Page 127 of Another Girl Lost

She glanced at her trembling hands. “He beat her up bad the day before. I was scared for her.”

“Why did he beat her up?”

“I don’t know. She could handle him so well, but she said or did something that set him off.”

“Maybe he just lost it.”

“Maybe.”

“You and Tanner leave, and what happens next? Della sets fire to the house and just takes off?”

“She’d found a set of keys and knew if Tanner left her alone in the house she could get out. After the beating I guess he thought she’d been too injured to run, so he left her upstairs. And the arson investigator stated the house had been rigged to explode. I think she knew where the bombs were and set them off. I think she’d been planning her escape since Sandra vanished from the house.”

“Arson report? You read that?”

“I wanted to understand what happened.”

Given her friendship with the Judge, he didn’t have to ask how she’d gotten the report. “She provoked Tanner so he’d beat her?”

“It explains a lot.”

“And then Della reinvented herself into a decorated cop?” He needed her to vanquish his growing doubts of Margo. Because the actions Della had allegedly taken sounded like something Margo might do.

“She was smart. A survivor. Like Margo.”

“They look nothing alike.”

“The eyes are the same.”

Margo had approached him. She’d suggested her hotel room, which happened to be a few floors below his. Had he looked as lost as he’d felt? Nothing like wearing your fuckups on your sleeve. And then Margo had turned the tables for him and put him in complete control in that bedroom.

Scarlett looked up at Dawson. “Why are you so worried about protecting Margo?”

“This kind of baseless rumor could damage her career. Margo isn’t your Della,” he said.

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” She laid a clean sheet of linen paper on the block and another piece of cardboard and then pushed the entire setup under the press. “The woman I knew got under Tanner’s and my skin.”

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Margo isn’t Della.”

She pressed a button and the roller dropped and crushed the paper against the block. When it released, she carefully removed the cardboard and paper and then carried the print to a large table where three others like it were drying. Slowly, she faced him. “Sounds like she’s gotten under your skin.”

“Don’t play head games with me.”

Her gaze hardened with amusement. “Are you sleeping with her?”

“She’s a coworker.”

Scarlett’s eyes narrowed as if she could see inside him. “Two things can be true at once.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

SCARLETT

Friday, July 19, 2024

2:00 p.m.

When Dawson left, I was immediately drawn to the new Della portrait. I stared at sketched eyes that were already glaring at me. She was daring me to sharpen the glint in the irises and darken the brows and lashes. This Della wasn’t kind or lost or trapped. She understood what she wanted. And she wasn’t afraid to cut corners to get it. The gaming master. Those eyes were so real, I expected them to blink. Minutes and then hours passed before I stepped back.

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