God.
I couldn’t even imagine.
“Oh, Mackey!” Wendy clapped. “That’s so good!”
Mackey smiled, and I looked at Constance’s face to see that her smile was soft.
The mother stepped away from Mackey, and her face went intense. “We haven’t been able to find him.”
“Oh.” Constance’s shoulders slumped. “I was hoping that the investigators would be able to keep an eye on him. At least we know he won’t come there.”
What little Apollo had been able to dig up had mentioned that Mackey and his parents lived out of the country. I couldn’t remember where, though.
“We have an armed guard with Mackey at all times.” The woman’s face looked serious. “You need to be careful, Constance. He was always going to come after you.”
My stomach sank.
She didn’t know that he was here.
How could she not?
Constance sighed. “It’s been like six months since we’ve last seen him. He hasn’t been here at all.”
That she’d seen.
“And you’d know, because he wouldn’t be able to leave you alone,” she muttered. “Be careful, though, Constance. He’s unstable.”
With that, Constance ended the FaceTime.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Wendy, ever helpful, started right in on an explanation.
“Daddy was hurt really bad when his best friend found out that Mommy was pregnant with me. Her best friend was beat up by a bad guy. And that bad guy didn’t go to jail,” Wendy declared.
My brows rose, surprised that a little girl of five, almost six, would know that kind of information.
“Wendy, sit here for a minute and eat your food before it gets cold.”
Wendy did just that as Constance walked over to the tabletop, bringing me with her by the arm.
“What’s going on there?” I asked. “And why does she know so much?”
“It was really hard to keep it from her when she needs to know that there’s a bad guy in this world that would happily leave her to die if it meant getting me away from her.” Constance sighed. “I went on one date with a man back home, and he thought that it was his god-given right to dictate how I lived my life. My best friend and I had a drunk one-night stand that resulted in Wendy, and Mackey’s so-called friend beat the absolute shit out of him. Mackey now lives half a life in Nepal with his parents. Errol Fuller, on the other hand, didn’t see a lick of time.” She eyed me. “Mackey’s parents have—had—a private investigator following his every move. They were worried that he might come back and try to finish the job with Mackey. Or me. Errol disappeared about six months ago when I left and hasn’t been seen since.”
“He followed you here.”
Her eyes widened. “He what?”
“He followed you here,” I repeated. “I looked into you.”
Her eyes widened. “Me? Why?”
I wouldn’t tell her the real reason—that I was her source of what the world considered “Golden Blood”—but I could give her the other reason we knew of her existence.
I told her about the dog fighting ring.
I told her about Holly and Denver, and what Holly had gone through. I then explained that the man Holly had seen at the dog fighting ring had been her ex, Errol.
