Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You never contacted him when your son was sick?” Jack continued.
She shook her head.
That was news to me.
Why hadn’t she done that?
“I had my doctor call him. I couldn’t call him since I had the restraining order out against me,” Mia explained.
Her face flushed as she said that, and Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“Why does he have a restraining order against you?” Jack asked.
Mia sighed.
“I slept with the father of the children I was watching. I had just started at the hospital, and I was still working for the man that hired me to watch his kids, along with another part-time job, while I waited for the hospital to finish the hiring process. I’d told him I was leaving to start full time with the hospital, as a nurse, and he decided to throw me a going away party,” she said to her lap. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I got drunk. I don’t know. The next morning, I woke up and I was in bed with him…and I left.”
She looked beyond embarrassed that she was having to have this conversation.
I was the only one surprised by it all, though.
Jack, Nico and Luke looked like they knew the entire sordid tale.
“And you got pregnant,” Jack confirmed.
“Yes,” she agreed almost unwillingly. “I went back to tell him about a month later, and he said to get rid of it. Said that he would have no part in raising Colt, and that if I knew what was good for me, I’d get rid of it while I still could.”
“You didn’t,” Luke said.
She finally looked up to him.
“I don’t even know how I did that…got drunk,” she said. “I haven’t had a drink in years. I wasn’t a big drinker to begin with. He kept handing me drinks, and I kept taking them. They tasted so good. I didn’t even realize that there was alcohol in them. What kind of stupid person doesn’t realize there’s alcohol in their drink?”
“A lot of people. There’s drinks out there that taste exactly like a candy drop in the form of a beverage. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many drinks there are where you can’t tell there’s alcohol in them,” Nico said, trying to help her out.
She shrugged. “I tried to go back to Edwin and tell him about Colt…about his leukemia. But he said if I came on his property again he’d sue me for anything he could think of…and he probably would have, too. He’s got the cash to do it. His wife is a millionaire in her own right. I’m sure the two of them together would make a formidable pair.”
“Fuck,” Jack said harshly.
She winced. “Yeah. It wasn’t my finest moment. I tried to contact him one more time, hoping that he’d reconsider, but he didn’t. After that, I was slapped with a court order to stay at least five hundred feet from him at all times. It was awesome.”
Jack knew all of this already.
Hell, I knew before he even said he’d done it that he’d run a background check on her weeks ago.
In fact, he probably knew more about her than I did.
“Why don’t we just cut the bullshit, Jackopa, and you tell Luke and Nico what you’ve found on your end? There’s a reason you showed up at my house, conveniently placed the paper exactly where I was sure to see it and woke me up so early. You know something, so enough already and just spill it,” I called him on his shit.
He sighed and dropped his act.
“I just wanted to get all of my ducks in a row,” he said.
“And what’d you find?” Luke rumbled, rubbing his face.
He must’ve been up all night.
I would’ve normally felt bad for him, but he wanted this job, and it came with a lot of responsibilities.
Like keeping my girl here overnight.
“How long have you been here?” I asked shortly.
Mia looked at her watch.
It was then I saw she was already dressed and ready for work.
“About a half hour,” she said.
My brows furrowed.
“Then how in the hell is it already in the paper?” I asked. “How do they even know about this?”
“I can help with that,” Jack said, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket. “You asked me to look into those articles that’ve been showing up on the firefighters and the calls y’all have run before any news is released to the public.”
Luke shot me a look.
I’d asked him to look into it, too.
But he’d been slower about it than Jack had.
I was just covering my bases, though.
“Same chick, I mean reporter, has written all the articles,” he said. “Ran a background check on her and her financials. Real interesting stuff. It seems that she’s been getting a weekly deposit. They conveniently started two days before the first article she published about the trailer park fire. And she’s been getting one a week since then, all from the same person. This person.”