52. Paying the piper – Atticus
52
PAYING THE PIPER
ATTICUS
I still have her phone, and Chris is still calling.
When it goes to voicemail for the third time, a message pops onto the screen.
Chris: Is everything all right? Is it that guy you were seeing? I can come and get you. Just say the word and I’ll leave now. I can be in Amherst by three o’clock.
There’s no way this is legit, right?
They could’ve planned a cover just in case she was made.
Upstairs, Aurora shouts at Eli and Sev about me fucking knowing everything.
I usually do. I’m never wrong. There’s no way we got that lucky to have run into her on the road. A girl who’s a near-perfect physical match for Ambrose’s lost daughter, with a legitimate history that we can use to our advantage. Alone. With nowhere to go. There are just too many coincidences and if life has taught me anything, it’s that if something seems too good to be true, it’s because it usually fucking is.
Her phone vibrates again and I check the screen, but it’s dark. It’s not her phone. It’s mine.
Juggling my gun, I tug it from my pocket, seeing the name of one of my contacts light up the screen.
Sev’s heavy footsteps pound down the stairs, and I shut the door, jamming the lock hold button to keep him out while I answer the phone. “Go.”
Sev tries to punch in the code and the door beeps angrily at him, not allowing him entry.
“That number you sent is a cell. It belongs to a Melvin Christopher Davis.”
A sensation like nails on a damn chalkboard scrapes down the back of my neck until I shudder.
“Born May 18th, 1968. Wife is Grace Davis. He lives in…”
He rattles off more information I can barely hear over my blood rushing in my ears.
“Atticus!” Sev bellows through the door, pounding louder. “Open the fucking door!”
I drop to a crouch, dropping Aurora’s phone to clench my hand into a fist against the floor, searching for stability while my contact continues shattering every narrative I constructed.
“Any connections to Ambrose De La Rosa?” I demand, interrupting him.
“None that I could find, and I checked everywhere. The girl was declared a ward of the state at three years old. She bounced around from foster home to foster home until she was about sixteen, at which point she was officially adopted by Melvin Davis and his wife. She has some priors but nothing major, and all committed while she was still a juvenile. Petty theft. Vandalism. Truancy. Trespassing. Normal shit given her circumstances. Looks like one of her fosters was recently booked for sexual assault against four kids in his care. There are also some child pornography charges pending for the fosters she spent a year with when she was?—”
“That’s enough,” I grit out through my teeth. “Thanks.”
I end the call with shaking hands, unable to listen to another word. Sexual assault? Child pornography?
Christ.
There’s a gaping hole in my chest, and I rasp when I try to breathe as if it’s fucked up my lungs.
This contact has resources I could never get my hands on. It’s a favor I haven’t called in for years because of its innate value. If he says it checks out, then it checks out.
Which means I was wrong.
There’s acid in the back of my throat, and I bite my clenched fist, hoping the pain will make it recede as I remember everything I said to her.
Fuck.
FUCK!
My skin heats and prickles as I push back to my feet, distantly hearing Seven trying to literally break down the fucking door with heavy, angry thuds that echo in my skull like gunshots.
Sweat beads over my chest, and I let out a shuddering breath.
I shouldn’t have…
If I’d just waited, I…
I remember her face last night before I woke up and handed the reins to my demons.
I recall her smile. How she felt in my hands. It wasn’t just fucking. Not entirely.
And she wanted to stay here. With us . Aurora wanted to help us.
And I…
There’s a metallic chink and the metal door yawns and smashes against the wall as Seven breaks through, crazed and breathless.
His blue fire eyes find me and zero in. “What the fuck is going…”
His gaze drops to the gun still in my hand, shifts to the messy sheets. To the shattered third-century bust of Aristotle, and then locks on her panties next to the bed.
“Atticus.” My name is a warning dripping from his mouth like acid. “What did you do?”
“I…”
“ Atticus !”
He comes over, shaking me violently until the words are dislodged from the chaos in my skull to fall onto my tongue.
“I…I fucked up, Sev. I really fucked up.”