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When I walked back into the penthouse, I met Lorna coming the other way. She’d put on a fresh suit and cleaned herself up but she still looked pale. I blocked her path. “Whoa there. Where are you going?”
“It’s Tuesday,” she told me. “I always pick Cody up from school on Tuesdays.”
Paige ran up. “I told you, I’ll go. You should rest.”
I held up my hands. “I’ll go. End of discussion.” I looked at Lorna. “You’re still shaken up, you shouldn’t be driving. Go have a hot bath…” An image jumped into my head: her breasts just breaking the surface of the water, the skin shining wetly, nipples hardening as the cold air brushed them. I felt myself flush. Goddamn it! “...or something,” I finished weakly. “And Paige, please look after her.”
Paige nodded, put her arm around Lorna and led her gently away.
I hopped into the big black Mercedes the family leased and drove to Cody’s school. As I drew close, I checked my gun. There was another reason I’d wanted to do this myself: if the killer had been watching the family, he might know their routines and be lying in wait.
I pulled up down the street from the school and joined the sea of waiting moms at the entrance. There were only a few guys and they were harried lawyers in suits who’d been told to pick the kids up at the last minute, or stay-at-home dads with baby slings and bicycles. I didn’t exactly fit in, with my sunglasses and denim jacket, and when a few of the moms politely said hi and they heard my Texas drawl, that drew more stares.
Then Cody ran up to me. “JD! Is my mom okay?”
“She’s fine,” I told him, eyes searching the crowd. “I just wanted to see your school. C’mon, car’s this way.”
I got in the front and he climbed in the back. My nose wrinkled as I caught a whiff of chlorine. Maybe he had swim practice. But his hair was dry.
Cody got his safety belt on and sat back in his seat, arms crossed. “My mom says you’re just a precaution.”
“That’s right. Just in case.” I pulled away and headed for the McBride Building.
“But if someone tries to hurt us, you’ll stop them.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would someone want to hurt my mom?”
Just the thought of it, just the word hurt next to my mental image of Lorna, made my shoulders tense. “I don’t know, kid.”
Cody went quiet for a while as we crept through the traffic. Then, “You’re a soldier, right?”
“I used to be.”
“You ever killed anyone?”
“Yeah.”
He went quiet again. A moment later, as we hit a red light, “This guy that’s trying to hurt us…are you going to kill him?”
“If I have to.” I met his gaze in the rear- view mirror. The poor kid was staring at me with big, scared eyes. He was too young for any of this. He just wanted to know that everything was going to be okay—
The light was still on red. I twisted around in my seat and let myself be a little less gruff, just for a minute. “Listen. You don’t need to worry about this stuff. This guy comes anywhere near you or your mom, he’s gonna find out it was a real bad idea. Whatever happens, I will keep you safe. Okay?”
“You promise?”
That caught me off guard. It was a long time since I’d promised anything. “Yeah,” I said, my voice tight. “Yeah, I promise.”
He held his hand out solemnly. I blinked at it for a second, then took his little hand in my big one and shook it. My chest ached, memories of Max flooding my mind.
The car behind us honked. Dammit. The light had changed. I twisted back to front and got us moving, then forced myself back into gruff mode. I adjusted the rear-view mirror and noticed that Cody’s backpack was dripping, leaving a wet pool on the backseat. “Why’s your backpack all wet?” I asked without turning around.
“I dropped it. In a puddle.”
I glanced up. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sidewalks were bone dry. Now I knew where the smell of chlorine was coming from. Someone had thrown his backpack in the pool. The kid was being bullied.
A hot, vengeful rage simmered up from deep inside and my knuckles went white on the steering wheel. The poor kid had lost his grandfather and he was terrified some psycho was going to hurt his mom: did he not have enough to deal with? Someone was bullying him? I wanted to throw the car into a 180, race back to the school, and fucking annihilate the asshole.
But I couldn’t. He’s not your kid, I told myself.
I took a long, deep breath…and drove us back to the penthouse.
When we got back, I went to check on Lorna but she wasn’t in her room. On a hunch, I went downstairs to the offices and gave a silent sigh of relief when I found her sitting at her dad’s old desk. “I told you to rest,” I grumbled from the doorway.
