Page 53 of Sinful Reality

And I’ve done more, and worse, for the people I love. That’s the difference between Tarran McDermott and me: he got caught. “He’s a good dad, Janelle. And even in the limited time I spent with him, I know he’s a good person.”

“Parents can’t always be objective,” she murmurs. “The good ones, I mean. They say they are, and there’s a belief that as we grow older, we become less impulsive. Parents sit upon a pedestal, don’t you think? Held to higher standards and expected to act right no matter what. I didn’t always understand it, but I’m a mom now.” She pauses for a long beat, licking her lips so the sound rolls across the line. “If someone was hurting my baby the way my ex hurt me, I can’t be entirely sure I wouldn’t do for her exactly as my dad did for me. I haven’t,” she adds nervously. “This isn’t a confession or anything.”

“I get it,” I chuckle, allowing the tension to filter away and leave behind a woman who carries the world on her shoulders. “I understood what you mean. Here’s hoping you’re never in a position where you feel you have no choice.”

“We learn from the past, and something my daughter and I will have, that my father and I messed up, was complete and open communication. He was a girl dad, and talking boys wasn’t exactly top of the list. But I’ll keep those lines open with my baby. I’ll make sure she’s comfortable, so if we hit a certain age and things get a little wild, I want her to know she can come to me. She’ll always be safe.”

And if all that fails, there’s always the crowbar.

“He loves that you visit.” I slide my fingers through Minka’s hair and earn a purr of comfort from the woman already dozing against my chest. “He spoke of you while my partner and I were there. I know you feel guilty for everything that went down, but Janelle…” I shake my head. “He’s not sorry for it. He’s content with the choices he made and accepts the time spent behind bars for it.”

“I wish he didn’t have to. Is he comfortable there? Like…” She clears her throat. “He says he is when I ask, and his clothes are always clean, and his face is never messed up or anything. But is he okay there, do you think?”

“Yeah. I mean, as comfortable as any man can be in prison. Warden Conroy runs a strict facility, and his COs are well-trained. It’s not uncommon for prisons to become their own ecosystem of crime and violence and, at the bottom of the pile, it’s the good citizens who wear the unfairness of it all.” Kind of like Janiesa Sawyer. And Alana Lyons. And every other girl taken from a park when she was five years old and dumped a year later because she was no longer useful. But that’s a different case. Different city. A whole other ecosystem. “Warden Conroy’s administration is solid, Janelle. His prisoners are well cared for. So yeah,” I gently drag my fingers through Minka’s hair, “even though he’s behind bars, and even though he doesn’t have his freedom, your dad is comfortable, I think.”

“Thank you.” She starts moving again, the clang of a saucepan hitting the tile floor and a little girl’s giggle enough to break her from her pause. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“It’s not being reported yet, and the medical examiners are still working behind the scenes, which means this is confidential information. But you should know the information your father gave us led directly to a woman who has been missing for a year and a half.”

“It did?” Hopeful, her voice grows a little happier. “Her family had no clue where she went?”

“No. The case has been on my desk for a long time, and the fact we couldn’t find her has been a thorn in my side since we started. We had our suspicions, and we wanted to find the answers. But sometimes, the details are too slippery to grab on to.”

“Kind of like when my ex would hurt me,” she hums. “It was sneaky at first. Explained as accidents. Then it builds up.”

“Exactly. Your dad not only used his intuition to figure out this was important. But then he bided his time and collected every detail he could, knowing the guy was likely to shut up once he beat the shit out of him.”

She chokes out a laugh, shuffling the phone around and releasing a grunt, so in my mind, I see her picking her daughter up. “You sound likea decent cop, Detective Malone. You’ll have to understand that, where we’re from and with the life we’ve lived, we rarely come across cops who are good to us. I appreciate how you’ve handled this situation.”

“And I appreciate your father’s decision to help when he could have so easily ignored it. Or lied. Or tried to sell what he knew. I have to hang up in a sec, but before I do, I want you to know my partner and I put in a good word with the warden.”

“A-a good word? What does that mean?”

“I have no clue,” I chuckle. “I doubt my opinion matters much in the real world. But your dad did something really amazing this week, so eventually, when he’s up for parole, there’ll be a letter in his file with my name on it. It might help. It might not. But it can’t hurt, right? He did what a lot ofgoodfathers would do in the same position.”

“Thank you.” Her breath comes out on a puff of emotion. “Truly. Thank you.”

“No problem. If you need anything in the future, you know where to find me. I owe Tarran McDermott a solid.”

“I will.” She swallows, nodding so I hear the movement of her cheek on the phone. “Have a good night, Detective. Talk to you another time.”

“Yeah.” I end our call and ignore every other alert on my screen, then I lock the device and set it on the cushions so I can focus on my wife. She’s warm to the touch, but not one-oh-four. Which means her meds haven’t worn off yet, and though corn chips are hardly a pillar of nutrition, her belly is full.

I count this as a win, so I release her hair and carefully inch back to look down. But when I expect to find her sleeping face, I’m stunned by her watchful eyes. “Hey.” Smiling, I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead. “I thought you were out.”

“Sleepy, but not sleeping.” She yawns. “You were very nice to her.”

“Janelle?” I rest against the cushions and study her red-rimmed eyes. “It was nice of her to call just to say thank you. She was raised by a good dude. His one bad day shouldn’t define their whole lives.”

“Doctor Suitor left me an email earlier.” Lazily, she slowly blinks her eyes open and closed. “Dental records match Danika Smith’s.”

“Yeah?”Check that off my to-do list. “It’s official?”

“Got his signature and everything. You can contact her familytomorrow. Or I can.” She allows her eyes to flutter closed, but her shoulder comes up in a gentle shrug. “Whoever. It’s not outside the scope of my job to make that call, so whatever.”

“I’ll do it, since you still sound like you eat tobacco for breakfast. Progress with the bones today?”

“Yeah. The deer was female, and she’d had babies in the past.” She opens her eyes again and grins. “It’s odd how similar her hips are to a human’s in that sense. I chatted with the thanatologist, since I had spare time and a curiosity to settle.”

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