“Let’s go home. I’m hungry. We can pick up some food on the way back.”
My gaze sat heavily on Mike’s face as he rolled his shoulders back.
“Sounds good,” I said as my lips kissed her forehead. “We can cuddle up and watch a movie.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Mike said.
“You keep us updated on everything,” I said. “And I mean everything.”
“Miss Ryan’ll get a phone call every step of the way. Our next step is to bring Mr. Wentmore in for questioning,” Mike said.
“Let’s go home,” Hailey said again. “Please?”
I wrapped my arm around her and ushered her out of the police station, no longer capable of standing there and being told I couldn’t do anything. My body was humming with anger and a nasty taste for revenge. I wanted that asshole to know exactly who he’d messed with. How dare he treat Hailey with that kind of disrespect? How dare he attempt to destroy one of the only other spaces he was advertising his artwork in?
Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
I held Hailey’s hand as we drove through a fast food joint and got ourselves some dinner. We hunkered down onto the couch as I spread a blanket over us while the television mindlessly droned in the background. I had to press Hailey to eat something before I could even think about eating myself, and by the time she got her dinner done, she was already closing her eyes and falling asleep against me.
At least she still felt safe with me, and I’d do anything and everything I needed to in order to make sure it stayed that way.
Chapter 24
Hailey
Things were slowly settling back into place. The police arrested Max for vandalizing the gallery, and we ended up figuring out that he was simply jealous. He was going to be responsible for paying for the work Bryan and his company had put into fixing my gallery, plus he would have to reimburse me for all the paintings he destroyed.
Honestly, it wasn’t shocking to me when I figured out it was him. Art can both inspire and consume. When an artist feels their art isn’t striking the population the way they wish, it can sometimes drive them crazy. Art has a way of bringing people together as well as dividing the masses in times of war and famine, and every time Max walked into my studio I could tell he was allowing his obsession with becoming famous consume him.
I knew I shouldn’t hold his jealousy against him, but part of me was incredibly relieved he was no longer going to come around anymore.
Jennifer Skyles ended up running the story, but there ended up being a catch. Even though she told us she wouldn’t state the fact that John had explicitly died of an overdose, she did insinuate that’s what happened. The article was wonderful until Bryan and I read that John died “because every man will always have his weaknesses.” It wasn’t overt, but for an article that already stated the fact that drug thugs were after me, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
I was shocked at how well Bryan took it, though.
He told me it was more important for him to know the truth and for people to see John’s art than it was to try and blast the truth to the masses. I still had a hard time swallowing the fact that the story had been run with something like that in it, but when I saw the interest the story was already garnering for John’s formal showcase, my anger slowly subsided.
Things sort of felt as if they were back to normal, though Anna was finally moving out. She’d found a place of her own on the other side of town, and she was excited to be moving closer to her part-time job as well as her vocal coach. Bryan and I were helping her move a few things into her apartment, and I was trying not to think about how lonely my place was going to be now.
But Bryan’s question pulled me from my thoughts as he set a box down on Anna’s new kitchen counter.
“Could I ask you guys a question?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Question? We talking? Hold on.” Anna slammed down the box she refused to let Bryan carry and sat on it to catch her breath.
“You good, diva Anna?” I asked.
“Okay. Got it. Let’s go. Question time,” she said breathlessly.
“The last time I had dinner with my parents was just under a couple weeks ago. Usually, I have dinner with them a couple times a month, but the last time we were together, it was sort of finite.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Describe, good sir,” Anna said.
“I simply told them how I felt about how they dealt with John’s death, how my father’s monetary success changed them, and how I didn’t want them to contact me until they could apologize for how they’d acted and to not c