Pulling the door shut behind me, I step out into the hall with him. “Did you find anything?”
Gunther grunts and shakes his head as he hands me the folder. “Nothing concrete. Basically, she was taken from her parents at a pretty young age, but as far as I can tell it was more neglect than anything. Which is bad enough, but it doesn’t look like there was any physical or sexual abuse.”
“Good,” I murmur, flipping through the report. “That’s good.”
“Yeah. Biggest thing I found was she got bounced around a lot. No reason, far as I can tell, but that kind of thing leaves its mark on a person. Odds are high that between the parents being absolute deadbeats and her not staying in one place more than a couple years, she’s got herself a whole host of abandonment issues.”
Fucking hell. The thought of my sweet, desperate-to-please babygirl being constantly discarded like that has rage boiling in my veins. “Where are her parents now?”
“Mom OD’d a couple years back, dad’s in prison. I could make some calls if you want.”
I can hear my own fury echoing in Gunther’s normally calm voice. “Do you think he’s a threat to her?”
“No. If I had to guess, he doesn’t even think of her.”
And that, as far as I’m concerned, is even worse. “I want it to look like an accident. But make sure he knows why.”
“Consider it done.”
I’m aware I’m being irrational. There’s no reason at all to put a hit out on a man who poses no active threat to my family.
But he hurt my babygirl. I don’t give a flying fuck that it was nearly twenty years ago. As far as I’m concerned, there are no statutes of limitations on his crimes. He hurt her, so he’ll pay the price. And in his last moments, he’ll know that someone, somewhere, loved his daughter enough to end him.
CHAPTER 21
TABITHA
If I’ve ever been this happy in my whole entire life, I can’t remember.
There is still that nagging little voice in the back of my head, the one that’s been there since my third or fourth foster home, that keeps whispering this can’t last. That my new family will grow tired of me soon and then I’ll be on my own again. But whenever that voice gets too loud, I go climb in Daddy’s lap or ask Auntie Gray to read me a story, and the voice gets quiet again.
Hopefully someday soon, the voice will disappear altogether.
“Sorry!” Lanie yells with a gleeful laugh as she bumps Josie’s game piece back to the beginning of the board.
Eyes narrowing, Josie lets out a low growl. “This game is rigged! I wanna play something else.”
Lanie rolls her eyes. “You’re just a sore loser.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Years of living with unpredictable people have left me with a sort of sixth sense when it comes to conflict of any kind.
And just as I suspected, Josie jumps to her feet, hands on her hips as she glares down at Lanie. “I’m not a sore loser! You’re a cheater!”
“I did not cheat! You take that back!”
“Melanie Brynne and Josephine Elise. What’s going on in here?”
At the sound of our Auntie Gray’s voice, both my cousins whip around, their hands instinctively going behind them to protect their bottoms.
“Nothing, Auntie Gray,” they echo in unison, earning them both a raised brow from our Auntie.
“Huh. Must have been two other Little girls I heard in here screaming at each other.”
“Must have!” Josie agrees with a cheeky grin.
“Uh-huh. Well if thoseothernaughty girls are gone, Josie and I have some errands to run in town, and I was thinking I’d take all my sweet little nieces with us for a girls’ day.”
Excited squeals erupt as my cousins bounce up and down. Laughing, Auntie Gray gestures toward the front door. “Well come on, then. Let’s go.”
