Page 113 of Brazen Mistakes

But for now, I’m just a girl on a date with a boy she loves.

And this is the most normal I’ve felt in what feels like forever.

Chapter 40

RJ

Since I figured out my dad’s up to his old ways, I’ve flagged him at nearly all the casinos within four hours of our house. There are a few with serious security blocking me, so instead of hacking, I sent warning messages spoofing the address of another casino early yesterday. That should put him on their watch lists.

It feels gross doing this to Pops, but if he’s lapsed again, I don’t know what else to do. I’ve already had to buy them out of foreclosure twice, once when I was only a kid. I’m not doing it again.

I’m playing offense this time, at least until whatever caused this relapse fades out. I already asked Clara to help me come up with better guardrails. Maybe even a workable solution. Even if right now I’m just hoping my parents get the miracle they’re always praying for and realize Pops is bad enough to see a doctor.

PTSD comes at Pops sideways, and while I know it’s not his fault that the damn war fucked up his brain, sometimes I wish he were the guy I remember from before he deployed that second time.

Just like I sometimes wish I hadn’t found my mom crying over that foreclosure notice at fifteen.

I fixed it, but it cost my dad his pride. And now he’s stopped pretending with me, leaving that for the girls. And they eat it up.

With a sigh, I finish cycling through the alerts, making sure he hasn’t shown up anywhere I have access to in the last twenty-four hours, frustrated to see he’d been out, but turned away from three separate casinos.

Then I do the same thing for Bryce, finding a few blurry shots of Jansen and Clara climbing into his car at night, taken from far away, like they left before he had a chance to get closer. Did they go out last night? I’d woken to her curled beside me, so I never thought to ask.

Swallowing down the need to lock Clara where she’s safe, I move on to checking my top-shelf pedos, siphoning off cash here and there, leaving the funds I can’t trace yet so I can track them later.

Last, I pull up the recordings from the Nazi jewelry house, fast-forwarding through the footage, picking out the secret safe where the jewels are kept. The creep seems to love his collection, pulling out a few pieces every day to look at, like a cartoon villain. It makes my job easier, and therefore, it’ll make Jansen’s job easier, but it’s weird as fuck. Either way, tomorrow night is looking good to hit them up. We’ll even have two days to spare before giving them to Clara.

It’ll suck to be so tired while watching from the van. I’m only gonna get a few hours of sleep tonight after the game.

Clara could keep me company in the van, keep me awake, after she helps.

Or maybe not. The jewelry is supposed to be a surprise, but I don’t know how we’ll be able to keep her from figuring out that Jansen and I have vanished with the van.

There’s just so much to do and not nearly enough time for any of it.

At least tonight should be easy. We only invited regulars to the party, so I just have to double-check the players’ finances and monitor the cameras for any cheating Jansen doesn’t flag. If it wouldn’t risk the work I was doing protecting those kids, I’d search out their passwords too and have a peek at their accounts for the most accurate picture, but it’s not worth the risk. Not when kids are in danger.

Social media stalking is going to have to be enough for now.

Within the hour, Walker’s going to pop in and announce he’s done with the decorations, having artfully covered our carefully placed microphones and cameras. And then, like the good friends we are, we’ll go upstairs and praise his work.

I mean, it’ll be amazing, but I don’t have time for a side quest when there are so many pressing main quests waiting for me.

Why the party needed to be themed is a mystery, but a masquerade was what Walker wanted, so a masquerade is what we got. Walker dropped off my mask earlier, so intricate that I felt compelled to compliment him, even if wearing the thing doesn’t appeal to me.

Ditto for my new slacks and dress shirts that hang in my closet, but I also can’t help but hope they look good on me. I mean, Walker said they did, but it’s not his opinion that matters.

My promise to take Clara out for a proper date uses that moment of insecurity to pop into my head, and if I could curse the pile of work I have in front of me, I would. It’s not like my failed attempt at teaching her self-defense counts as a date. That might even be negative one date, leaving me behind the starting line for dating a girl. Which honestly is where I always figured I’d be.

But she’s special. She doesn’t need to fill the empty spaces in our conversations, allowing me time and space to get my words to shape themselves into things that have meaning and context. She didn’t pull away when I got angry and obsessive after Bryce showed his hand, not even mentioning it when my sister dragged her upstairs, like she understood without me saying that I wasn’t trying to push her away. And the way she looks at me, like I’m something special instead of an awkward mess, it makes my heart hurt.

We need that date.

A knock on the door has me up to unlock it, expecting Clara. Instead, Walker’s there, a large box in his arms, his brows low over his eyes. “That cop’s here. Clara asked you to go downstairs.”

I freeze.

That’s as good as telling the cop that I’m the one with the information. She wouldn’t do that to me, would she?

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