All She Ever Wanted - Barbara Freethy [112]
Cole didn't bother to reply. He didn't intend to make any promises he couldn't keep, and he'd do whatever it took to find Malone. But first ...
Cole waited until they were out of the police station and halfway down the block before he swung around and punched Dylan in the face.
Dylan staggered backwards. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he yelled, putting one hand over his eye.
"I was going to ask you the same question," Cole said, shaking out his right hand, which was stinging from the force of his blow. "I saw the closet, Dylan. I saw the photos of Emily. I know you were obsessed with her. Don't even try to deny it."
"You broke into my apartment?"
"That's beside the point. Now, are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you?" Cole's hand clenched once more into a fist.
Dylan took a step back. "It's not what you think."
"You don't know what I think. I don't even know what I think." Cole shook his head. "You look like the guy I grew up with, but I don't know you at all, do I? Did you and Emily ..." He couldn't bring himself to say it. "God! I trusted you with her. I told you to take care of her. Watch out for her. Make sure she was safe. And all the time, you were—"
"I did take care of her, and we didn't do anything wrong," Dylan said. "We were friends. That's it. She never knew I loved her. Okay? She never knew."
Cole heard the raw pain in Dylan's voice, saw the agony in his old friend's eyes, and felt his anger begin to seep away. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Finally, he asked, "Why didn't you tell me how you felt?"
Dylan shrugged. "It wasn't your business."
"She was my sister."
"That still didn't make it your business. Emily had a right to her privacy. Your family watched over her like a hawk. When she got here, she was finally free. I couldn't take that away from her by reporting back to you. And I didn't want to take it away from her. She was happier than I'd ever seen her."
It hurt Cole to know that Emily had been happier here in Santa Cruz than she'd been at home with the family, but in the last week he'd come to a better understanding of why she might have felt that way. He just wished she'd trusted him enough to confide in him. "I might have been able to help," he said aloud. "With my parents. I might have been able to talk them into giving Em more freedom at home if I'd known she was feeling so trapped. She should have told me. You should have told me." He paused. "Why didn't you ever tell her how you felt about her?"
Dylan dug his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "I never thought it was the right time. And I didn't want things to change between us. I didn't want it to get awkward and uncomfortable. Then it was too late."
"Then it was too late," Cole echoed, as he let out a long, weary sigh.
"We can talk about this later," Dylan said.
"Right now I need a ride back to the university. Can you take me?"
"On one condition. You tell me why you think Greg Martin is Garrett Malone."
* * *
"Are you sure Diane Thomas is married to Professor Martin?" Natalie asked, still pondering Laura's latest bombshell as they walked across campus toward the Panhellenic Offices where Diane worked. "The last names aren't the same. And I don't remember her mentioning her husband."
"She told me once that she'd kept her maiden name when she got married," Laura replied. "At the time I thought that was so sophisticated." She paused. "I could be wrong though. Maybe it was some other professor. She was very closemouthed about her private life. What are we going to do? We can't just walk into her office and ask her if her husband wrote a best-selling novel about us."
"I think we should do exactly that," Madison said. "It's a little late to beat around the bush."
"Madison is right," Natalie agreed as they entered the building. "We can't afford to waste any more time. We need answers now." She paused for a moment outside Diane's door. "Before we go in, I just want to say I'm glad we're doing this together. It