Page 169 of Protecting What's Mine

“She has a job?”

“Don’t pretend you know us, Kenzie.”

“Don’t call me Kenzie.”

“I need money, Ken—Mackenzie.”

“That’s no longer my problem. You’ve done nothing but lie to me and use me. Those checks weren’t for you to support a boyfriend and the sister who has meant me nothing but harm.”

“Wendy has had a rough time since Powell died.”

“She locked me in a room for two days when she was ten years old.”

“That’s just sisters being sisters. You’ve always been too sensitive, Kenzie.”

“And you’ve always been a lying alcoholic with no intention of changing.”

Mack hung up as her mother sputtered more lies, more excuses into the phone.

She didn’t have to listen anymore.

A minute later, Linc stalked back inside. “Come on,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“To buy that goddamn video surveillance system I shouldn’t have let you talk me out of.”

57

The day before Thanksgiving, Mack sat gingerly on her office chair and quickly transcribed her notes from her last patient appointment into the portal.

Her lips quirked when she added the note, “Keep up the great work!” Seventy-four-year-old Jimmy McGuire had come in for a long-overdue physical after a come-to-Jesus from his pal Leroy Mahoney. Together, the two fishing buddies had decided to start walking and take a stab at a pescatarian diet. Jimmy had already lost five pounds in two weeks, and Mack was betting his inflammatory markers and cholesterol would be drastically different when he repeated the bloodwork in three months.

With a few minutes to herself, she opened her new handy-dandy home security app on her phone and snickered while she rewatched the backyard camera’s recording of the middle of the night backyard patrol by Linc and Sunshine. Both security officers paused to take a piss synchronized on the lawn before they returned to her bed.

Men.

Her desk phone buzzed. When she reached for it, the chair lurched under her in warning.

She steadied it—and herself—before answering the phone.

“What’s up?”

“You have a couple of walk-ins out here,” Tuesday announced chipperly.

“As in plural? Flu or pink eye?”

Tuesday laughed. “Neither, but you’re definitely going to want to see this.”

Mack eased out of the chair, then gave it a quick kick for good measure.

She was just tucking a sticky note that said “Order a new fucking chair” into her coat pocket when she rounded the corner at the front desk.

“Surprise!”

Mack gaped at Dottie, Win, and Violet Nguyen, who were grinning at her like a JC Penney family portrait. “You guys are early,” she exclaimed even as she was wrapped in Dottie’s strong hug. It always lasted a beat longer than Mack expected, and it always made her feel…safe.

“You look so official,” Dottie squealed. She was an inch or two shorter than Mack and wore her hair in a short, curly, face-framing ’do. The woman loved turtlenecks and themed earrings. She was rocking both today.