Page 23 of Smitten with the Single Dad

“Nothing yet,” Gabrielle said. “But I only just found out it’s gone to the press. Honestly, I’m shocked with how quickly this got out.” She glanced at Myla. “You didn’t leak it did you?”

Myla made a face. “Give me a bit more credit than that. I know how to do my job and much like yours, discretion and confidentiality are a huge part of it. Besides, no way would I blab about this to anybody. What happened last night was horrific and Vica shouldn’t have to relive any of it.”

“One of the McEvoys then?” Gabrielle asked, ignoring Myla’s subtle green glare.

“No. They’re not like that. They kept Brooke hidden here for weeks and nobody knew. They’re not going to blab about Vica and what happened. They’reway above stooping to leaking shit to the press.” Myla exhaled, the shoulders of her slight frame lifting and falling dramatically. “Maybe some lookie-loos from the cabins? Or patrons at the pub?”

“I’ll do some digging,” Gabrielle said. “But we need to be prepared for an onslaught of press to the island, and the property. The guys were smart installing the security gate.”

After the attack last night, Vica turned off her phone, and she had yet to turn it back on. But all this talk about the press knowing, along with Track’s parents, made her run upstairs and grab it. She returned to the two women wearing identical curious faces.

And sure enough, once the phone was on, the never-ending messages from all her coworkers started to pop up.

She couldn’t even bring herself to read them though.

“Give it to me,” Gabrielle said. “Anything we can use to help build the case. But I understand if you don’t want to read them. However, I do need you to remember and find any written communication between you and the deceased that could help with your case. Him asking you out. Text messages, emails. Anything. Did he slide into your DMs somewhere inappropriately? Did you turn him down? How did you turn him down? Did you ever give him any kind of indication that your feelings for him went beyond professional?”

“Never,” Vica said. “Even if he wasn’t my boss, I do not—I mean, Ididnot—find him attractive. He is not my type. He is …wasarrogant. He was a playman—I mean, playboy. He was rude to people who he considered beneath him. He flaunted his money and the fact that his father owned the company, and he abused people because of it. I wondered from the day I met him if he even has a degree in engineering or if Mr. Croft just hired his son because he felt he had to.”

“He never had a degree in engineering,” Gabrielle confirmed. “My initial deep dive into his background indicated three years of a business degree at UCLA before he was expelled for sexual misconduct during a fraternity party.His father paid off a bunch of people—including the woman who Track assaulted—and it was all swept under the rug. But I have ways of pulling up rugs and jimmying backdoors. So I found the records. He then went to rehab for a pill addiction for two months, and once he was out, his father hired him at Croft Engineering. But he wasn’t put in charge of his own division right away. Didn’t take long though.”

Vica’s blood boiled. A man with far less education than her—and not even education in engineering—was calling the shots and telling her what to do. All because Daddy owned the company and needed to find somewhere for his baby boy to work. His college dropout, pill popping, sexually assaulting baby boy.

“So he’s done this to other women before,” Myla said. “That’s got to help the case.”

“If we can find those women. But if Wyndham Croft was willing to pay one woman off before, he’s been willing to pay them all off. And if they signed nondisclosure agreements then we may have a hard time finding them. They also may not want to be found or come forward, reliving whatever nightmare he unleashed on them.”

“Am I going to jail?” Vica asked, directing her question to Myla. “I killed him. Am I going to jail?”

Myla smiled. “At this moment in time, no. Seattle PD has posted a cop on the main road and will be doing vehicle checks because we don’t want you leaving. But I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that you stay out of jail. I believe you. We all do.”

“Not everyone,” Vica grumbled. “Not those other two cops.”

“Fischer and Jenkins?” she said with an eyeroll. “They’re glorified mall cops with guns. Don’t worry about them.”

It was hard not to though. They might be glorified mall cops, but they still had weapons and the power to put her away. Eventually, Officer Bruce would have a day off, or leave the island. What then?

Vica’s phone pinged and vibrated in Gabrielle’s hand. Vica’s eyes went to itand Gabrielle gave her a questioning look. “Do you want to look at it?”

Yes, and no.

Yes, because she wanted to see if anybody believed her. But no, because she was sure most of the world right now was calling her a murderer.

She shook her head and sighed. “No.”

“Do you have any family we can call?” Myla asked. “Either here, or back in Italy?”

Vica shook her head again. “I know what you’re probably thinking—all Italians must have these big, loud families. But I didn’t. And I don’t. My parents are both dead. My mother died when I was six from an accidental insulin overdose, and my father died when he was in his late-fifties from a heart attack in his sleep. I was very close with my brother, Lorenzo, growing up, but he died two years ago in a paratrooper accident. He was with the 4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, and during a routine training jump, his shoot and backup shoot didn’t deploy properly and he,” she swallowed, and her throat grew tight once again, “he died.”

“I’m so sorry,” Myla said, her mouth hanging open in surprise.

Gabrielle nodded. “As am I.”

Vica barely allowed the corners of her mouth to tip up as she exhaled through thinly parted lips. “Both sets of grandparents are already dead, and my mother was an only child. My father went no-contact with his family when he married my mother, as they did not approve of her. She wasn’t Jewish and my dad was from a Jewish-Italian family. It was a whole big thing. But we do not speak to that side of the family.”

“So it’s just you?” Gabrielle said, her tone sad.

“Si.It’s just me.”

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