Walking into his office on bare feet, I made my way to his couch, made sure to pick up the laptop that was sitting on the corner of his desk on the way, and laid all the way back until my head was resting against the arm of the couch, my shoulders resting on an old ratty pillow that should’ve probably been thrown away years ago. Yet the pillow had once been stitched and made by my mother, so Dad kept it.
“Got an update on that girl’s whereabouts today, too,” Dad said as he turned his chair to face me. “I thought you stopped that.”
I winced.
“I did,” I admitted. “But then I saw her a few weeks ago…yeah. I got nothin’.”
Dad crossed his arms over his barrel chest and stared at me with a curious expression.
“What is it about her?” he asked.
I didn’t know.
I wasn’t sure if it was her or the other ‘her.’
The one with the blue eyes.
“Is it possible for a woman’s eyes to change colors?” I asked out of the blue.
Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. If I was a guessing man? No. Probably not naturally. Maybe with contacts?”
I grunted.
Dad knew everything I knew when it came to the Tara that was crazy, and the Tara that I’d seen only once two years ago.
Two years, and I still thought about those haunting blue eyes. Still dreamed about the tears making them a shimmery blue so unreal that I only made them more vivid in my dreams.
“Tomas says that her and that brother, the one that’s in the motorcycle gang, keep pretty close to their compound,” he admitted.
Tomas was the private investigator that we’d used since my aunt’s murder ten years ago. When the police officers had hit a dead end, my father had found Tomas, who’d been recommended by a couple of investigators at the Bear Bottom Police Department.
Tomas had been an ex-cop who’d gotten tired of the red tape he had to stay in line with. He’d branched off on his own and had excelled at what he did.
Which was why we continued to use him, even after Tomas had found the woman responsible for the murder.
“Andy, better known as Tantor,” I murmured. “He’s also why I wanted to keep an eye on the group.”
“Because he tried to hurt your football friend?” he asked.
The ‘football friend’ in question being Linc James, a professional football player as well as a member of my MC.
I shrugged. “Partially.”
No, not really.
I’d just seen him with Tara before, and their relationship had struck me as odd. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the why of it, but there was just something about the entire thing that just smelled wrong.
And their father?
Well, that was a different can of worms entirely.
I hadn’t ever seen that man leave his house, but I knew instinctively that it didn’t stop him from being a bad person, and making bad things happen. Then again, Tara and Tantor did leave their house, and it was like they were extensions of him.
At least, that was what it felt like, anyway. From what Tomas and I were able to gather over the last couple of years I’d been really, truly investigating them.
“Have you spoken to Rome yet about how you’re investigating his ex?” my father asked, breaking me free of my contemplation of that family.
The Threadgills were no good, and that included the father who came off as a shining star on paper.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t think he really needs to know.”
Dad gave me a droll look. “You wouldn’t want to know if one of your friends were looking into your family?”
I made a face and looked at my laptop.
“This hits the coast of Texas and says it’s gonna turn,” I murmured. “Go up the middle of the mainland. But then it’s going to curl around and head back for the coast, hitting us a second time, all the while not slowing down even a little bit.”
“Yep,” Dad confirmed, amused by my change of subject.
“This line of storms is going to smash us if it turns,” he said. “I think it’s time to call in our reserves.”
I did, too.
It’d take some of them a couple of days at least to get here. Calling them in now was good. Especially since, either way, we’d all be deployed to help with the aftermath of the storms.
“Did you want to know what few things the PI had to say this week?” Dad asked.
I looked at him and tried not to jump on the information, otherwise he’d know that I was invested in this more than I probably should be.
“I’ll look at it later,” I admitted.
Dad took the papers that were on the corner of his desk and placed them on a stack of file folders.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll just send you the email once I get a chance.”