Page 99 of Sexting My Ex’s Dad

I lean down and kiss his forehead before he can keep going. “Rest,” I murmur.

He doesn’t like that answer. I can tell. He lets me go anyway, but only after making me promise I’ll come see him in the morning.

By six fifteen that evening, I’m standing in a borrowed jacket in a parking lot two streets over from the Armoire Warehouse while Detective Morales clips a transmitter under my shirt and checks the wire twice.

“Don’t touch it,” she says.

“I won’t.”

She straightens and looks me in the eye. “You let him talk. You do not escalate, and you do not get clever.”

That almost makes me laugh. “You haven’t met me.”

“Oh, I think I have,” she says dryly. “That’s why I’m saying it.”

Sweeney stands near an unmarked SUV with a paper cup in one hand, scanning the loading docks with a face carved from indifference. He tips his head once when Morales steps back.

“You’re good to go,” he says.

I look at the warehouse, at the darkening sky, then at the officers I’m not supposed to notice. “If Cindy’s here?”

“She won’t leave clean.”

That has to be enough. I text Nate from the edge of the lot.

Athena: I’m here.

His reply is immediate.

Nate: Come to the side entrance.

I show the message to Morales. She nods once and touches her earpiece. “Go.”

So I go.

The side entrance is half-lit, the metal door propped open with a broken crate, the concrete around it marked with tire stains and old rain. It smells like dust and oil and stale fabric. My heartbeat is loud enough to feel in my throat, yet my steps stay steady.

Nate is waiting just inside.

For a second, time does something ugly. He looks older, harder around the face, meaner in the eyes, and yet there’s still a flash of the boy I wasted years on in the set of his mouth.

Then he smiles and the flash dies. “You came.”

His voice still has that smug little curl that used to make me want to throw things.

“You said come alone,” I reply. “I assume the ego boost is part of the decor.”

His smile widens, brittle and false. “Still mouthy.”

“Still violent.”

His face changes instantly, and for the first time since I stepped through the door, I know I was right to come. Guilty people always hate being named fast.

He takes a step closer. I stay where I am.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Really.” I tilt my head. “The hoodie was a nice touch. Retro. Very ‘look what you made me do.’”