“As I was saying, Bobby. Hollister had some interesting things to say about you. Granted, he solved a number of cases with the evidence you gave over the months following your arrest, so perhaps he had reason to be partial, but he said if any of the kids he brought in had a chance at turning it around, he’d bet on you.”

She was watching me now. I could feel it, but I stared at the table top. It was some cheap kind of fake wood, typical cop shop décor. Maybe I’d start comparing all the cop shops I ended up in. I had Indiana under my belt – long story – Kentucky, and now California. Three out of fifty states.

“Why didn’t you just grab the kid?” she asked softly.

“What kid?” Witter asked.

Paper rustled. I stared harder at the table.

As the tension in the air grew thick and heavy, I scraped my nail over a minuscule indentation in the fake wood. Some sort of chip.

A few minutes passed and then I heard Tuite’s voice. “I’m already familiar with the basics too, John. My, um, well, my wife’s sort of into the whole Carly and Bobby thing too.” He cleared his throat.

I glanced up as the heat spread up my face and he was staring pointedly at the ceiling. Now John was eying me with narrowed eyes. Because he was there and I still didn’t like him, I shot him the bird. Again.

Ryan blew out an exasperated breath. “Bobby.”

I spun my chair to face the captain. “I want to know what we have to do to find Haley.”

She simply drew another piece of paper from the file she’d brought in. “Is he familiar at all?”

All the oxygen rushed from my lungs and my heart sank as I found myself staring at a skinnier, older, harder version of the man I killed.

“That’s...” I had to clear my throat twice to finish. “That’s Derrell’s father. Derrell Mitchell, Sr.”

She simply nodded and then leaned over, tapped the time stamp. “The photo was taken two days ago at a gas station about three hours south of here. A lot closer to your neck of the woods. The make and model of the van fits with what was seen near the missing child’s home.” She gestured to the front end of the van. “It looks like he was working his way north.”

Chapter 19

Eric Haskell should have been her dad, her birth dad. He was Haley’s real dad and I knew that. In all the ways that counted, he was her real dad.

He’d been there for her first word, her first step, losing her first tooth. He’d put band-aids on her scrapes and wiped away her tears. He would be the one to teach her how to drive, and shoot hoops, and glare at her prom date and all of that.

I wanted to promise him we’d find her so he could do all of those things, things it seemed to me that a good dad would do. But what did I know about good dads?

Even as I tried to find the words to tell him that, the fair-haired man came across the room to me, his hand held out.

“We’re going to find her,” he said softly.

I looked down at his hand, confused by it. He continued to wait. Slowly, I reached out and folded my hand around his. He squeezed lightly and shook. A good grip. He had a good grip, the kind of hand that told me he wasn’t afraid of work, either.

If I could’ve hand-picked a man to be my daughter’s father, I was pretty sure I would’ve picked him.

“We’ll find her,” he said again.

“Shouldn’t I be telling you that?” I said, my voice hoarse.

“We can tell each other.” He smiled then.

His hair was a few shades paler than mine, and instead of green eyes, his were blue. His features were broad and square and his nose looked like it had been broken once. Mine had too, but it had healed fairly straight. Still, we looked enough alike that somebody could mistake us for family. Haley would never have to worry about people commenting that she didn’t look like her parents.

My phone buzzed again and I tugged it out, checking the message from Carly.

I have to talk to you. Urgent.

Glancing behind me, I counted all the cops, eyed Ryan talking with Captain Grace Bauer.

“People!”

Witter and another cop – Lieutenant Rossini – were clearing the way toward the front, two techs behind them. They were adding to the wire taps on the phone and when we left, Witter and Rossini would stay here.

I’d been told Tuite would be coming with me to my hotel.

Fuck that. I wasn’t going to a damn hotel.

Hunching my shoulders, I hurriedly tapped in a response.

Don’t have much time. Cops here. Some sort of meeting. I’m supposed to go to a hotel with one of them in case I get contacted. They’re pretty sure they know who it is.

There was only the briefest pause before Carly’s reply came up.

That cache be right. Inn follows.

I scowled at the gibberish, but before I could ask what the hell she was talking about, the next message came up.

FUCKING AUTOCORRECT. That can’t be right. You need to call me. I’m following Ridley. He knows something about this, Bobby!

“WHAT!”

At the sound of my bellow, the entire room went quiet, but they could’ve been invisible for all I cared. I half-knocked one of the techs over in my rush to get to Ryan. One of the cops had a hand on his gun. I did notice that, the same way I saw Tuite stilling him with a hand on his arm. I grabbed Ryan by the lapels of his suit, shaking him.

“Call the house! Carly...” My head was spinning. “Carly...she said...”

What the fuck was I doing, talking to him? I dropped him and called the house.

“You’ve reached–”

I cut Laureen off before she could finish. “Get Carly! I have to talk to her.”

My stomach twisted even as I spoke.

“Bobby?” Laureen’s voice had a bad, quavering vibe. “Is that you?”

“Get her, Laureen.”

Voices were starting to rumble around me.

“She’s not feeling well, sir. She had...she had one of her migraines and I...um, well, I had her lie down. Nobody is to disturb her–”

I lowered the phone, staring at Ryan. “She left the house, Ry.”

***

If ever I’d wished to be able to split myself in two, it was now. Part of me needed to be able to focus on what was going on here and now with Haley Haskell, the blonde-haired child who had my mouth and my nose, and apparently hated lima beans with the same passion I did. Her real father was full of stories that made my chest ache.

“Okay, now if anybody calls...”

I listened with half an ear to everything the techs were saying. More than ever, I appreciated the fact that I had been born with a halfway decent brain. It also made me wish I’d appreciated it sooner, that I’d done something better with my life, something that would have kept me from ending up in a place that endangered my daughter.

My phone buzzed and I grabbed for it. Carly had hung up on me after I told her to haul her ass back to the house.

Haley wasn’t the only one who was in danger thanks to me. I couldn’t imagine my life without Carly, but if I’d just gone a different way that day, she wouldn’t be out there on the road, in harm’s way because of me.

I swiped my thumb across the screen, the image of Carly’s face already burned across the surface of my memory.

“Go back home,” I said, my voice ragged.

“If you’d done that from the beginning, pretty boy, none of this would have happened.”

Ice spilled through my veins at the sound of Ridley’s voice.

Ridley.

Motherfucker.

Slowly, I stood up.

“Where’s Carly?”

“What the fuck is she doing away from the house, Bobby? Why’d you guys let her leave?” he demanded.

It scared me shitless, that question. Because he wasn’t angry. His voice was shaking.

“Where is Carly?”

“She’s...” His voice trailed off. Then, after a couple seconds, he cleared his throat. “She’s in the back of my SUV. She’s fine. But...I had...I had to knock her out, Cantrell. Why’d you guys let her leave?”