Page 119 of Wicked & Wildflower

That snaps something in me, and suddenly, I’m running through the kitchen and out the front door too. “Stay inside, Darby,” I call.

“Oh, fuck off,” she mutters, following me out.

I rush down the porch steps and close in on Leo, his voice ringing through the night. “I’m not going to ask you again. Why the fuck were you leaving notes on my sister’s car?”

The guy is young; he can’t be older than his early twenties. Dark hair slicked back beneath a baseball cap, his eyes shut tightly as he winces while my brother-in-law yells in his face. “I…I was told to.”

“By who?” Leo growls.

“Can you…you’re choking me,” he grits out. I realize Leo has his fingers twisted in the boy’s collar, straining his neck.

“I don’t give a fuck. Tell me, are you the piece of shit who has been leaving these notes behind the whole time?”

The kid clenches his teeth, nodding as he shrinks beneath Leo’s towering presence.

Leo grips him tighter. “I’m going to ask one more time. Why?”

“I…I do odd jobs. I have an online posting. I’ll pick up any kind of work,” he stutters between heaving breaths. “Sometimes, it’s landscaping or under-the-table construction. Sometimes, it’s…deliverables.” He gulps. “A few months ago, a man responded to my ad and asked to meet up in Pacific Shores… He–he told me he would wire me money if I messed with someone a little bit, someone who wronged him.”

I hear my sister’s sharp inhale of breath behind me, the sound matching the sensation of my stomach dropping to the ground beneath me.

The guy gulps. “He’d wire me money with a memo. I was to translate that memo onto a piece of paper and put it on this car.” He nods behind him. “He…also made me fuck with the spark plug once so…so it wouldn’t start.”

I think back to the car trouble I had all those months ago, Everett’s confusion as to why the spark plug on a car as new as mine was so worn down. I’d never thought much of it.

“What’s his name?” Leo seethes.

The kid flinches. “Ja–Jackson. He never gave me a last name.”

“What?” my sister gasps.

Leo’s head whips to us, eyes wide and wild. “I’m going to fucking kill him, Darby. I’m going to fucking kill that—”

“It’s not Jackson,” I say. “There is no way.”

My sister’s ex-fiancé is no winner, that’s for sure. He’s definitely manipulative and conniving enough to do something like this, but I know he didn’t. Not to me. I know in his head he thinks he was wronged by Leo and Darby when she skipped town on the day of their wedding, but he wouldn’t fuck with me. He’d go after my sister directly, and in all reality, I don’t think he cared enough about her to go to such lengths for revenge.

“It’s Dad,” I whisper. Looking at the stranger, I raise my chin. “What did this man look like? And when did you meet up with him?”

He chews his lip. “Last year. Late summer. August, maybe? September. Sometime around then.” Leo’s practically shaking with rage, but I see his grip loosen just slightly. Taking a deep breath, the kid continues, “He was older. Mid-fifties, I guess? Blond-ish. Brown eyes. Mean as fuck looking.”

I let out a sarcastic snort. “That’s our daddy.”

My sister lets out a long, devastated, defeated sigh. Leo looks gutted at the sound of it. He lets go of his hold on the kid as it’s made clear he’s nothing but a pawn, another victim of our father’s manipulation and mind games.

Stepping back to give him space, Leo reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Thrusting a wad of cash at the kid, he says, “Look. You don’t accept any more of thosejobsfromJackson. If he reaches out to you again, you come find me, and I’ll pay you double whatever he does to tell me every detail.”

He nods furiously. “I will. I’m…” Looking at me, he says, “I’m so sorry.”

I dip my head in acknowledgment, and the kid turns to walk away. As he reaches the end of the driveway, a thought dawns onme. “The first note!” I call out. “I found it after a soccer game. How did you know where I was?”

“I came by early but noticed you walking out the door as I pulled up across the street. So I just waited until you left and then followed your car.” He slips his hands into his pockets and drops his head. “Swear I wasn’t stalking you guys all the time. Only when he told me to. I…I needed the money.”

I don’t know how else to respond, so I turn on my heel and head back inside the house, thankful my daughter sleeps deeply enough that this incident didn’t wake her.

“Dahlia,” my sister calls behind me, and I know what’s coming next.

I run up the staircase, sneaking into my room to obtain the item I’ve been hiding in my bedside table for months now before making my way back downstairs where I know Darby and Leo will be waiting for me.

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