The Best of Me: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  “I’m going to kill him Trick,” I continued to rage. “I swear to god, I’m not joking. I’m gonna kill him!”

  Trick closed the distance between us and wrapped me in his strong embrace. “Shh, beautiful. It’s all right. It’s all gonna be okay.”

  “How?” I asked, pulling my face out of his chest and looking up at him with watery eyes. “How is this ever going to be okay? God, how was I ever married to this man?” I finished on a cry.

  “You said it yourself, baby. This wasn’t who he was when you were together.” He tucked my hair behind my ears and cupped my cheeks in his strong hands. “People change, Nona. There’s no controlling it, and it’s no one’s fault but the person making the change.”

  I face-planted into his chest and twisted my fingers in the sides of his T-shirt. My words came out muffled by his chest as I asked, “So what now?”

  “Well, now you’re gonna go back in there and finish the movie with your kid. You’re gonna tell him it’s all okay, and I just needed to fill you in on a case. Then I’m gonna call this in.”

  I tilted my head backward and looked up into those gorgeous gray eyes. “Are you gonna have to go back in?”

  “Probably not. Leo and Micah are on tonight. They’ll have it covered ’til the morning.”

  A question popped into my head just then. I didn’t want to ask, because I dreaded the answer, but I knew I had no choice. “Do you…?” I swallowed, forcing down the swell of emotion clogging my throat. “Do you think Chris is selling this stuff?”

  His expression said it all. And I knew the answer would gut me. “Don’t know any other way for a person to get into that kind of debt with a dealer, beautiful. They’re not exactly known for handing out loans.”

  My vision grew blurry and unfocused as I whispered, “He’s selling to kids, Trick. He has babies of his own, and he’s going out and selling this shit to other peoples’ babies. How can he do that?”

  “Nona, stop,” he commanded. “Your babies are safe and sound under your roof, and what that asshole does isn’t on you, you hear me? It is not on you. It’s all on him. Don’t even think on that.”

  “I-I’ll try not to.”

  But I knew the effort would be for nothing. There was no way in hell I’d be able to let this go. However, I managed to go back out to Tris and put his mind at ease. We settled in and started the movie back up. Trick joined us a while later, and I did a good job of pretending everything was okay.

  But later that night, for the first time since Trick started sleeping beside me, it took forever for me to drift off. And it wasn’t a good sleep.

  Not at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Trick

  “No sign of the guy,” Leo said as the crime scene techs hustled around us, snapping photos and bagging evidence. “A patrol unit sat on the place all night, and he never showed. Guy’s in the wind.”

  I stomped out of Chris Fanning’s shithole apartment, my vision coated in red at what we’d discovered earlier the next day.

  It hadn’t taken long for the warrant to come through, and once it had, we didn’t hesitate putting a team together to tear his apartment apart. We hadn’t found him—not yet, anyway—but what we did find was enough to guarantee the man wouldn’t be breathing free air for a long fucking time.

  We found where he hid his stash within minutes of entering the apartment. Individual baggies full of methamphetamine and rolls of cash stuffed into the mattress of his son’s bed.

  His. Son’s. Bed.

  Not only was the fucker dealing, but he was hiding the shit where Tristan slept. If Nona hadn’t already reached out to her attorney earlier that morning, starting the process of stripping him of all his parental rights, I’d have made goddamn sure she started now.

  As long as there was breath in my body, there was no way in hell I’d let that man anywhere near those kids. He was done.

  When we finally caught up with him, he was going down for every goddamn thing we could pin on him, felony possession with the intent to distribute only being one in a long list of charges.

  “Nona’s gonna lose her mind,” Hayes said as he joined me out on the breezeway.

  That was the understatement of the century. “We need to find him,” I clipped, grabbing the rusty railing with a white-knuckle grip.

  “We will,” Hayes insisted. “We’ll find him, and your girl and her kids will sleep easy from here on out.”

  I hoped he was right, because that knot in my stomach I’d woken up with the day before had only gotten worse overnight. And a voice in the back of my head was telling me that if we didn’t find Chris soon, something very, very bad was going to happen.

  * * *

  Nona

  “Hey, you’ve got Blythe’s voice mail. Do your thing at the beep.”

  My stomach sank at the sound of my daughter’s programmed voice. This was the fifth time I’d called her, and the fifth time it had gone straight to voice mail. And it was the same with Tristan’s phone.

  I had a rule that my kids were supposed to let me know the moment they got home from school, and they’d never once forgotten to call to put my mind at ease.

  Until today.

  That panic I’d been feeling since the night before intensified as I spoke through the line. “Blythe, honey. It’s Mom. Again. I don’t know what’s going on, but you better call me back, or I swear to god, you’ll be grounded until you’re thirty-five.” I disconnected the call and automatically hit the number for my son.

  “Tristan here. If you’re getting this, it’s ’cause you should’ve texted.” Beep.

  “Kid, it’s Mom. Call me back. Please.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I looked to Blair, panic clawing at my insides as I answered, “I-I don’t know. My kids should’ve called when they got home from school, but they never did. I should’ve heard from them forty-five minutes ago.”

  Her face pinched into a worried frown. “You think maybe they just forgot?”

  “No.” I shook my head frantically. “They never forget. Something’s not right. Their phones aren’t even ringing. The calls are going straight to voice mail.”

  Blair came over to me and started rubbing circles on my back. “All right, honey, why don’t you go home and check, yeah? I’ll finish your client and take care of everything here. You don’t need to worry about that. Just get yourself home.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded and began untying the apron strings around my waist. “I’m gonna do that. Thank you.”

  “Not a problem.” She took the smock from my hands and started pushing me toward the front desk. My receptionist, Sophia, pulled my purse from beneath the desk and shoved it my way, offering a sympathetic smile as I started for the door.

  I was in my car and heading down the main street that would lead out of the downtown area toward my subdivision when my phone started ringing. I hit the button for my Bluetooth without looking. “Blythe?”

  Trick’s deep voice came through the car’s speakers. “No, beautiful. You got me. What’s going on? Where’s Blythe?”

  “I-I don’t know.” My words came out in a croak as tears started streaming down my cheeks. “I can’t get ahold of her or Tris. They never called when they got home from school like they were supposed to. I-I’ve called over and over, and their phones are going straight to voice mail.”

  His voice was alert and gravelly as he asked, “Where are you now?”

  “I just left the salon. I’m on my way to the house to make sure everything’s okay.”

  “All right, baby, listen to me. Hayes and I are closer. We’re on our way there now. I don’t want you going to that house, especially not alone, so I need you to turn around and head to the station.”

  “Trick, I can’t—”

  “Please, Nona. Head to the station, okay? I’m on the way to the house right now. Hayes is calling Tempie. She’ll meet you there and wait with you ’til you hear from me, okay?”

  I brought my car
to a stop and lowered my forehead to the steering wheel, squeezing my eyes closed as I struggled to breathe. “All right,” I finally whispered. “I’m turning around.”

  “That’s my girl. We’re five minutes away, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

  With that, he hung up, and I made my way to the police station while my world crumbled beneath me.

  * * *

  It was weird what panic could do to a person. It had the power to distort all sense of time. The next thirty minutes felt like they’d passed at a snail’s pace and at lightning speed all at the same time.

  Trick had apparently put in a call that I was on my way to the station, because the minute I walked through the front doors, Fred Duncan was there to greet me, leading me through reception, the bustling bullpen, and into a conference room that overlooked it. He’d even gone as far as grabbing me a cup of coffee, but with my stomach in knots, there was no way I could put anything in it without getting sick.

  Tempie had shown up shortly after and had spent the next several minutes watching me with concern as I paced the length of the room over and over again. I just couldn’t sit still. My mind felt like it was going a mile a minute, with every horrible, ugly scenario it could think up whipping through on a continuous loop.

  The energy in the bullpen swelled, and I turned my head to look through the wall of windows just as Trick came rushing up the steps with Hayes close on his tail.

  Tempie and I ran to the door, and I yanked it open, coming to a dead stop just past the threshold. Trick and Hayes were heading our way, but Blythe and Tris weren’t with them.

  “Where are they?” I whispered as he got close. “Trick?” My eyes darted all around the room, but my kids were nowhere to be seen. “Where are they?”

  He didn’t stop when he reached me, placing a palm on my stomach and using it to guide me back into the room. Hayes and Tempie came in behind him, closing the door, and I fisted his shirt in my hands and stood on my tiptoes as I wailed, “Where are my babies!”

  He tossed the folder he’d been holding onto the conference room table, sending some of the documents inside scattering. His hands came up, and his long fingers locked around my wrists to hold me in place. “They weren’t there,” he answered, his voice craggy with emotion. “We got there, and the front door was ajar, but they weren’t inside.”

  “Oh god!” My knees gave out, but before I could hit the floor, Trick lifted me off my feet and carried me to a couch resting along the back wall.

  He sat me down and crouched in front of me, taking my face in his hands. “Breathe, Nona,” he ordered, his tone strong and commanding. “I need you to breathe and listen to me, yeah?” It was only by the grace of God that I was able to get ahold of myself and calm down enough to listen to what he said next. “I’m going to find them. I promise. I’ll find them, and I’ll bring them back to you safe and sound. You trust me?”

  I managed a weak nod, because I did trust him. He was the only one I trusted enough to get my babies back.

  “All right. I know it’s asking a lot, but I need you to be strong for me. I can’t give Blythe and Tris everything they need from me if I’m worrying about you, okay?”

  He was right. I knew that. If Trick made a promise, I knew to my bones that he’d keep it, no matter what. And I was willing to do whatever I had to do to make his job easier. “O-okay.”

  “You gonna be strong for me?”

  “Yes, Trick. Just… just find them for me, okay?”

  He leaned forward, bringing his forehead to rest against mine. “You have my word.”

  He placed a quick kiss against my lips and rose to his full height. When he moved toward the table to gather the folder and documents, one of the sheets caught my attention, and I shot up from the couch. “Wait!” Rushing to him, I snatched the sketch off the table and studied the face looking back at me. The eyes were shaded in black, but I recognized them instantly, and looking at the drawing, that same chill I’d felt when I saw those eyes in person brushed across the skin.

  “I know this guy.”

  “What?” Trick went on high alert. “How?”

  Spinning back toward him and Hayes, I lifted the sketch and pointed at it. “This is the guy from The Tap Room. The one I told you about who I thought was hitting on me? This is him. Why do you have a picture of him?”

  Trick moved closer, his face like granite. “Nona, what exactly did this guy say to you?”

  My mind was running so fast that it was a struggle to piece together what had happened that night. “Um...” I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts in order. “He came up to me and asked if I was Nona Fanning. I asked if I knew him, and he said no, but that he knew me. That was it. That was all he said. It creeped me out in a big way, but I just thought he was really bad with pickup lines.”

  “Fuck,” Trick hissed, raking his hand through his hair.

  “Trick. Who is this guy?”

  “That’s the guy Blythe saw fighting with Chris.”

  The air expelled from my lungs, and I had to brace my hand on the table to keep from going down. My visions started to close up on me as I let out a ragged, “Oh my god.” The pieces started falling together, and the picture coming into place was terrifying. “This is because of Chris. This is all because of Chris!”

  Trick rushed to me and took my face between his hands. “Nona, look at me.” When I managed to lift my gaze to him, he issued a declaration. “I’ll find them. Swear to fuckin’ god, I’m gonna find them.”

  “I—” Panic grabbed hold of me in a death grip. “Go,” I ordered before I lost it. “Go now, Trick. Bring my babies back to me.”

  “I’ll be back. And I’m bringing them with me.”

  With one last kiss, Trick and Hayes rushed from the conference room, and I curled up against Tempie on the couch and said a silent prayer to God to keep my family safe while the tears continued to fall, my whole family. Trick included.

  * * *

  Trick

  It was all hands on deck. The entire department was out looking for Chris Fanning. Hayes had even put in a call to Lincoln Sheppard, and he’d activated every one of his guys, putting them on the streets to join the hunt.

  It wasn’t a coincidence that his kids turned up missing the same day he did or that Nona and Blythe had both recognized the man from that sketch. And I knew without a doubt that the answers to finding them safely lay with Chris.

  Hayes’s phone rang just as I turned the SUV onto Main and headed in the direction of Chris’s apartment. It was a long shot that he’d go back there, but I was willing to try anything.

  “Linc. Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.” At Hayes’s words, my back shot straight, and I divided my attention between my partner and the road. He hit the button on his phone and ordered, “Talk to me.”

  “We got your man. My guys caught him tryin’ to skip town. He’s in our holding room at my office. You say the word, we’ll load him up and deliver him to the station, but I feel I should point out that you might wanna let us have a crack at him first. Our rules for getting a guy to talk are a lot looser than yours.”

  I felt Hayes’s eyes on me and turned to look at him. “Your call, brother. I got your back, either way.”

  “We’re on the way to you,” I told Linc as I did a U-turn in the middle of an intersection. “That said, you only have ’til we get there to do it your way. After that, it’s gotta be by the book.”

  “On it.”

  Lincoln disconnected the call, and I slammed my foot down on the gas.

  Chapter Thirty

  Trick

  In the five minutes it took for Hayes and me to reach Alpha Omega’s offices, Chris Fanning’s face was swollen to nearly double its normal size.

  He was bleeding from his nose, mouth, and a gnarly gash that went straight through his eyebrow. Lincoln hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his rules were looser, and he and his men didn’t waste a goddamn second beating the living shit out of Chris i
n an attempt to get answers.

  “You get anything from him?” Hayes asked Linc as I stared through the window into the holding room where two of Linc’s guys were working Chris over.

  “Not yet, but in their defense, you didn’t really give us a lot of time.”

  Without hesitation, I grabbed the knob and threw the door open, stepping inside with Hayes on my heels.

  Xander Caine glanced in our direction with a sinister grin on his face. “Guess this means the fun’s over.”

  Chris’s head turned our way, and his one good eye went wide the moment it landed on me. “No fuckin’ way! I’m not talkin’ to you, asshole! And I’m pressin’ charges on all of you!”

  Before anyone could move, I had Chris out of his chair and pinned against the wall.

  “That guy you’ve been workin’ with has Blythe and Tristan, motherfucker,” I hissed, holding my face only an inch from his. “But I’m guessin’ you already know that.” I pulled the phone I’d gotten from Lincoln out of my back pocket and swiped the screen. It opened right to the picture that had been texted to him more than an hour earlier—a picture of Blythe and Tristan with their hands and feet tied, and their mouths gagged. I read the caption out loud. “My money for their lives.” I shoved the phone in his face, forcing him to look at the picture, to see the damage he’d done. He cringed and tried to turn his head, but I grabbed the front of his shirt and twisted the collar tight, keeping his head in place. “You better start talking right. Fucking. Now. Tell me where to find my kids.”

  “Fuck you! They’re not your goddamn kids! They’re m—” He gurgled as I pressed my forearm into his throat, cutting off his air way and threatening to crush his windpipe.

  “Wrong, asshole. Those are my kids.” I smashed the phone against his face. “I’m the one who’s been runnin’ all over this goddamn county trying to find them, and you’re the piece of shit trying to skip town to save his own ass, leavin’ his own flesh and blood to this!” I pulled my hand back and slammed the phone into his face again. “That makes them mine,” I continued over the sound of his nose breaking. “And they’ll be mine from now until always. You have nothing, you hear me? Nothing. No wife. No kids. No family. They’re mine.”