When Caleb dropped Kira off at her apartment, he was obviously distracted. His fingers drummed the steering wheel. He fiddled with the car radio. He appeared to have a difficult time looking at her. Any attempt at small talk was further interrupted by Kira’s cell phone ringing.

“It’s my father,” she said, seeing his name on the screen of her phone.

“Anything wrong?” Caleb asked.

“Not sure.” Kira pressed the button. “Hey Dad, I’m headed over now and will be there soon. What’s up?”

“Don’t worry about coming over,” he said in his big, rumbling voice.

“Isn’t Mom going out with her friend?”

“Their dinner has been postponed until tomorrow. Gloria rescheduled. Said her daughter needs some help tonight with the grandkids.”

Relief swept through Kira. At least Mom wasn’t doing anything ‘unusual’.

“I’ll come tomorrow, then. Same time?”

“Yes, please. See you then, sweetheart,” her dad said. “Have a good night.”

Kira relayed the news to Caleb who didn’t say much as they parked at her apartment complex. He glanced over his shoulder as if checking for traffic, but the parking lot was quiet at the moment. She waited to see if he’d restate his invitation for dinner now that it was obvious she wouldn’t be helping her father tonight but after a couple of moments of silence, she lifted the latch on the car door.

“See you around, then,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Inside, she was screaming with frustration at his sudden, aloof behavior.

“I’ll call you, Kira,” Caleb said, finally jumping out of the driver’s seat to come around and open her door.

Even so, he didn’t try to kiss her as he’d done that afternoon on the picnic blanket. Just a brief embrace at her front door, a quick wave, and the sound of his feet against the concrete stairs back to the parking lot.

She leaned over the railing, watching the headlights snap on and his Lexus engine flare to life.

“Don’t you dare go off on a secret mission tonight, Mr. Davenport,” Kira muttered. “Not without me.”

Before she could think it through, she clattered back down the stairs as Caleb’s red tail-lights cruised through the lot. At the exit to the main road, his blinker came on, indicating he planned to turn left.

Kira jumped into her own car, put it into gear, and followed him.

It didn’t take long before Caleb’s car exited Interstate 25 to take Highway 285.

She followed him for another few miles, and then watched in disbelief as Caleb took the next exit for the road to Littleton and Englewood.

“Why are you going to Littleton?” Kira said out loud. She slowed to take the upcoming exit so she could turn around and go back home. “Who lives there?”

Cold with apprehension, she turned on the heat in her battered Honda. Who had been on the other end of that phone call he’d received?

Now Kira was adrift. No more evening plans. No more Caleb. The magic of the afternoon picnic and the piano room was gone, leaving only a lingering dejection.

She couldn’t go home to an empty apartment. It was too depressing.

Taking a different route back into the city, she pulled into Rossi’s and parked.

When she got inside, Jan was waiting to seat customers. “What are you doing here? It’s Saturday night. I thought you’d be on a hot date with Caleb Davenport.”

Kira made a face. “Right now, a decadent dessert is what I need. About eight hundred calories. With whipped cream.”

“How about the chocolate hot fudge lava cake?”

“Perfect. I might need two.”

Jan seated her with a laugh. “I’ll bring you a strong cup of coffee, too.”

“No, that’ll just keep me awake. But I’ll take a diet coke.”

Jan disappeared into the dessert corner and Kira tore apart a napkin, trying to settle her nerves, while she listened to Jan pop the cake into the oven and set the timer.

A few minutes later, she set the cake and ice cream with heaping spoonfuls of whipped cream in front of Kira. “Enjoy, honey, and I hope you don’t get sick.”

‘I’m already sick,” Kira said in a low voice.

“Wish I could sit and commiserate, but unfortunately, I have customers.”

“No problem. Go back to your diners. I will indulge in decadent chocolate pleasure.”

No sooner had Kira taken the first big bite, watching the hot fudge “lava” pouring out onto her plate, than a voice spoke behind her, “Hey, Kira.”

She twisted in her chair and blinked in surprise. “Troy, what are you doing here?”

“Dinner with a potential client. Or seller, I should say.”

Kira glanced about. “Where are they now?”

“Oh, they left after I paid the bill.” Troy laughed.

“Did it go poorly?”

“Oh, no. It’s all good, but then I spotted you sitting here all by your lonesome. Didn’t you have a—a meet-up with Caleb?” His voice hesitated, as if he hoped he wasn’t sticking his foot in his mouth.

“You mean a date?” Kira raised her eyebrows.

Troy’s face turned a light shade of pink. “Yeah a date. Guess I thought you’d still be with him.”

“Nope. He got a phone call and took off.” She glanced into his eyes to gauge his reaction. “For Littleton.”

Troy’s expression widened, but he tried to make a quick recovery. “Uh, Littleton, huh?” he said vaguely.

“Troy, please sit down.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“It’s just me and the lava cake,” Kira said, giving him her fiercest look, and ordering him with her eyes to take the seat opposite hers.

His expression was sheepish as he slid into the booth and leaned his elbows on the table. “I have a few minutes.”

Streetlights flickered on through the restaurant windows and darkness settled over the city. Kira’s melancholy was quickly turning into despair.

“Is there another girl?” she asked bluntly. “Another woman Caleb is seeing?”

Troy sucked in his breath. His mouth opened and closed.

“Give it to me straight, Troy. I’m not going to let Caleb jerk around my heart. I have too much going on with my own family, my own problems—”

Troy held up a hand. “Stop right there. No, he is not seeing another woman. That would be nuts. He’s crazy about you, Kira. He has been ever since high school.”

Kira covered a sudden smile with her hand. She swirled her spoon in the chocolate. The ice cream was melting into a puddle. “Here,” she said, pushing the plate toward him. Eat this, I can’t swallow another bite.”

“Okay,” Troy said, unwrapping a napkin around the extra set of silverware lying on the table. He took a bite, but his brown eyes were wary.

“Where is Caleb going in Littleton? He barely got me home before heading straight there—after a pretty perfect date this afternoon.” Kira heard the pleading in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Kira, it’s not for me to tell you. Ask Caleb.”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Just ask him. When he’s not rushing down there on an emergency, he’ll tell you. Force him to. I know he’s mortified about it.”

“But I’ve tried to ask about his personal life and he always shuts me down.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but he really does care for you, Kira. It’ll be hard for him, but if he doesn’t he’s a bigger fool than I thought. At least when it comes to girls,” Troy stopped and quickly amended his comment. “No, only when it comes to you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He’s put all of his eggs—his hopes—into one basket the last ten years. Finding you. Returning the necklace. And hoping you might fall in love with him, too. He’s never gotten over what he did to you. You’re the girl who got away, you know?”

Kira shook the emotion out of her eyes. “You guys are crazy.”

“We all have one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The girl who got away. Every single one of us. Ryan, Brandon, Adam, Caleb.”

“You too, Troy?”

“Me, too,” he admitted ruefully.

“You guys are all crazy.”

Troy pursed his lips, nodding. “Yep. Can’t deny that.”

“In another sense, that’s really sweet.”

He held her eyes in a blunt gaze. “Don’t let Caleb get away without talking. That’s the hardest for him. Like I said, he’s embarrassed and ashamed, and it goes all the way back to high school. Actually, before high school. Most of his life.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is to him, unfortunately.”

“Alright, if I can’t drag it out of you, I’ll drag it out of Caleb.”

“Good, I hope you do. If he doesn’t talk, I’ll personally wallop him.” Troy wagged his eyebrows and that made Kira grin. “He’d be an idiot not to confide in you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Troy rose, throwing a twenty on the table.

Kira protested. “I can pay for my own monolithic lava cake.”

“Too late. I ate more than half.”

The atmosphere was quiet after Troy left and Kira stared out the dark restaurant window, her brain numb and exhausted. Even so, she was still desperate to know the truth of the enigma that was Caleb Davenport.

She was almost home when she had a sudden epiphany. An image of the exit sign she’d seen Caleb take flashed across her eyes. One block down the exit to South Kipling Street took someone directly past the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution. When most people thought of Littleton, it was a bedroom community, a benign suburb of Denver. But that’s not all there was in the Littleton/Englewood area.

Only one institution in Littleton would make a man in love fight tooth and nail not to admit he had a personal relationship with—the prison system.

Did this have something to do with Caleb’s uncle the housing swindler?