Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Gunner cleared his throat again. “I’m taking her to see my uncle today. That’s okay, right?”
I laughed. “She’s yours. You need me, though, and I’m here.”
“I need you to keep staying here, though,” he said quickly. “I’m not ready…”
“You’re ready,” I disagreed. “But I’ll stay here as long as you think you need me.”
He nodded, looking relieved. “Thanks, man.”
“I’m heading to see Creole’s dad today,” I said. “But if you need anything, I’ll be in town. Not going too far.”
“Not like heading off to Hawaii at a moment’s notice?” He chuckled.
I headed toward the door. “That might happen again, but at least not this week. I have some work to finish up at the apartments. And Creole doesn’t have another flight out until next Wednesday.”
His laughter followed behind me as I left, and I was unsurprised to see the neighbors watching with curious eyes as I made my way to my bike.
The most curious of them all, the young woman next door who couldn’t help but stare unabashedly waved at me. I gave her a chin jerk back as I got on my bike and rode away.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go see Creole’s dad.
But I knew if I didn’t, it would only get harder to face him.
I didn’t know if he blamed me for what happened to his daughter—and let’s be honest here, I blamed myself—but I needed to get my head out of my ass and talk to him.
It was the only way that we were going to go the distance, because I knew that her dad only had her left, and would fight tooth and nail for her.
The drive to Week’s place was all of two minutes.
He lived in the same neighborhood as my dad, and I had to pass his house to get to Week’s.
Coming to a stop in front of his place, I got off and yanked off my helmet.
I eyed the house—it hadn’t changed much since we were kids—and noticed that all the flowers Joy had planted were still there, just a little worse for wear.
I took in the front door, then slammed my helmet down on the seat before marching up the front walk.
I’d come up these steps a hundred thousand times over the years, but this time was by far the worst feeling.
I’d just made it up to his front porch and was standing between the gladiolas that his wife had planted sometime in our junior year, when my phone rang.
“Apollo,” I said as I answered the phone on speaker. “What’d you find?”
I hadn’t liked the look in the good ol’ doctor’s eyes when I’d asked him to stay away from my girl.
He’d been just a little bit too fake that I knew that he thought he had the upper hand.
He didn’t, and I wanted to make sure he knew that.
“Even more than I’m thinking you thought I’d get.” He sounded surprised, even to himself. “So looks like the good doctor has a few sexual harassment charges swept under the rug. He knows a lot of people in high places, so he’s able to get these charges cleared and anything that follows his brothers that work at DPD clear it up. He also has a fairly good computer guru sister who helps him clear that up, too, if anything decides to stick. Which nothing has, yet. But there was virtually no record of anything at first glance. So I’m thinking she’s done some cleaning up for him. But she’s not that good. I was able to find everything, it just took a little deeper digging than I usually have to do.”
He drew a deep breath and kept going.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. She’s pretty damn good, but not good enough. I uncovered all of those charges. Every last one of them. He has eight, by the way. I then went ahead and sent a copy of said charges to the medical board, since I was sure that they didn’t have them.” He chuckled. “Man, this guy is a fuckin’ nut job. After a deep dive, it looks like the women come to him to share their worst, darkest experiences and the doctor plays the good guy act with them. He freaks them the fuck out, so they try to leave. Then he starts stalking them. Showing up at their homes. Their places of work. Their kids’ schools if they have any. The women file police reports which go nowhere. Then he continues to stalk them until the next fun plaything comes along and he loses interest. That, or they move away. He’s not interested in moving because of his support system here.”
“Two other things,” Apollo said. “Did you see him on the flight y’all were on three days ago?”
My brows slammed down. “No. He was on it?”