Page 5 of Badges
Too long
Wade
Pushing out into thehall, I give Paige the quick instructions to deal with the woman. I need to get her into an interrogation room.
It isn’t Maria.
Elena.
She was just a kid the last time I saw them.
God damn.
What happened to her mom?
Pain stabs through my chest. It hurts to breathe.
Do I need to have Dixon check me out? This ache, this knot in my throat.
Fuck.
Striding outside, I gulp in the hot June air, already heavy with the heat of the coming summer.
She’s gone.
The silent wondering, the empty longing, the ever-present question of if I should try to find her…it’s over.
I waited too long.
What an dumb ass to think that “one day” would come, and there’d be a happy reunion.
That she’d come back to me.
She took advantage of the information I gave her and hid herself well.
Too well.
I couldn’t find her when I did try to look.
Fucking fool.
Sliding behind the wheel of my truck, I drop my hat on my seat and lean my forehead against my arms.
Grief shudders through me in waves.
Twelve years is a long damn time. I should have known better.
Maybe I should have moved on. If she had really wanted me, she’d have reached out.
Instead I’ve held to the slender hope to see her again.
I sure screwed the pooch on that one.
But now her daughter is here, caught red handed.
Like a fox caught in a chicken house, with a mouth full of feathers.
How in the hell did it end up being Maria’s daughter that caused all of this?
