Page 13 of Daddy P.I. 3.0

I drift over to the box, admiring it. The paper wrapping is blue and purple and silver, patterned to look like scales. I carefully untie the blue-green metallic ribbon. I’ll save it and add it to a scrapbook I’ve started making. Logan has me writing a journal for him once a week, and I’ve kept my own journal for years but my scrapbook is more for impressions, little keepsakes, things I want to remember forever. This ribbon is definitely going in it.

I open the box and peel apart the tissue paper inside. Shimmering, silvery fabric fills the box. I lift out the first piece, admiring the way the warm, morning light sparks highlights of pink and blue in the fabric. There’s a bikini top, a bottom with a long skirt and trailing, filmy, blue fins. Underneath is a baby’s one-piece swimsuit in the same fabric with a detachable skirt of the same filmy fabric but in purple.

I hold the swimsuits up, my eyes filling so they merge into a silver blur. “Bren, these are so perfect. Livvy and I can be mermaids together.”

Bren blinks. “You really like them? You don’t have to wear them if you don’t.”

“I love them! Did you get yourself one, too?”

She shakes her head. “No. But I, uh, well, I’ll show you.”

She pushes around some of the sketches on her drafting board and holds one out.

It’s a delicately rendered silhouette of a mermaid, her hair and tail flowing behind her as she surfs a rolling wave. In her arms, she holds a baby mermaid, its tail curling into the foam of another wave. The figures are black, with color on their tails and in the waves, blue, green, purple, and bright points of orange like the sunset over the ocean.

“Bren, it’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah? I thought I could get it on my back, kind of where Mac’s mermaid is, although this piece would be smaller than his.”

“That’s so perfect. But don’t you want to be in it, too?”

“Naw, I’ll never be a mermaid. That’s for you and Livvy.”

“Bren, you’ll always be a mermaid,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s look at these galleys.”

I hug her again before I replace the swimsuits carefully in the box and set it aside.

I can’t wait to show it to Logan. Daddy’s mermaids. He’ll love that so much.

four

LOGAN

My mind’sall over the place today.

It’s with my baby doll, who is happily heading off to the 6BC Botanical Garden with Mac, Bren, Warrin, Aggie, Jack, and Sammi for a picnic.

It’s with Max, who is packing to fly to England tomorrow in De Leon’s tiny, private plane.

It’s in London, where my daughter’s getting discharged from the ICU where she’s been since her complicated birth.

It’s at Blunts, where the problems with the house submissives seem to be spinning further out of control with Annabelle’s resignation.

It’s in New Jersey, where I’m headed to finish wiring in the CCTV system that I hope will finally catch a thief.

My business partner, Manny, drops me off before heading down the Turnpike to a job in Elizabeth. I’d like to say that Manny and I coordinated our jobs so he’s not shlepping over half of Jersey but it’s all Max. He’s made our lives so much better in the few weeks he’s been onboard. I always know where I’mgoing, how much time I have on a job, and where I’m going next. I wish he’d joined us a year ago.

Max has also entered the wrangle between my insurance company and Pink Pearl’s insurance company over my medical bills with both guns and his keyboard blazing. I have no idea where he gets his information—and I probably don’t want to know—but he’s already gotten Pink Pearl’s insurer to cough up half of the costs. He’s now going after my insurer for the other half plus the selling costs on Emmy’s house and emotional distress. I would feel sorry for them if they hadn’t been such utter asshats, hiding behind subrogation clauses for so long that I thought I was going to lose my house to the debt collectors.

Given that so many of the things that were weighing on me over the summer have been settled, and settled in my favor, I should be relaxed.

I’m not.

I sigh and roll my shoulders as I use an electronic fob to disarm the security I’ve recently installed on the employee entrance of Sacrum, Blunts’ sister club, and enter its cool, dark confines. I collect my kit out of the club office, grab the note taped to the office door with my name on it, and get to work, wiring in the last cameras in the new CCTV net I’ve created for the club.

These are cameras I didn’t think I’d need. This project didn’t initially call for coverage of the administrative areas of the club. I was hired to bring the club into the 21stcentury and make sure there was coverage in the play spaces and the kitchen, where the club might have liability. I expected the cameras I installed for the initial spec would also catch whoever’s been dipping their fingers in the club’s petty cash.

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