She found herself shaking her head. “I really doubt it. I have yet to recognize a single other adult I encountered back then. Jerry was a special case, and that was partly because Mom had kept a couple pictures of him. Plus, I guess he was more distinctive-looking. He hadn’t changed that much, either. This other guy…” She shrugged. “He could have lost his hair, gained fifty pounds, who knows?”
Jane sighed and closed her notebook. “Well, we have a basic description and we know he was a professional man.”
“Of sorts. He could have worked in a store or sold insurance or something like that.” Cait grimaced. “What if it was Sunday morning, and he’d planned to attend church?”
“But from what you say, he didn’t have the muscles of a working man and didn’t have the tan to suggest he got out of an office very often.”
“That’s true. I’m sorry. I wish I could have been more help.”
“Considering you’re trying to remember something that happened eighteen years ago—or is it nineteen?—I’d say you have amazing recall.”
“It’s because I did something daring.”
Jane looked intrigued. “Pressing your hands into the concrete.”
“Yes. I…wasn’t a daring child.” At home, she had tried so very hard to go completely unnoticed. She must have been all but a wraith. Suddenly impatient with herself, she said, “Do you have any more questions?”
“No.” The lieutenant departed with a reminder to call if she remembered anything else.
She was grateful to have Jane Vahalik coming to ask her questions and not one of the detectives who worked under her, all men from what Cait understood. She knew perfectly well why she rated a lieutenant and not a mere detective. They must all be eager to please Colin.
Was there any chance she and Jane could be friends when this was all over? Cait would really like to know how a woman not that much older than she was had come to be so confident that she could thrive in a workplace environment brimming with testosterone. Cait couldn’t relate it to her own profession, where no one carried a gun.
Of course, it was entirely possible she wouldn’t still be in Angel Butte to make friends. She couldn’t live at a constant level of fear. Leaving might be best. No matter what, she couldn’t imagine how she could balance the job with a relationship with Noah. Or how she could continue to work with him once they no longer had a relationship.
She hadn’t used her head where he was concerned. After Noah, she thought, I really will swear off men.
Cait already knew he was going to hurt her more than Blake ever had.
* * *
EVEN KNOWING IT wasn’t helping his cause, Noah scowled at Cait from where he stood in her office doorway. “I’d have sat in with you if you’d called me.”
Cait gazed coolly at him. “Lieutenant Vahalik and I did fine. I didn’t need moral support. It’s not as if she suspects me of some dire crime.”
He glanced over his shoulder, then stepped in and shut the door even though he knew there already had to be gossip circulating about them. “What did she ask you?”
She rolled a pen between her fingers in one of the few nervous gestures he’d seen her make. “She hoped I’d remember the other man.”
From that day. As Noah had stood in that backyard earlier, his gaze kept going to the six-foot board fence not twenty feet from the edge of what had been the patio. What if they’d seen her? No, he knew—she’d have died. They could so easily have added her to the open grave. God. He was terrified thinking about it, even though the risk to that curious little girl had come and gone so long ago.
“Do you?” Remembered fear roughened his voice.
She shook her head. “Not very well. As I told the lieutenant, the only adult I’ve recognized since I got here is Jerry. I saw this guy once. I didn’t pay that much attention to him.”
“You know how important it is.”
Suddenly she looked mad. “Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“Damn it, Cait, your life could depend on recognizing this man if you come face-to-face! How long did you watch them? An hour? More? How can you not remember him?”