“I should have been more careful, should have guarded my heart against him as much as I did everyone else.”
I didn’t let people in, didn’t let anyone get close. I had what I would call a friendly acquaintanceship with Kat and Maisie and even Madison, but I didn’t have anyone I considered a friend. I shot the shit with Hulu and Terry and even the Ashby men, but whatever I once thought we were, I knew better now.
“I should have been stronger.”
Now that I was about to be a mother, I had to be even stronger. I wouldn’t struggle, that much was true—at least not financially. But I barely remember my own mother, and I didn’t know shit about being maternal and nurturing. I would have to learn like most women did, on the job. With the resources at my disposal, I knew I’d crush being a mother the same way I’d crushed waitressing and hooking. It was all about learning what the customer—the baby in this case—needed and anticipating those needs before shit got too crazy.
Sounds easy enough, right?
I sat back and admired my handiwork for a moment, smiling as I realized just how far I’d come in this world and how much I owed to the woman in front of me. I was just a kid in cut-off jeans and a halter top, and now I was a woman who knew the difference between real silk and discount silk blends. I had an eye for the finer things, and most important of all, I could afford them.
“Thank you, Sadie.” The words came out, unbidden, and a few tears accompanied them.
With one of her delicate hands sandwiched between mine, I gave Sadie a squeeze.
“I hope you know that I think you are the coolest, toughest woman alive, Sadie Ashby. I hope they find the asshole who did this to you and make him pay with his life. I know they will.” It was only a matter of time before they found him and made sure no one else ever would try something like this again. “I hope you wake up soon.”
I stood and left the resting woman with a silent prayer that she would soon wake up. I needed to tell her about the baby.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jasper
A knock sounded on my office door early Sunday morning, and I reached for the forty caliber I kept in my desk drawer.
“What is it?” It wasn’t even noon yet, which meant there shouldn’t be anyone else inside Midnight Mass.
The door opened slowly, and where I half expected to find Mo, Agent Beck was there instead.
“Is this a good time?”
I smiled and leaned back in my plush leather chair before kicking my feet up on the desk just to fuck with a fed.
“That depends. Are you here because you used all your federal government resources to find even a thread on where Jack might be?”
I didn’t need her to answer, but if I did, the guilty look she wore before she glanced away told me everything.
“Maybe.”
“Oh, come on now, Addison. Let’s start with a little honesty.”
She folded her arms and snorted. “Honesty? That’s rich coming from a man whose entire life is about a distinct lack of honesty.”
“How so?” It was a cop’s point of view, I knew, but still, her words had me curious. “What do I do that’s dishonest?”
“You sell drugs.”
“I don’t sell anything but the best damn shepherd’s pie in all of Nevada and loads of booze. But if people didn’t want drugs, dealers wouldn’t have a thriving business, now would they? Maybe it’s time the government stopped trying to regulate what people did with their bodies.”
“I’m not arguing U.S. drug policy with you, Jasper.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Because there is no argument to make. It’s an overreach. Nothing more than a way to keep the private prison industry in business, but you’re not here to talk about that.” No, she was too itchy, too nervous to be here for anything but business. “You have an answer for me.”
Addison nodded reluctantly. Her drooping shoulders and hangdog expression told me the answer before she did. “I do. I want to find my father.”
“And the money?”
“I’ll take the money just in case you decide to fuck me over, but what I want, what I need, is my father.”
“That’s bullshit, but I’ll let it slide since we have a deal.”
Thank fucking Jesus. It was about goddamn time I started to clean some shit off my plate. I stood and rounded the desk, ignoring the way Beck’s blue eyes went round and wide as if I would push her up against the wall and fuck her like she wanted me to. Instead, I held a hand out to her.
“Right?”
Another reluctant nod passed in a moment of silence before Beck put her smaller hand in mine.