"Tell me about the girls who came before me," I said, wanting to understand what exactly happened to them.
"They were all named Josie, all looked like you and all disappeared soon after I met them."
"Why you?" I asked with some frustration.
"They came to me for help."
"Help?" I echoed. "I don't understand that." What did they know that I didn't? "Swear you didn't have anything to do with their disappearance?"
"If you'll trust the word of a half-breed."
There was no self-pity or self-doubt about him, but I almost felt bad for someone who belonged to neither of the worlds he was charged with protecting.
"I'd trust you over Philip," I replied. "I just can't figure out the connection between the other Josies and you."
"You know what I see?" he asked, frustration in his voice. He sat forward, almost near enough for his leg to brush my shoulder. "I see four women who were too much alike not to know each other. Three of them disappeared within two days of visiting me, without telling me who they were afraid of or why all of you seem to be out to find me. I'll ask you, Josie. Why are you scared? Because it's probably the same reason they were."
I shivered, his words sinking in with more clarity and impact than I wanted.
Two days. What put the other girls at the bottom of the well? Their inability to conform to a society they weren't familiar with? Someone becoming suspicious of them? Talking to the sheriff?
The others Carter swore were trying to outmaneuver him in a chess game I wasn't able to see?
My eyes fell to the sheriff's full lips. He was sexy - and impossible to read the way I did everyone else.
"You wanna tell me what's going on before you disappear too?" he added.
I looked away.
"I didn't think so." Quiet anger radiated off him. He rose and paced in the walk space between the sitting area and the door leading to his bedroom, hands on hips.
"I'm sorry. I can't," I said.
"Even if it means you end up dead like the others?"
Ouch. I flinched.
"Look, Josie, I don't know how else to tell you this, but you being here … it's not for the purpose you think it is. It has nothing to do with Running Bear or his brother."
"How do you know that?"
He was quiet, pensive gaze out the window. "Because I do." The sheriff ran his hands through his hair. "Maybe you need help, Josie, and don't want to admit it. I reckon if the other girls ended up dead, someone in that house is after you. I doubt it's your cousin Philip."