Those thoughts drained just as fast when I realized she was holding a small package with it.
“We got a present!” she sang. “Is for Mommy!”
“Bailey.” Faith flew around me, her steps as urgent as her voice. “You aren’t supposed to go out front by yourself.”
“I didn’t. I stay right here on the grass.” Her brown eyes were wide and emphatic.
Faith sank to her knees in front of her and pulled the box from her hands. “Then where did you get this?” Faith turned it over in her hands, frowning.
There were no markings on the box, but it was taped up.
Bailey looked at her like she was crazy, and she pointed to the edge of the rose garden. “Froms my friend. He was right there.”
“Where did he go?” Faith rushed, terror sliding from her mouth.
Bailey’s eyes went wide. “I’s don’t know.”
Faith gasped. Distraught, she shot up and started to run around the side of the house.
Like she was going to chase down whoever had left this herself.
“Faith!” I shouted.
She cried out a sound of rebellion against it, a beaten-down desperation taking her whole, fury and terror escaping from her lungs.
I ran behind her, and she pushed herself harder.
I caught her, close to tackling her to the ground when I wrapped my arms around her from behind, the two of us on the ground panting as Felix blew by at a flat-out run, shouting as he did, “I’ve got this. Fucker isn’t getting away this time.”
Mack was right behind him, his hulking frame slower than Felix’s long legs.
With my arms around Faith, I tried to see through the hot hatred, torn between holding her, staying there in that spot to protect her and Bailey, and joining Felix and Mack.
But I couldn’t seem to pry myself away from her. Couldn’t stop from experiencing the agony she was feeling.
Holding her as she began to weep.
Frantic, she started to tear into the seal, and I was hit with a bolt of that protectiveness, alarm riding in on the breeze, this feeling raising and suffocating.
Faith pulled out one of the blocks that I instantly knew had come from Bailey’s room.
She started shaking. Shaking so hard her shoulders were jutting up and down as she unfolded a note that was tucked in with the block.
I kept a single arm around her tremoring body as I pried the note from her hands.
I squinted at it beneath the rays of light.
The next time I come looking for it, it’d better be there. I know you have it. Stop protecting Joseph. You have nothing left to lose. Well, I guess you do.
Printed on the back of the sheet in black and white was a fuzzy picture of Bailey playing on the grass.
Fury hit my veins. So violent I couldn’t see. I drew Faith tighter, at the same time reaching out to grab Bailey to drag her into my arms.
Wrapping both of them up.
Holding them tight.
Refusing to let anything happen to either of them.
Sobs erupted from Faith, her words whimpered, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. What do they want?”
I could feel Bailey’s confusion in the way her little body swam with the unknown, her little heart so innocent and sweet as she wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck. “Is okay, Mommy. Is just a present.”
Felix and Mack came back around from the front, both panting and trying to catch their breath.
“Fuck,” Mack hissed. “Not a fucking trace.”
He took the note I had crumpled in my fist. At the same time, his cell rang. He answered it.
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“No.”
He paced off, and I could feel his own hostility coming off him. Lashes and whips.
“Fuck,” he hissed. “Okay. Give me thirty. Have a situation here, too.”
I wouldn’t have heard what he’d said had I not been listening so intently, my ear craned to his conversation while I hugged Faith and Bailey to me as tightly as I could.
Courtney scooted around to the front of them, glancing at me, a plea in her expression. She gently edged into the hug, whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Faith gulped over a cry and let her friend wrap her up.
I stood.
Anger streaking across my flesh as I turned and stalked for Mack.
His lips were pinched, a heavy paw roughing over his face, his voice coming as a quieted growl the second I was in earshot.
“An alarm was going off in an office building downtown. Turns out, it was one leased by one of the companies owned by Joseph’s umbrella. Someone is digging . . . finding out his holdings. Place was tossed.”
“Shit,” I hissed. I could feel it. That ugliness lying siege. Sinking into every cell in my body. The willingness to do absolutely anything to protect the people who meant the most to me.
Mack squeezed the outside of my shoulder. “We’re getting close, man. We’ll find whoever this bastard is. Find out what happened to Joseph. End this.”
I let my eyes travel back to Faith. Broken on her knees, her daughter in her arms where she wept.
Something swelled in me. That feeling I shouldn’t allow myself to feel. I shoved it down and turned back to Mack. “Do it fast.”
Because I was aching to do a little of that ending myself.
“Is she asleep?”
Warily, Faith nodded as she took another step out the door, sadness pouring from her as she looked to where I was sitting on the double swing that was strung up in the corner of the porch.
I was antsy.
Itchy.
Aching to take matters into my own hands even though Mack made me promise to keep my cool.
Reminded me I couldn’t afford to get myself into any more trouble.
That I couldn’t compromise the investigation by running off to fight a battle I wasn’t qualified to fight.
But that’s what I wanted to do.
I wanted to fight.
I wanted to crush and destroy and eradicate.
Which was why I’d forced myself out back. Trying to breathe in the cool while a fire torched my nerves.
Mack had stationed a cruiser out front, which was about the only solace I found in all of this.
I looked up at Faith who was just standing there.
She was in the shadows of the night, the moon a sliver that shed the barest light on the yard, Faith protected by the walls of the old house.
Still, I swore they howled and yelped. Cries of the ghosts that were held within.
That chocolate hair was a river around her shoulders, a white V-neck tee and fitted, holey jeans hugging her body in all the right ways and making my heart do crazy things.
Thumping and thudding and thrashing.
Fuck.
I was going to lose it.
Wanting to protect her.
Wanting to wipe that expression from her face.
Wanting to love her.
That was the crux of it all.
I wanted to keep her.
Which was so goddamned stupid. But loving her had always made me do stupid things.
She clutched that same monitor in her hands and edged farther onto the porch.
Coming my way.
Every step torture.
Lighting on my flesh.
Teasing my restraints.
She eased down beside me, tucking her legs up to her chest. She set her cheek on her knees and looked over at me.
“I don’t understand what’s happening, Jace. What someone wants from me when I don’t have the first clue what they want or what they’re looking for.”
A stake of guilt cut right through the center of my chest. Did she really not know about the shit Joseph was into?
“What Joseph was into.” Her words were soggy, coming from her like she’d tapped right into my thoughts. “He . . . he was working so hard, saying he was doing everything he could to get the money together to fix up the house.”
Anger surged.
Joseph had always been a liar. Saving face. Manipulating every situation to look like the good guy when he was setting things up to land in his favor.
“He didn’t say anything to you? In the days or months before he died, that seemed out of place?”
Faith blinked. From the corner of her eye, a tear streaked free.
And there I was, wanting to reach out, gather it up, kiss it away.
“He . . . he never said a whole lot about work. He just said it was busy.” She blinked again. “Honestly, the last couple of years, he hadn’t been around all that much. Working long hours. Traveling.”