Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“Really?” she says, suddenly wary. “Why?”
“No bad reason.” I turn away from her to pop open the champagne. The stuff tastes like shit but I figure it’s our wedding night and Maxine might like it. “Just that she’ll have you spilling your guts to her after one or two conversations. She’s good at that.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why I didn’t go home right after getting out of the Cage. She’d have taken one look at me and somehow I’d be telling her the whole thing. Not gonna lie, she’s a little terrifying.”
Maxine looks indecisively between her steak and the little wedding cake that was included with the dinner before cutting herself a tiny piece of cake. Still doing dessert first, but only a bite. “If you told her what happened, were you afraid of what she’d think?”
“Nah. That was the problem. I knew she’d love me anyway.” I just didn’t figure that I deserved it.
“That’s a good problem to have.”
No argument there. “I’ve got a couple of those good problems. My dad isn’t terrifying, though. Instead he’s quiet and small—and I know some people look at him and think he’s small on the inside, too. And weak. But he’s got the biggest fucking heart and he’ll stand by you through anything.”
“That sounds like my grandpa,” she says softly. “Even after his heart broke into pieces, all the pieces were still so big.”
“Your brother, too?”
She swallows hard and her eyes glisten as she nods. “Matt is—was—always looking out for me. And I looked out for him. We were like, I don’t know…”
I do. “A team?”
“Yeah. Until he started at the FBI.” Her eyes close, and her throat works before she continues all at once, “After Grandpa was gone, I didn’t have anyone back home. I liked my job and had friends but…it wasn’t the same. So that’s why I went to see Matt before deciding what to do with the rest of my life. Because he was always part of everything important I ever did. So I let him know I was in Las Vegas, and we met at two in the morning at one of those casino restaurants where there are so many people always there for breakfast that it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. But these big guys in suits show up right at our table, and Matt tells them to leave me there, that I’m just some hooker he picked up. But they take me with him anyway. They put us into a van, and they bring us to Papa, who says it’s obvious we’re brother and sister. And Matt’s trying to talk his way out of the punishment they were giving him, and trying to talk Papa into letting me go—he’s always been so good at talking his way in or out of anything. That’s probably why they put him undercover. But I think he could see that punishment was coming no matter what, so he tells them I’m a nurse and would be useful. Papa says I can be useful on my back, and that could be part of his punishment. So Matt tells them I’m a virgin…and that’s really what saved me.” She opens her eyes again and I see the tears are gone and the anger’s back. “Papa’s a pig when it comes to women.”
I’m real fucking glad that attitude saved her, because I’ve seen what happens to those other girls. “Where’d they take you to meet him?”
“It was a hotel room, I think. A really nice one. I don’t know where, though. I was scared, and Matt was telling me to keep my head down as they were taking us there, so I did. I don’t think it was a casino hotel, though. Or if it was, they took us in through an entrance that wasn’t the lobby.”
“But you didn’t leave the city?”
“No. We weren’t in the van long.”
“Then you went straight to the barns?”
“Not right away. Papa wanted to make sure Matt wasn’t lying about me being a virgin. So he had the doc come and examine me.”
As she tells me that, humiliation edges into the anger in her voice and gets my own rage flaring, though I keep it carefully tamped down. “Was the doc already there?”
Maxine shakes her head.
“So Papa calls him up out of the blue in the middle of the night and says, ‘Come here and look at this girl.’ And the doc does.” When she nods, I ask, “How long did you have to wait for him to show up?”
“I don’t know.” She looks real vicious as she cuts into her steak. “Maybe an hour or so.”
“So the doc’s likely here in the city, too—or one of the suburbs. That’s good. That’s real fucking good. The barns were nearer to Reno, so Blowback’s been searching records in all of Nevada while trying to find the doc. But putting him within an hour’s drive of Vegas will narrow it down.” I study her for a long minute. She’s eating, but seems stiff and focused, like she’s got grief and anger tearing her up inside yet she’s still trying to go through the motions. “A lot of these doctors have websites and pictures, but not all of them. When Blowback starts sending us names, are you gonna be up for driving around and taking a look at some of these guys? Or do you want me to take pictures and bring them back here for you to look at?”