Page 74 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Last year. He was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Mama! Why didn’t you tell me?”
My mother finally looks at me. Her eyes are full of sympathy, and it makes me furious.
“Why, mija? What could you have done?”
“I’m sure I could’ve done something—”
“No.” My mother’s voice is firm. “You could not.”
Even through my anger, I know she’s right. What could I do? Eva doesn’t know me, has never known me. I gave her up when she was only minutes old. I never even got to hold her. The doctor took her from my body and whisked her away, into the care of the agency my mother chose to handle the adoption. I’ve only ever been a part of her life like this, hovering out of sight, stealing glimpses of my own child like a thief.
Even this is more than I should have.
The adoption was private, the records sealed. But long before I had Tabby on my payroll, I had someone else who hid and unearthed information for me. A man named Dooney whom I met in a grief counseling group after I gave birth. He was an expert in information technology who’d been a bigwig in the military before a dishonorable discharge for manslaughter. (Something to do with his wife and another man, although he never provided the details.) He helped me forge a new identity from the ashes of my former life, helped me find out who had adopted my baby, and later hung himself from the rafters of his garage.
Tabby I have to pay. Dooney did it because he was in love with me.
Birds of a feather flock together, and so do birds with broken wings.
My mother sighs. I know she wishes I’d never found out where Eva went, but she stopped telling me long ago that these clandestine visitations were an unhealthy thing to do. Besides, she’s been unable to keep away, either. Like addicts, we’re still drawn to the thing that ruined us.
“I visited your father’s grave the other day.”
Rage rears its ugly head inside me. I mutter, “Why?”
My mother thinks for a moment. “Sometimes I need someone to talk to.”
My breath hisses out between my gritted teeth. “And you decided the man who spent every last dime of yours gambling and drinking himself to death and every minute before that screaming at me about what shame I’d brought on the family because I got pregnant was the one you needed a friendly chat with?”
Her voice is hollow when she answers. “I told him how much I still hate him. I told him his weakness is what killed your brother. If he hadn’t wasted all our money, we could have gotten Eduardo better doctors, more help. His illness wouldn’t have been cured, but he could have been in less pain. He didn’t have to suffer so much, disfigured and helpless, shitting himself like an infant. ” She’s silent a moment, staring out the window. Then: “I hope your father is rotting in hell.”
I tilt my head back against the headrest and close my eyes. “It wasn’t Dad who killed Eduardo. It was Parker. Before I got pregnant and Parker deserted me, we were fine. Everything was fine. And then it wasn’t. Because of him.”
Silently, my mother nods. This is an old theme between us, a conversation so well-worn it’s really no longer necessary to speak it aloud. The fact is undisputed: Parker Maxwell was the catalyst of my family’s misery. He is the cross on which all our pain hangs.
And now the daughter he’s never met is fatherless once again.
When I exhale a long breath, my mother guesses what I’ve been thinking. “You can’t interfere, mija. Anything you do that puts you in the path of that girl, you risk being discovered. Think what would happen then.”
I can see the headlines now. The Queen Bitch Has a Hidden Love Child! If I try to help Eva and I’m found out, her life will be miserable. The press will descend like vultures. And then she’ll discover who her real father is, and he’ll desert her just like he did fifteen years ago.
“You’re right. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, and concentrate instead on kicking the shit out of their useless master.”
I start the truck and pull out of the parking lot, headed back home.
In my handbag, my phone begins to ring. At the exact same time, my mother and I both mutter, “Speak of the devil.”
We look at each other. She says, “Jinx.”
My depression suddenly lifting, I look back at the road.
She’s just given me a brilliant idea.
TWENTY-THREE
~ Parker ~
