Her Detective's Secret Intent

Pain sliced through her and she had to stop letting it in.

“She said he’s recently been diagnosed with terminal lung disease, asbestos-induced, probably due to fighting fires in older buildings...”

Her father was dying?

She stared at Tad. Was that true? Could it really be true? Dare she believe there’d be an end to this madness? Or was it him, up to something else to get her to come home? Playing on her sympathy?

“He’s on vacation, according to his staff,” Tad was saying, and fear pounded through Miranda.

“Gail suspects he’s actually in for treatment.”

He wasn’t. He was in Santa Raquel. Following her. Biding his time. She could feel it.

She couldn’t look at Tad. And couldn’t help looking at him. He knew her father.

Chantel asked for Gail’s contact information and Tad gave it to her. “Let me get this to Sam,” the detective said, going to the door to call out to her coworker, who came over immediately.

She obviously wasn’t leaving Miranda alone with Tad. Before Miranda could process how she felt about that, the thought of being uncomfortable alone with the man she’d trusted with her life, she heard her son’s voice.

“Is this where they keep the bad guys?” He sounded curious, maybe a little excited, not at all worried, and her heart leaped. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them quickly away.

As she watched the doorway, needing him to appear, she could hear a male voice, couldn’t make out the words, and then, closer, and louder, Ethan again. “Can I see where they keep the bad guys?”

Standing, she forced herself to remain calm, and when Ethan came into the room, didn’t rush to him, didn’t grab him into her arms.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Tad. They said I get to tour the police station today, while you do your meeting that you do here every week. Kinda like school outta school.”

They were making sure her son wasn’t scared, turning his trip to the station into an adventure. She felt on the brink of tears again, but managed a smile. “That’s right. And then you and I, we’ll go out to lunch, okay?”

She had to give him normalcy.

“Can I have a hamburger and french fries?”

“I guess.”

“Can Tad come, too?”

“I’ve got some work to do, buddy, but we’ll meet up later, okay?” Tad preempted her response, as though he didn’t trust her not to diss him to her son. She wouldn’t. Not for his sake, but for Ethan’s.

The detective who’d brought her son in, Sam, had a couple of quiet words with Chantel while Miranda was speaking with Ethan, and then he led the little boy away.

“There’s a room with toys and a television down the next hall. After they show Ethan around a bit, they’ll sit with him in there until we’re done.”

They were done there, as far as Miranda was concerned.

“We’ve put a call in to Lila Mantle,” Chantel was saying, naming the managing director of The Lemonade Stand. “And to Sara Edwin, too. They’ll be ready for you and Ethan...”

She wasn’t going to The Lemonade Stand. “There’s no point,” she said. “We’d only be prolonging the inevitable. My father’s done nothing actionable at this point. There’s no proof of any abuse. It’s my word against his—in a North Carolina court because that’s where the crimes took place—and his reputation is golden. If I go to the Stand, we’d only be playing a waiting game with him.”

It wasn’t as though her abuser had recently abused her. They weren’t getting her out of his home, and they weren’t on a manhunt to arrest him.

“But you’d be safe, both of you,” Tad spoke up. Miranda wanted to ask why he was still there. He’d given them the information he had.

This was no longer his business.

And she no longer trusted him.

“Excuse me, Chantel?”