Page 64 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

I was so moved, too, but Marcus shook his head, obviously telling me not to make a big deal out of it.

He was right. If I made a big deal, Caleb might freak out. Better to just go with it.

“Alright,” I said with a nod. “Let’s go get presents.”

We went to the largest mall in town first, but it seemed they were out of just about everything a little boy like Caleb would be interested in. So we decided to head to the toy store in the next town over to see what we could find.

We managed to find some fish toys and cars that Caleb was excited about. He also bought his dad some cars that they could both play with.

It was a happy day.

That was until we came out and saw the words scrawled across Marcus’ truck.

Get out, murderer. Or else.

TWENTY-FOUR

MARCUS

The words were spray-painted across the car in nasty black ink.

The jagged lines told me that whoever did it did not have steady hands. Either he was not a professional spray painter, or the emotion made his hands shake.

The person would have to have been here for some time to do all those letters. They either knew how long we would be in the store, or they didn’t care about getting caught. Someone also could have seen him, but as I looked around the deserted parking lot, I realized there were not that many people in the store. And I hadn’t taken note of the people who were around when I arrived either.

Damn.

I heard Allie gasp behind me and finally felt a delayed surge of anger. I had no emotion toward the words themselves, as being called a murderer didn’t phase me anymore.

What made me mad was the fact that Allie was here to witness it.

I turned around and saw the horrified look on her face as she grabbed Caleb and pulled him to her body, hiding his face. Good. I didn’t want him to see it either, even though he probably already had.

Fuck. My anger built into full-blown fury.

I hated the fact that my new family was witnessing this, that whoever it was had involved them in this bullshit.

I walked to the car, trailing my hands over the inked words. They didn’t look like they’ll wash off. Either I would have to do the 45-minute drive back home with that scrawled over the car, or I would need an alternate method of getting home.

I sighed, whipping out my phone and dialing Sean immediately.

“Yello,” my PA answered cheerily. The background rumbling and distant intercom announcement made it clear that he was on the subway. I paid the man nearly half a million dollars for his work, yet he still insisted on riding the subway everywhere.

“I need you to get a car to me right now,” I said.

“Buy or rent?” I could hear the excitement in his voice. Picking out cars was one of his favorite past times.

Which was weird because he hated driving.

“I don’t care. It just needs to get to me in the next five minutes.”

“Hmm, you know you can just call a car service there, right, in the town you’re currently in.”

“I don’t know who I can trust,” I told him, and there was a beat of silence. I knew he understood without me having to spell it out for him. Even though we’d never explicitly discussed it, he knew a little bit about my story.

“Roger,” he said. “I have a friend who owns a car company pretty close to you. I’ll give him a call.”

“I need to get my car towed too. And have someone look into the prints on the car. Someone spray painted it.”

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