Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Dayden!” Dutch said with a warm smile. “How are you?”
Dayden. What kind of a fuckin’ name was Dayden?
A stupid one, that was what.
“Uhh,” Dayden the dumbass said. “Dr. Panchek. Nice to see you. I didn’t know you would be here.”
I snorted.
“Daddy.” I felt Lolo take my other hand, and I closed my eyes tightly shut.
Why did it feel so right to have both of these ladies hanging on me like they were ready for me to blow?
And why did I allow it?
Fuckin’ Dayden.
“Mr. Westfield.” Dayden’s eyes went from Dutch to Lolo and back as he held out his hand.
Dutch squeezed my hand as hard as she could, even if it was infinitesimal at best, and then let me go.
I used my freed hand to shake Dayden’s.
I could all but feel Dutch’s hand on my shirt, ready to pull me back if I decided to go for the kid’s throat. And then there was Lolo’s hand. Hers was clenched so tightly around mine that I knew this dumb, dopey ‘kid’ meant something to her.
He wasn’t ‘fit.’ He wasn’t ‘fat.’ He was just big and burly. Like a teddy bear.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Westfield. Lauren told me a lot about you,” Dayden said.
I allowed his hand to drop and tilted my head to look at him curiously. “How much did she tell you about me?”
His eyes studied mine for a moment. That moment turned even longer into an awkward stretch of time before he said, “I can see Ms. Panchek didn’t share.”
“It’s illegal, as well as a violation of my morals, to share that kind of thing, Dayden,” Dutch said quietly.
That’s when I knew that I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.
“Go inside,” I said to the two of them.
Both of them stayed exactly where they were.
“Go. Inside,” I repeated again. “Now.”
The lack of bend in my voice had them both letting go of me and moving like sloths toward the door.
I waited until they were both inside before I turned back to the kid.
That’s when I noticed the vulnerability in his eyes.
“One of the men you killed was the man that molested me for two years.”
CHAPTER 16
If you’re reading this, I’m beautiful.
-Text from Dutch to Wake
DUTCH
The girl, the one that I felt like I had such a connection to from the moment I showed Wake photos of her inside those four prison walls, looked sick to her stomach.
“It’s okay,” I said softly. “He won’t hurt him.”
She swallowed hard and looked up at me.
We were both standing just inside the door, both of us on either side of it, with our gazes pasted on the two people outside standing in the middle of the front yard.
At least, we had been until I said something to her.
She smiled softly. “I know.”
I held out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Dutch.”
Her smile grew. “Dutch? The one that my dad told my aunt to find?”
“That would be her.”
I turned to find Danyetta standing at the door that led into the kitchen, a smug smile on her face.
“Danyetta.” I nodded. “You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you.” She grinned. “Is he meeting him?”
“He is,” Lolo confirmed. “I think it’s going well.”
Danyetta went to my window beside me and we all looked out at what was going on in the front yard.
When I’d first arrived here, one of my very first patients was Dayden Wilkerson. Dayden, or as he liked to be called, Dayd, had spent his teen years with a male family member that had physically and emotionally assaulted him for years.
That had all stopped one night when a certain someone had gone on a killing spree—literally—and taken out every single pedophile in a county proximity to his daughter. That man took out Dayd’s abuser, too.
“I think it’s going splendidly,” I admitted as I watched Dayd’s shoulders droop. “Dayd’s a good kid. I can’t believe you actually got him to talk to you, though. That kid is clammed up tightly. It took me seventeen visits before he gave anything up at all.”
“We bonded over my dad,” Lolo said softly. “Over how both of us had benefited from him doing what he did.”
“Shit,” Danyetta said as she pulled away. “Quick, let’s go to the kitchen and act like we weren’t watching their every move.”
We split like we’d been shot, all three of us running to the kitchen and coming to a skidding halt in the middle of it.
“Yeah, like that wasn’t suspicious,” Bowie, Danyetta’s son, said. “Negating the fact that y’all sounded like a herd of elephants as y’all ran through here—hello, we have a house on stilts—but y’all didn’t even make it inside here before he was opening the door. There’s no way that he didn’t see y’all running.”
“He’s right,” Wake’s amused voice filled the room. “Dayd, come join our dinner. Everyone, since y’all all know Dayd, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Dutch. Dutch, this is my family.”