Page 20 of No Turning Back
“Been good,” he says, and I can hear the faint smile in his voice. “Heard you’ve been busy breaking hearts in Texas.”
I huff a laugh. “Please. I heard you’ve been a PI for a while.”
“Yeah,” he says, a little smug. “Kinda stumbled into it. Turns out I’m good at finding people who don’t want to be found.”
“That’s convenient,” I say, leaning back in my seat. “Because I need you to find someone for me. Well, two someones, but the one I’m calling about right now… she’s my grandmother.”
There’s a beat. “And her name is…?”
I wince. “Yeah, that’s the thing. I kind of don’t know.”
There’s a warm, low chuckle in my ear, the same one I remember from late nights in the barracks, when the rest of the world was sleeping and we were swapping stories we’d never told anyone else. “So, you want me to track down a woman you’ve never met, don’t have a name for, and haven’t seen a single picture of?”
“Basically,” I say, smiling despite myself.
He exhales, and for a second I can almost picture him, one eyebrow raised, leaning back in his chair like he’s deciding howmuch trouble he’s willing to get into for me. “Give me a few days,” he says finally, and then hangs up.
The thing about Sam is, he’s always been that way, no matter how impossible the ask, he never saysno.
Chapter Six
Quinn
“So, he’s just gone?” Markus asks.
I wedge the phone between my shoulder and cheek, hands busy folding the last of the guest room bedding. “Angela called this morning, said his dad was back.”
I hear him exhale. A pause. “Did you get to say goodbye?”
I don’t answer right away. The room feels quieter now that Jordan’s gone, just the echo of my own movement, the faint creak of the old fan overhead.
I expected… something different. A movie-worthy moment, maybe. His dad showing up in his army uniform with a hopeful look and tears in his eyes. A hug. Me crying. Something I could point to and say,that made it worth it.
But apparently in real life, all you get is a heads up that the kid’s going to be picked up and returned to his father. No warning. No prep. Just a timeline.
The same cop came to pick him up. Same uniform, same blank face. And whoosh, just like that, it was over.
I got a brief“bye.”
That was it.
No tearful hug. Nothank you.No,you meant something to me.
Just a kid being shuffled to the next stop. Like I was never supposed to get attached in the first place.
But I did.
That’s foster care, I guess. I’m just a marina. A place boats dock when they’re tired or broken, until the tide pulls them away again.
Markus is still on the line. Waiting.
I sit on the edge of the stripped bed, rubbing my temple. “I’m tired.”
“Of what?”
I laugh, but there’s no humour in it. “Take your pick.”
He’s quiet for a beat. Then, softer: “I thought you liked Jordan.”
