Page 12 of The Last Promise You Made

I glanced out the door and did my best to keep her hidden against the wall as I led her to the women’s restroom.

I locked the door behind us and then talked Addy through the photos I needed to take and the scraping of her hands for evidence. After a moment of hesitation, I skipped the DNA test. I couldn’t afford to have her in the system yet. While she went into a stall to change into clean clothes, I took everything out of the backpack. The books would have to be scanned. The Switch searched. But nothing here seemed to scream insurance policy.

As Addy came out of the bathroom, I took the bloody clothes and bagged them along with the rest of the items I’d collected. The little girl stood near the sink, and I was hit again by how small she was. She couldn’t even reach the faucets. I lifted her up onto the counter, and she caught sight of herself in the mirror and froze for a moment. Then, she reached for the soap and water, scrubbing her face and hands as more tears rolled down her cheeks.

I thought my heart might break.

The entire scene was brutally sad, but it also proved just how resilient the fragile-looking girl was. Not a bird with a broken wing, but a hooded pitohui bird, looking beautiful and innocent but containing one of the deadliest toxins on Earth.

I’d need her strength—that poison—to help me bring down the cartel.

We’d been searching for the key for years. None of us would have expected it to come in the form of a seven-year-old girl.

? ? ?

When I was on the job, I normally moved fast, efficiently, and silently. A combination of the four J-named spies that I’d grown up loving. Traveling with Addy meant slowing down enough to explain every step to her.

She refused to talk about what happened in the hotel room—basically refused to talk at all—and I didn’t push. Not even when the Denver police chief had huffed and puffed and tried to thrust his limited power at me. I needed the child to trust me, and I might not know a lot about kids, but I knew being a bully wasn’t the way to do it. Instead, I had to prove I was safe. Prove that I had her best interests at heart. That meant doing what her mother had wanted by taking her to her father.

When I told Addy the plan, she seemed nervous, but there was also curiosity in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what Anna-Ravyn had told her daughter about her father, but she obviously hadn’t known he lived in Tennessee as she’d been surprised when I told her that was where we were headed.

Leland arranged for an agency plane to pick us up in the middle of the night at the Space Force base outside Aurora. I drove us straight onto the tarmac, leaving the government-issued SUV for someone else to take care of. Addy’s gaze darted around as she took in the airfield, the plane, and the steps leading into it, but she slid her hand into mine and let me guide her inside. The pilots were already seated behind closed doors when we boarded the plane. They wouldn’t be able to identify their passengers if questioned, which was exactly what I’d needed.

I’d picked up burgers, fries, and shakes at a twenty-four-hour fast-food place close to the base, and we spent the first few minutes of the two-hour flight eating in silence.

“You’re not allergic to any of that, are you?” I belatedly asked, continuing in the Spanish that seemed to resonate with her the most.

Her tiny lips twitched, but she shook her head.

I wanted to ask if her mom let her eat junk food but then decided bringing up the woman she’d seen viciously murdered probably wasn’t the best idea.

“Do you know anything about your dad?”

She hesitated, head tilting sideways before saying, “Bueno.”

I almost choked on the fry I was eating. Thoughts of all the ways Ryder Hatley could be good struck me—many of which were not appropriate for a conversation with his tiny daughter.

“I’ve met him,” I told Addy, and her eyes grew wider. “His family owns a ranch.”

At the word ranch, panic washed over her face, and she dropped her food, shrinking back into her seat and bringing her knees to her chest again. Another puzzle for me to try and figure out, but it had me thinking the task force’s search for the Lovato leader on a cattle farm wasn’t as far off as some members might have thought.

“Your dad’s brother is the county sheriff. He’d be your Uncle Maddox,” I continued as if Addy hadn’t closed down. “He has a little girl a year or so younger than you. Her name is Mila. I guess that makes her your cousin.”

The fear retreated from her eyes as curiosity regained strength.

“She’s quite a little character,” I said with a grin, thinking of the blond-haired whirlwind I’d met several times when staying at the Hatley Ranch. Mila had introduced herself, shown me all the horses, and tried to convince me unicorns were real all in a matter of a few minutes. “She’s kind of the opposite of you. A bubble full of energy. Really loud. Talks superfast. She’s at the ranch all the time, helping her grandmother—your grandmother—make pies and stuff. You’ll never have to worry about carrying on a conversation if she’s in the room.”

This time, I got an actual grin before it slipped away again.

“Anything else you want to know about your dad or your family?” I asked.

She looked like she had a thousand questions but, instead, shook her head.

My phone buzzed, and I saw a text from Rory. It was a modified image of Anna-Ravyn that she said she was running facial recognition on. The woman’s bridge line had been altered significantly as well as the line of her cheeks and the tilt of her nose. I wanted to show it to Addy and ask if it was what her mom had looked like before, but until the medical examiner finished with the body, I wasn’t sure how long ago the work had been done. Addy might have only known her mom the way we’d found her.

“You should probably get some sleep,” I told her, nodding toward the couch behind us.

She looked at it but didn’t do as I’d suggested. Instead, she opened her backpack and pulled out the Nintendo Switch. She held up a charger, looking around. I helped her find a spot to plug it in and then asked to see the device before she played. She handed it over hesitantly.

---