Page 17 of Death Valley

He nods toward the pile of vegetables. “Carrots. Slice them thin so they cook evenly.”

He really didn’t need to add that last part and I’m tempted to point out that I do know how to cook, but I bite my lip and grab another knife and get to work, the steady rhythm of chopping blending with the bubble of the simmering stew. Every so often, Jensen’s arm brushes mine as he reaches for a spice or adjusts the heat. Each fleeting touch sends a jolt through me, awareness prickling along my skin.

“You’re quiet,” he says after a while, voice low in the hush of the kitchen.

I shrug, keeping my eyes on the carrots. “Just focusing.”

“On the vegetables or on the reason you’re really here?”

My knife pauses mid-slice. “I told you. I wanted to help with dinner.”

“Uh huh.” He leans a hip against the counter, arms crossing over his chest. “Most people, they want something from me, they just come out and ask. But you…you sidle up, make yourself useful. It’s…disarming.”

I set down the knife and turn to face him fully, watching him carefully. “You know what I want. It’s worth a hundred grand. You think I have some ulterior motive?”

“I think people are rarely honest about what they want.” His gaze is steady, assessing. “Especially people like you.”

“People like me,” I echo, my nerves prickling. “And what kind of person is that?”

If he calls me a city girl again, I swear to god…

“The kind who shows up out of nowhere, asking questions she already knows the answers to, waving money in the air.” He takes a step closer, crowding me against the counter, enough that my breath hitches. “The kind who watches everything, filing it away. The kind who doesn’t seem to be afraid of all the right things.”

A flush rushes through me and I swallow hard, my breath shallow. This close, I can see the pulse beating in his neck, the yellow streaks in his hazel eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

And I’d like to keep it that way.

“Don’t I?” His voice drops an octave, rough and intimate. “I know desperation when I see it. And I know just what desperation does to a person.”

For a moment, I can’t breathe. Can’t think beyond the heat of his body and the intensity in his eyes.

Then he backs off and goes back to tending to the stew, as if nothing happened.

I stare at him for a moment, my heart slamming hard in my chest, a prickle of perspiration at my brow.

I clear my throat, not wanting to succumb to the awkwardness.

“Have you figured out what route we’re going to take?” I ask, my voice sounding pitchy.

He pauses and glances at me over his shoulder. “Can’t plan a route until you tell me more about your sister.”

Right.

“Okay. Well, what do you want to know?”

“Everything,” he says firmly before he turns back again. “Why she came here. What she was looking for. Where you think she might have gone.”

I sigh and lean back against the counter, not sure where to begin. It’s hard to talk about Lainey, not because I break down in tears (I’ve gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing my emotions), but because it’s impossible to not keep it at surface level. Which means Jensen is going to hear every ugly little detail about our lives and he’s someone who the less he knows the better.

But I launch into it. I talk about Lainey’s obsession with the Donner Party, about her mental health issues, about my mother’s death, then my father’s (though I left out the part of how he died, since I don’t want Jensen to know he was a cop), and how it took a toll on her. Then I talked about the men she was always with, ending with Adam, whom I always had a bad feeling about but couldn’t really articulate.

“A bad feeling?” Jensen asks. “How so?”

I chew on my bottom lip for a moment. “Let’s just say I have experience with certain types of men and he seemed exactly that type. Charming and seemingly easy-going, but controlling and quick to temper. I only met him twice, had them over for dinner, before she started declining and making excuses for him. I started to get the feeling he was isolating her, but it was hard to tell since they were both addicts.”

He nods, still busying himself. “So what do you think happened? Do you think he had something to do with her disappearance?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. As I said, Lainey’s obsession ran deep. Her dreams, the calling—she knew she needed to be here. But it wasn’t just that she wanted to experience what being on the trail would have been like. I don’t think that was it, not this time. It wasn’t historical reenactment, it was something else.”

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