There were even a couple of grainy ones of him in the shower. And grainy or not, that boy was hot. I leaned in to study the steely curve of his ass, the fluid lines of his muscles.

“Those are a personal favorite of mine as well.”

I jumped at the sound of Elaine’s voice and continued on with my perusal, calculating the odds of my getting away with breaking and entering here later to steal those. In the display cases were different items that had supposedly belonged to Reyes. From prison uniforms, a comb, and an old watch to a few books and a couple of postcards he’d apparently received. I looked closer. There was no return address on either of the postcards. Drifting farther down the case, I noticed several handwritten pages splayed along one shelf. The writing was crisp and fluid and reportedly Reyes’s.

“He has gorgeous handwriting,” Elaine said, her tone a little smug. She seemed to be reveling in the fact that she’d floored me. “We’re still unraveling the mystery of Dutch.”

I froze. Did she just say Dutch? After a long moment, I recovered, straightened, and placed my best look of nonchalance on her. Thankfully, Cookie stood behind her and off to the side, so the woman couldn’t see the wide-eyed expression on her face.

“Dutch?” I asked.

“Yes.” She sauntered forward and pointed. “Look closely at the script.”

I bent back down and read. Dutch. Over and over. Every line, every word, was simply Dutch repeated again and again. So, what looked like a letter was actually my nickname en masse. The last page was a little different. It was an actual drawing, word art, again with the Dutch insignia. My heartbeats tumbled into each other, as if racing for a finish line.

“Do you know how old these are?” I asked after a few calming breaths.

“Oh, several years. Once Rey figured out a guard was stealing them for me, he stopped writing them.”

A photograph sat at the end of the case and was quite possibly the most compelling of them all. It was a black-and-white of Reyes sitting on the cot in his cell, an arm thrown over a bent knee. He’d laid his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and had the most forlorn expression on his face.

My chest constricted. I could understand why he didn’t want to go back to prison, but I still couldn’t allow him to die. Especially with what Blue had said, and Pari.

This place, this museum, was simply overwhelming. Here I thought Reyes was all mine, my little secret, my treasure to have and to hold till death did us part, and all this time he’d had hordes of women pining after him. Not that I could blame a single one, but the sting bit hard nonetheless. Cookie remained stock-still, wondering what I was going to do.

“So, you don’t know who Dutch is?” I asked, fishing for more information.

“One of the guards tried to find out for me. I’d offered him a hefty sum, but by then Reyes had caught on to me and the guard was fired. Reyes is very intelligent. You know he has two degrees. Earned them in prison.”

“Really? That’s amazing,” I said, feigning ignorance. If she figured out I knew more about Reyes than I was letting on, she would likely become a pit bull to get at it. Or she would offer me a lot of money that I wasn’t sure I could turn down. Especially now that Reyes was doing his darnedest to get on my bad side. “You couldn’t possibly give me the name of your current informant?”

“Oh, no. That would be a breach of confidentiality. And I’ve already been warned to cease and desist my exploits. I can’t risk getting this person fired or myself arrested.”

Did she not realize what a private investigator did? “Why did you ask me if I knew Reyes well?”

She chuckled, completely oblivious of the fact that deep down inside, I wanted her dead. “Reyes doesn’t see anyone. Ever. And trust me, dozens of women have tried over the years. He gets more mail than the president. But he never reads a single one.”

That made my innards happy.

“Really, this is all on the site. I try to warn newbies who visit that he won’t see them or read their letters. But each and every fan thinks she will be the one he falls in love with. They have to try, I suppose. I certainly can’t blame them. But of all the women who’ve tried, I’m the only one he’s ever seen.”

I could feel the lie all the way to my marrow. She’d never laid a na**d eye on the man. That made my innards happy, too.

“So, how did you find out about Reyes?” she asked, finally growing suspicious of my presence.

“Oh, I’m on a case, and his name came up.”

“Really? In what capacity?”

I tore my eyes off him and turned to her. “I can’t really say, but I do need to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions?”

“Yes. For example, do you know where he is at the moment?”

She offered a patient smile. “Of course. He’s in a long-term-care facility in Santa Fe.”

“Oh,” I said. Cookie cast a sideways glance in my direction, encouraging me to put the woman in her place. Just a little. “Actually, he was scheduled to be taken off life support last week.”

This time, she froze. I’d surprised her, and it took her a moment to recover. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what my resources have told me,” she said, blinking those false eyelashes repeatedly.

“Well, then, you need to find new resources. He was scheduled to die, Ms. Oake. Instead, he woke up and hightailed it out of the medical facility.”