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“Something tells me it’ll be a knockoff,” Ice replied. “Look, I need a favor.”
“Oh, so you won’t help me, but I have to help you?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, that’s kinda how our friendship came about, isn’t it?”
“I was trying to get you off the streets, Maxwell,” she countered.
“Look, thanks to a well-timed burrito craving, you know it wasn’t me,” he replied. “That alone means your ‘adopt a juvenile and scare them straight’ must have influenced me in some manner.”
“And yet?” she continued.
“And yet I have two kids that didn’t do anything beyond being swimmers that achieved a goal about six years ago.”
Bree cut her eyes at him, and he shrugged as she shook her head, then turned to look out the window.
“I need your help with them,” he said. “Please, Nunez, you know if I was your favorite delinquent, they’ll be twice as fun.”
“Max,” she groaned. “Mrs. Parker—”
“Mrs. Parker is probably being held against her will right now,” he said. “Though I think she did a good job of trying to protect my kids as long as possible.”
“What? Max, what do you mean the social worker is being held against her will?”
“This is my point. You get too bogged down in the little details when what I need is you to add an extra layer or two of protection for my kids,” he said. “You and I both know I wouldn’t ask—”
“If you didn’t feel it was necessary,” she finished his sentence. “But what about Mrs. Parker, and John?”
“I don’t see them hooking up.”
“Maxwell,” she bit on the other end of the phone, her tone reverberating in the cab of his pickup.
“If you do this for me, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Before or after,” Detective Nunez said.
“As a law-abiding—”
“I miss your grandmother for so many reasons.”
“You’re not going to be able to get the one who called for Misty’s death,” he said, “but you might be able to get the one who did it. You never know. If I’m alive at the end of this, he probably won’t be.”
“Where are your kids?” Nunez asked, resignation lacing her voice. She’d dealt with him long enough to know he could go round and round until she had to puke from the carnival ride.
“Paris,” he said, then relayed the information. Once he pulled into the parking lot by the Review, he made sure to let Shadow know that, for the moment, cops weren’t bad.
“You know I’ve never welcomed Death into my home before,” Ice said as he sat, poised on the edge of the stuffed chair in his trailer, “especially in the bright light of day.”
“That’s why I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a real thing,” Bree said, rubbing her hands between his shoulder blades. “What’s the debt?”
“One that can’t be repaid,” he stated, closing his eyes and wondering how far gone Misty was when she tried with the woman. “I should have pushed harder to take them away from her.”
“They never seemed in danger, a little neglected, but nothing more than an absent mother playing games on her phone.”
“Oh, she was playing games for sure,” he said, running his hand over his face, then turning to stare into the soft eyes of the woman so foreign to him, and yet one he didn’t want to ever lose. There was too much left to learn about her. A day wasn’t enough. Maybe they get through this, life settles, and he can get to know her. Then again, she had been pulled into this misadventure as much as he had.
“If you can’t repay the debt,” she began, “does that mean the twins will never be safe?”
“Grimm is meeting with the head of the family Misty wronged,” he said, “offering a parley as we wait. But all I know is, unless it comes through in the next thirteen minutes, there will be a knock, and I’ll have to answer the call.”
