Excerpt of Included!

JOHN HART“You dated him?”“We went out a few times. Motorcycle races on the parkway. Late nights inCharlotte, dancing at the clubs. He was fearless, charming in a way. But Iwouldn’t go where he wanted to go.” She lifted her chin. Her eyes glittered,hard and proud.“You wouldn’t sleep with him?”“That was part of it. The start. Then he got crazy. Wanted to spend our livestogether, talked about having kids.” She rolled her eyes. “True love, if you canbelieve that.”“And you weren’t interested.”She put her eyes on mine, and her meaning was unmistakable. “I’m waitingfor someone.”“That’s why he called me.”“He wanted me to know that you weren’t coming back. He thought that ifyou told me that yourself, I might actually believe it. He said I was wasting mylife waiting for something that would never happen.”“Jesus.”“Even if you’d done what he wanted, come home and told me face-to-face,it wouldn’t have made a difference.”“That night you took Danny’s bike ...?”She shrugged. “Sometimes I just need to see the dotted line go solid white.Danny didn’t like me doing it without him. I took the bike all the time. I justnever got caught.”“Why do you think Dolf may have killed him?”She tensed. “I don’t want to talk about that.”“We need to.”She looked away.“He hit you,” I said. “Didn’t he? Danny got mad when you told him no.”It took her a minute. “I laughed at him. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”“And he hit you?”“Once, but it was pretty hard.”“Damn it.”“He didn’t break anything, just bruised me. He was immediately sorry. I hithim back and hit him harder. I told Dolf as much.”254