Bile rises as I fork over the drugs and take the money. There’s no turning back now. I just sold my soul to the damn devil.
“Count it,” Jon says. “Make sure they’re Franklins. I don’t want no little shit.”
I make twenty piles of a thousand dollars each. “It’s all here.”
“Nice doin’ business with you,” the man says, extending his hand.
I stare at it.
Jon walks over. “Shake the man’s hand, Quinn. Do it.”
I shake. Then the man holds his hand out to Jon. “Looks like you got yourself an apprentice.”
Jon shakes his hand. “That I do.”
Then, the man twists Jon’s arm, and the gun falls to the floor. Jon is pushed, face down, onto the carpet with the guy’s knee in his back. Motherfucker. This guy is going to kill us and take all the drugs.
“Don’t fucking move,” the man says to me as he secures Jon’s wrists with a zip tie he pulled from his pocket. He turns to me. “I’m detective Ulrich. Undercover narcotics.”
I hold up my hands as my heart sinks into my stomach. I’m going to jail. Jail with Jon. “I swear this wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He forced me—”
“We know. We’ve been following him since he got out of prison. Knew he’d go right back to his old ways, and there are a lot of politicians around here who didn’t want to see that happen.”
The front door opens, and two uniformed officers come in. They walk over and take Jon from the detective, reading him his rights on the way out.
The officers practically ignore me. “You’re not arresting me?”
The detective laughs. “Are you kidding? After that pathetic drug deal? We know exactly what he was doing. Extortion. Bribery. Blackmail. But man, you almost blew it for us. We knew you were in the house earlier; we’ve been surveilling it twenty-four-seven. One of the two guys here was my partner. For a month now, we’ve been buying from Jon separately. Getting him to trust us. We were going to bust him after my partner made the deal but didn’t want you to get caught up in the middle of it. Then you had to go and get yourself caught when Jon doubled back to the house.
“I’m not in trouble?”
“No. In fact, I’d like you to testify about what went down here today. It could help our case.”
“How so?”
“You came back to your mom’s place for some of your things. You hid when Jon showed up because you’re afraid of him. He made a drug deal. Then he found you, threatened you, and held you against your will. Assaulted you with a deadly weapon by the looks of your head. That ought to add time to his sentence. What do you say?”
“I say hell yes.” I shake his hand in thanks. “I thought I was done for.”
“You were damn lucky we knew you were here, Quinn, and that Jon agreed to a sale with me. This could have gone a lot worse. In the future, don’t try to take things into your own hands.”
“I was only trying to protect my family.”
“The people at the ranch. Yeah, we know.” We walk outside and he gets something from one of the other officers. “My card,” he says, giving it to me. “Come down to the station and give a statement.”
“Just so you know, there’s a shitload of drugs hidden under a false panel in one of the lower kitchen cabinets.”
He nods. “Thanks. You made my job a little easier. And hey, it’s nice to know all the Thompsons aren’t like them.”
I observe the main house. My mom is on the front porch being questioned by an officer. She’s yelling at him to get off her property. “What’ll happen to her?”
“She’s not a part of our investigation, and as far as I can tell, she’s not into selling drugs. Do you know differently?”
I shake my head. “She’s a pathetic excuse for a mother, but that might be her only crime.”
“Well then.” He nods to the card in my hand. “Don’t wait too long to give your statement.”
“Would now be too soon?”
“You really do hate your family, don’t you?”
I glance back at Mom. “They’re not my family. Haven’t been for a long time.” I start down the driveway, a sense of relief washing over me that I haven’t felt in years. Or maybe forever.
Chapter Thirty
Amber
I listen to Josie through the baby monitor. She’ll be up soon. I know the noises she makes just before she wakes. I’ll get up, change her diaper, and put her into her favorite outfit with the peaches on it. Okay, so it’s my favorite. Then I’ll feed her and do what I always do: stare at her little cherub face and wonder about her future.
Quinn coughs and rolls over, still sleeping but facing me. His jaw is purple and swollen. It’s still so unbelievable what he went through yesterday. Everyone was celebrating the news that Jon was arrested and would probably go back to prison for many years. Me? I was thinking how it could have gone horribly wrong if the undercover agent hadn’t been there. How Quinn could have been lured into his dirty family business to keep us safe. Or worse, he could have been arrested too.
Everything ends, one way or another.
Josie is stirring more. I don’t want her to start crying and wake Quinn, so I go to her. Her face lights up when she sees me. “Morning, JoJo.” I sweep her up and give her a kiss. I sing a favorite childhood song of mine as I change her. “You look good in peaches,” I say, holding her up. “To be fair, you’re adorable in everything.” I glance at the dresser where we keep her clothes, knowing we’ve added a lot to what Michelle brought. Much more than will fit in the bags she came with.
As I make her morning bottle, I think of how, any day now, a single piece of mail will arrive. When that happens, our lives will either go back to how they were a month ago, or they will become more complicated.
I admire her beautiful face as she eats. “I’ll tell you a secret,” I whisper. “I’m rooting for complicated.”
The mail. Huh. Come to think of it, Quinn hasn’t obsessively checked the mail for days, maybe longer. And he hasn’t called the pediatrician to check on the test either. Then again, it could be that I haven’t seen him do it.
I lean down and kiss her head. “Already making men fall for you, aren’t you?”
“What’d you say?” Quinn says, coming up behind me.
“Nothing. Josie and I were having a conversation.”
He comes around the front of the couch, his chest bare and his hair matted. He arches a brow.
“What?” I say. “Like you don’t talk to her too. I hear you through the baby monitor.”
“Busted,” he says. “Coffee?”
“Already brewing.”
“I’ll bring you some.”
“Cream, no—”
“No sugar, a splash of cream on top, no stirring. You don’t think I know that by now, Amber?”
He goes into the kitchen.
“Cocky men,” I say to Josie.
I finish burping her when Quinn puts my coffee on the table. “I hear you through the monitor too, you know. You have an incredible singing voice.”