Page 99 of The Woman By the Lake

Lucille reared back.

“Angelica,” Riggs growled.

“I think I’m going to go in the house too,” Nadia said softly.

Angelica’s eyes cut to her, but Lucille had spoken over her, saying, “You know what’s good for you, you watch your mouth, Angelica.”

“Please,” Angelica drawled to Lucille. Then she aimed her next at Riggs. “You think to give me a heads-up you add someone to my son’s pick-up list?”

“No, since he’s my son too, and Ledger knows her, Mom knows her, she’s a teacher for fuck’s sake, and I trust her, so that should be good enough for you,” Riggs replied.

“Newsflash”—Angelica threw her arms out—“it isn’t. You can’t put all your fuck buddies on our son’s pick-up list, Doc. They don’t have enough paper in that whole school to keep that shit on file.”

Lucille gasped.

Nadia took another step away from him.

And he felt that.

Deeply.

And what he felt was not all about the fact that he’d never, not once, put anyone on Ledger’s list except his mother and sister.

That was only part of it.

The rest was about Nadia moving away from him.

So that did it.

He didn’t need to give any headspace to his situation with Nadia.

He knew.

But as for the matter at hand…

“I think Lucille is right and you need to watch your mouth, Angelica,” he gritted. “You also need to calm down. We can discuss this when you’re in a different mood.”

“You got it good, Doc,” Angelica shot back. “I don’t complain because I gotta take care of our kid most of the time because you’re not around. Or keep him when you throw one of your rowdy parties. And I give him back to you whenever you’re ready to remember you’re a dad.”

Riggs held completely still.

But she wasn’t done.

“I could take this to a judge, and he can give him to me full and you can have your coupla hours every Sunday and no say in who’s on the pick-up list, you push me,” she threatened.

Riggs felt the buzzing in his head again.

But what would come next wouldn’t make his head explode.

It would rock his world.

Because Lucille was done too. “Yeah, then I can get sworn in and tell the judge how you fixed it with Bubbles to get hold of Doc’s wallet so he could punch holes in Doc’s rubbers the night you conned him in your bed. See how a judge feels about that, hunh?” Lucille sniped. “Same with Stormy. Bet Stormy would love to know all about that. He was all the way down for you to have his kid and take his money. Or wait, no. Seems my memory is faulty.”

Riggs didn’t have it in him to search for Angelica’s tell.

Though, he already knew it.

But seeing as the color drained from her face, he didn’t need to search for dick.

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