Page 43 of Undeniably Corrupt
“Then someone else knew. You just didn’t know it.”
“Her father?”
“Maybe. But what’s the connection there, and why is it coming to you?”
“I have no clue, Dad.” I puff out a breath, watching the white plume of vapor dissipate into the cold night air. “I ran this guy’s face through my database, and nothing came up. Nothing in the private or public sector. Liora is living in a shit neighborhood, dancing in a strip club, and telling me she has no one else in her life but herself. She’s a single mother, and when I took her out on my bike the other day, she told me I couldn’t kill her, otherwise her child would be in foster care. You mention her father, and she visibly shuts down. Now a fake FBI agent is at my office door, not so casually giving me a fake name to go with it, and mentioning her. I left Lavender Lake, but she had two years there after me. I know she graduated because that was on her background check, but it’s as if she graduated and left without ever looking back.”
“She left two weeks before graduation,” he says, and my feet freeze in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What do you mean?”
“She was working for your mom and texted one day thanking her for everything she did for her but said that shewasn’t coming back. Naturally, this worried your mother, and she checked on her to make sure everything was okay, but Liora’s phone was shut off. The story that passed through town was that the school granted her an early graduation, and she was staying with out-of-state relatives who needed her, and that was that. She hasn’t been back to town since. It’s why your mother was so surprised and happy to see her.”
I stare out into the dark night of my neighborhood, with cars passing and dogs barking, and I hear and see none of it.What happened to you, Liora, that made you run?
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
He laughs humorlessly. “You had broken up two years before that and hadn’t seen or talked to her since. And you never mentioned her. Never asked about her. We thought that was your way of saying you didn’t want to know about her. Besides, what was there to tell? She graduated and was staying with family and moved on.”
ExceptIdidn’t move on. And now that she’s back in my life… yeah, I’m not sure I ever moved on.
She ended up in California, and she had no other family. An aunt somewhere, maybe, but I don’t think they had much to do with her, and she wasn’t in California, if memory serves.
“Don’t let Mom tell anyone she saw her. No one. And definitely don’t let her spread it around that she’s working for me.”
“I won’t. I’ll make sure of it, but your mother is no fool and knows how to keep her mouth shut.”
“What do I do?”
“You dig around, Vander. You dig into her father and more into this fake FBI agent if you’re not ready to dig into Liora. Find out their secrets and what they’re after.”
“I will. I’m not sure I have a choice anymore.”
“Do you want me to look so you don’t have to?”
I do want him to. But I also don’t. The only person I want looking into Liora is me. She’s not mine. Not anymore, and shenever will be again. But the possessive protectiveness I feel toward her tells me otherwise. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.
“Nah. I’ve got it.”
“You need to go slow, Vander. Slower than you are. You’re talking about the FBI. Fake or otherwise, these people know things about you they shouldn’t, and if they’re watching you or looking into how you operate, you’re taking risks and need to play this smart. More than that, you don’t know this isn’t a setup.”
“I know. I’ll go slow. And I’ll be careful.” Because I won’t risk my freedom. Not again. That week in a federal prison was enough to make me swear that, practically in blood. But what secrets is Liora hiding? And how does her father play into that? “There are a lot of ways this could go. A lot of paths it could lead.”
“Do you know what you’re doing with this?”
I rub my lips. “Not even a little. But I’m doing what I feel I have to.”
14
Iwake up in a fantastic mood. Hazel is feeling it too, and we get dressed in outfits worthy of a bright spring day even if it’s still winter doldrums outside, singing songs, and then skipping our merry way down to the T. I tell her all the places I want us to travel to one day and all the funny foods we can try. She scrunches her nose at most of them, appalled that people eat things like octopus, horse, deer, and frog legs.
By the time we get off the T, she’s in stitches over it, and it has me laughing along with her. I can’t explain what this feeling is. Hope, maybe. Hope that things are finally on the right track, which honestly should make me nervous since nothing good has ever lasted long for me, but I can’t help it. I’m riding a funny high.
It could be residual effects of the orgasm I had on Monday or how things are going well with school for me or how Hazel is really enjoying her new daycare more than any of the others before it. Maybe it’s the optimism that with this job, I can finally climb out of my financial hole, and Hazel and I can move to a better place.
It’s the notion that things will be okay for us. That we might have hit some bumps in the road and maybe fallen into a pothole or two, but we can climb ourselves out of them and get back to a smoother, more even road. I don’t even seem to mind that I have to work in the club tonight because working there feels more temporary than it ever has.
Whatever it is, there isn’t a lot that can dampen my mood.
