And Tyson had attempted to date Conleigh, Linc’s wife. Though, it’d only been one date before he decided that she was too much work—i.e., she’d lied about being pregnant and he thought better of his decision.
At the time, I’d thought it was just because he was a dick.
Then I realized that it wasn’t because he was a dick, it was because Tyson already had a lot on his plate.
A lot being Linnie.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But Tyson did his level best to help where he could. My father sent him away to boarding school.”
“Why not you?” I asked. I sounded like a broken fucking record at this point.
“I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know my father’s motives at all. If I did know anything at all, I’d likely not find myself in the situation that I find myself in.”
I snorted.
“What happened after Tyson found you?” I asked softly, not wanting to hear it but knowing she needed to say it.
“He helped me out of the shower and tried to clean me up…but it was bad. By the end of that day, I had a fever because infection had set in. It went on for another two days before Tyson was able to convince my father to call a doctor. The house doctor that fixed my family up without any questions asked came over, did what he could, and prescribed me a boatload of medication. I still have some slight scarring on my legs,” she explained.
I could happily torture Tara right now and sleep like a baby tonight.
I wanted nothing more than to string Tara up by her toes and re-enact every single punishment that she had ever inflicted on Theo.
And I likely only knew a small portion of the terrible things that had been done to her.
“How much more did she do to you, baby?” I asked. “Was that the worst?”
Please tell me that was the worst.
She laughed. “I’m never going to tell you everything.”
I hated that answer.
But I also loved her for it.
My mind ground to a stop when I realized what I’d just thought.
I loved her for it.
Fucking. Loved.
Son of a bitch.
What the hell was wrong with me, falling in love with a woman that I knew would be leaving me?
I quickly forced my brain off of that subject, too.
I couldn’t think about it.
Not now.
Maybe, when everything was all said and done, and I had nothing else to do but wallow in self-pity, then I’d consider it.
But until then…
“And why is Andy the only one without a T name?” I questioned.
Theo snickered at that.
“That’s a long story,” she admitted. “Do you want to hear it now?”
Why not?
I was wide the fuck awake now.
“Yeah,” I said, sliding my hand down lower to cup her ass.
She didn’t stiffen.
Instead, she pushed even farther into me.
“Well, it all started when the twins were born,” she admitted. “Tyson and Andy were born exactly nineteen minutes apart.”
“Okay,” I drawled.
“Andy was born first so my mom called him Andy, after her brother that passed away. Since the day that my mom’s brother died, she knew that she wanted to name her firstborn son Andy,” she explained. “When Tyson was born, she wanted to continue with the T name tradition that she and Dad had started. She continued it when Tara and I were born. Not sure why, but whatever.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m hearing an underlying hostility there.”
She snorted. “You could say that. Andy hated that he was the only person in the family that didn’t have the T name. Even my mother had it, Tina. So we had Tina, Thurgood, Tyson, Tara, Theodora and finally Andy.”
I thought about that for a few long seconds, then nodded my head. “I honestly might be kind of pissed about that, too.”
She snickered at my admission.
“I think it might’ve been better for Mom, Tyson, and I to not have the T name since the T name seems to have a little crazy attached to it.” She paused. “My mom died when I was four. From then on…everything was bad. I think my mother was the only one that could hold everyone together. After that…things just fell apart.”
I shook my head and ran my hand down the length of her spine, then back up again. When I got to her neck, I curled my fingers around it and squeezed lightly.
“I don’t think she held them together as much as helped hide their brand of crazy,” I admitted. “That, and y’all weren’t really old enough to get to the level of crazy that your brother and sister seem to be holding strong at.”
She sighed.
“Can I tell Tyson where I’m going?” she whispered softly, her breath tickling my chest hairs.
I shook my head. “It’s best if nobody—not even me—knows where you are. That way, if it comes down to it, you’re safe. Nobody but a few know where you are.”
She swallowed hard, and I could tell that she didn’t like that answer.
But she accepted it when I said what I said next.
“Linnie needs to be your top priority at this point,” I murmured. “Fuck everyone and everybody else. Even me.”
Chapter 13
I’m glad I learned how to find X during school instead of how to do my taxes.
-Said no one ever
Liner
“Things are heating up at the Threadgill compound,” I heard Sam say into my ear. “The brother that has the kid is acting twitchy…and I think he’s about to run. At least that’s my general opinion.” He paused. “We were going to wait to collect the girl until we had everything set in place, but with the way he’s acting, I think you should get her now.”
I didn’t even hesitate.
“I’ll go get her myself,” I said softly.
“Do that.” He paused. “And also, we’ve moved up the timetable on our end, too. We should have everything in place the day after tomorrow at the latest. Tell her she has about thirty-six hours, she needs to hold it together, then we’ll have her a place.”
Thirty-six hours was all that I had left of her.
I wouldn’t think about it right now.
I had other things that I needed to do.
Telling Turner and Castiel that I had somewhere to be, they waved at me from the back porch swing.
And since Theo was in her room with the door closed, I took that as the ‘don’t disturb me’ that it was and left her to it.
She’d been hiding in her room since I’d woken up earlier. When I’d woken to an empty bed and an even emptier feeling heart, I’d given her the space that she so obviously had needed and went to work in my home office.
I’d spent a couple of hours in there, fielding calls and calling in reports to my crews when the PI, Tomas, had called with the news.
Grabbing the keys to my company truck—it’d look a lot less suspicious if I had a utility truck parked down the block instead of my personal vehicle.
That, and when you were kidnapping a girl from school, there had to be certain steps that were followed.
Kind of like protecting yourself without alerting anybody to what you were about to do.
Luckily, I had friends’ kids that went there, and I knew that there were a few problem areas that arose over the last school year.
My friend, who’d been called by the teacher because his daughter had a problem at school, had been livid.
The teacher had explained that when the child had gone from the gym to use the bathroom, the door had closed and locked behind her. She had banged on the door to be let back in, but the music in the gym was too loud to hear the knocking. The five-year-old was forced to stand outside and wait for someone to let her back in.
And since the door never opened, the little girl was forced to stand outside in the cold for over forty-five minutes.
When my frien
d was told this, he’d lost his shit on the school and pointed out all the problems that he saw there.
Such as the gate that was directly next to the gym that stayed open all day long. And since it was on a side road that was rarely used except for the busses, nobody thought it was necessary to actually close the gate.
A gate that I planned to use today.
Or…I would have had I not pulled up and seen Tyson and the girl walking to the car from the front of the school.
Grinning, I waited until they were both in, and then followed them to the nearest gas station where Tyson bailed out of the vehicle like a NASCAR driver and rounded the hood only to come to a stop when he saw me.
“Oh, thank God.” He breathed, looking as if he’d run a marathon already that morning. “I need help!”
I blinked. “You want to follow me to my house?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No. I want you to take her and run. As far and as fast as possible.”
I thought about that, then thought more, and wondered if maybe I should be doing this right in the open with at least four people within earshot.
“Meet me at the end of the road,” I lowered my voice. “There’s a turnoff right before it Ts off. Take it and wait for me. I’ll be there after I get fuel.”
He glanced around at the people that were staring at him as if he’d lost his mind and then nodded.
I doubted any of them had actually heard what he had to say, but they could read the tone of his voice, that was for sure.
That, and he’d pulled into the gas station on a screech of tires. It was hard to ignore that.
“Okay.” He nodded once, seeming to collect himself. “Okay.”
I watched him walk calmly to his newer model Mercedes and get in, and I saw the worried look of the little girl as she stared at the man that had, in so many ways, been the only father she had ever known. Tyson pulled out and began his slow drive away, motoring down the street as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
When I pulled up at the gas pump, I took my time. Played with my phone. Screwed around on it scrolling through pictures even though I didn’t play on my phone all that much.
I didn’t have any apps that I could make myself look busy puttering on, either.
Hell, Theo had more on her phone that she’d had for only days than I had on my phone that I’d had for years.
The pump clicked, indicating I’d reached the limit—of money, not of actually filling my tank up—and I sighed and pulled it out of the holder. “Such a stupid fuckin’ rule,” I muttered as I glared at the seventy-five-dollar price tag. “If I wanted to put in two hundred bucks, y’all should’ve fuckin’ let me. What’s it matter if I do? I mean, are you going to stop me from pulling it right back out again and getting more? No, no you’re fuckin’ not.”
“Talking to yourself is a sign that you’re going crazy,” I heard muttered from my side.
I flipped Brielle, Bayou’s adopted sister, off.
She snorted and dropped down in her car, slamming it closed behind her.
I watched her drive away while I shoved my wallet back into my pocket.
I didn’t want Tyson to sit there too long anyway. I wanted to get to him before he decided to run again. His head hadn’t looked all that screwed on.
Heading to the same road, but taking the longer way, I finally pulled into the almost hidden road and made my way about half a mile down it before I found Tyson’s car sitting there, on the side of the road, with him pacing back and forth next to it.
He saw me and looked like he’d utterly deflated all over again.
His hair was in disarray—or even more than it had been earlier—and he looked like he was about to puke.
I pulled the vehicle to a stop and got out, walking to him.
He opened the back door of the car and started collecting…girl shit.
A pink pony that looked like it’d seen better days. A white fluffy chair with the name ‘Linnie’ monogrammed in bright pink letters. And then a suitcase with Minnie Mouse on it with bright pink polka dots.
He started walking to my truck with it, and I gestured for him to put it on the passenger side.
Tyson redirected himself and opened the side door, grimacing at all the dirt.
“Gross,” he muttered.
“It’s a work truck,” I told him. “What did you expect? It to be spotless?”
Most work trucks weren’t.
In fact, mine was better than most.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Linnie’ll love it. She’s all about dirt. I’m constantly cleaning her up.”
I smiled at that.
Tyson did love the kid, even if he didn’t show it outwardly when other people were around.
Once everything was transferred except for Linnie, who was silently playing on her tablet acting like her shit was taken from her vehicle every day, Tyson closed the door to his car and walked over to me.
With my work truck still running, and the powerful diesel motor humming, he had to step closer to me to be heard.
“My sister knows Theo is alive.”
I blinked, trying to mask my surprise, but doing a shit poor job at it.
“I know.” He shook his head. “I know that she’s with you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know how. I just…when she wasn’t found in the wreckage over the last couple of days, I got to thinking and I realized that she probably went to you. That you have her…or someone you know has her.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Tara has no clue about you. But she knows that Theo is alive…and she said she’d be picking Linnie up from school today.” He shook his head. “I have a couple of the people there that are loyal to me. To Linnie. They called me the moment that they heard, and I went and picked her up from school when I did.”
“You don’t know any more?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. But I’m hoping that since I didn’t ‘know’ about it that Tara won’t think it was me that picked her up. I…I stole her out of gym class when she went to the bathroom.”
What I was going to do.
Holy shit.
“The teachers didn’t see me with her,” he said. “The only person that I passed was another little girl that was looking down at the sidewalk.”
“Okay,” I said. “What are you going to do when she doesn’t come home anymore? How are you going to work that?”
He shook his head. “I was thinking about filing a missing person report, but then I thought I might storm the compound, so to speak, and act outraged that they picked the kid up without asking me.”
I nodded. “That one might get them off your back for a while…or it might alert them that your sister isn’t actually dead. From there I’d just unenroll her in school. Don’t do anything. Nobody knows you have her but a few, anyway.”
He nodded, looking like he was taking mental notes.
“I can do that,” he said.
“You can’t know where she goes,” I said bluntly.
He was already shaking his head before I’d even finished. “That’s good, because I don’t want to know. I don’t want to ever see her again if you catch my drift.”
I was already nodding before anything else could be said.
“I’ll get Linnie.” He paused. “Take care of them, man.”
I didn’t say anything as he walked away, but I prayed that I was the right one for this job.
That for the next thirty-six hours, I could indeed keep them safe.
I would.
I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to them. At least while I was breathing and alive, anyway.
But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
My eyes took everything in as Tyson opened the door to his car and started speaking.
Moments later, Linnie started to emerge from the vehicle.
Up close, I couldn’t help but smile at what she was wearing.
Black sparkly long-sleeved shirt. Black leggings. Black miniskirt that covered said leggings. And a black pair of combat boots.
She looked like a mini-badass.
Her hair being so dark brown that it appeared to be black only added to the appearance.
She had tanned skin the color of Rome’s…and Jesus Christ. She did look exactly like Rome.
Down to the hair color.
The only thing that screamed ‘Theo’ about her were the bright matching blue eyes.
Linnie saw me and grinned. “Hey, Cupcake Dude!”
I grinned right back, not saying anything until she was at the side of my truck, her booster seat in hand.
“Hello, Cupcake Girl,” I called back.
“You’re the man that got me that cupcake,” she said.
I nodded. “Would you like another one?”
She tilted her head and studied me for a few long seconds.
She looked a little like Theo with her curly hair and her bright blue eyes. But that was where the similarities ended. She looked like Rome—and Matias—enough that I would’ve second-guessed everything that I knew had I not already taken that step to ensure that she wasn’t.
“I think I would,” she said. “Uncle Tyson said you were taking me to see my mommy.”
I swallowed hard, my eyes lifting up to see Tyson.
My brows rose as if to say, ‘she knows’ and he nodded.
“Yeah, that’s where I’m taking you. She’s staying at my place. Would you like to stop and get her and you a cupcake on the way?” I questioned.
She was already nodding her head. “Yes, please.”
I looked over at Tyson only to see him walking toward his car.
Before I’d even had Linnie settled in the truck, he was starting his own and accelerating down the street.
When I got Linnie’s seat in—I really had no idea how to do it, she had to show me—and had her sitting in the truck, she stared at me expectantly.
“Chocolate milk, too?” she asked politely. “Please.”
I grinned. “You got a smile just like your momma.”
Her eyes lit with excitement. “I didn’t know that.”
I winked. “Let’s go.”
***
When I walked into the house an hour later, chocolate milk in one hand and a fuckin’ dozen cupcakes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors, it was to find Castiel and Turner on the couch, with Theo nowhere in sight.
Snitches Get Stitches Page 11