenever I could.” That was the truth. “This seemed like a good time.” That was another.
    “Because of something she said in her note?”
    Micky wasn’t about to tell him that the timing had been spur of the moment, or that all she remembered Lisa saying was that she’d been left out of some loop. She considered asking him if that rang any bells.
    Then she reconsidered, saying instead, “Because I had the time and was in the mood for a change of scenery. And because I miss her, and it’s been too long.”
    “Do you have the note with you?”
    Talk about a bulldog. She cocked her head to the side, wondering if he was playing hide, or if he was playing seek. “It might be in my things, but it might be on my dressing table. I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”
    “You say she had nothing to hide from, yet you haven’t talked to her in awhile. It’s possible things have changed. It’s possible there’s a hint in that note of what she had on her mind when she left.”
    He tossed back the rest of his drink and swallowed. “I learned a long time ago with Terrill’s mother that a woman will often share things with a close female friend that she doesn’t want her husband to know.”
    Her husband? Or her father-in-law? “Some women, sure. Not Lisa. We might be best girlfriends, but she told me more than once that Terril is her vault. She shares all of her secrets with him.”
    She paused, thinking of what she’d just said and growing more than worried, reaching toward panic, her chest banding tight. “Have you asked him if there was anything upsetting her? If she’d mentioned needing to get away?”
    He slammed his fist on the table. “Of course I have. The boy doesn’t know a goddamn thing.”
    She was used to Papi’s outbursts, his dramatic gestures while he paced and implored the saints, asking them how a man was supposed to handle a daughter like his “little Micky Mousey,” praying for guidance to understand why he had been chosen for such a test. This wasn’t like that at al l . This was…frightening.
    Her stomach fluttering, Micky waited for the boom of the judge’s thunderous explosion, the loud crack of his hand against the table to stop rattling in her bones. Even in the bar’s dim light, his face was the bright red of hypertension, a cartoonish picture of a human balloon enlarging, expanding. She wasn’t going to wait around for him to pop. She slid from the booth, got to her feet, adjusted the strap of her purse across her body, and reached into a small inside pouch for a business card. She set it on the table.
    “I’ll be on my way. Should Lisa get in touch with me, I’ll relay your