had to admit he, too, felt devastated when Jacob had been unable to finger the killer. Every time Max thought about Benjamin and Sybille, their small lifeless bodies under the sheet, he felt sickened.
Nearly thirty-three hours since Naomi’s 911 call, and they didn’t have a lot of answers.
True: they had two suspects. Max again wondered where Carl was and mulled over the possibility that he’d gone into hiding. Why would he do that if he wasn’t involved? And Myles? Nearly a full day had passed since they’d put out the BOLO asking law enforcement officers all over the state to be on the lookout for him, and nothing. The news stations in the area and as far away as Salt Lake were displaying his driver’s license photo and asking anyone who saw him to report in, but no one had called. Where was Myles Thompkins? It was as if the guy had vanished.
On top of that, something needled at Max.
Earlier that afternoon, he and Clara had read the letters together, and Max couldn’t get them out of his head. The emotions Myles and Laurel expressed brought back memories of a time when he and Clara were young and he would have given up anything and everything to be with her. In fact, he did give up everything when the prophet’s henchmen ran him out of Alber. That was a terrifying time. Just seventeen, Max was left to fend for himself in the middle of downtown St. George. Only two hundred dollars in his pocket, he had no one to call for help. Max’s heart filled with rage remembering how his own father abandoned him at the direction of the prophet.
While Clara fretted about the case, Max considered the girl he’d known. Sometimes he caught glimpses of her in the new Clara, the woman she’d become. Like the teenager she’d been, her long black hair never managed to stay in a bun. Instead, wisps habitually curled at the nape of her neck. Max recalled their kiss the evening before. He felt his chest warm as he remembered her head pressed against it at her office that afternoon. Stolen moments, that was all they had. He wanted much more. Lost to his thoughts, he reached over and wrapped an errant strand of her hair around his finger.
Caught by surprise, Clara shivered.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s okay, Max,” she responded. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“I should have given you a warning.” He hesitated, but then, since he had her attention, he ran his fingers down her arm, until he cupped her hand on the steering wheel. She smiled, not appearing to mind the attention. There’d been something he’d wanted to ask her for a week or more. It had been gnawing at him. Was this the time?
“Clara,” he said. “Neither one of us has a place where we can be alone together. I have Brooke, and you’re living at the shelter. Everything we do in Alber is… watched.”
“As I’ve recently found out,” she acknowledged.
He didn’t ask what she meant, but continued. “A friend offered me a cabin in the mountains. Assuming we’ve wrapped this case up, I’m heading there on Thursday. Alice is keeping Brooke for the weekend. I’d like you to come.”
“To the cabin?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m hoping… well… it might be a good place for us to figure this out.”
“Figure this out?” she murmured, as if unsure what he was saying.
“Figure us out,” he answered. Her frown grew longer, and Max paused, considering what to say next. “Clara, like I said earlier, I want to give us a try. I do. But I also have Brooke to consider. And my own feelings. The thing is: I need to know where this is going. If it is going anywhere.”
“Max—” she started.
“No pressure. I promise. But if this isn’t going to work out…” He knew she was skittish. He understood that he couldn’t push her. She hadn’t explained what she’d been through, but Max sensed that her marriage had been traumatic, and that something truly bad must have happened to convince her to leave her family and her home. But he’d been hurt, too. He’d lost Miriam, nearly lost Brooke. And as much as he wanted to be with Clara, he couldn’t endure that kind of pain ever again. Last time, it had sent him reeling to the bottle, cost him his job and nearly his sanity. If that happened again, he wondered if he could survive