Page 84 of Songbird: Black Kite
Cooper came first. Always.
“Alright, well, I’m going to take a shower. I need to wash off the scent of poor choices and spend some time with Netflix and my Lelo. Have a great day, babe. Kiss my girl for me.”
“I will. Don’t work too hard,” I teased before ending the call.
I continued to drive toward my house, checking the mirror occasionally and seeing the SUV was still there, although it was farther back now. Deciding that if it was actually following me, leading it directly to my house probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Instead, I took a quick right turn, pulling my sedan into the parking lot of the police station. Stopping my car right outside the doors, I turned my head and watched as the SUV kept going, noticeably slowing down as it passed me, and then continuing on, picking up the pace and almost speeding off.
Sitting in the parking lot, I exhaled, my fingers tingling a little as I caught my breath. It was stupid to think that the SUV had been following me. I was driving down the busiest road in town, the one that connected the north side to the south and intersected with both major east and west highways. Of course, it wasn’t following me. I was being ridiculous.
But as I pulled out of the police station, my head turning right and left a few times before making my way into traffic, I still took a few extra turns before finally going back to my house.
Because even though it had been years since we’d been threatened, I was still not willing to take any chances.
Chapter fifty
Hawk
Present
Iwasgoingoutof my goddamn mind.
It had been weeks since Charlie had promised he’d get the information on Wren and her daughter.
Fuck.Mydaughter, if the letters I’d been reading obsessively could be believed. But Charlie had promised me he’d find out the truth, and so I’d waited, albeit impatiently, for his contacts to get the information he wanted before deciding what my next move would be.
The knock at the door had me practically sprinting down the hall, Harriette wringing her hands as I passed her where she hovered in the kitchen, cooking up a storm.
She’d been beside herself when she’d heard the news, and when Harry was upset about anything, she expressed that worry in the kitchen. Even now, as we waited for Charlie to show up like he’d promised, the whole house smelled like baking bread and some kind of savory roasting meat. It was killing me.
I met her eye as I passed, and she gave me a tight but encouraging smile before disappearing back into the kitchen to fuss with her cooking.
Opening the door, I stared at Charlie, hoping to glean something from his face, but his expression was as tight and locked down as ever.
“Hawk,” he said stiffly, and I stepped back to let him in, noticing the thick manila envelope he had tucked under his arm.
“You found them?” I croaked, a lump of emotion choking me. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Did you find them, Charlie?”
“Let’s sit down, Hawk. I’ll tell you everything.”
Moving past me, Charlie didn’t head for the study as he normally would. Instead, he led the way to the formal dining room, the one I’d been using more and more these last few months. Pulling out a chair, Charlie sat down, waiting for me to take the one at the end closest to him before he spoke.
“We found them, Hawk.”
“Show me.”
“I will, but then we need to talk, alright?”
I nodded, not even really listening to him as he spoke, my eyes glued to the envelope, my heart pounding like Gavin was playing drums on it.
I just needed to see. I needed to see them, to know that they were real and that they actually existed outside the letters and those two photographs.
Maybe once I knew that—knew they were out there—maybe then I could breathe again.
Charlie stared at me a few seconds longer, then he flipped open the envelope and pulled out the first item, a large photograph.
“Wren Blackburn, aged thirty-five. Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Eldest daughter of Tom and Mary Blackburn. One sister, younger, who now lives with her fiancé in Colorado.”
I stared at the photo, a shot of Wren standing in a parking lot, putting groceries in the trunk of an ugly beige car. She had her blonde hair pulled back and a pair of sunglasses on her face, wearing a pair of leggings and a gray knit sweater, looking casual. She was pretty—more than pretty—but that wasn’t what struck me at first.
