Page 15 of Lone Star Secrets

Angel looked at Presley, knowing he would have been looking into possible answers.

“There’s been no sign of Kenton since he disappeared,” Presley explained. “Of course, he could have left the country or else just been very successful in changing his identity. He could have done that if he thought he would be arrested for assaulting Mia.”

Yep, he could have. But that still brought Angel back to the time lag.

“He could have been in jail or in a situation where he didn’t want to get revenge,” Angel speculated. “Then, the situation changed or there was some kind of trigger that prompted him to get revenge.”

“Melanie,” Mia said. “She could be in danger.”

Presley nodded. “She’s on her way here to be with RJ, and Ruby provided an escort. Melanie will be protected.” He paused. “Ruby’s trying to track down Birdie, too, just in case.”

“Birdie,” Angel repeated.

He took out his phone to bring up the background check he’d already had Danno run on her. Birdie had been somewhat of a wild child during her time in foster care, and that had continued into adulthood.

“At nineteen, she was arrested for shoplifting,” Angel summarized. “At twenty-one, another arrest for assault in a bar fight. A year after that, she got picked up for being drunk and disorderly. After that, she stayed out of trouble with the cops, but according to social media posts, she attended a lot of parties, some of which had busts for drugs.”

Mia sighed. “Birdie had a shitty childhood.” But then she added, “All of us did.”

True. And that included Kenton, too.

From what Angel knew and had learned, all of their placements into foster care had come when the parents or custodial relatives had screwed up enough to lose custody. In Angel’s case, it’d been his father. A widower at the age of twenty-six, his dad hadn’t been able to cope with the loss of Angel’s mother, who’d been killed in a car crash, and his dad’s depression had led to suicide. With no immediate kin to take Angel in, he’d landed in foster care.

Mia’s situation had been in that same wheelhouse. Her mother had been murdered in a botched robbery at the diner where she worked, and with no father in the picture, Mia had ended up in foster care, too.

Presley’s story was slightly different but still went back to absentee parents. As a newborn, he’d been left at a fire station. He had no idea who his bio-parents were or what had led to him basically being discarded. He’d been “discarded” yet once again when his adoptive father had murdered his mother in a jealous rage before ending his own life. Since there’d been no one else to take Presley in, he’d been sent to foster care.

Mia, Presley, and he had all beaten the odds and had come out of the system and stayed arrest-free. Birdie clearly hadn’t taken that path. At least not until very recently.

“Two months ago, Birdie got married,” Angel went on with the report. “No wild child background for him. He’s a very successful, very conservative small-town businessman, Roger Farrow.”

“Opposites attract?” Presley questioned.

Angel had to shrug. “Roger’s worth a fortune.” And he pulled up the man’s photo to show them.

He figured no one would consider him good looking. Unlike Birdie who was a curvy blonde who could have shared Marilyn Monroe’s gene pool.

“So, money attracts,” Presley amended. He leaned in, lowering his voice. “If she killed Kenton, she might not want new rich hubby to find out.”

Angel made a sound of agreement.

“Once Ruby manages to contact Birdie,” Presley went on, “she’ll offer her protection.”

If Birdie was innocent, maybe she would take Ruby up on that. Then again, Birdie might not need such measures since her rich husband could provide her with a bodyguard as well. Of course, that would mean Birdie confessing to him why she might need a bodyguard, and Roger might not even be aware of his wife’s checkered past.

“One more thing,” Presley continued a moment later. He moved in even closer to them and whispered, “After I gave my statement, I drove to your place and got the pocketknife.”

That wasn’t a surprise since Angel had instructed Presley to do that first chance he got.

“I had a courier pick it up and take it straight to Maverick Ops for testing,” Presley spelled out. “The lab techs are already working on it.”

Good. Maybe after all these years, there’d be something on the knife that would help them. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be something that would land Mia or him in even hotter water.

Presley’s and his phones dinged at the same time, and a sense of dread washed over Angel when he saw it was from Ruby. It was possible his boss would demand they all come in right away to give her a briefing.

One with the full facts.

But that wasn’t it.

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