by Brooks, Anna
“What the hell is going on?” I snap, no longer able to listen to their bickering. “You’re both talking, but nobody is actually telling me anything.”
My mother sighs and takes one cautious step closer to me. “My career, it was never supposed to be what it was. I… I thought I was going on an audition to be a model. A photo shoot turned into a lingerie shoot, and that turned into a couples shoot, and then that turned into nude photos, then it all just spiraled. I was young. So, so naïve, stupid. Alone. I got pregnant with you and didn’t know what I was going to do.” I let her continue to talk because there’s something about her being vulnerable like this that I’ve never seen before. “I had a one-night stand with a nice man I met at a bar before I did any films, so when I found out I was pregnant, I knew who the father was. I just didn’t know his name.”
She glances over at Paul, who looks oddly guilty, and I walk backward until my butt hits the door I came out of. What? No. “No…” I have no clue what he has to do with her being a porn star or what his role in it was, but the fact that he knows her, knows who she is, makes me sick.
“I wasn’t making money at that point, and they promised to do right by me and my baby and support us if I signed a contract. A hundred films,” she whispers and shame drips from her words. I blink at hearing remorse in her voice for the first time ever. “It was either do those films and guarantee I could give my baby a good life, or walk away pregnant, seventeen, and broke with no support from anybody. And then after the first hundred, I signed for a hundred more, because let’s face it, how else could I support us?”
I almost laugh when she says things like good life and support. “Mom—”
She cuts me off. “I’ve never told you any of this because it was my decision to make. My life. My choices. It’s not your fault for being born, and I never wanted you to feel the weight of that on your shoulders. I know I was a terrible mother, but I didn’t know any different back then. And when you left, I figured you’d be better off without me so I let you walk away and continued doing the only thing I know how to do.”
“You don’t need to still be doing it.”
Her face falls, and she looks at her feet as she shuffles them back and forth. “I’m not. That’s what this was all about. My contract is up. It’s done.” She actually sniffles. “I’m done, and I ended the same way I started. With nothing.”
Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? She knew the kind of torture I endured going to school every day. The comments I got from boys, from girls; everyone knew my mom fucks men on camera for a living. Most of the boys told me they masturbated to her and wanted to know if they could come over to meet her.
Nobody wanted to be my friend because of who my mom was. Girls thought I was a whore. As I got older, the guys became more and more aggressive. Grabbing my ass, my boobs. Grinding their dicks against me. I can’t even count the number of times I went into the bathroom at school and vomited from the disgust of the sexual harassment I endured.
I told her. I begged her to stop, to homeschool me or something… anything. Just not to make me go back there, but she didn’t listen. Told me to ignore them. Boys will be boys and all that.
She ignored my pleas for help.
She let all of that happen to me.
It’s not until I see her wringing her fingers together that I actually look at her and see what she’s wearing. A pair of jeans that flare out on the bottom covering her flip-flops that are barely visible. Her T-shirt is form fitting but not tight, and her face is virtually makeup less. She looks… normal.
But she’s not normal. She’s manipulative and selfish. “If you’re done, then why did you hire investigators to get information about me so you could find me and ask me if I wanted to… perform.” I spit the word with disgust.
“Desperation. I knew it was wrong, but I just… I don’t know. I’m fucked up, Maddy. I never wanted to hurt you—”
“Well, you did.”
She drops her head. “I know.”
“If you knew it was so wrong, why? After you came to see me when I told you I would absolutely never do… porn, why did you hire yet another investigator to break into my house to try to find out even more about me?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh come on, you expect me to believe that?”
She nods. “I do. I didn’t hire him.”
“Sure. Okay. So if you didn’t, then who did?”
She lifts her arm and points at Paul. “Your father did.”
Q
I technically could have left work earlier, but I had so much to catch up on, and I knew Madeline was safe, so I stayed all day. There’s an air surrounding me that’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. An ease… happiness, I guess.
Like I told Madeline, when I was with Lexi, I thought I was happy. But the truth is, I didn’t actually know what happiness meant until that night at the bar when Madeline put her hand in mine. Being with the person you’re supposed to be with gives you a sense of pride that’s unparalleled.
It’s compulsive and consuming and fucking amazing.
I want to hurry up and get out of here, so I can get home to be with my woman. It’s been a couple of hours after I came back from visiting Roxy and got caught up. Now everyone who’s in the office today is gathered around the conference table going over cases, and I’m updating them all on the work I did this afternoon.
Only a few more minutes until I can get outta here and go see Madeline and tell her to her face how much I love her.
“Anybody have anything el—”
Erik stops talking midsentence. We all look up, and our senses go on high alert when we hear the cries of a woman. And not just any woman. Roxy Rivers.
Christ.
Polly chases after her, but Roxy reaches the glass door first and yanks it open. “Help me.”
“I’m sorry, I tried to stop her, but—”
Erik holds his hand out as he moves to put himself between the two women, protecting his wife from the unknown. “It’s okay, Polls. What do you need help with?” he asks Roxy.
I should ask her something, should get out of my chair, but my gut has sunk so deep that it’s fusing me to the seat, and I can’t move. Something is wrong. Very fucking wrong.
Roxy’s face is white as a ghost, her body is shaking, and Noble steps up to her. “Take a breath. Tell me what happened.”
Erik calls Polly’s name. “Go get her some water, babe.”
“Yeah, okay.” Polly hurries out of the room.
“What happened, Roxy?”
Her lips move, but I can’t hear what she’s saying because my ears are wringing, and Noble swears under his breath, then looks up at me.
And there’s panic written all over his face.
No.
Fuck no.
It’s not her. It can’t be her.
I don’t even know what it is, but it cannot fucking be her.
“Brodie.” Noble snaps his fingers.
Brodie pushes up from the table and leans in to hear what Noble says. “Got it,” he mumbles and rushes out of the room.
And then I suck in a breath as if I’ve been punched in the gut. “Talk to me,” I practically beg.
“Madeline’s been taken,” Roxy whispers through trembling lips.
My gut churns, and I have to actually grab it and press down to keep the bile from rising.
“But we know who she’s with,” Noble assures. “We’ll find her.”
I can’t open my mouth enough to ask who, but I must communicate it with my eyes because he tells me, “Her father.” He swallows. “Her father took her. Paul Hanson kidnapped her.”
The principal. Holy. Fuck. How did I miss that?
I was initially thinking this was another of Roxy’s ploys to get money, but it’s not a ransom case. It’s straight kidnapping. She’s not asking for money. She’s not asking for anything but help, just for us to find her daughter.
How did Roxy even know she was taken, and how
the hell did I not look into her father? Because of her. Madeline. Because she distracts me. Dammit.
Focus. Fucking focus.
Okay, okay. Brodie’s already gonna be off doing the first step in any K&R case. Even though there’s no ransom involved as of yet, it’ll be treated as such. He’s gonna go pull Paul and everything there is on public record. And usually, with K&R cases, that’s how we find them because these motherfuckers who do shit like this might think they’re smart, but they’re not.
It’ll only take him a few minutes to get a list of properties owned by anyone in his family, so as soon as he’s got that, we’ll start looking deeper into those. Erik’ll also have Brodie pull up what he’s got on Madeline to see if we can get lucky and get a ping on her phone… and I’ve gotta pray that she’s still wearing the bracelet she was this morning since I snuck a GPS tracker in it.
Focus.
Noble turns Roxy around and sets her in a chair. “Did you go to the police?”
“No. Please,” she begs and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Just find her. I tried to stop him, I swear. I tried, but he… he, just please find her.”
“We’ll find her,” Noble promises.
Polly walks in with a bottle of water and clears her throat. She hands it to Roxy who takes it with trembling fingers before leaving the room.
Erik watches his wife disappear, then nods at me. “Q, go.”
I stare at him.
“You’re the best at this. This is your job. It’s what you do. You need to find your girl.”
I want to. Need to. I need to go. I have to save her. Find her. I have to. I’ll find her, I will. But I can’t move.
“Tanner, fucking go!” Erik screams.
I snap out of it, and finally get my ass in gear and tear out of the room. I don’t know who’s on my heels, but I skid to a halt and type in the code on the keypad, and then let the sensor scan my prints before the door to my office opens.
I unlock my computer and sit down as it’s opening the program. “You got anything?” Erik stands next to me and Noble on the opposite side.
“Give me a few.”
My fingers fly across the keyboard, and I reach over for my mouse. “Come on, come on,” I mumble to myself. It’s taking too long. “Fuck. Fuck!”
“What?” Noble questions.
“It’s taking too long.” A second later the program I need opens, and an address pops up on the screen. I point at it as I stand just as Brodie rushes in with a piece of paper clenched in his hand. “The GPS signal pinged from there seven minutes ago.”
“What address you got?” He asks.
“His house.”
Brodie nods, reassuring me he found the same thing I did. “System was disarmed twenty minutes ago. Let’s roll.”
“You’re coming?” he asks as we jog down the stairs. “I thought you were done with field work?”
I ignore his question because it was a fuckin’ stupid one.
“You gonna be able to keep your shit together?” Erik asks me as he straps on a bulletproof vest.
I simply nod as I mirror what he’s doing and hop into my vehicle and shift into gear, my tires squealing and my car barely making it through the exit without taking my roof off because the garage door isn’t even opened all the way.
Chapter 20
Madeline
I sit on the living room couch in the house of Paul—my boss, the principal of my school, and apparently, my father—trying to comprehend what’s transpired over the past hour and having a very difficult time. If I thought the past couple months have been crazy, I had no clue what complicated actually meant. No. What happened in the parking lot is complicated. And confusing. All I remember is my mom saying Paul was my dad, and then everything went black.
Apparently, when I passed out, I hit my head and twisted my ankle when I fell. He carried me to his truck, then drove me here. When I woke up, I was in his house with a throbbing headache. I have an ice pack on my temple and an ankle that is swollen and purple.
“Here.” He brings more ice to me, and I kick my leg up and put that pack on my ankle. He then hands me a bottle of water and a couple of pain pills. “I’m sorry, Maddy. I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about the beginning?”
He sits across from me, and I drink some water but hold off on the pills. Being around Q has made me paranoid, and I don’t trust Paul right now. I don’t trust anybody.
“It’s pretty much what you heard Audrey say. We met at a bar, hooked up, and it wasn’t until you came to my office to tell me you were calling CPS that it hit me for some reason. There was always a weird familiarity with you, but I just figured you just had one of those faces. It was the way you smiled or something that I realized you looked exactly like Audrey. I dug into your employment records and figured out that with your age, it would make sense, but I had no proof. Of course I knew that Audrey went on to become Roxy. Your last name wasn’t the same as hers, but I assumed that Roxy Rivers was her stage name or whatever. So I hired someone to find out if you really were my daughter and it was confirmed. I hunted down Roxy and—”
“Jesus Christ.” I jump as I hear the rumble of a familiar voice and turn my head to see Q round the corner with a gun pointed at Paul.
“Don’t fuckin’ move.” Brodie comes in from the other side, and like bees to honey, a group of familiar men swarm in and all have weapons aimed at the man who apparently is my father. I’m dizzy and nauseous and apparently too foggy-brained to react quickly because I don’t even move.
Q squats down in front of me and pulls the ice pack from my head, his jaw hardening at the bruise there. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I try to swallow down the fear, but with Q being so close, I let my guard down and sob into his chest when he lifts me into his arms, cradling me. He holds me and shields me and reassures me, something I’ve never had before.
“Let’s get you outta here.” He starts to walk away, but I lift my head to protest.
“No. Stay. I want to hear what he has to say. I need to know if it’s true.”
Paul speaks up. “It’s true. I have the DNA report.”
“How the fuck did you get her DNA?” Q growls.
The three men blocking my view of Paul part, and he slowly stands, despite multiple guns still being pointed at him. “A water bottle from her classroom.”
Q’s arms flex around me almost painfully.
“I swear, I just wanted to know. I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell her… I didn’t even know she was my daughter until a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t ever want her hurt. I just wanted to know.”
“Why the hell is she sitting over there with ice on her face and a fucked-up ankle?” Brodie snaps, accusing him of hurting me.
“When she found out that I was her father, she passed out. I didn’t reach her in time. Why are you guys acting like I want to hurt her?”
Brodie lowers his weapon, and the other men do as well.
Q removes his phone from his pocket and glances at it, then whips his head up at the same time Brodie does, their eyes connecting in a way that’s almost scary. “What?” I ask, panicked and even more confused.
“That fuckin’ cunt,” Noble, at least I think that’s his name, murmurs. “Set this shit up.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s gonna sting, baby, but you should see it.” Q holds his phone out, and I watch the screen, gasping at my mother as she and a man wander through my apartment, frantically digging through my things. “I thought you said there weren’t cameras inside.”
“There weren’t until that guy broke in, then we installed them on the off chance someone went back.” Brodie answers, then asks me, “What do you want us to do? We can have guys there in three minutes, but it’s up to you. It’s your call.”
It takes a second to realize he’s talking to me. “Nothing.” I stare at Q’s phone, at a loss for emotion, witnessing my mother stealing my jewelry and shoving any empty
cash lying around into her purse. “Don’t do anything. Let her take whatever the hell she wants, I don’t need anything. I don’t want anything but you. As long as I have you, I’m good.” I burrow into Q and nuzzle my face against his chest.
“You have me, sweetheart.”
That’s right. I do. I have Q and she has nothing. I feel sorry for her. I really only feel empathy for her right now. How desperate do you have to be to steal from your only child?
I don’t take my eyes off the screen. “Do you think once she has whatever she needs, she’ll finally leave me alone?”
“What are you talking about?” Paul asks.
“Q?” Brodie asks for confirmation.
He nods, then I listen to Brodie explain what’s happening as I’m still watching it unfold. Paul’s face gets red, and I’ve gotta say, I like that he seems to genuinely care about me.
“What did I ever do to her?”
Q sighs, holding me tighter. “Nothing, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.” I sniffle, and he shuts the screen off, then rests his lips by my ear. “What do you need? What do you want me to do?”
“I just wanna go home. Can you take me home?”
Q
I leave Madeline on the couch when I go to the door to get our delivery from the Mediterranean restaurant. After tipping the guy, I put her food on a plate and then take it to her. “Here, baby. You need to eat.”
She sits up begrudgingly. “I’m not hungry.”
“I know, but you have to get something in your stomach.”
“Fine.” She takes the plate and picks at her favorite meal, only really nibbling on the bread. “I’m sorry. I can’t eat any more.”
“It’s okay. At least it’s something.”
I take her dish and set it in the kitchen, then go back to her, slightly concerned by her catatonic behavior. She’s been through so much, but I still don’t like it. “Come on, let’s get you in bed.”
“I… I don’t think I can walk without falling down right now.”
“Okay.” I bend down and then lift her up, holding her in my arms. I angle her body sideways and walk down the hall, then deposit her gently on my bed. Our bed. Everything I own is hers now. She said all she wanted was me, but the absolute truth is that she’s the only thing I need. “Do you need anything?”