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“She’s fine,” Olivia answers hurriedly. “I cut myself trying to get dinner done earlier. I—something happened while we were out. And then I got all these texts and—I—I—I?—”
“Calm down.”
Her breathing is erratic. Eyes wide and still manic. I pull her into my chest, resting her head there. Immediately, her arms wrap around me. She’s trying to squeeze the air out of me.
“This weird dude followed us at the park,” she breathes out. Her voice shakes, rocky and broken. “He—he knew Violet’s name. I never spoke to him before. I’ve never seen him before. And then I got all these weird messages and pictures?—”
“Show me.”
She peels herself away from me, fumbling to get her phone out of her pocket. Her fingers shake as she tries to scroll. I hate seeing her like this. It makes me want to put whoever made her feel this fear six feet under.
When she hands her phone over, my eyes narrow. The messages and the photos show a pattern—someone’s been following her and Violet for weeks.
And then there’s that man in the last picture.
I’ve never seen him before. But I don’t like the way he looks at Olivia in the pictures. My anger flares up even hotter. This man was tailing my girl and my daughter. He spoke to them. He terrified them.
I ought to fucking kill him.
Is he the one responsible for this? Or is it Holly? My blood runs cold at the thought.
“What do we do, Reese? This—this is bad, isn’t it?”
I don’t want to tell her my suspicions about Holly. I would have to explain that she’s been sending me creepy, “anonymous” messages. Not to mention that I’ve met with her twice now in the span of a week.
I need to think quickly. Olivia doesn’t need the added stress and I just got her back to the point she wants to talk to me. Holly wants to destroy that.
I won’t fucking let her.
“It’s just some creep,” I reassure her. “I should have prepared for this better when everything came out about Violet. But it’s okay. I’m going to fix this.”
It’s a promise that has a lot of layers, but at least a few of them are the truth. There’s nothing that’s going to come between me and Olivia. Not one goddamn thing.
I settle Olivia on the couch and go upstairs. Violet is in her crib, sleeping away. I pick her up, careful not to wake her up as I bring her downstairs and tuck her into Olivia’s arms. She takes our little bundle of pure joy and cuddles her cheek-to-cheek.
It just proves to me that, no matter what Holly says, there’s only one woman in this world that’s worthy of being Violet’s mother.
And it’s the woman in front of me.
“I’m gonna make some calls,” I tell her. “I’m right here.”
First things first, I ring up a local officer. Despite my brushes with legalities, I’ve made a couple of friends on the local force who are fans of the team. They’ve cut me some slack in the past and I know that they’ll keep this hush if I ask for their discretion.
“Reese, you old dog, you better not be in trouble.”
“What kind of greeting is that for an old friend, Mack Attack?” I ask with forced cheer.
“‘Old friend’? When was the last time you slid me tickets to a game?”
“When was the last time you even had vacation days left to go see a game?”
Detective Mackie laughs his big Santa Claus chuckle. “True that. Anyway, whatcha need? Don’t tell me you’re in a ditch somewhere.”
“Oh, you think you’re funny.”
“I know I am.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t be mad. Mackie’s always been more on the carefree side. He’s never too serious, but he always gets the job done when the time calls for it.
