Page 1 of Daddy Detectives: Episode 2

Chapter 1 – Tyler

Someone is attempting to blackmail myhusband—my children’s daddy—the man who gives me a reason to wake up every morning because I know I’ll get to spend another day with him.

Blackmail my husband? Over my dead body!

As I stare down at the hand-written message in Ian’s hands, I’m doing everything I can to hold my shit together. I want to rage. I want to hit something—or rather someone.

But right now I need to maintain my cool because I don’t want to scare Ian. He’s already freaking out as he stares at that note, reading it over and over as he tries to make sense of it.

Ian,

I know everything.

Your mother was a drug addict and a whore.

And you’re no better.

I want a million dollars in small unmarked bills or else I’ll take it all to the press.

I have pictures. Lots of pictures. Of you. Of her. Of the filth you were born into.

And trust me, you don’t want that shit going public.

I’ll send instructions for where to deliver the money.

If you tell anyone, I’ll make sure you regret it.

I hold out my hand. “Give it to me, Ian.”

He hesitates for a moment, his gaze skimming the sheet of paper one more time. “Who would do this? Who would even have access to photos of me when I was young?Idon’t even have photos like that.” His green eyes fill with pain when he asks the one question I’m sure is on both our minds. “Do you think it’s my mother?”

He means his birth mother, of course—the drug addict who ultimately lost custody of him. Not the woman he considers hisreal mom—Ruth Alexander—the woman who raised him from the age of five and gave him an amazing life filled with unconditional love and support.

I honestly don’t know how to answer his question.

“We don’t even know if she’s still alive,” I point out. Given her history of drug use, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ian’s birth mother was dead. I muster up as much patience as I can. “Give me the letter, baby.”

The anguish in his beautiful eyes guts me. I could kill whoever’s behind this. The fact that someone wants to hurt Ian makes me see red.

Pinching the corner of the page with his index finger and thumb, he carefully hands the letter over to me like it’s a live bomb that could explode in our faces any second.

This sheet of paper is evidence and, unfortunately, it’s been contaminated by Ian’s fingerprints, and now by mine. Still, if I can’t drum up any leads on my own, I’ll see if I can get some prints lifted off of it.

I refold the sheet of paper and slip it back into its envelope, which is hand-addressed to Ian. The handwriting is heavy, like a man’s. Whoever wrote this used a black permanent marker.

The envelope is not postmarked, which means it didn’t come through the postal service. Someone deliberately placed it in our mailbox. And that means we have video of them doing it. I’ve gotevery inch of this property covered by surveillance cameras. It’s not just our home here behind this tall wrought-iron fence. Our private investigation business is here, too, in a carriage house located across the driveway from the townhouse.

I tuck the envelope into the inside breast pocket of my suit jacket and steer Ian up the driveway to where our office manager, Kimi, is standing guard over the double stroller holding our twin infants.

Ian immediately glances down into the stroller to make sure the babies are okay. William Alexander Jamison—named after my dad, William, and bearing Ian’s last name, Alexander—and Elizabeth Ruth Jamison—named after my sister, Beth, and Ian’s adopted mom, Ruth.

Two dark-haired babies gaze up at Ian, their pale blue-green eyes blinking in the afternoon sunshine.

Will and Lizzie.

Born to us eight weeks ago through the kind generosity of a surrogate.

“Is everything okay?” Kimi asks. She frowns as she watches Ian push the stroller to the back of our townhouse, to the rear patio door that leads directly into the kitchen.

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