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“Are you okay?” I asked Lamise just as Rhys’s hand landed on my leg.
She nodded. “It’s hard. I don’t know. As much as I want to know what happened to him, I guess I wasn’t prepared for the possibility of bad news. Or, more bad news than I’ve already gotten regarding the whole situation.”
“I understand, and I imagine it’s not going to be easy until you know the truth and have some time to deal with it all. But until then, try to help yourself stay calm and relaxed over the situation,” I urged her.
“That’s a little easier said than done,” she shared.
I’d held my hand out in mid-air toward Rhys, and he’d grabbed ahold of one of my fingers. With a determination I’d seen with him from the very beginning, Rhys steadied himself before attempting to stand up. I watched, feeling utterly amazed at how much he’d grown and changed in a matter of a few short months.
When he was standing, his body wobbling as he continued to hold on, he looked up at me like he was attempting to communicate something.
I smiled at him and asked, “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”
He smiled back at me.
“Dad’s got to go to work, little man. Something tells me you’re going to make sure Lamise stays calm, relaxed, and happy until I get back, won’t you?”
Whether it was instinct or the slight movement at our side, Rhys and I both looked over at Lamise. She was looking at the both of us like she believed we had superhuman powers.
With my free hand, I reached out to Lamise. She scootedcloser, and in the next instant, I scooped her and Rhys up in each of my arms, as I fell to my back. For a few minutes, I stayed like that—holding the both of them and loving everything about it.
But since I loved it so much, I had to do whatever I could to make sure I didn’t lose any part of it.
So, I had no choice but to kiss the both of them, say goodbye, and get back to work.
TWENTY-THREE
Banks
Three days.
Three whole days of absolutely nothing.
Not a drug dealer, not a dog, and not a single backpack.
We had zilch.
After Pax had showed up at my place earlier in the week with photos of the men who’d been involved in some sort of drug deal at the dog park while one of them had a backpack Lamise recognized as the same Graham used to carry before it went missing, I had to admit I started feeling rather confident.
I’d convinced myself that we’d need a day, two tops, to figure this out, locate Henry, understand what really happened to Graham, and finally be able to put this case to bed for Lamise.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Oneday.
Who had I been kidding?
Pax and I had both made trips back to the dog park every day since the day he saw those men. We’d been splitting our time, rarely overlapping, and we’d come up with nothing.
Henry hadn’t been seen, and neither had those two guys. Hell, we hadn’t seen another drug deal with anyone else, either. And we knew what we were looking for, so if it had been happening, we would have noticed.
It was now late morning, and I’d been at the dog park for several hours today. Just like the last couple of days, it felt like it had been a waste, because nothing had happened. There wasn’t a single piece of news to report.
And I was beyond frustrated.
I wanted nothing more than to be able to figure this out and bring it to an end.
She hadn’t said so, but I knew it was weighing heavily on Lamise’s mind. She was doing her best to appear unaffected, and if I wasn’t who I was with the skills I had, I might not have noticed.
