Page 79 of Shattered Fate

“And all it will take for you is one man.”

She rests her forehead against mine, and her fingers dig into my hair. “You were that man when you didn’t let me run away and ordered me a coffee.”

“And you were that woman when you asked me to pick you up and kiss you in the woods. Fuck.” I say it good-naturedly, but she doesn’t laugh.

“Fuck,” she whispers, knowing this isn’t going to be as easy as we want it to be.

“We’ll go slow, and I’ll talk to Zane.” And hope to God he listens to me. “It will be okay.”

“I’ll talk to him too, and promise we’ll go slow.”

I cup her face in my hands, her silky hair brushing my arms. “You’re mine.”

She sighs and snuggles into my chest. “There’s no one else in the world I want to belong to.”

We sit like that for a lot longer than we should.

I drive her home around midnight. No use getting Zane angry. He wants what’s best for his sister, but he’s going to have to understand that I want what’s best for her, too.

The only problem is we may not agree on what that is.

She kisses me, lingering, and then she hops out of the truck, a scrub of Baby’s fur to say goodbye.

It’s bittersweet, as all our goodbyes are. I’ll see her again, I just don’t know when.

I spend the drive home worrying Zane will be disagreeable and unwilling to bend.

That was the last thing I should have been worried about.

JodiAnne Donnelly’s therapist miraculously doesn’t cancel our appointment, and bleary-eyed, I’m awake and driving downtown with Pop by seven. It was the only way we could speak to her, she explained, before her last day of appointments and the holiday break.

A perky receptionist greets us and offers us coffee. Surly, I decline, but Pop accepts. We wait for the psychiatrist of the rich and famous to say she’s ready to talk to us, and I’m jealous, watching Pop sip the miracle elixir I desperately need. I only got four hours of sleep last night, and they sure as hell weren’t enough.

Pop’s almost down to the bottom of his mug when Jerricka Solis opens her office door. “I can speak with you gentlemen for a few moments now.”

I shuffle into an office that would fit my entire apartment and resist whistling. The view from her window is worth a cool million easily, and as Pop steps deeper into the office, I watch the city wake up to face another day.

“What can I do for you? You said this is concerning a patient of mine?” she asks, annoyed.

“I’m Linc Davenport, and this is my son, Gage,” Pop says, unaffected. We irritate people all the time. “Polly Donnelly hired us to look into her daughter’s death.”

Dr. Solis hears my name and her eyes widen. Her gaze jerks to mine. She knows me from somewhere, but before I can question her, the mask slips back into place and she’s the calm, cool doctor who let us into her office. I tuck her reaction into the back of my mind. Jerricka Solis is hiding something. My bullshit radar is off the charts, and she hasn’t even started flapping her jaws yet.

Pop perches on the edge of a wingback chair that looks brand new.

“Remind me what happened, Mr. Davenport?” Dr. Solis says, leaning a slim thigh against her desk. I’m not sure which of us she’s aiming her question at.

Her platinum blonde hair is twisted into an elegant chignon, and her suit is, I don’t know, I guess it would have a fancy name because nothing is plain and simple in the world of therich. White has no place on the color wheel. It would be an eggshell or something just as ridiculous. Discreet gold jewelry completes a sophisticated picture. Oh, and she’s wearing fancy framed glasses like an eyewear model on an advertisement in an optometry shop.

Pop fields the question, though she doesn’t need us to remind her what’s going on. She wants us to reveal how much we know. That’s one of the advantages of looking like street rats—we’re always underestimated.

“JodiAnne passed away due to cardiac arrest two weeks ago. Her funeral is tomorrow. Will you be attending?” he asks.

He leans back, looking like a man who lost his way to a fishing expedition. Baseball cap low on his head, almost hiding his eyes. Black leather bomber jacket, worn jeans, and work boots. I’m a bit better dressed in jeans and a plain black flannel shirt, but I didn’t shave and I’m wearing my own annoyed expression. I need to go back to bed, and I wouldn’t turn down a little brown-eyed brunette sleeping buddy.

“Possibly.” She shrugs.

“Before she died, she said someone was after her. That they wanted to kill her. Did she mention anything to you of that nature during her sessions?” Pop asks.

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