Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
I looked to my dad, and I wasn’t done.
Far from it.
“Yes, we had your love and support, and it meant everything, Dad. Everything. I don’t know where Liam and I would be without it. But you know damn well, it’s not the same. It’s not the same as a mom and dad living under one roof raising their child. You could take my car to have the oil changed, but you did so much, I couldn’t ask you to, even though I had no time to do it myself, but it had to be done. You couldn’t pop by the grocery store with a tired four-year-old to pick up something you forgot to buy when you were there the day before. I had to drag Liam to the store and heft him up into the seat and get what we needed and get my boy home and fed and in bed at a decent hour. Then, dead on my feet, hit my computer to do my coursework. I needed him. We needed him. And he was there. But he still was a ghost. So I’m mad. I get it. Your point is made. You think I need to get over it. But you’ve gotta let me be mad for as long as it takes, and whatever shakes out after that, you’re gonna have to live with. Because for sixteen years, I’ve been living for whatever Darius Tucker felt was right. Now I’m going to make my own damned decisions about my own damned life. And he’s gonna have to live with whatever those are too.”
I got out what I wanted to say, then before anyone could utter a word, I hightailed it to my bedroom and slammed the door.
* * * *
Sometime later, when I sensed the hubbub was gone (and frankly, when I could no longer resist the lure of the smell of cookies baking), I went back downstairs.
There was a tin of cookies on the island along with a note from my son that said they’d all gone to the hospital to visit his dad, and it’d be cool if I joined them.
I didn’t join them.
I ate one of Dorothea’s cookies.
The instant it touched my tongue, memories flooded me. Of her, and Mister Morris, and lost youth, and wasted years, and dying hope, and as mad as I was, I hoped with all my heart these weren’t the first cookies she made for my son.
I really wanted to cry.
But I didn’t.
I grabbed two more cookies, made myself some tea and went up to my room with my book.
Chapter Ten
Stupid Stuff
“Explain to me again why I’m doing this,” Toni, standing at my side, whispered.
“Because I told you what I was doing, and you told me I was a damn fool, then I told you I was still doing it, and you said I’d be a bigger fool if I went alone, then I repeated I was doing it, and you made a big show of acting beleaguered, then you came with me,” I reminded her.
“On the record, you are a damned fool.”
“This client is hinky,” I told her something else I’d already told her.
“How is that your responsibility?”
“I don’t have a job if the attorneys I work for get disbarred.”
“So move jobs.”
“I don’t want to move jobs. I like my job.”
“So ignore the hinky.”
“I’m curious and I have to know. If I have the information, I can make an informed decision. Are the attorneys I’m working for doing something illegal? If yes, look for another job, even though I like my job. If no, stay in a job I like without my headspace being taken up with a client who’s hinky.”
We both jumped a mile when a woman’s voice remarked, “I know who can find out if your clients are hinky or not.”
We were both staring at the two people who had snuck up to us in the dark hall of the office building where Toni and I were lurking after having hung out in the bathroom for an hour, waiting for the place to close down.
One of them was Ally Nightingale.
The other was a very well-healed Darius Tucker.
His gaze was locked on me.
He looked good, so good, too good.
Did God hate me?
What did I do?
Really, I wanted to know.
Ally made a move, which meant I was forced to rip my gaze from Darius and watch her jerk a thumb to herself, then over her shoulder at him.
“Private investigators,” she concluded.
Not news since I already knew it, and now Liam talked about it all the time, proud as all hell Darius had gone to work at Lee’s investigation firm after he got out of the drug business and now he was a hotshot PI.
“You take Toni home, I got Malia,” he ordered low.
Uh-oh.
I wasn’t at one with that plan.
“Wait,” I said.