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Emotions I swore I wanted to feel, but don’t, well in my chest. “Nick, you—”
“I am not my father, and you are not your mother. We decide who we are, Faith. Not them. Say it.”
“We decide,” I whisper.
“We decide,” he repeats, stroking my cheek a moment before his lips brush mine. “I fucking hate that I have to leave you right now. Come with me.”
“You know I can’t. You have to see that.”
He looks skyward, seeming to struggle not to push me, before he says, “Let’s make sure uncle dearest has left before I leave.”
A full hour later, I finally convince Nick he has to leave. My uncle is gone. His number is in my phone. He has a deposition he has to prep for. I walk him to his car, and despite the many people most likely watching, he pulls me to him and kisses me soundly on the lips. “I’m going to miss the hell out of you, and I don’t even know what to do with that.” A moment later, he’s in his car, as if he fears he won’t leave. Another few moments, and I’m standing on the steps of the mansion, watching him drive away, a storm brewing inside me while I replay his words:I am not my father, and you are not your mother.
The problem is, I have a whole lot more of my mother in me than Nick Rogers knows.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tiger
What the hell is this woman doing to me?
That’s one of many thoughts I have as I leave behind Reid Winter Winery, and Faith with it. Leaving her kills me, and I have never in all the many fucks I’ve shared with a woman given two fucks about the morning after—or the second morning after, as it may be—and what do I do? I choose Faith, a woman I went looking for to destroy. She’s not the killer I thought she was, but she might be when she finds out who my father is and why I sought her out. And she’ll have to know there’s no way around it. Really, this is poetic justice. I told Faith I’m not like my father, but running through women and not giving two fucks is something he did well and I do better. How profound that the one I give a shit about is going to hate me like she’s never hated before.
I pull onto the main highway, and taillights greet me. “Fuck,” I growl, forced to halt behind a line of cars, debating the pros and cons of turning around, throwing Faith over my shoulder, and taking her home with me. Something feels off with her uncle. Something feels wrong in general, and it’s not her.
Looking for answers and action, I fish my phone from my pocket and use Siri to find the shop that has Faith’s car, making arrangements to pay for it and have it delivered to her over the weekend when I plan to be with her. By the time I end the call, the traffic still hasn’t moved, and I dial Beck. “Nicholas,” he greets.
“The uncle,” I say.
“Filthy rich snake of a bastard,” he says, clearly aware of who I’m talking about.
“He fucked Faith’s mom.”
“Who didn’t?” He laughs. “That woman saw more action than ten Taco Bells on Friday night at two a.m.”
“The uncle,” I repeat.
“He had random contact with Meredith Winter over the years, but nothing notable after the obvious falling-out between him and her husband. And I’m sure you know that he’s married to one of the billionaire Warren Hotel heiresses now.”
“I knew,” I say, having done plenty of my own research. “That’s how he got the money for his startup. Any contact between him and Faith?”
“Aside from him attending both her mother’s and father’s funerals, none.”
“Find out if he, or anyone for that matter, has an interest in the property the winery is sitting on,” I say before moving on. “Josh—”
“The agent,” he says. “What about him?”
“Could Macom have used him to connect to Faith’s mother or my father?”
“Interesting premise when I thought of it as well,” Beck says, “but I cross-referenced phone numbers and emails. There’s nothing.”
Grimacing, and with plenty of taillights and time in my future, I lead the conversation to the bank and draw Beck into a debate over their motives, before my mind takes me to a place I don’t want to go. Not with Faith in Sonoma and me in San Francisco. “What if Faith isn’t a killer, but now she’s the one in the way of whoever is?”
“Any time a million dollars plus is missing and two people are dead of the exact same cause two months apart, the possibility of someone else ending up dead exists. But unlike you, apparently, I won’t conclude a murder or murders were committed until you get me your father’s and Meredith Winter’s autopsy reports. And for the record, I’m far from thinking Faith Winter is innocent. She and her mother could easily have been a scam team. Always remember that in the absence of evidence, there is someone making sure there’s an absence of evidence. I’ll warn you again. Watch your back. You have my excessively large bill to pay.”
He hangs up on the warning I’d feel obligated to give me, too, but I’m not a fool. I read people with a lot less of a look into their lives than I have into Faith’s. I dial Abel Baldwin, my closest friend, one of the best damn criminal attorneys on the planet. “I was starting to think you might be dead, too,” he says when he picks up. “What happened with Faith Winter?”
I glance at the clock on my dash. “Can you meet me at my place at four?”
