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“Haven’t you ever played with a potato bug?” he asked
Madeline shot hi no sense “A what?”
“A potato bug If you poke them, they curl into a protective ball”
“You’re saying that’s what Grace would do”
“Exactly And what do we have to gain from that?”
Madeline drove in silence until they reached the outskirts of town and saw the lighted Vacancy sign at the Blue Ribbon Motel Then she asked the biggest question of all “So…does she know ?”
“Yes”
Foreboding curled through Madeline’s whole body “How could the conversation you just had tell you that?”
“It didn’t,” he said
She looked over at him
“I’m sorry, Maddy But the odds aren’t in her favor”
Grace’s hand shook as she called Clay on her cell phone from inside her car
“Hello?” He’d answered on the first ring
“We’ve got probleator”
“What about him?”
“He’s even better than we thought”
Chapter Fifteen
Hunter’s luggage had finally arrived He sat on the cheap, rickety bed at the Blue Ribbon, staring at his black suitcase while struet so But so him He wasn’t sure what it was Most likely, it wasmachine Their encounter with Mike
The fact that he wanted to be in bed with her now…
He was teo back hoht for custody of his daughter even if she wouldn’t speak to him But he knew that would make her life miserable, that she’d hate him more because of it Antoinette wasn’t the best mother in the world, but she wasn’t the worst, either He couldn’t really justify such a fight He could enforce the visitation agreeht now, anyway Having no good optionsfor a drink
The pool hall was only a block away He could walk there
He i If it was like es of the room and be almost anonymous Even in Stillwater
Focus on so else Work
He’d piled the police files Madeline had provided on the floor He frowned at the sheer volu ured he’d better get started There was Madeline’s childhood diary to read, too
Setting his guitar aside, he hung up the da his wet hair out of his eyes and pulled out a statehbor across from the farhts” of Barker’s car turn into his drive the night he disappeared
Unfortunately, “fairly certain” didn’t help hi every car had a pair