Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“If at any time you think you need to come out of that room, you give me the sign we agreed on, okay?” he urged.
I slid my hand up his chest to come to a rest against his throat, thumb swiping over his Adam’s apple.
“Yes, dear,” I teased.
He quickly kissed me, then said, “Go get ’em, tiger.”
I steeled my spine and walked into the room.
AUDEN
“Do you think she’ll get him to talk?” Evador asked.
“Undeniably,” I answered.
The last week, ignoring life, had been great.
It was almost like normal.
Almost like we had it all.
But there was this one last thing we had to take care of, and it was sitting across the table from the woman that I wanted to be my forever.
Maven didn’t look nervous.
She looked calm as she took the seat across from the man she’d always known as her father.
She crossed her arms over her chest and started, not wasting any time.
“Why did you do it?” she asked quietly.
Brock Austin, the man who’d been the talk of the town for years on his harsh and punishing order for law for Dallas, looked worn down. Broken.
Less than on top of the world.
“I didn’t do it,” he lied.
Maven rolled her eyes. “If we’re going to play these stupid games, I have a bakery to run.”
She went to stand up, but Brock stopped her with a harshly barked, “Don’t go.”
Maven continued to stand and walked toward the door, uncaring about her ‘father.’
“I did it because you looked like her.”
Maven froze, her hand on the door.
“Looked like whom?” she asked, voice raspy.
“Like my daughter,” he said. “She drowned in the river, then there you are, the answer to all my prayers.”
She turned to stare at him, back leaning against the door of the interrogation room.
“Explain,” she urged.
Brock looked down at his hands.
“Two years before you showed up, the answer to my prayers, my daughter drowned in that river,” he said. “I showed up there, on the anniversary of her death, in the same exact spot she died. That day, almost to the hour of when she drowned, you showed up in those bathrooms. You looked exactly like her. I don’t know what happened. I just… disassociated. I knew it was wrong, but in my head, you were her. I convinced myself for years that you were. My nanny at the time of Maven’s death, you know her as Vickie, helped me cover it up.”
Maven’s mouth didn’t fall open, but mine did.
“And how did she help you cover it up?” Maven asked carefully, leaning against the door so heavily now that if I’d opened it from the other side, she’d fall right out onto her butt.
It was almost as if she could sink right out of the room if she tried hard enough.
“She was the one who wanted a son,” he said. “Tit for tat. She covers up for my taking you, and I cover up for her taking Scott.”
I heard Maven’s inhale from here.
“She took Scott?” Maven asked carefully.
“From the hospital,” Brock confirmed. “She was in medical school. Was on the maternity unit when a baby was dropped off using the Safe Haven laws. Instead of reporting it, she took him home. A couple of days later, when the mom came back looking for the baby after she’d come to her senses, no one could find the kid. A statewide hunt went out for him. The kid was some senator’s daughter’s kid. Turned out we both had something to lose, so we got married and made our lives together.”
“And Dorsey?” Maven pushed.
Brock shrugged. “Safe Haven law again. Though this time nobody cared to look for Dorsey. Seemed fitting that we take her in.”
I just shook my head, stunned.
“My parents looked for me every day of the rest of their lives,” Maven whispered. “How could you do that to another human being? To two? Do you realize how devastated they were?”
“I was the one to send them on wild goose chases when they got too close with their private investigators,” he said.
A sick feeling lodged in my gut. One completely new and foreign.
This man. This sick fuck of a man, in charge of a police force that would do his bidding no questions asked.
What else had he done that was wrong?
Had I unknowingly played a part in his schemes?
Maven, proving that we were on the same wavelength, asked, “And did you do anything else? Cover up anything else? Abuse your authority?”
“No,” he admitted. “I couldn’t draw attention to myself or you. I couldn’t have you taken away from me.”
“Is that why you sabotaged my business?” she asked.
“I didn’t want anyone knowing who you were. Just one single person, knowing the right people, would’ve been able to expose you. Me,” he said. “The only way I knew to keep us both safe was to force you to quit before you got too high profile.”