Page 15

Chapter

Fifteen

ADON

“Rosy, it’s me.”

The little pixie tries to fly away, but I snag her waist. She spins around and glares at me, her coat flipping open in the wintry wind.

I pull it closed for her and tug her body closer to mine. “Fuck! You were walking too damn fast for me and I’m, like, twice your height.”

Her hands brush mine off, where I’ve got hold of her, with such brusqueness, I’m left annoyed and angry. I thought we were past her pushing me away.

She glares at me. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you.” Holding my palms out to my sides, I try to shake off the ire threatening to make me rage at her insolence.

Despite the puffiness of her coat, she crosses her arms and looks around the space I occupy, but won’t give me a glance. “What about?”

My jaw drops. How could she not know? “Uh, about your family. Seems like it’s a pretty intense situation you have.”

Unexpectedly, her chin trembles when her green eyes finally greet me. “Why didn’t you tell them we were together?”

What in the absolute fuck? The lines across my forehead deepen with bewilderment. “I’m confused. I thought you… I didn’t know we were together.”

One of her purple Converse kicks at the gravel repeatedly as she shakes her head. “We aren’t. I just thought that you thought we were.”

Her intense vulnerability makes me want to tuck her inside my pea coat and take her home with me. Knowledge that her words don’t match what she’s feeling inside makes me question her motives. Why is she like this? What happened to her? Reaching across the cold void between us, my palm grips her arm, but she shrugs me off.

“But we definitely aren’t.” Softer, she mutters, “We aren’t together.”

The silence lingers so long that it becomes louder than the words she’s speaking. Maybe she’s too young to say exactly what’s on her mind or to ask for what she wants. I’m not sure I’m willing to wait around for this push-and-pull game she plays any longer.

As I take in the night sky and a deep, cleansing breath, I wonder if it’s time to head back to the club on Friday nights with reinforced rules. Breaking them seems to have caused us both unnecessary headaches. I should have stuck with them and avoided whatever this drama is.

However, I’m worried about what her father and sister said in the restaurant about the dead woman, Meghan Martinez. Something is happening in the background, and it seems Piper is the center of the trouble, which is fitting for her. The rosy-cheeked girl needs someone looking out for her, because I fear that no one else will. Certainly not herself.

If she can’t ask me for help, then I don’t know how to.

She takes a step back while holding my gaze, and I let my hands drop to my sides in defeat. With a swallow, I manage to say, “I guess we’re not.”

Not even granting me a goodbye, she spins around and heads toward her red-bricked apartment building while I stand in the drizzling rain that’s quickly turning to sleet. The sparkles of ice catch the dimmed streetlamps and hit my cheeks like tears. It hurts to watch her slip away, especially thinking there may have been something between us. Perhaps we could have worked, if she’d only let me in.

Sex seems like a way to keep me from getting to know the real her. Instead of connecting, she’s using it like a weapon against me. It’s her way to keep me strung along, to keep me interested, but not completely satisfied. I hate that.

Piper is the first woman I’ve had some irrational sense of longing for. I think I’ve lost my mind if I’m still thinking we could try to make this work. She’s too young and impulsive. Obviously unstable.

After I see the light flick on in her apartment through the second-story window, I pull my coat up around my ears and start back toward Main Street, skirting through the nearby alley. If she doesn’t want me, that’s fine, but I still feel a need to look out for her while she’s in danger. I’m not buying that the purse incident and shooting were random. I think she’s being targeted, and I need to find out why and by whom .

There’s a war going on inside of me as I slide inside the frigid cabin of my truck, waiting for her father to exit the restaurant. I should walk away from this mission. From her. Piper has pushed me away at every turn. She’s obviously struggling with something internally, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to break down her walls. Or even if I should.

The problem is, the heater blows as hot as the warmth in my soul when I’m in her presence, and my mind won’t let me stop thinking about her. Analyzing her. Hoping she’ll reach for me or call me.

One thing is clear. The reason she seemed so lost and begged me to be her daddy that first night is because hers is a complete piece of shit.

Piper’s father emerges from the entrance with her sister next to him, walking toward the street I’m parked near. The two hug before he gets in his sedan and takes off while I follow, trying to keep three car lengths behind.

He eventually drives to a suburban neighborhood and stops at a small one-story house, then gets out of his car and heads inside. The windows are dark, but in a few seconds, the first lamp glows yellow, the streams illuminating the snowflakes floating onto the sidewalk. Through the large Palladian window in the front, I have a clear view of him shirking off his suit coat, then grabbing some amber liquid in a double glass, and settling in a chair with a tablet. In a few minutes, he laughs at something on the screen.

Would Piper’s own father order a hit on her? He seems ruthless, but a murderer? I’m not sure.

By Christmas, I’ve figured out his patterns. Fortunately, shop business is slow, then we close for a week after the holiday. Avery and Odin mainly want to play with their friends and not hang with Dad. So I cruise around town and follow Greg Hendricks to learn about his routines.

I’m not proud of it, but I attached a GPS tracker to Piper’s car before she picked it up. Just in the name of safety. That’s it.

If I can’t be near her all the time, I can observe where she’s traveling and make sure she gets home at night before I fall asleep in my own bed. That little blip staying in her parking lot provides me more comfort than I care to admit.

Part of me wonders what I’ll do if she drives to someone’s house or shows up at one of the club’s locations, but it hasn’t happened yet.

When the kids aren’t with me, I keep an eye on her from my truck. Her apartment window faces the parking lot at the back, and I have a clear view from the neighboring lot straight into the second story and up to her place. It’s only to make sure she’s alone and safe. That’s all I’m doing.

Okay, once I sent her soup from the Thai place downtown when she seemed to have a cold. She stayed in bed all day, didn’t even go to work, and sneezed when she got up once. But that was it.

And I sent her a Christmas present of Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” album on vinyl. With a record player. Left those in her car and she didn’t even say anything when she picked it up, which Tate informed me of later. Nothing more, though.

Other than a cat toy that I left at her door last night. Two. Two cat toys. Freckles seemed lonely.

Though…I did check on ways to break into her phone, but it seems impossible. That would be a crazy thing to do, right? Even if I were trying to keep her safe?

I wish I was tech savvy.

Am I dressed to the nines, hiding in the back of some young person’s club while watching her dance alone on New Year’s Eve? Yes. But this would be the perfect place for someone to try something with her.

“ That one’s mine. She’s hot,” one of the university kids in front of me yells to his friend standing near the bar as they wait for their drinks. He’s wearing some paisley patterned dress shirt like he couldn’t find something classy to wear.

I sip my watered-down Scotch and eye the two men as they point at Piper, who’s shimmying in a flapper dress, each string of fabric vibrating out from her body like laser beams as she does.

His friend brushes through his brown curls with a hand and replies, “She’d make a good spit-roast, honestly. Petite like that? I’m sure she could fit us both.” They chuckle loudly, and my neck heats until I lean my head from side to side to stretch it.

A blond asshole turns around from the bartender to join in with them. It’s difficult to tell, but he looks like the stepson of the woman who died in the coffee shop. “That girl’s a complete slut. Would avoid unless you dirty assholes want syphilis. Not to mention, I don’t even think she likes dick. Her family’s a mess, but I’m trying to fix it.”

“Oh shit,” the paisley kid says. “That’s Maeve’s sister?”

Yep. Definitely Sean Harrison. He sips his beer and nods at his friend while glancing toward the end of the bar. My eyes follow and spot Maeve talking to a group of girls who look almost identical to her in their short dresses and curled blonde hair.

“Yeah. If her parents get back together, then there’s a chance I can stay with her. But I’m not tainting my future presidential bid with a child of divorce as my wife.” He nods at the two men, enraptured by his words, as if he’s some cult leader. “You know that shit runs through family lines like bad blood.”

The curly-haired kid huffs a laugh. He must be the bold one of the group, because he addresses the leader with a sneer. “Didn’t your stepmom file for divorce?”

Sean’s eyes travel to the center of the room and fall on Piper, who’s now swaying her hips seductively. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

Maeve’s hand slips over his shoulder and the sudden change in his demeanor to doting boyfriend is impressive. Good acting skills. But I don’t like how he looked at my Rosy. My guts churn with trepidation.

No one approaches her the rest of the night, though.

I make sure of it.

The next week, on a cold January morning, I stop by Rainy Day to grab a coffee. Piper’s not there. In fact, I think she gave up coming in after the incident, which may be a good thing.

As I scan the store, I recognize Dennis Harrison entering behind me, and my neck tightens, wondering what he’ll say to me. I just don’t want to have an awkward conversation of, “Thanks for trying to save my dead wife.” What do you say to that?

Oddly, when his brown eyes pass over my figure, there’s no recognition behind them. After a few minutes, I shuffle forward to order my drink and meet his gaze again, but there’s still nothing. Part of me is disappointed. The other…is suspicious. How does one not remember that event in every detail? Know the guy who worked on your wife’s chest for several minutes?

When I get my order, I stand back and pull out my phone. “Hey, Tate? Yeah. I’m going to be a bit late today. Can you hold down things there?”

Tate’s heavy sigh makes me pause. “Yeah, of course. But, uh… Eli didn’t show up this morning.”

I grimace, thinking about my younger brother. I’ve been trying to ignore the patterns, but he seems to be slipping back into his old ways. That’s something for another day.

Right now, I need to tail Professor Harrison.

“Okay. Just let me know when he gets there.”

Me

Get your ass to work. Now.

You want to be fired? Want me to call your PO?

The reply is almost immediate.

Eli

fuck im up im up omw

For the next week, I map out Professor Harrison’s routines. He lives a boring life, though. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. There’re no hidden girlfriends or weird habits. But I also can’t get close enough to watch him during his office hours when his young students visit behind his solid wood door.

The following week, I have the kids, but I still make time to follow Piper’s blip religiously. She hasn’t varied her patterns, and it doesn’t seem she’s taken anyone else home.

Damn . I have it bad.

I’ve resorted to stalking her everywhere. Online. In her home. Checking on her family. All of her acquaintances. Visited the library a few times when I thought she wouldn’t see me. The low point was asking Avery if she was becoming friends with the library assistant and what she found out about her.

I have to stop this, break this off and walk away…

Or toss her over my shoulder and take her for myself, like a fucking caveman.

One of those is definitely going to happen.