Page 47 of Paternal Instincts
I watched Imogen, who hadn’t moved from the couch. She seemed to be absorbing the world from a distant daze, ten layers of separation. Occasionally, she glanced at Nixon, Jude, her mother, who fought with Benedict, then back to her husband.
Flynn flopped onto the couch beside her, rubbing his temple like he, too, was fending off a migraine. He rested a hand on Imogen’s knee and said something to his sister-in-law. Odelia leaned over her sister and said something to Flynn. Flynn scowled, removed his hand, and said something back to Odelia. The two exchanged heated words, too quiet to hear over the louder fights going on around us. Odelia huffed and sat back, crossing her arms.
Flynn addressed Imogen again, rubbing her shoulder. Imogen shrugged him off and stood, moving toward the kitchen while clutching her round belly. No one stopped her. No one noticed her leave.
Odelia did not linger on the couch with Flynn. She got up and went to her mother’s side, joining ranks in the battle with Benedict.
Flynn took out his phone and glanced at it as though checking the time before getting up and approaching his brother, who was no longer at peace with Jude. The two shared heated words. Flynn draped an arm around Nixon, choosing a side and facing off with Jude.
The clamor rose.
The shouting continued.
Vitriol. Hate. Accusation.
“Christ. We need order.”
“We need to send people home or get help.”
I scanned the room. “I’m not ready to send anyone home. Someone here knows something. We need to dig.”
I withdrew my phone and was about to text Aslan and tell him to get his ass to the house when the doorbell rang.
The unbearable volume diminished so fast that it left my ears ringing. Everyone looked from the door to me as though I should know who was there. “Probably the press,” I muttered to Jordyn. “Someone got brave enough to ask for an interview. I’ll handle it.”
Benedict and Flynn headed to answer the door at the same time, but even that turned into a fight.
“I’ll get it. Both of you go back to the living room.”
It was not the press. It was not a neighbor coming to make a noise complaint. It was not a patrol officer requesting someone to move their car because it was blocking a neighboring driveway. It wasn’t Aslan, miraculously reading my mind and bounding to the rescue.
It was a FedEx delivery.
Chapter 12
Quaid
The man wore a navy-blue polo with the FedEx stripes and logo on the sleeve and a ballcap with the same emblem on the front. His bespeckled beard and leathery skin put him in his fifties. He carried a white cardboard envelope under one arm and produced a handheld machine to collect a signature.
“Davis?” he asked, his tone flat and bored as he punched buttons on the machine.
I produced my credentials. “Detective Valor.”
That caught his attention. No longer running the gambit of his ordinary day, he stopped what he was doing and glanced up for the first time. He gave me a once-over before he seemed to notice the stream of cars parked along both sides of the street, including two news vans, whose occupants were loudly debating crossing the property line to see what was happening.
“Um…” He plucked the package from under his arm and read the front. “I have a delivery for Davis. Needs a signature. If you aren’t Davis, you can’t sign.”
“Who’s it from?”
He glanced at the envelope and shrugged. “Doesn’t say.”
“What does it say when you scan it?”
With an irritable sigh, the man shuffled the package and signing device into one hand and unclipped a scanner from a loop on his belt with the other. Staring at me and not looking at what he was doing, he scanned the barcode on the package and announced, “Says I don’t fucking know because they didn’t fill it in. Is there someone here who can sign for this? I’m running behind.”
“I can.” Nixon appeared at my shoulder.
“You Davis?”
