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“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be right up.”

It wasn’t the first time this happened.

It wouldn’t be the last either.

Lots of times someone wanted to come forward with information, but they didn’t want to give their name. If they were let in, they had to show ID.

He walked through the halls, to the front, pushed open the door, and saw Sue. She pointed to the woman behind the wall looking at business cards posted, her back to him.

He went out the security door. “I’m Detective Ryder.”

She turned. “Hi, Colson. Remember me?”

At first he didn’t. Something was familiar about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

But it was the eyes. The light blue that was the same as Bella’s.

This woman in front of him. She was heavier, though she was shoving herself into clothing sizes too small.

There were wrinkles around her eyes, around her mouth from puffing on something for years.

“Holly?” he asked, the pit of his stomach ready to slam to the floor.

“So you do remember me?” Bella’s mother said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for your father,” Holly said. “I’ve been trying to reach him for months. He’s not replying to my emails. His phone was disconnected.”

He stared at the woman in front of him.

His father’s ex-wife.

He knew they were divorced. His father at least followed through with that after Holly had left. He’d seen the legal paperwork.

All that shit when he was trying to figure out what the hell was going on in his life.

He grabbed her arm, held it firm and ushered her outside away from prying ears and eyes.

There was a bench off to the side and that was where he stopped and deposited her for the news he had to give.

The news that could turn his world upside down again.

“My father died two years ago.”

“What?” Holly said. “No way. I should have been told.”

He leaned closer to her face, his eyes hard as steel. “Really? You think I didn’t try to find you? You fucking took off over a decade ago with no word of where you were.”

Holly looked stunned that he was losing his shit with her. “I told your father I was in Mexico.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well, we never talked much. I went through all his shit and never found one piece of information about where you were or ever had been. If you told him, he got rid of it.”

Holly narrowed her eyes. “I couldn’t stay married to him. He was a drunk.”

“That’s right,” he growled. “But rather than take your daughter away from him, you left her. What kind of mother fucking does that?”

An addict herself, but he held that back... barely.