Sweet Evil (The Sweet Trilogy #1)(54)

“Thank you,” I told him.

He watched as I sat in a chair and brushed through my wet hair, snagging light tangles as I went. I was too nervous about the day to feel self-conscious. He didn’t take his eyes off me the entire time I French-braided it.

Our breakfast came and I took two bites of a waffle. Nerves had shot my appetite, but I forced down half a glass of apple juice.

Kaidan stared out of the window at our grungy city view. I went and stood next to him.

“You’ve gotten scruffy,” I said, reaching out to run a hand across the stubble on his jaw.

He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his cheek, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again I was startled by the crushing, desperate look he gave me. And just as quickly, he was dropping my hand and turning back to the window, crossing his arms. I swallowed, confused. I started to turn away but then he spoke.

“I have something for you.”

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and when he opened it, sitting in his palm was the small, beautiful necklace of turquoise I’d admired in New Mexico. I stared in disbelief.

“I saw you looking at it and thought you liked it,” he said.

Oh, no, not the tears. Please not the tears. I blinked the stupid things away, thinking about how much I did not want to clean mascara from my face.

“Have I upset you?” he asked.

“No! I’m not upset. I’m just surprised. I can’t believe... I mean, I love it. Nobody’s ever given me anything like this.” I wiped hard under my eyes and then clasped the necklace around my neck.

He cursed under his breath and roughly pushed the hair from his eyes, looking away. “This was a mistake.”

“No.” I grasped his arm. “It wasn’t.”

“Don’t read into this, Anna. It would be a mistake to romanticize me.”

“I’m not. It was a nice gesture. That’s all.” I tried to reassure him, though I wasn’t certain myself.

I would deal with this torrent of emotion later. Right now I had a demon to meet.

We sat in the parking lot of the Federal Correctional Institution of Southern California. Other visitors were sitting in their cars, too, or loitering by the entrance. We hadn’t spoken within five miles of the prison, in case my father was listening. I clutched at my stomach, which contracted and growled.

He gave me a soft admonishment. “You should have eaten more.”

“I couldn’t.”

I looked at the clock; it was time.

Car doors opened and slammed shut around us. The visitor doors were unlocked.

“You’re up,” Kaidan said.

It took awhile to get through security. They had to look for the fax Patti had sent giving me permission to visit as a minor. She’d jumped through major hoops to make it happen. The guard who took my name became interested when I told him I was Jonathan LaGray’s daughter.

“First visitor Johnny LaGray’s had in seventeen years,” he stated.

Not likely, I thought, envisioning a steady stream of visiting demon spirits scoffing at the prison’s security measures.

The guard gave me a rundown of the rules. Hugging and holding hands were fine in moderation, but the guards would be watching to make sure I didn’t pass anything to my father. He didn’t have to worry—hugs and handshakes were not on my agenda.

He explained that my father would be notified that he had a visitor, but he had the right to refuse to see me.

The other visitors and I were led into a room the size of a small cafeteria and told to sit and wait in our assigned places. Mismatched tables lined the room, surrounded by guards. I sat down in a chair as wobbly as my stomach. The room filled with murmurs of adult conversation and the high-pitched voices of children. The general atmosphere was bleak, with gray auras most prevalent.

Sounds of heavy metal doors opening and chains clanging made me panic. I worried I might get sick. Prisoners entered single file, hands cuffed in front of them, chained feet dragging, wearing orange jumpsuits. People craned their necks to see.

I recognized him at once, head shaved smooth. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. His short brown goatee from the day of my birth had grown into a long, pointed beard with a bit of gray. His badge shone a deep, dark yellow. And then I saw his eyes and remembered them from the day of my birth—small and light brown, curved downward at the corners, the same as mine.

Our matching eyes met and stayed locked as a guard marched him toward me. I saw concern and hope in his eyes, not the evil I’d feared. As he got closer, every shred of anger I’d been harboring fell from me.

He stood in front of me now, on the other side of the table, and I found myself standing, too. Both our eyes filled with moisture. Maybe it was him I needed to thank for the curse of overactive tear ducts.

The guard unlocked my father’s handcuffs, keeping his ankles shackled, and we reached out for each other across the table. His hands were warm and rough. Mine were cold from nerves, but they would thaw now.

“Have a seat, LaGray,” the guard said, and we sat, never looking away from each other. The guard left us.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. His voice was as scratchy and gruff as I recalled. “I wrote so many letters over the years,” he continued, “but it wasn’t safe to send them to you. And... I wanted you to have a chance at a normal life.”