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“Thanks, Liam.” His voice sounded like a guttural growl, and he cleared his throat. “You’re a good friend.”

Liam stood, his expression worried. “Can you not tell Casey I told you anything? I don’t want to break his trust.”

Such a good kid. Hopefully when he gets out of here, he’ll be able to catch a break. “I won’t say anything. Besides, it’s not as if he actually said anything to you, so he doesn’t need to know that you told me about the nightmares.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As Liam left his office, Dean pulled Casey’s file for Violet’s number. It would be easier to talk to her over the phone, where he couldn’t see her face. Especially since he already knew that if she cried, he wouldn’t be able to resist comforting her.

He got her voicemail and went for a completely professional message. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea and think this was a personal call. “Hello, this is Sergeant Dean Sparks. I need to speak to you about Casey.”

Dean left his office number and hung up. He should give her a chance to call back, but if Casey was suffering, it was important to get him help sooner than later.

Glancing at the clock on the wa

ll, he saw it was after six. He could swing by the Douglas home and sit down with Violet. Casey was going to be in his care for another four weeks. He couldn’t be afraid to deal with Violet.

He was a grown man, after all. He could control himself.

NO MATTER HOW many times he told himself he didn’t want to see her, it didn’t stop his heart from pounding as he pulled into the Douglas’s driveway fifteen minutes later. The two-story house was dark brown and looked like it needed a new roof at the very least. The yard was overgrown, and as he neared the front porch, he noticed a few of the boards appeared a little iffy on their load-bearing abilities. It actually looked like something the neighborhood kids would call haunted, but he knocked on the door anyway.

A young woman answered the door in a tank top and shorts, flashing him a flirtatious smile.

“Whew, happy birthday to me. Whatever you’re selling, put me down for two.”

Dean remembered his younger sisters’ friends practicing their wiles on him and knew how to deflect feminine interest. “I’m Sergeant Dean Sparks. I work at Alpha Dog Training Program. I need to speak to Violet Douglas about Casey.”

“How about you show me some ID, hot stuff. How do I know you’re not one of those sexy home invaders putting on an elaborate ruse to get inside and cut us into little bits?”

First Violet with her serial killer obsession and now her sister.

Dean pulled out his ID and handed it over. She looked it over, her forehead wrinkling in concentration for far too long. Pretty sure she was fucking with him, he held his hand out. “Do you want to call the program, or can I have that back?”

“It looks legit, but then again, I watch Supernatural. You could have made this at Kinko’s, for all I know.”

“Look, if you want to get your sister, I’ll wait out here—”

“I’m just fucking with you! Violet’s in the kitchen. Come on in.” She stepped back to let him pass and held her hand out to him. “I’m Daisy, by the way.”

Dean glanced around the living room and took in the aged wallpaper, the brown shag carpet. Threadbare furniture and an old box television were arranged around the small space, and the walls were filled with pictures in a wide array of frames. It was as if they’d picked up whatever they could find and slipped the pictures in.

Dean crossed the room and studied the pictures, one by one.

“That’s my mother holding Casey the day he was born. And that’s Violet and me in our Easter dresses when I was six and she was thirteen.”

Dean stared at the picture she indicated. Violet had her arm around her little sister’s shoulders, and the two beamed at the camera in puffy dresses covered in flowers and ribbons.

“Violet told me that Mom got the dresses at Goodwill for a couple of bucks. They were two sizes too big for us, but she cut them down and sewed all those flowers and ribbons on to dress them up. Violet always said our mom could make a burlap sack beautiful.”

“Dais, who was at the . . . door.”

Dean turned around at the sound of Violet’s voice and stared at her. Her red hair was piled on top of her head, and she had on an apron over a T-shirt and shorts. White flour covered her hands, and it looked like she was holding a ball of dough between them.

She was so beautiful, he almost forgot to breathe.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Actually, I needed to speak to you about Casey. I have some concerns.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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