Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Dakota's hand is clapped over her mouth, stunned.
“Now I'm regretting letting that asshole live instead of putting his ass down when we had the chance,” I growl.
“You tracked him down?” Dakota asks. “When?”
Stiff nods. “At the apartment, remember? When we got the key?”
“Key? That's Jay?” Dakota's voice is a whisper.
“Yeah, who did you think it was?” Jackal asks.
“That's Officer Dillard. The policeman who showed up at my apartment to ask about Georgia and then when I had the break-in.”
The fuck? Playing pieces shift around in my head, settling into new spots. Not two people working together. One person with two identities. “You're sure?”
“Definitely him.” Her voice quavers and her hand grips the edge of the desk, knuckles white. “He was in my home. He talked to Logan!”
Poe looks at her, skeptical. “You really never saw your sister’s boyfriend? The guy she was with for years?”
“No! I think early on I saw him go into the building once when I was dropping off Georgia, but she said he knew I hated him, and he didn’t want anything to do with me. Considering I did hate him, and pretty soon had Logan to worry about, no, I made no attempt to try to get closer to her shitty boyfriend.” She stalks away, leans against the wall and slides down until her butt is on the floor. “What do we do now? Call the police? When did Georgia take that video?”
Poe checks the file. “Friday morning.”
“Not long before she picked Logan up from pre-school,” Dakota whispers. “She was running scared. And that asshole tried to cover his tracks by making sure nobody would look into someone like her when she died. The gun.” She looks up at us. “The gun from Georgia’s apartment. If that’s the same gun, he probably knows we have it. This is so messed up.”
Poe closes the video window on his laptop. “I’ll go through everything just to be sure, but there might not be much else related to this. I just thought you guys needed to see that ASAP. Let me know if there's anything I can do to grease the fucker. He sounds like a grade A piece of shit.” He catches Dakota's attention. “I'll give you all the files once I'm done. I'm sure there's a bunch of personal stuff you'll want just because it was your sister. “
“Thanks.” Her smile is tired, but the gratitude is real, and I think Poe understands that. He's a smart dude.
On the way back to her apartment, Dakota stops and looks up at the sky. She closes her eyes and soaks in the sun after a day of rain and hard truths. “At some point, I’m going to have to explain to Logan that his father killed his mother. Maybe not directly, but I don’t know if that matters.”
Me, Lash and Jackal share a look.
Jackal is the first to speak. “I wanted to wait until there was a good time for you to talk to him personally, but we had a talk with Priest, one of Ice’s buddies from back when he and Georgia were a thing. He’s pretty sure Logan is Ice’s kid, not Jay’s.”
She blinks at me. “How sure is he?”
“Very,” Stiff. “He’s pretty sure she got pregnant when things started going bad in the club, and Ice wanted to keep her clear of the trouble.”
“So why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t she go back?”
“Because by the time things were safe, he was dead.” Jackal’s voice is soft, but the message isn’t.
Dakota presses the palms of her hands against her eyes. “I have to talk to Priest and think a bit before I can say anything to Logan.”
I put my arms around her. Her whole body radiates tension at first, but then the air leaves her lungs in a soft rush and she relaxes into the hug. “We can’t make this right, but we can make the right people pay.”
“Good.” A single word is enough.
29
DAKOTA
“Mommy, look!”
The weather has been shifting, but today's warm for the season, and Logan's running around on the lawn next to the church, trying to do cartwheels, since Anne showed him how last night. His legs barely make it to the middle before he ends up in a heap on the ground, but his failures don’t bother him much. Each time he tumbles into the grass, he laughs out loud and then tries again.
“You're doing good, Lo. You'll get it.”
When do we lose that enthusiasm and willingness to just keep on trying no matter how many times we don't quite make it? Wouldn’t life be better if we kept it up as adults?
At some point life is going to have to find a new normal. As much fun as Logan is having here, he's still a four-year-old who needs a stable routine, and living inside the walls here isn’t sustainable. They’re being very nice about it, but this isn’t a safe playground for a little kid and it’s not fair to expect the members to make it one. Bonnie told me that even she chose to put Anne in boarding school until they moved into one of the houses behind the club.