Page 51 of Wicked and Claimed

“I’m not. My dad married Havana right after her eighteenth birthday. They have three kids now. I tease him all the time that he needs to stop knocking her up. It’s embarrassing.”

Nash laughed, mostly because it felt nice for a few seconds not to think about how badly he’d fucked up. “Wow.”

“It kind of sucks, but they’re happy, so…” Ethan shrugged. “Listen, about earlier today, at the mall?—”

“It’s not your fault the girl working at the pastry shop wouldn’t talk to us. She wasn’t going to.”

Ethan sighed. “I didn’t think Abby would be so skittish.”

“Same.” And Nash felt bad for not realizing that he and Ethan were probably intimidating, especially in light of the abductions happening less than a hundred feet from her. “And that other kid…”

“I guarantee he’s stoned more than he’s working. Did you see his eyes?”

“Yep. That’s my read, too. And the fact he refuses to wear his glasses… Jesus, he shouldn’t even be driving.”

“No wonder none of the police reports mention that guy. Then again, I don’t think Detective Haskins gives a shit about anything these days except his upcoming pension, his gold watch, and endless days of fishing.”

“It sucks. I’m not sure where to turn from here. We need to sit down with a list of facts and unknowns, then start asking the right questions, rule out people who couldn’t possibly pull this off, then start narrowing down to a list of suspects who could.”

Ethan nodded. “We’ll hit it first thing in the morning.”

“You going out tonight?”

The kid grinned as he pulled on a T-shirt. “I’ve got two booty calls, and I’m already late to the first. See you in the morning.”

“How are you going to get any sleep?”

That made Ethan laugh. “If that’s your first priority, you’re getting old, dude. See you.”

“I’m not fucking old,” he called to Ethan’s retreating back.

The door slammed. Nash cursed, then focused on his laptop.

Putting on his Jasper hat to talk to Haisley tonight was probably reckless, but every part of him needed to make sure she was okay. Nash wasn’t in a position to reassure her yet; she wouldn’t listen to him. But Jasper was.Ifhe could be fucking delicate—something he absolutely sucked at.

He hated lying to her, and hopefully, this subterfuge wouldn’t blow up in his face. He’d come clean eventually, and using a screen name to get close to Haisley wasn’t his first choice, but she hadn’t left him more appealing options.

Sighing, he navigated to the CSI site and logged in. He already had a message waiting from Haisley. Eagerly, he opened it, but it didn’t say much more than hello and a tacked-on hope that he had a good day.

He answered right away.

JasperThePrivateDick: Hi, Red. My day sucked. I hope yours was better.

RedHotSavvySleuth: Nope. Day two of my new job, my boss is still an asshole and this case is still an enigma.

JasperThePrivateDick: Sorry to hear that. What about your ex? See him again?

RedHotSavvySleuth: Yes. Don’t remind me. No offense, but why are men so confusing?

JasperThePrivateDick: Ha! We ask the same thing about women all the time.

RedHotSavvySleuth: But you mastered it once. You had someone you clearly loved.

JasperThePrivateDick: More than she’ll ever know.

Nash hated how true that seemed right now.

RedHotSavvySleuth: Ugh. Let’s not talk about the past. I wish I could say I’d made headway on the case, but it’s hard when I’m stuck in the office, and I can’t actually investigate beyond the paperwork inside those four walls.

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