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interrogation specialist? I thought you could tell when people are lying?"
    His head tilted to the side. "Will you help me?"
    "I will talk to the mother, but that's it." I pointed my finger at him. "I mean it, Nathan."
    He quickly stood so I wouldn't have a chance to change my mind. He pulled his keys out of his pocket. "I'll drive."
    In the passenger's seat of Nathan's county-issued tan SUV, I wondered what on earth I was getting myself into. I could see before me the proverbial can of worms that was about to be cracked wide open. My entire life, I had dedicated myself to trying to just be like everyone else, and there I was headed at forty-five miles per hour toward never being normal again. 
    Nathan was angled back in his seat with one hand on the steering wheel. "Thanks for doing this." He slowly merged onto the interstate.
    I just nodded.
    He looked over his shoulder at me. "You know I'm going to have a hell of a lot of questions when this is all over with."
    My index fingernail was bloody from my nervous chewing. "Why did you come to my office this morning?"
    After a few quiet seconds, I cut my eyes over at him. He was grinning. "I guess I just had a feeling ." 
    "Jerk." 
    He laughed.
    Desperate for a new topic of conversation, I forced a change of subject. "So, what's your story, Nate? How did you wind up here? Why Asheville?" 
    He sucked in a deep breath. "My girlfriend lives here."
    The day just kept getting better and better. 
     Nodding, I prayed he wouldn't continue. He did.
    "She's a reporter for WKNC."
    "Of course she is," I grumbled under my breath. I probably knew his girlfriend through work. 
    He leaned his ear toward me. "What'd you say?"
    I examined my bloody fingernail again. "I didn't say anything."
    "What about you?" he asked. "Have you always lived here?"
    I nodded. "Other than college and the time I spent being probed by the aliens on the mothership, yes."
    He laughed again.
    "I actually grew up about five minutes away from here. If you ever visit the Grove Park Inn, you will pass my parents' house on the way up the mountain," I said.
    He took the exit onto College Street. "I hear that hotel is really nice." 
    Sitting up straight, I looked out my window. "Where are we going?" 
    "The jail. The mom was arrested last night during the raid," he said.
    I dropped my face into the palm of my hand and groaned.
    "Is that a problem?"
    I forced a smile. "Nope."
    He pointed at me. "You're lying."
    I shuddered. "I hate the jail. It gives me the creeps."
    He focused on the road ahead. "I won't let anything get to you." 
    His words would have made me feel all warm and tingly inside, had the thoughts of prison rapists and murderers—and his reporter girlfriend—not squelched the moment. I waved my hands in the air and rolled my eyes. "Yay." 
    He chuckled and playfully shoved me in the shoulder.
    We pulled into the parking lot in front of the drab green building, and I contorted my shoulders to try to relieve some of the tension that was building in my spine. I reached for my purse, pulled out my prescription bottle, and popped half of a chalky tablet under my tongue. 
    He looked at me surprised. "What are you taking?" 
    "Xanax, nosy," I said.
    "You should probably leave your purse in here," he said. 
    I had never actually been back in the guts of the jail side of the building. For a moment I considered taking the other half of my anxiety pill, but I was afraid I might end up drooling on his leather seat during the drive back home. We parked in a parking spot that was labeled with his name, and I shoved my purse under my seat. 
    I matched Nathan step for step as we approached the front door. He paused and looked at me when we reached the landing at the top of the stairs. I looked around in confusion. "What are you doing?" 
    He motioned toward the door. "I wasn't sure if you needed to check out your ass in the window or not."
    Smacking him hard in the chest, I genuinely laughed for the first time all