“Wonderful. I’ll report back soon, darling.” As my mother rounded her desk and leaned in for her patented air kisses, I kept my eyes on Jackie. Her smile never wavered, and I wondered if her cheeks ever hurt from holding them in such an unnatural position.
As soon as Mother closed the door, Jackie lowered herself into the seat beside me. “So, how’s school?”
“Done,” I admitted. “I dropped out.”
Either she didn’t hear me admit to fucking up my life or she didn’t care because she continued to stare at me through heavily lined narrowed eyes. “Must’ve been hard living so far away. Weren’t you scared living alone in a strange town like that?”
“No, my grandparents lived near me.” What the hell was her problem? Her line of questioning was bizarre. “I don’t mean to be rude, but these are really odd questions, Jackie. You’re acting a little strange.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Am I? Well, I suppose we all act a little strange around here. Transparency isn’t one of our finer qualities.” Just as I was about to ask her if she stopped at the cantina to knock a few back before breakfast, she leaned in. “How’s your car?”
My car? What the hell?
Then it hit me. She knew about my accident. The back of my car was a little dented but still drivable. But there was no way in hell Jackie should know about it.
“You’re double parked,” she clarified as if reading my mind. “Someone reported it, and we ran your plates. You know, come to think of it, Mr. Donovan’s having his car repaired from a recent minor accident too. Funny coincidence, huh?”
My chest pounded. “Yeah.”
“I could arrange to have yours repaired too, if you’d like.”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure that’s in the campaign manager job description.”
“Leighton, a lot of things I do aren’t in the job description.” Uncrossing her legs, she stood with the grace of a lion. “By the way, I believe you kept a scrapbook—old clippings of your father’s career. Do you still have it?”
“I suppose it’s at my mother’s house in my old room somewhere,” I said, beginning to question her sanity.
Nodding, she brushed her hair over her shoulder. If I hadn’t been watching, I would’ve missed the tremble in her hand. “You might want to take a look at them. Great man, your father. Such a shame what happened to him. A real shame.”
“Yes, he was.”
Making her way toward the door, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “You have his eyes, you know.” A sad smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “They tell the truth if you look long enough. I’ve always thought the eyes were the window to the soul.”
The familiar words slammed into me, and I felt like I was about to be sick.
“Look long enough into a man’s eyes and you’ll know his real intentions. The eyes are the window to the soul.”
They were words my father lived by. Words so meaningful to him I had them slipped into the pocket of his suit jacket before they closed the casket. I gripped the armrest until my knuckles cracked. How could my mother’s campaign manager know something so personal about him? My father was a friendly but intensely private man. His values and things that mattered most to him were only shared within a select group of people: his children, his wife, his parents, and people he loved and trusted.
Holy shit.
People he loved and trusted.
“Jackie, wait!” Scrambling to my feet, I ran after her, but she’d already disappeared down the hall. “Shit!” Slamming my fist against the doorframe, I raced past the reception area and tore out of the building.
With both my mother and Finn at work, there was no time like the present.
I took the stairs two steps at a time until I flung open the door to my old room. I didn’t have the time to be careful. Diving into my closet, I tore through mountains of old boxes until I came across the one I wanted. It was the size of a hat box, and when I ripped the top open, I didn’t allow myself the hysterical breakdown that usually accompanied looking at what remained of my father’s life.
No emotions. Not today.
Picture after picture, clipping after clipping, I scanned the words and forced myself to see my father’s smiling face. Nothing stood out as different. Nothing was out of place.
Jackie wasn’t trying to tell me something.
She hadn’t had some secret relationship with my father.
She was just a fucking lunatic.
Grabbing the lid to the box, I cursed under my breath and almost put it away when I saw it. It peeked out from beneath my father’s official promotion photo from cop to detective. Reaching in with a shaking hand, I pulled it out and time froze. Still, I didn’t cry. Maybe it was shock, but maybe, deep down a part of me always knew this moment would come.
The picture was worn, covered in countless salty tears, but the faces were still visible.
Hundreds of people had shown up for my father’s funeral, but only one person in the photograph standing next to his casket looked familiar.
The salt and pepper hair.
The deep dimpled chin.
Shoving the box back in the closet, I tucked the photo in my back pocket and left.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mateo
Slipping off my jacket, I draped it across a chair outside of the steel door. “Anyone see you come in?”
One of Brody’s more trustworthy sicarios shook his head and stepped out of my way. “No. This cabrón is really estupido. We got him first thing this morning in the parking deck outside his office. He couldn’t have made it easier.”
“How bad is he?”
“You said not to fuck him up, so just a few punches. Maybe a rib or two. He’s a rich asshole, so I may have gotten in a couple for myself.”
I slapped him on the back. “Good man.”
Kicking the door open, I stood back just to admire his handiwork. Finn Donovan looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a mountain lion and lost.
As with most of our holding tanks, this one was bare and cold. That was by design. The accommodations our guests found themselves in were minimalistic at best. The only luxuries we allowed were sight and sound. Mainly because solitary confinement needed to be absorbed in all its torturous glory, and that would be inhibited by a blindfold. Plus, gags just ruined all the screaming, and that was the best part.
All that surrounded me when I walked in were four concrete walls and a dusty tarp covered floor. Oh, and one wide-eyed rich fuck tied to a metal chair right in the middle.
His hands were bound behind him, and his ankles were tied together so tightly, if I took his shoes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to find them purple. Donovan wheezed from his cracked ribs, and a busted lip left dried blood caked over a dark bruise forming on his chin.
All in all, I was pleased with how he looked. My fists itched to get started, but business always took precedence over personal vendetta. My boots clicked against the hard floor beneath the tarp, and he slowly raised his chin. Our eyes connected, and I knew the moment he recognized me.
The chair wobbled as he jerked against his restraints. “Help!” he screamed, his voice hoarse. “Somebody, help me!”