Page 98 of Sexting My Ex’s Dad

He isn’t wrong. “There’s a chance Cindy comes too,” I tell him.

“We’re counting on it.”

That pulls a little nod from me. Sweeney keeps going. “You’ll wear an audio transmitter. We’ve got enough to justify it. One-party consent isn’t the issue when there’s a warrant and an active violent felony in motion. We’ll have units staged, plainclothes inside the perimeter, marked cars out of sight until needed.”

I breathe in slowly. “And if he runs?”

“Then he runs into people who are faster than he is.”

I finally smile. “Good.”

He pauses. “Ms. Hale?”

“Yes.”

“You do exactly what we tell you. No freelance heroics.”

That wipes the smile clean off. “Understood.”

When I hang up, Maya is waiting in the doorway with two mugs of tea and the face of a woman who already knows the answer. “Well?”

“We’re doing it,” I say.

Her eyes narrow. “Officially?”

“Officially.”

She hands me a mug then tips her head toward Ivy’s room. “And him?”

I look past her, toward the dark bedroom door and the other room beyond it in my mind, the hospital room where Nathan is likely sleeping badly through pain medication and sheer stubbornness.

“He doesn’t need this tonight,” I say.

Maya studies me for a beat, then nods. “Fair.”

We’ll tell Ivy in the morning. Then I’ll fill Nathan in and hope he doesn’t lecture me to death.

The next morning, Ivy eats dry cereal at the little table by the window, listening with that unnerving stillness she gets when she knows the adults have stopped pretending. I tell her Nate the bad guy wants to meet, and the police are going to be there, and I tell her that means I am not going into anything blind.

Ivy lifts one shoulder. “So it’s a trap?”

“Sort of.”

“For him,” she clarifies.

I point my spoon at her. “That part, yes.”

She seems satisfied by that. Maya appears in the kitchen doorway with coffee and mutters, “I’m adopting her if you mess this up.”

“Noted,” I say.

The day crawls.

I spend part of it at Beacon Harbor with Nathan, keeping my face steady while he studies me too closely. He knows something is moving. He’s injured, not stupid. He reaches for my hand once while Ivy is drawing quietly in the chair beside his bed and says, very softly, “What are you doing?”

The question slides under my skin. I squeeze his fingers and answer with the only truth I can safely give him. “Cleaning up.”

His gaze sharpens immediately. “Athena.”