Chapter Nineteen
O’Connor
“Mr. Jack, I home!” Avery comes running down their driveway towards the back, where I’m grilling on the other side of the fence.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, avoiding looking at the woman walking behind her.
“Dinosaur food?” She squeals.
“Just for you, princess.”
“Mommy, Mr. Jack finks I’m a princess.” She giggles, as if she isn’t wearing a sparkly pink dress and at least six different bracelets at this very moment.
I can feel Linden’s gaze on the side of my face, but I can’t look at her. It’s taking everything inside of me to stay on my side of the fence.
This woman has no idea the monster she’s tempting.
“Avery, stay back here for a minute while I go inside. Will you keep an eye on her, Jack?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, thanks,” she utters hesitantly before walking inside.
“Look, Mr. Jack.” Avery holds up her hand to show me her pink bandage that I had already taken note of.
“What did you do?”
“A bee bit me.”
“You got stung by a bee? Did it hurt?”
“It hurted, but I didn’t cry,” she exclaims proudly. “See.” She peels back the bandage on one side where she must’ve already been messing with it, and tension trickles down my spine.
That doesn’t look like a bee sting.
“Let me see.” I cross the fence line to their side, bending to my knee in front of her.
There’s a very distinguishable red dot on the top of her hand, an inch below her little knuckle, directly over the vein.
The spot is swollen, and the skin is faintly stained red around a puncture point. But it’s not from a stinger. Someone put a needle in this baby’s hand.
“Does it hurt?” I ask softly, running the pad of my thumb over the spot.
She shakes her head but flinches when I palpate the skin.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I whisper, turning her arms over to check her other vein points. Nothing notable is catching my eye, but my gut tells me this is wrong.
Linden walks outside just as I’m tipping Avery’s face upward and checking her pupils.
“What are you doing?”
“She said she got stung by a bee.”
“Yeah, I guess they were playing in the garden. She said she didn’t see what kind of bee it was, though.” Linden is looking at me quizzically because I’m examining the lymph nodes in her daughter’s neck.
“I was just making sure she wasn’t showing any signs of an allergic reaction. She’s so young; anaphylaxis can come out of nowhere.”
“Oh, right. I have baby Benadryl inside if she needs it.”
“I think she’ll be okay. It’s probably been long enough since it happened. Did your grandparents see you get stung?”
“Grandma did. I was scared.”
“I bet. But you’re brave, huh?” I ask through a tight throat.
“Yeah,” she agrees, skipping away without a care in the world.
I, on the other hand, want to kill someone with my bare hands right now.
“Jack, you okay?” Linden steps in front of me, where I’m still kneeling with one knee on the ground.
I could destroy this op right now. I could go over to that mansion on the hill and kill every single person who is complicit in the Scotts’ illegal trade and get it over with.
I don’t give a fuck about collecting more intel on other players right now.
I want to dismember Merrill Scott piece by piece like she does her victims. But I want to do it for marring that little girl’s skin.
“Jack?” Linden’s fingers kiss my jaw, and my eyes close. “Are you okay?”
She tries to pull away, but my fingers intertwine hers, keeping her connected to me. When I finally blink up at her, her gaze is heavy with worry, and something else.
“Jack…” She whispers, and I know I can’t lie to her.
I keep her hand linked in mine as I stand, glancing to make sure Avery can’t hear us. “Linden, do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she answers without hesitation. And it partially guts me because I’m still hiding so much from her.
“That is not a bee sting on her hand.”
“What?” She chuckles, not understanding until she sees how serious I am. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a needle mark.”
Linden’s entire body jerks, but I keep her hand trapped in mine. “What the fuck are you talking about, Jack?”
“They put a needle in her vein.”
“You can’t know that,” she scoffs.
“I know,” I state it so plainly that I watch the realization of my words hit her.
“They stuck a needle in my baby?”
I nod slowly, giving her time to digest the information.
“What did they do to her? Did they give her something?” She tries to pull away from me again, attempting to get to Avery, and this is the only time I’ll ever keep a momma bear away from her cub.
Linden wrestles her arm, attempting to get away, but I pull her into my chest easily, only making her more upset. “Get off!”
“Listen to me. Listen!” My clipped tone gets her attention. “You’re going to scare her. Let her think it was a bee.”
“And I’m supposed to just ignore–”
I cut her off. “I looked her over. She doesn’t seem to have anything in her system. She isn’t acting weird. A puncture that size was likely a 22-gauge needle, meaning they probably took blood.”
“Why?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
And that’s the truth. All that I know about the Scotts, I can’t fathom why they would do anything nefarious to their granddaughter. For what purpose?
“Paternity?” I guess.
“We did a paternity test right after she was born.”
She seems to have calmed, so I let my arms drop from her shoulders, and I don’t see it coming when she shoves me hard in the chest.
“Don’t ever stop me from getting to my daughter, ever again. And don’t try to stop me now.” She runs over to Avery and scoops her up, bee-lining straight for her car.
Shit.
“Linden, don’t.”
“Move one fucking inch, Jack, and I will hit you with my car,” she threatens, and dammit… I believe her.
This isn’t good. This is not good.
She’s going to barge into her in-laws and demand to know answers from people that are more devious than she even knows.
She’s going to tell them that her neighbor suspects them of their wrongdoing, and they’re going to get suspicious.
I leave the steaks burning as I rush inside to gear up, and barely take the time to turn the grill off as I run back through the backyard.
She’s going to beat me there, but I’m not letting her go in alone. Even if she does hate my guts right now.
I’ll be watching.