Page 21 of Hey, Daddy

Her eyes rounded and she reached for the Muddie Buddies, which were my favorite as well.

John groaned under his breath as he said, “You were hoping that she wouldn’t want those and you could eat them, weren’t you?”

I shrugged.

I might or might not have felt that way.

But I tried to force myself not to eat them.

The only reason they were there was because the boss liked to carry our favorite snacks, even if he refused to just give them to us. There was only so far his niceness would extend.

“They’re my favorite, too,” Nastya said. “I’m surprised to see these in a vending machine.”

“They’re there because the big boss wants to keep his detectives happy. He does make us pay for them, though,” John admitted.

Only after she’d finished half of the juice and half of the powdered sugary peanut butter Chex Mix-covered goodness did she gesture for me to keep going.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now, we ask you not to leave town, and let us do a little more investigating,” John answered for the both of us.

“If you have need of her answering any more questions, please call me first,” Elianora ordered.

Doubtful.

But we’d see.

“Yes, ma’am,” I lied.

The three of them left without another word, and I was left standing there, looking at the half-eaten bag of Muddie Buddies she’d left at the table where I’d just been sitting. She did grab the Snickers bar, though.

“What do you think?” John asked.

“I think she didn’t do it,” I said.

“Same.”

“Gentlemen.”

We both looked up to find the big boss, also known as Sergeant Daniels, in the doorway.

“Yes?”

“My office,” he ordered.

Didn’t mean to be rude, but it’s just the cold and my personality.

—Nastya to Haze

NASTYA

The lawyer had already figured out what it was Shasha did.

“After the Viveka and Gabriel situation, they’ve decided that we’re going to be their primary focus. They put Detective Haze on the project because they think he’s about to quit, and they need him,” my brother replied.

The Gabriel and Viveka situation was something that’d happened a couple of months before Shasha met his now-wife, Brecken.

See, a woman had dropped off a baby at Shasha’s gate, and had been run over in a hit-and-run as she tried to get away.

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