Page 57 of Critical Doubt

"Oh, and then you threw the rock at his car and hit the police car instead."

"My aim is usually good, but I was upset that night. I wasn't thinking clearly."

"What about after Steven?" he asked, wanting to know more about her. "Who was the next guy?"

"My next semi-serious relationship was senior year of college, but after I graduated, I went into the army, and he was off to law school. We never saw each other again." She paused. "There were a few other relationships, but none that made me think they were forever, and in retrospect not one of them really knew me, not the real me."

"Why didn't you show your true self?"

She shrugged. "I would probably need a psychiatrist's couch to answer that question."

He didn't believe that for a second. "I think you already know the answer."

"Well, I can give it a shot. Because I was abandoned by my father, I didn't think anyone could really love me," she said. "I do have some self-awareness. But I think it's more complicated than that."

"I'm sure it is."

"It wasn't just about my dad, it was also about my aunt and the pageants, knowing that I had to speak and act a certain way to get approval. It became ingrained in me. I became good at fitting in, just not so good at being myself."

"Until you spent the night with me and then realized you should quit the army and become an FBI agent."

"Yes." She smiled. "I know that probably doesn't make sense to you."

"It doesn't, but as long as it makes sense to you, it doesn’t matter." He paused. "I know I made an assumption about you, but I wouldn't have cared if you'd said you weren't a dancer. You could have told me you were an astronaut or a teacher or a farmer, and I would have still wanted you."

"I've never been any of those," she said with a smile.

"You get my point. And maybe you started out being who you thought I wanted you to be, but I don't think that continued once we got to my room. Did it?"

She let out a sigh. "I don't know. Probably not. You kind of made me lose my mind. I don't remember thinking much."

"Do you remember pretending?"

"No." She met his gaze. "I was not pretending anything when we were together."

He was more than a little happy to hear that. "Good. I wasn't pretending, either."

"Well, I know you weren't," she said dryly. "I saw the evidence for myself."

He laughed. "At least three times. Or was it four?"

"We need to stop talking about that night."

"Why?"

"Because we can't go back."

"Are you sure?" He paused at the sound of her phone. "Seriously? First a knock at the door, now a phone call?"

She grinned. "Maybe we should listen to the universe." She opened her text, and her expression changed. "Flynn sent me photos from the cameras near the bar."

He jumped to his feet, moving around the table, so he could see her phone.

"It's a silver Prius, as the witness said. But the driver isn't clearly captured on any of the shots."

"All I see is a baseball cap."

"Todd's neighbor told me the man she saw was also wearing a baseball cap," she murmured, scrolling through the photos to a long text. "Flynn says the car is registered to a Dolores Jamison, an eighty-nine-year-old Atlanta resident, who recently went into a convalescent hospital. Her niece reported that the car was stolen yesterday afternoon." Savannah looked up at him. "I'm sure the driver dumped the car shortly after he almost ran us down, but Flynn says he'll let us know if the vehicle is located. He'll also do some more checking in the morning, look at other traffic cameras in the area that might have picked up a different angle. But for now, we don't have anything."

---