Page 49 of Plain Sight

I don’t sleep.

I stay awake, thinking.

I couldn’t get to Walsh. His Good Samaritan son threw a wrench in my plans. A family-sized wrench. That psychopath would have a family. Probably just to make it harder for people with empathy to kill him.

Family bounces around in my head.

I couldn’t get to Walsh, but does Walsh care? Would he be dangerous to Lily if he wasn’t getting a fat paycheck for it? Is the only pressure on him now that he didn’t finish the job?

If that’s it, the judge is probably breathing down his neck.

That changes things.

I thought we could wait on the judge, but what if the judge is the mega-asshole who needs to be taken out? What if the world can fix itself without him in it? What if we could—I don’t know—bribe Walsh to disappear if the judge wasn’t in the picture?

I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong.

I was wrong.

It’s time to finish things with the judge. He was here fifteen years ago, too, fucking us over and sentencing Mason to months of agony and sentencing the rest of us to⁠—

To me. To a lifetime of dealing with the most fucked-up version of me.

I get up. Slow. Silent. Get my jeans. Pull on a fresh shirt. It’s hot, but I’m too raw to have my skin exposed, so I go with something lightweight and cotton with long sleeves. The last thing I need is in Lily’s purse. It’s right there, on the top—her old house key.

“Jameson?”

I’m almost at the door. “Shh, angel. Go back to sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have a quick errand. I’ll be right back.”

I leave the door and go to kiss her temple. Lily’s eyelashes flutter, but she doesn’t open her eyes. She sounds so tired. I bet this conversation will seem like a dream to her.

“You’re not going far, are you?”

“Less than an hour each way. There’s not much traffic. The Brooklyn Bridge will probably be the worst of it.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be right back.”

12

LILY

I’ll be right back.

I sit bolt upright in bed, the comforter weirdly tangled around me, my heart racing so fast I can’t catch my breath.

Oh my God.

That wasn’t a dream. Lots of parts of my life feel like a dream right now, but that’s because Jameson and I successfully pulled off getting married under circumstances that should’ve made it impossible. His family is like a dream because they wouldn’t settle for anything else. And I’m in the middle of it because his love is like a dream.

But this is cold, hard reality.

Under my palm, the other side of the mattress is cool, like Jameson’s been gone for a long time. He hasn’t been, right? I scramble for my phone. No texts from him. It’s just before two in the morning.