Chapter sixteen
“Drugs?” Amber repeated. It both made sense and didn’t.
Spencer nodded, but everyone seemed to be waiting for her to say more.
She dropped her gaze, contemplating the possibility, then lifted it again when Spencer squeezed her hand.
“I don’t know,” she started. “ If Anthony is involved, then in some ways, drugs make sense. It’s something he can pass off to someone else.
Like I said earlier, something he doesn’t have to be close to when it kills,” she said.
“But what kind of drug could cause all those reactions? I’m no expert on illicit substances, but it seems like it would need to be something unusual.
Not the ones we read about so frequently.
And that’s the part that doesn’t fit. He’s not the adventurous sort, and I don’t see him being capable of finding a drug that can do the things we’re talking about, let alone finding it in sufficient quantities to sell. ”
“That’s one of the first things we need to track down,” Spencer said. She looked at him in question. “What kind of drug could be involved,” he clarified. “It’s got to be something psychotropic.”
“And something that either isn’t part of a standard tox screen or redistributes after death fast enough to not show up in one,” Hawkeye said.
“Are we getting ahead of ourselves?” Philly asked. “There are a lot of questions on the table, including whether or not any of these people—other than the guy shot by the police—were even killed.”
“He’s right,” Callie said. “To my way of thinking, there are three primary avenues to investigate: were the deaths murder; if so, what caused them; and what, if anything, was Anthony’s role.
As I said, I’ll look into Anthony and his finances.
That will give us a better picture of where his income comes from.
From there, we might find connections to these folks.
” She gestured to the pictures on the table.
“Or more likely, to the family members we think paid to kill them.”
“I’ll look into the deaths themselves,” Leo said. “And the ME. Her past intrigues me.”
“Which leaves the drugs,” Dulcie said.
“Which may be a fool’s errand if there’s been no actual murders,” Mantis replied.
“It can’t hurt to look, though,” Stone chimed in. “Juliana can help.”
Amber smiled at that. Juliana liked nothing more than digging up interesting bits of buried information.
It was how she and Stone had met in the first place.
“She’d probably like that,” she said. Stone’s lips ticked up and his eyes softened, making Amber wonder when the two were going to tie the knot.
Which also reminded her to follow up with Juliana about the dinner she’d asked about on Youth Day.
“I can ask Kara, too,” Mantis offered. “She might have some insights.”
“And I’ll reach out to Agent Perry,” Dulcie said.
Everyone, including Amber, looked at him.
Agent Grace Perry and her team had helped the Falcons with a situation at Bacco right after Monk’s father died.
It didn’t surprise Amber that the club would reach out to the DEA if they thought drugs were involved.
But the team was run by a man who’d served with several of them.
That Dulcie would reach out to Agent Perry rather than their friend was interesting.
Dulcie shrugged. “She called the other day to check in on everyone. Besides, if we bring in Reaper, you know he’s going to be all up in this, and I don’t think we’re ready to ratchet up to his level of intensity yet. If we find anything that’s up his alley, we can go to him then.”
Amber had never met any of the agents, only heard their names, but judging by the conciliatory nods of the Falcons, Dulcie’s observations rang true.
“What am I supposed to do?” Amber asked. She’d been around the Falcons long enough to know that this problem wasn’t hers alone to carry, but still, she needed to participate somehow.
“You have a daughter you need to focus on,” Spencer said.
She slid him a narrow look. “But you should get a lawyer,” he added quickly.
“You’re going to need to sort everything out about her.
She doesn’t have a birth certificate, you have no proof of parentage, and once you prove parentage, you’re going to need to get full legal custody of Zoe.
You’ll probably need to get a DNA test—”
“We can arrange that,” Callie said.
Spencer acknowledged the offer with a nod, not taking his eyes off her.
“I can’t imagine getting full custody will be a problem, given what Clara and Adrian told us about the night she was born.
Especially not if we can also prove he’s involved in those deaths.
” He gestured to the photos. “But all that will take time and probably a lot of paperwork.”
He wasn’t wrong. Or she assumed he wasn’t. She’d seen the legal struggles of many of the women the Falcons helped in the past year when it came to custody rights. And those mothers had birth certificates. But while that process was a big concern, it wasn’t her only one.
“I also want to be sure there’s no backlash on Adrian and Clara,” Amber said.
With a twinge of resignation, she acknowledged that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to leave the potential murders in the hands of others and focus solely on what she needed to do to secure her daughter’s safety, along with Clara’s and Adrian’s.
Of all the next steps they’d identified, those were the only ones she really had any control over.
As if sensing her unease, Callie spoke. “I’m going to have questions for you as I start digging. We all probably will.” Leo nodded in agreement. “We may each have our strengths and areas to work on, but it’s all intertwined. None of us operate in a silo.”
She offered Callie a grateful smile. She could only do what she could do, and while she’d discovered she could do way more than she’d given herself credit for in the past year, Callie was right.
What they were all about to step into would be a tangled web of deceit, danger, and treachery.
They each had their pieces to focus on, but it wouldn’t ever be completely over until all the threads unraveled.
She exhaled again. “Okay, I need a lawyer.” She glanced around the room, her gaze landing on Mantis, then Leo.
“Any chance Justice Warwick might have a recommendation?” Charley and Joey’s father was a federal circuit court judge.
She didn’t know if he knew any local family law lawyers, but figured if he didn’t, he’d know someone who did.
Someone who could handle this delicate situation.
Leo’s eyes flickered to Mantis as he smiled. “I’m sure Michael will have an idea or two.”
The baby monitor crackled to life, and the sound of little baby grunts filled the room. Amber’s heart stuttered, then exploded with a love she didn’t know she had in her.
“The queen has arisen,” Adrian said. “Let’s go together to get her.”
She gave Spencer’s hand another squeeze, then rose, inexplicably nervous. Babies weren’t all that different from adults, and waking with an essential stranger in her room might not be a welcome sight for Zoe. But they had to start the transition sometime.
“A word of warning, she’s grumpy when she wakes up, but she moves through it quickly,” Adrian said. “I usually change her diaper, then give her some water, and by the time we’re done, she’s back to her usual self.”
“Is she a good sleeper?” Amber asked as they climbed the stairs.
Adrian nodded. “Surprisingly. She always has been. In that we’ve been lucky. She does get hangry, though. And it hits in a flash. We’ve learned to always have something on hand for her. A snack or some formula.”
A pang went through Amber at that last comment. She’d wanted to nurse her baby. She’d imagined it dozens of times while pregnant. The image of being somewhere safe, holding her child, just the two of them, had sustained her through those last months with Anthony.
They reached the door, and Adrian paused, then set a hand on her arm.
“I can’t imagine the spectrum of emotions you must be feeling with all this.
I know you’re grateful for what my mom and I did, but I also recognize that you might be mourning the things you missed.
I’m not going to tell you how you should feel or respond, but I will say, from experience, the past is the past. We process it and learn what we can, and that may take a while.
But I’ve found it helpful to remind myself that we can only control what we can control. ”
Amber’s smile weighed heavy on her heart as Adrian’s words echoed her own thoughts moments ago. “I feel like a pendulum swinging between anger and sorrow for what I missed and hope and joy for what I have, for what you and your mom made possible,” she whispered.
Adrian nodded as more noises filtered through the door. “And you’ll probably feel that way for a while. It will be exhausting, so give yourself some grace, too. As it is, it’s only been a few hours, so I think you’re doing remarkably well.”
Amber managed a small smile that turned into a chuckle when a squawk came from the other room. “I guess she decided she’s waited long enough?”
Adrian laughed, and they opened the door to find Zoe standing, her hair flat on one side, sticking up on the other, and her fingers curled over the edge of the porta-crib.
The second she saw them, she lifted her arms to Adrian.
Another pang pinched Amber’s heart, but she reminded herself that Zoe didn’t have the luxury of understanding what was happening.
That would only come with time and trust. And building that trust was something within Amber’s control.
Rather than linger on the regret that sliced through her, she set up the changing mat and pulled a diaper and wipes from the bag, helping Adrian in ways that changed Zoe’s routine a little but not too much.
By the time they handed her a sippy cup of formula and headed back downstairs, she was happy to be in Amber’s arms.
“You’re not becoming a spook,” a voice echoed through the room as they made their way down the last few steps.
“Why not? Seems a cool job.”
Amber snorted. Monk and Kendall returning for the afternoon; Monk from working on one of the rentals the club owned, and Kendall from her after-school program.
“Spooks are unpleasant, devious, weird, and most importantly, can almost never have normal relationships with people. Is that what you really want?” Monk asked.
Amber stepped off the last tread and into the room, making a note to pick up a couple of baby gates.
“Lina was a spy. She seems to be perfectly norm— Amber, why are you carrying a baby that looks just like you?” Kendall asked.
Kendall had only just turned thirteen, but her intelligence was off the charts.
As in a certified genius. She attended school for the social aspects but completed college courses online in the evenings.
No one had said it explicitly, but by consensus, they didn’t keep things from her.
Not even things that maybe a teenager shouldn’t hear.
“I was pregnant the last time my ex-husband beat me unconscious. He told me I lost the baby, but it turns out he threw her away, in the garbage, but Clara and Adrian”—she pointed to the women as she spoke—“saved her. Took them a while to find me, but they did, and now she’s here. Meet Zoe. My daughter.”
Kendall dropped her backpack in the middle of the floor, the way only a teenager could, and glared at her brother. “All this went on today and you didn’t tell me?”
Monk rolled his eyes. “I was going to, but then I got distracted by the CIA grooming my thirteen-year-old sister.”
Kendall gave an almost identical roll of her eyes but added a shake of her head, her cropped dark hair swaying with the movement. “Whatever,” she muttered before walking over.
“Hi, Zoe,” she said with a smile. Zoe bounced once, her cup hitting Amber in the shoulder, then leaned toward Kendall. Amber didn’t want to give her up, but a tiny part of her knew it was important for Zoe to build relationships with the entire Falcons family.
“We’re going to form a club, you and me,” Kendall said, taking the little girl.
Amber watched her closely, but the teenager seemed remarkably comfortable, and capable, with the toddler.
“The found family members,” Kendall continued, spinning away from Amber and Adrian.
“See, that’s my brother. Technically, my half-brother, but we don’t bother with that distinction.
He found me last year. Or I found him. We found each other.
And now you’ve found your mom, she’s found you.
You landed somewhere good,” she said, walking toward one of the windows.
“The guys can be a bit bossy and protective, but they’re good.
And your mom is awesome. She’s the best cook.
Probably not super important to you right now,” she said, as formula dribbled from Zoe onto Kendall’s shirt.
“But you’ll appreciate it as you get older.
” Spinning toward Callie, she continued.
“And you’re going to have a cousin in a few months, too.
Don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but we could use another girl to even out all that.
” She waved at the group of men loitering in the room, some standing, some sitting.
“I like her,” Clara said.
“How’d you get so good with kids?” Philly asked.
Kendall shrugged. “Some of the places my mom dragged me had kids. There were kids my age, too, but they were into things I wasn’t. It was easier to hang out with the younger ones. People left me alone as long as I kept them entertained.”
Amber’s stomach pitched. Kendall’s life before coming to live with her brother hadn’t been stable.
A massive understatement, that. But between her intelligence, savvy, street smarts, and resilience, she’d figured out ways to distance herself from her mom’s path while still being carted around from party to party to party.
Her mom died several months ago, and Monk had become her legal guardian.
In just over a week, the two would officially move into their new home in town and Helia, Monk’s partner, would join them.
It wasn’t lost on anyone that the home would be Kendall’s first.
Amber cleared her throat. “On that note, I think it’s time to take a break from all the heavy stuff and think about dinner. It’s a beautiful afternoon—how about a barbecue?”