Page 13 of No Broken Promises

“Parker,” Jake whispers quietly. “We're wasting time. Remy has to find him. To do that, he needs to know what happened.”

“I went to bed.” She sobs. “Nox went to bed at nine p.m., after he said good night and got changed. When I finished cleaning and settled down at midnight, I didn't check on him. I fell asleep on the couch.” The heart-wrenching sob that comes out of her chest hits me in the gut. “I got up to pee, and he was gone.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Green pajamas,” Parker says. “That's all he owns. He refuses to wear any other color pajamas except green.” She pauses for a second, uncertainty clouding her face, and it physically hurts me to keep myself from comforting her. From taking her into my arms and telling her that we’ll find him. That everything will be okay. But just as quickly as I squash the urge to touch her, the expression on her face changes and she is staring at me like I am a stranger. “He was wearing them. He looks just like his father, Remy. You have to find him.”

“Okay. Do you know of anyone who would want to take him? Anywhere he might go?”

Parker shakes her head, crying even harder, and her uncle wraps her in another hug.

I walk away without saying another word. Daisy hesitates with one sad look at Parker before she follows me out the door.

“You ready to go to work, Daisy?”

She sits, her nose out, her muscles taut, and I hold up Nox’s tiny jacket. Then I watch as Daisy fills her nose with his scent.

I unhook her lead, ready for her to take off when she catches what she is searching for. Daisy shakes her head, moving it away from me and shifting around until she picks up the trail, then she is off at a brisk pace. Right down the sidewalk toward downtown Birch. With my phone in my pocket, my mic attached to my shoulder, and Nox’s jacket under my arm, I follow Daisy.

For over a mile, I think we’ll head right into town, but she cuts off at the cemetery. There, she turns a hard right and starts trotting purposefully through the tombstones. I see him about the same time that she barks and takes off at a sprint. His blond hair shines in the lone lantern that hangs on the walking path.

Nox is wearing the green pajamas that his mother described, and he doesn’t look in the slightest bit disheveled. In fact, he is wearing a snow jacket and a pair of Muks on his feet.

“Nox,” I say his name gently. He has his full attention on Daisy, who is currently sitting on his feet with her nose pressed against his chest. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Your mom is worried about you.”

When he turns to face me, I get a clear look at a pair of eyes that could have been plucked from Danny’s head. And all the regret and mistakes I made come rushing back, slamming into my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

He should have been mine.

I push that thought out of my head, along with the rage I never told another living soul about. The love I have for Parker, stolen before I got a chance to make her mine.

“Boo’s here,” Nox says like that simple sentence explains everything. Like it excuses his absence in the middle of the night from his house. Like he hasn’t just given his mother a heart attack with his vanishing act and there is nowhere else that he is supposed to be in the middle of the night.

The way he says it reminds me of exactly who his father is, as if I could ever forget. Full of sarcasm and a refusal to believe that anything else matters, his voice echoes even though he’d almost whispered. I open my mouth to tell him what he’s done wrong. Instead, I shut it again, realizing exactly where we are standing and why Nox has come there in the middle of the night.

Daisy, with zero fucks given, curls up on Danny’s grave, right next to the headstone. Nox, in true Hayes fashion, sits down right next to her with his back against the cold marble that marks his father’s final resting place.

I pull my cell phone from my pocket and send dispatch a text that the child has been found and where. Once I get a response, I send Jake a text telling him the same thing. I trust that he is sitting there with Parker. After that, even though it is a complete violation of policy and protocol, I sit my ass down with my dog and Nox.

“My daddy died on the other side of the world, did you know that?”

This fucking kid, man… He guts me without even trying.

“Yeah.” I choke on my words, but I force them out just the same. “I was there when he died. With your uncle Linc. I’m Remy Townsend.”

Introducing myself to him feels wrong. He should have known who I am. Hell, in another life, I’d admit the truth.

He should be mine.

Nox, with more intensity than any five-year-old should have, nods solemnly and then leans his head back against the headstone, his eyes closed in the pale light of the moon.

“Mom’s told me about you.”

Rather than say another word, I keep my mouth shut and I let the boy grieve for his dead dog and his dead father for a few silent minutes. If I grieve with him for the life I lost all those years ago… Well, no one needs to know that.

6

PARKER

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