“There’s one more thing, darlin’.”
“What?”
“I am pretty sure that McGregor is somehow connected to Connor and Colin.”
Fuck.
“And to find out, I’m breaking into his emails after dinner.” He pulled out the thumb drive.
Double fuck.
* * *
Joey was dead to the world. After Olivia finally stopped arguing with him, mostly because Sophie’s safety was on the line, and the answers were possibly sitting somewhere in McGregor’s computer, he’d spent hours searching McGregor’s work computer. Tomorrow he was going to work on his personal one now that he had gotten the IP address through some emails McGregor had sent to his own work email.
It had been a tough few days and he’d laid his head on the pillow and passed right out, which wasn’t usual at all for him. But the sound of little feet scurrying around had him sitting up immediately. “I want my mommy,” the little voice cried from outside her room door. He quickly jumped out of bed, reached for his T-shirt, and slid it over his head as he walked out of the room. They still needed to explain to Sophie that he was staying over indefinitely.
With sleep-rumpled hair, her eyes barely open, Sophie was padding down the hall, confusion and sleep clearly on her face.
“Hey freckles, you okay?”
She opened her eyes as if trying to get her bearings as to where she was. Once she saw the familiar face, she raised her hands up to the ceiling. It took him a moment to understand what she wanted but it quickly became clear she wanted to be carried. “Mommy?” she whimpered, still half asleep.
Should he wake Olivia?
She was as bad a sleeper as he was and the fact she hadn’t heard Sophie was a testament to how asleep she actually was.
He bent down and picked her up. “I scared.”
He walked her back to her room and tucked her in. “Nothing to be scared of, Soph. I’m here and your mommy is right in the next room.”
“Monsters under the bed.”
He got under the bed and checked. “Nope. All clear. Good night, Soph.”
She extended her arms and he leaned down and kissed her forehead and she tightened her arms around his neck. “Stay here. Monsters are scared of daddies.”
He stilled. He always knew he wanted kids. Hell, he wanted a big family like the one he grew up with. But the thought of settling down hadn’t really been in the forefront of his mind. Except that she equated him to a dad. Maybe even her dad. And the thought didn’t scare him. No, it made him feel ten feet tall. Hell yeah, he’d keep the monsters away. He’d never felt more needed in his life than he did right here and now. He’d also never felt more love in his heart.
“Freckles, you’re okay, there’s nothing wrong. I’d never let anything happen—”
“No! No!” She started panicking.
“Okay, okay.” He pulled the desk chair next to her bed and sat down, then propped his feet up on the bed. “How about a bedtime story?”
“Okay,” she said sleepily, her hand gripping his foot as he thought of a story. Any story.
* * *
The bright light coming in through the sliver of window shade that had been left opened woke Olivia the next morning. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned and realized, by the clock on the bedside table, that it was still early, barely seven in the morning, but still she felt rested. Joey was probably still working on his computer. He was sure there was a connection between the governor and the Mathers brothers and had been working well past the time she’d gone to bed.
After using the restroom, she was checking in on Sophie when she stopped dead in her tracks. Sitting with his head rolled uncomfortably to the side, his legs propped up and a hand stretched in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, he was holding Sophie’s hand. Her heart skipped a beat.
This was the exact feeling that scared her. She’d been in love once. Had held hopes of having a beautiful perfect family. And a car accident later, she’d been left widowed and heartbroken and with a daughter who never met her father.
Tiptoeing back to her room, she sat on her bed and breathed in and out. In and out. Trying to ignore the surge of emotion, she decided to busy herself with a shower. Once she was done and dressed, she was going to go wake him up, but she heard giggling from the kitchen as she walked out of the bedroom.
“Mommy, Joey made stwabewy pancakes.”
“A fruit.” Joey winked at her and went back to flipping the food while her daughter stood on a chair next to him, watching intently.
“That sounds delicious. Why don’t you go brush your teeth and change while he finishes up?” Sophie hopped down and ran to the room.
Reaching forward, Joey turned off the stove and turned his attention to her. When his attention went full-on to her, it was a very powerful thing—the way his jaw flexed and his pupils dilated and his lips parted slightly. He took a step forward and pulled her toward him by the waistband of her jeans. “Hi,” he said roughly.
“Hi.”
“You should’ve woken me up.”
She saw the understanding seep in. “I thought I’d try to handle it. You need sleep.”
“Thank you. I slept great. But, you really didn’t have to burden . . .”
“It’s not a burden, Livie. Stop walking on eggshells and stop being nervous. Just roll with it.”
She let out a breath, sagging closer to him.
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked.
“Mad? I’m pretty sure I’m totally in love with you. But yeah, I guess I’m still mad. Promise not to hack into my opponents computer anymore okay?”
His smile was the brightest she’d ever seen. He looked so good with his face and head full of blondish scruff. “I promise.”
“I love you too, by the way.”
She smiled and pressed closer to him. “I’ve never said that to anyone before and it’s weird because now I’m bursting with love. But you and Sophie, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you two. She’s . . . if I had a daughter, I’d want her to be just like Sophie.”
Her eyes watered and her chin quivered. Never had more beautiful words been spoken. “How about a morning kiss?” she whispered through trembling lips.
“I’ve been waiting for it since you walked in here with all that hair loose everywhere. You should always wear it like that. Actually no, keep wearing it in a tight knot on your head. Only I should get to see all this.” He ran his fingers through her hair and then kissed her. It started off rather chaste and then escalated a bit when tongues began to invade. But it was very short-lived when the sound of little feet came closer.
“What’s the plan today?” he asked as he placed Sophie’s food on her plate.
“I have to sit with her and go over all the schoolwork she is missing. I also have a ton of meetings via Skype and want to get to work on that debate. Mark scheduled it for next week.”
* * *
Olivia had spent the last two hours in a teleconference while Sophie colored her homework. “I want to catch lizards,” she said.
“Sophie. The smell’s so bad outside.”
“I feel better, Mommy.”
For the last week and a half they’d been holed up in the house and her daughter was getting restless, which was absolutely understandable.
“You promise not to run off to the bougainvillea trees? Stay on the back porch and if you start coughing you come right back in.”
“Promise!” She squealed and went to her room. Five minutes later, she was dressed in a T-shirt, mermaid leggings, and yellow polka-dot wellies. She had a net in her hands and sunglasses on her head. She looked adorably mismatched. And Olivia loved her.
“Remember what I said.”
“Okay, Mommy. Can Joey come play too?”
“No, sweets. Joey is in my room working.” He’d been holed up there all morning going through email after email. “I’ll let him know when he finishes, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Love you too, Mum.”
Olivia was typing out her speech, but checking out the window every minute barely getting anything done. Sophie was hopping up and down on a muddy puddle when Joey ran into the room about twenty minutes later. “Read this!” he said, pushing his laptop practically into her face. She looked out the window—Sophie was still busy with the puddle—before looking at the screen as Joey dialed someone.
“Martinez, it’s Clad. I got something for you. I’m sending it to you now . . . don’t worry how I came across it. Just read it.”
Olivia was looking through what appeared to be a search history.
Pardons
Governor Pardons
Who is the Governor of Florida?
The list went on and on and most of the things were similar. Then the last one said Olivia Russo.
“Those are from Colin’s computer. The one that they found and confiscated. But there’s more. This is from an unknown email, one that I haven’t yet been able to trace, sent to McGregor.” He clicked on his computer screen, and an email popped up. It was photographs of handwritten notes made by Olivia.
“Oh my God, that’s my old notebook.”
“That’s what I thought when I saw it,” he said. It had amounts for her technical school and personal notes. It may as well have been her diary with her deepest secrets. It talked about how she and Connor would be married and stay sober and eventually leave Brownsville. It talked about her parents’ drug problems. About her dabbling in drugs herself . . . Shit, what else had she written in that stupid journal?
“You see it, right?” Joey asked, excitedly. “Connor and Colin figured out that McGregor could grant them pardons. Then, when they realized that you were running against him, they propositioned him to help get you out of the race in exchange for the pardon. That’s the connection!”
It made sense, what he was saying. But it still seemed so far-fetched. “You got all that from that.”
“And the fact I’ve been mulling it over for the last hour. And why else would McGregor have copies of your notebook?”
“I guess it would make sense. But how would they get me out of the race?”
“By hurting you. Scaring you. Making you so broke you couldn’t continue. Using your ill-placed need to keep your past a secret.”
“Could be, I guess.”
He looked around. “Where’s Sophie?”
“She went outside to play. She said she was going to catch lizards but she’s been jumping in a puddle.”
“Outside? Why?”
“She’s stir crazy, Joey. She wanted to go catch bugs with you, though. Maybe if you have a little time.”
“I don’t like her outside by herself,” he said, a bout of unease overtaking him.
“She goes outside all the time. This is all fenced in and there’re cameras all over the place—thanks to you—and I’ve been watching her the entire time.”
He started making his way outside. “How long has she been outside?”
“Maybe twenty minutes. I was watching her right now before you walked in,” she said, following him out.
He opened the sliding door and the first thing he noted was that she was not on the back porch. “Freckles! Let’s go catch you some lizards!”
“Sophie!” Olivia shouted. “You better not be by the bougainvillea.”
The yard had a lot of trees—a lot—and it was hard to see all the way to the back because of all the foliage, but the thick bunch of pink bougainvillea was all the way at the other end of the long yard and it was dense and dangerous from the spiky plants and fallen logs.
“Freckles!” he yelled, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. “Sophie!”
She didn’t reply and he took off in a full-on sprint to the back. She had to be there. She was always there. That’s where she liked to look for bugs. Of course she would be there.
“Sophie!” Olivia yelled from behind him. He pushed back some of the banana trees and then went over a fallen palm tree. He heard a noise, and his hand went straight for his weapon and he put his arm out to keep Olivia from moving forward.
When they cleared the path, sitting on the ground playing with three ladybugs in her clear box was Olivia. Sitting right by her, with a knife—a large motherfucking knife—by his right hand, where Sophie couldn’t see, was a man.
“Hey, babe. Long time no see,” he said with a toothy smile.
Olivia gasped. “Connor.”
* * *
She was going to throw up. Her blood drained completely from her body.
“Come here, sweets.”
Sophie looked up and showed Joey her box. “Look, Joey. Three ladybugs.”
“Wow, freckles. That’s great. Come here and show me.” His voice was deceiving. Olivia could hear the anger and fear in it, and his hand was still behind his back where she knew there was a weapon.
“We’re gonna stay here and catch more bugs, aren’t we, Sophie?” Connor was speaking with Sophie but his eyes, eyes which were so familiar and at one time so comforting, were trained on Olivia. His tone was absolutely threatening.
“Mommy, this is your friend, Connor!” Sophie said happily. “He said you weren’t going to get mad I came back here.”
“I’m not mad, sweets.” Olivia’s voice trembled. She didn’t want Sophie to worry but she was scared at what Connor was doing there. “Maybe you and I can talk privately,” she said, but Joey cut her off. “No!”
She elbowed Joey. “Joey, that’s my daughter.” She whispered so Sophie wouldn’t hear.
“Tell him to show me both hands,” Connor demanded.
Sweat was trickling down her back and the panic was becoming almost too intense. “Do it, Joey.”
Joey, his face neutral except for the tick in his jaw, released the grip he had on his still-holstered gun and held out his palms. Connor just continued to look at her. The way his eyes penetrated her gave her a chill up and down her spine. “It was supposed to be me and you. You just left. You and me against the world, Liv. And you just left.” His eyes were bloodshot and spittle came out as he spoke. Even though her heart broke for him, she wanted to kill him for talking to her daughter. But she also needed to reason with him somehow.
“Left? Connor, you were arrested. I didn’t leave. I waited and waited.”
“No you didn’t,” he spat, and there was a twitch by his left eye. “You have this little perfect life pretending to be something you’re not. You’ve forgotten where you came from. What happened to our dream? You forgot about me and now I’m going to ruin you. You belonged with me, by my side. I still have your fucking notebook. We had a plan.”
Oh god, that stupid notebook with her naïve plans. All she’d wanted was to get them both out of the slum where they lived. He had given up, and she hadn’t. But she didn’t want to anger him further. He gripped the knife tighter, she noted, but she tried not to seem overly concerned, for Sophie’s sake. “You and me, babe. That was the promise. And you lied and now I’m here to ruin your career.” She knew that was part of it, but the other part was that in doing so, he could get a pardon from McGregor. Again, something she didn’t say out loud.
She cleared her throat. “It still can be. Let’s go inside. Leave my daughter and we’ll go talk.”
He seemed to be thinking about it, Joey beside her with his arms still out.
“Come on, Sophie.” Connor said, standing up and holding a hand out to Sophie to let her up. When he touched her Joey took a step forward and Olivia stopped breathing. A literal ticking time bomb would’ve been less intense then the current situation. Connor had the knife in one hand and Sophie’s hand in the other. “Let’s go inside. I’ll be right behind you both.”
Unable to do anything else but follow instructions they both turned and walked into the house.
“You have to trust me. Do whatever I say.” Joey whispered.
The trek from the back of the yard to the back porch felt like it
lasted hours instead of minutes. She turned her head back a few times to see Sophie obliviously skipping while holding Connor’s hand. And Connor, how different he looked—but still very similar. Still handsome, but now unhealthily thin, his long bushy hair half in ponytail half falling out messily. He had an arm full of tattoos and even had one by his eye. When her eyes went back to his face he winked at her but it looked nefarious—not at all like he’d done when they were younger.
“Open the door,” Connor instructed, and that was when a blur of movements happened.
She opened the door and walked inside and so did Joey. The moment that Sophie was inside, Joey shouted. “In her room, lock the doors, call the cops. Don’t open it for anyone but me!” At the same time as he turned, he tackled Connor to the ground. A loud, pained yell filled her ears as Connor’s head hit the floor. She hoisted her daughter swiftly and ran to her room, locked the door, and stumbled around for her phone.
“Are you okay, Sophie?”
Her daughter was now sobbing. “My ladybugs! What happened to your friend?”
“He wasn’t my friend, sweets. That was a bad man.”
“But Joey is with him. Where’s Joey? I want Joey!” She started to wail as Olivia dialed 911 with trembling fingers. There was a sound of gunshots and she wanted to go check up on Joey, but instead she gathered Sophie in her arms and hid in a corner of the room.
* * *
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a man in my house. There was a shot fired.” She said the address into the phone.
“And where are you right now?”
“I’m in the upstairs bedroom with my daughter.”
“Was there anyone else in the home?”
“Yes. My boyfriend, er, security guard. He’s here. He’s downstairs, actually.”
She could hear noises and typing from the other end.
“Is anyone hurt?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Hold tight. Stay in the bedroom. We have officers two minutes out.”
“Okay, please hurry.” She bounced her knee up and down.
Kiss Kiss Bang Page 20
