Page 128 of The Moments You Were Mine
“Highly unlikely he’s behind what’s happening at the ranch, then.”
“Unless it was a suicide. Maybe Adam orchestrated his revenge and then took himself out,” Dad responded.
“No way Uncle Adam would kill himself,” Fallon interjected, shaking her head. “He was too arrogant, too full of his own self-worth.”
“Prison changes people,” Dad told her. “But I don’t disagree. This feels like another attack, making me believe it’s directed at your family more than you personally. I’d say it moves us another step away from JJ, but it could still be Ace.”
I hated JJ’s name with a passion I’d never hated anything or anyone. Not even Adam, after kidnapping Fallon, had worked up this much loathing. Maybe it was because I knew JJ was the reason Ace had still been in Fallon’s life. Or maybe it was because JJ had seen Fallon as I had last night—bare in heart and soul and skin. But then I corrected myself. JJ had never seen her heart and soul. She’d never given him either of those. Those had always been mine.
“It’s even more important that we’re on our way to see Ike, then,” I said.
“Agreed.”
It was quiet for a moment, and I was just about to end the call when Dad added on, “Changing the subject, I just want to make sure what happened yesterday with you two has nothing to do with this.”
I heard the worry in his voice, and I was almost sure the question was directed more at me than her. But we both answered at the same time. My “Absolutely not” ringing with her “No.”
Dad chuckled. “Okay, then. I’m only sorry part of your honeymoon will be spent dealing with this sorry excuse of a human in a jail cell.”
“We’ll take a real honeymoon after this is resolved,” I told him and was surprised to mean it. That same surprise filled Fallon’s eyes, but I just smiled at her. “Maybe we’ll go to Lake Moraine and do some kayaking.”
She did that little half-laugh that always made my lips twitch and warmed my heart.
“Give me a call when you’re finished with the asshole,” Dad said, and we hung up.
The quiet returned to the car, and I didn’t break it until we parked in the prison’s visitor lot. “I’d say I’m sorry Adam is dead, but I’m not. The only thing I’ll be sorry about is if it’s made you sad.”
She turned to face me and shook her head. “Honestly, Uncle Adam has been dead to me for ten years. The moment he let Theresa hit me without stopping her and then followed that up by abusing and attempting to shoot Sadie, I no longer had an uncle.”
I cupped her neck and tugged her closer so I could brush my mouth against hers. I mostly did it simply because I could, because it was a new addiction I’d never get tired of, but also so I could remind her that she was safe. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her again.
“It’s still a shock,” I said, “that someone killed him.”
She nodded, brows furrowing in thought. “Why is it all happening now, Parker? What triggered it?”
I tipped my forehead into hers. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out, Ducky.”
It irked me that I couldn’t pull the pieces together yet, but finding out who’d put the beta blockers in Adam’s food should lead us to this asshole’s door.
I pulled back. “Ready?”
She glanced over at the tower hiding the men with guns and the bland cream-and-brown buildings inside the barbed-wire-topped fences. After a moment, she nodded.
“Leave everything but your ID in the SUV,” I said and thenjogged around the vehicle to open her door.
Once we were inside the prison walls, the dank desperation hit me. I’d been in much worse places on my missions—jails that had contained the smell of death and rot and piss—but the air here still held the anger, desolation, and fear I’d sensed in those faraway locations. Emotions that put everyone, from the guards down to the prisoners themselves, on edge. The worst could happen at any moment, and everyone expected it. If they didn’t, if they got lax and dropped their defenses, that was when the real evil slid in.
After we were thoroughly scanned, the staff directed us to a waiting area where we sat in chairs screwed to the cement floors and waited for a guard to fetch us.
I put a hand on Fallon’s bouncing knee and drew the fingers she was rubbing together into mine. “You don’t have to do this. I can go in alone.”
All her movement stopped. When she spoke, it was with a tremor of anger. “I want to face him. I want to look Ike in the eye as we ask him about the attacks. But what I want most is to see the man who tried to have my dad killed locked in a cage he’ll stay in for the rest of his life.”
A guard approached. “Visitors for Ike Puzo.”
We both rose and followed him down a hallway lit by bright LED bulbs. Stark and bright, it allowed very few shadows to exist, but I could feel them anyway. They clung to the very air we breathed, trying to squirm their way inside your soul.
Dad had negotiated our use of an interview room generally reserved for lawyers meeting with their clients, and the guard opened a metal door to reveal a small space with cinderblock walls. A plain steel table was bolted to the floor with four plastic chairs, lightweight and unlikely to do any serious damage, on either side of it.
