Page 25 of Before This Ends (Before)

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Sittingat the dining table in Miranda’s old and now my temporary apartment, I watch Winter try to keep a straight face as her dad pulls a card from her hand.

“Shit,” Miles grumbles, doing a crap job of not making it obvious he pulled the Old Maid card from Winter’s hand.

“Bad word coin, Dad.” She takes a card from me, then places a set of three matching cow cards down on the table, giggling. “I win.”

“When you get older, I’m going to take you to Vegas,” I tell her as Miles pulls a card from me, giving himself another matching set. As I reach for his hand, he pushes up one of the only two cards he has left, and I pause to glare at him, and he grins.

Taking the card he has up, thinking he’s trying to trick me, I find out quickly I was right and set down my final set of cards with dogs on them.

“You two are cheaters,” he grouches, gathering up the cards and putting them back in their box.

“Don’t be a sore loser.”

“Yeah, Dad, don’t be a sore loser,” Winter agrees, making me laugh.

Standing, I pick up the stack of plates we moved to the side after demolishing the large half-cheese, half-pepperoni pizza we ordered after we got everything into the apartment from my car and Miles’s SUV.

“Go pack up your stuff and get on your shoes, kid,” he tells Winter as I dump the crusts from our plates into the trash. I look up when he walks into the kitchen carrying the empty pizza box.

“Thanks for helping me out today,” I tell him while I begin standing the plates in the dishwasher.

“You’re welcome.” He rests his hip against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. “I actually have a favor to ask.”

“Anything.” I glance up at him.

“Do you mind helping me out tomorrow with Winter? She’s at school all day but needs to be picked up by five from the afterschool program, and I’m not sure?—”

“I can pick her up,” I cut him off before he can finish.

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t agree to help if I couldn’t,” I say quietly, and he gives me a look that I don’t understand. “Do I need to do anything to be able to pick her up for you?”

“I’ll stop in the office in the morning and add you to her pick-up approval list. You’ll just show ID when you get to the school, and they’ll call her down to the office.”

“Okay.” I shut the door of the dishwasher. “Are you back to working that case again?”

“I’m not sure at this point, but we’re meeting with an officer from the state police in the morning, and I guess we will find out then.”

“It’s the two girls, right?” I ask quietly, and he jerks up his chin, confirming my assumption was correct. Yesterday, I saw the story on the news about the two girls found murdered and wondered if that’s the case he’s working but secretly hoped it wasn’t. “I hope you find who did that to them.”

“Me too,” he murmurs, then the two of us turn our attention to Winter when she comes into the kitchen.

“You ready to head home?” he asks her, and she shakes her head, walking to where I am and wrapping her arms around my hips.

“Can you come for dinner this week?” she asks, her head tipped back to look at me.

“I’ll do one better and pick you up from school tomorrow.” I smooth her hair back from her face.

“Really?” Her eyes light up.

“Really. We just need to figure out what we are going to make for dinner.”

“You don’t need to cook, Em. I can leave cash so you can pick something up.”

“I like cooking,” I tell him softly.

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