Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
The pharmacy door opens, and Killian steps back out, holding a bright orange box in his hand. No bag, no attempt to hide it. He carries it like a trophy. I know that motherfucker uses cash too. He’s not sliding a card even if he’s retired at this point.
I’m parked at the far end of the lot behind a delivery van. Killian heads into the diner, and now I know whatever he has is for either Lily or Teddy because he’s not tied to this diner. The old diner has no cameras, but the pharmacy does.
While they’re inside, I pull out my laptop and see if the security on the building is online. It is. In no time I have the footage, and I watch as Killian picks up an ancestry testing kit.
Fuck me. The last thing Lily needs right now is to find out that Victor isn’t her father. After about ten minutes, all of them leave the diner together.
I watch them cross the street, Lily laughing at something Teddy said, the box swinging from her fingers like a toy. She has no idea what she’s holding.
I could cross the street, intercept them, and manufacture some crisis that requires her attention. But Killian’s here, watching everything, and one wrong move means explaining myself to a man who already questions my sanity. Not that I can blame him; I am too at this point.
They disappear into the post office with the box. She must have swabbed her cheek in the diner. There goes my backup plan of simply stealing it tonight after she goes to bed.
Six minutes later, they emerge, talking without a care in the world. All I can think about is the devastation Lily might have over the results.
They turn by the antique shop, where Lily’s steps always slow as she peers into the window. Killian is only parked another block down. They’ll head home, and I know Killian has it covered. I, however, stay put.
I wait another hour, letting the town die down for the night. Everything is locked up around here by nine except the one bar, which is on the other end of Main Street.
The post office is a brick building with a single camera over the front door. I already have access to it. This isn’t my first time breaking into the post office here in town. I’ve been putting trackers all over the shit Lily and Teddy ordered.
The lock on the side door is standard issue and picks in nine seconds.
Inside, the sorting bins are labeled by route, by day, and by urgency. I find local outbound in the third bin, digging through envelopes and small packages until my fingers wrap around a small box.
The kit is light. A saliva tube, instructions, and a prepaid mailer. Everything she needs to unravel her own history. I pocket it and slip back into the night, and in no time, I’m back on the road.
I head toward my place, hopping out when I get to the brush I use to cover the road I’ve made driving on it, the grass worn down. I pull through and hop back out to put it back. People don’t realize that a lot of times, less is more security. Fly completely under the radar. That Teddy Bear chick isn’t flying under the radar at all.
I park in front of the drop house and cut the engine. The house is dark, same as always when I pull up.
My phone buzzes. Lily. It’s nice having her reach out to me.
Lily: Are you still up?
I stare at the screen, a strange-ass flutter of excitement hitting my veins.
Me: Always. You?
Lily: Can’t sleep. Too much thinking.
Me: About?
Lily: My bio mom.
Me: I take it you’re not close then.
Lily: Nope. Not a clue who she is, but I was thinking about finding out. I actually got one of those ancestry kits today and took it.
I close my eyes. The kit is now lying on my desk, but she doesn’t know that. She’s still hoping for answers. I can’t let her have them. I hate that I’m stopping her from doing something she wants, but the alternative is that her life gets shattered.
Me: What do you want to find?
Lily: I don’t know. What kind of mom do you have?
Is this a soft way of changing the subject?
Me: She was a good mom, but I was a pretty independent kid.
I care a lot for my mom, but that shit got hard. My dad was always running his mouth to me about how I was bothering her and so on. He never did it when she was around.
I’ll never understand it. In the rare times I’ve allowed myself to think about having kids, it was always with Lily. I could never despise anything that came from her.
Me: I should call her more.