Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(48)

“Yeah. She came looking for me after she saw Kaleidoscope on the news and wanted pictures of her dead parents.”

“Right, so obviously the way to get that is through the dick of the man responsible for her parents’ murder. Makes perfect sense.”

My back shot straight, the hairs on my arms standing on end. “I’m not fucking responsible for that shit.”

It was a lie. I was absolutely responsible, but he didn’t get to blame me. No one got to fucking blame me. God knew I blamed myself enough without owning someone else’s feelings as well.

He groaned. “That’s not what I meant. I know you’re not responsible. Dad did that shit. No, strike that. Malcom did that. But I’ve been a cop long enough to know that victims need someone to blame. It wouldn’t matter if you were Malcom Lowe’s mailman. Victims will still rationalize a way to hold you responsible for doing your damn job delivering the unmarked package of ammunition to his house. This is why we changed our last name. To avoid the stigma of being related to that piece of shit. So this makes no goddamn sense that she would come to you knowing you were related to that man. I bet she’s fucked up in the head. Probably has a shrine to Malcom at her house.”

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the door was still closed and kept my voice low. “She’s not fucked up in the head. Well, no worse than I am.”

“It’s been two weeks. You can’t possibly know that. Why the hell did you let her in your damn house? Does Rosie know she’s her mother?”

“No. Relax. Rosalee doesn’t know anything. Look, I’m not happy about this, either. But she showed up squeaky clean. She’s got money, a good lawyer, no record.”

“Do not give me that bullshit. She lifted over ten grand worth of property from your apartment.”

“Yeah, but her prints weren’t a match to any that the cops took from my place. They couldn’t even charge her with that.”

“See. I’m telling you. That bitch knows what she’s doing. She knew enough to cover her damn tracks that night. What about child endangerment, abandonment—hell, neglect? Hang her from the rafters for that shit.”

“Right. So she can walk into the courtroom and defend herself by explaining, on record, that she was suffering from a PTSD episode, reliving the day my father killed her parents when she made the decision to give me the baby?”

“And how many hospitals, police stations, and fire stations did she pass on the way to your place that night? There are legal and safe ways to do what she did. And she picked none of them. I wouldn’t trust that woman with a goldfish, much less my daughter.”

“You do not have to tell me shit I already know. I don’t trust her. Which is why a custody battle scares the piss out of me. What the hell am I supposed to do if a judge orders me to give her to Hadley even every other weekend? You know good and damn well how much the legal system favors mothers over fathers. That is not a risk I can afford to take. And let’s not even pretend that the rake through the coals I would get after the public found out about Dad and her parents wouldn’t play into that decision. I could be father of the fucking year and I’d still be the villain.”

“Shit,” he mumbled. Forget about being my brother, Chief of Police Trent Hunt knew I was right about that.

“Look, I’m playing this smart. She volunteered for six months of supervised visitation. So far, she’s been agreeable and understanding. I’m not sure how long that will last, but I’ve got my fingers on the pulse over here. We haven’t told Rosie anything, so right now Hadley is just… Hadley the art teacher. If she hangs around long enough, we’ll cross that bridge of lies when we get there.”

“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

“You are not alone in that. But it is what it is at this point.”

“How’s your husband handling it?”

I barked a laugh. “Ian is scared to death about me being scared to death. I’ve decided to be nice to her to avoid any further conflict. But he’s under no such obligation, so I’m pretty sure he’s angling at being a dick to see if he can run her off.”

“For the record, I’m on his team.”

Grinning, I rose to my feet when I heard voices on the other side of the door. “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t. Listen, I gotta go.”

“Do me a favor and use some of your fancy money to buy a set of prosthetic thumbs so you can keep me in the loop. I don’t have good feelings about this.”

The door opened and Hadley and her overflowing bag-o-crap appeared on the other side.

“Will do. We’ll talk soon. Tell Jenn I said to fuck off.”

He laughed, and as I pulled the phone away from my ear, I heard him call out, “Jenn, Cav said hi!”

Tucking my phone in my back pocket, I plastered on a smile. It should have disturbed me at how easy that smile was when I saw her. “You guys done?”

Hadley pointed at her invisible watch. “Three o’clock on the dot.”

“Perfect. I’ll walk you to your car.”

Her body sagged. “Oh, God. Are we going to have another talk?”

“No, smartass. I was just trying to be nice.”

She brought a hand up to her chest. “Oh, wow. I knew the unicorn butt was good, but I didn’t expect all this fanfare.”