All In (The Naturals, #3)(27)

“You can do this,” I told her. “And even if you can’t, we’ll love you just the same.”

There was a beat of silence.

“She was wearing a dress,” Sloane whispered after a moment. “The little girl.” She shook her head slightly, then picked up a pen and began marking off distances on one of her maps, as easily as if the whole thing were right-side up.

My chest tightened. The grip Sloane had on the pen told me that even sinking herself into a project like this one wasn’t enough to burn from her mind the memory of the doting father and his little girl.

“She was wearing a white dress.” Sloane’s voice was very small. “It was clean. Did you notice?”

“No,” I said softly.

“Children stain white clothes within an hour of putting them on at least seventy-four percent of the time,” Sloane rattled off. “But not her. She didn’t ruin it.”

The way Sloane said the word ruin told me that she wasn’t just talking about children staining their clothing. She was talking about herself. And clothing was just the tip of the iceberg.

“Sloane—”

“He brought her to the bar to get a cherry.” Her hand stilled, and she turned to look at me again. “He brought me cherries,” she said. “Just once.”

Sloane could have told me the number of cherries, the exact day and time, the number of hours that had passed since—I could see that information, repeating itself over and over again in her head.

“Does it help if I hate him for you?” I asked. Him. As in her father.

“Should it?” Sloane asked, wrinkling her forehead and sitting up. “I don’t hate him. I think that maybe, someday, when I’m older, he could not-hate me.”

When you’re older—and better and normal and good, my brain filled in. Sloane had told me once that she said and did the wrong thing over eighty-four percent of the time. The fact that her biological father had played a role in teaching her that lesson—the fact that she still hoped that he might develop even the barest hint of affection for her someday, if only she could do things right—physically hurt me.

I sat up and latched my arms around her. Sloane leaned into the hug and rested her head on my shoulder for a few seconds. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said. “About the cherries.”

“I won’t.”

She waited a moment longer, then pulled back. “Al Capone once donated a pair of cherry trees to a hospital as thanks for treating his syphilis.” With those memorable words, Sloane lay back down, hanging upside down off the end of the bed and staring out at the maps and schematics she’d collected. “If you don’t leave,” she warned me, “there’s a high probability that I’m going to tell you some statistics about syphilis.”

I rolled off the bed. “So noted.”

Back in the living room, Michael had apparently seen fit to return. For reasons I could not begin to fathom, he and Lia were arm wrestling.

“What—” I started to say, but before I could finish, Dean spoke up.

“Show’s back on,” he said.

Lia took advantage of Michael’s distraction and slammed his hand down. “I win!” Before Michael could complain, she resumed her spot on the back of the couch. I sat next to Dean. Michael stared at us for a second or two, then picked his earpiece up off the floor and went to stand behind Lia.

On-screen, I saw a hand—probably Briggs’s—reach out and knock on a hotel room door. I fit my earpiece back into my ear just in time to hear Thomas Wesley’s assistant answer the door.

“May I help you?”

“Agents Sterling and Briggs,” I heard Sterling say from off-screen. “FBI. We’d like a word with Mr. Wesley.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Wesley isn’t available at the moment,” the assistant said.

The look on Lia’s face called BS on that one.

“I would be happy to pass along a message or to put you in touch with Mr. Wesley’s legal counsel.”

“If we could just have a few minutes of Mr. Wesley’s time—” Briggs tried again.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The assistant smiled daggers at Briggs.

“It’s fine, James,” a voice called. A second later, Thomas Wesley appeared on-screen. His salt-and-pepper hair was slightly mussed. He was wearing a teal silk robe and very little else. “Agent Sterling. Agent Briggs.” Wesley greeted them each with a nod, like a monarch graciously acknowledging his subjects. “What can I do for you?”

“We have just a few questions,” Agent Sterling said, “concerning your relationship with Camille Holt.”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Wesley,” the assistant—James—said, his voice tinged with displeasure. “You are under no obligation to—”

“Answer any questions I do not want to answer,” Wesley finished. “I know. It just so happens I want to answer the agents’ questions. And,” he said, turning his attention back toward the screen, “I’m a man who’s used to doing what he wants.”

I had the oddest sensation, then, that he was addressing those words less to Agent Briggs than to the camera.

“You switched hotels,” Agent Briggs said, dragging the man’s gaze up. “Why?”