He swore. “I fucking knew it. Damn it, squirt, you—”
“I what?”
“You are supposed to sit safely behind a fucking desk. You’re not supposed to do field work.”
“You knew Mother had me benched, didn’t you?” she accused.
“We all knew, squirt.”
She sucked in a breath at the betrayal.
“You weren’t ever supposed to be given field work,” he told her gently.
“Ouch. Your belief in me is uplifting.”
Except, they hadn’t been wrong, had they? Her first real taste of danger out in the field and she’d frozen up. Maybe being an FBI agent wasn’t right for her. It wasn’t like any of it had lived up to her expectations. She’d been doing it for five years and had she really made a difference?
“Evan is going to flip his lid when he finds out you’re doing field work. And Mother . . . “
“Look, the field work didn’t work out and I’m taking some time off. But I don’t need all of you getting into my business about where I am and what I’m doing.”
There was a beat of silence. “It didn’t work out. What does that mean? Did something happen?”
“Just . . . I need some time to think, okay? Nothing is working out how I thought it was and I just need to think about where my life is going.”
“Shit, squirt, now I’m really worried about what happened.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine. I’m with friends. I’m safe. Okay?”
“Friends? What friends? Has Marcus done a background check on them, because—”
“Gareth! Are you listening to yourself? I don’t need Marcus doing a background check on my friends. Or Evan turning up to threaten them. Or Spencer throwing his weight around. I am fine.”
“All right. Let’s make a deal.”
She rolled her eyes. “What’s your deal?”
“I’ll keep the others from coming looking for you. And with Evan, that’s going to be fucking damn near impossible, if you check in with me every day.”
She knew that was a good deal. “Done.”
“Every day, squirt. You miss a day and I’m letting them loose. I also want to know where you are. And before you protest, we both know that I can find out. You think that Marcus can’t track you down?”
“Fine, I’m in Wishingbone, Montana. But if any of you turn up here, I’m not talking to any of you again.”
“We’ll leave you be, as long as you check in with me. Love you, baby sis.”
“Love you too.”
Overbearing brutes.
21
Ed ended his call to Kiesha. She’d been full of excuses for her behavior this morning. But he wasn’t impressed. He’d given her a stern talking to. Whether she’d actually listen, he had no idea. While they were talking, he’d put all the sex toys back into her duffel bag. Georgie seemed really embarrassed by the toys. Not that she should be. In fact, a few of them could come in handy.
Grabbing an orange, iron tablet, and a bottle of water, he checked in on Georgina and found her lying on the bed, her foot resting on a couple of pillows, her phone to her ear.
She looked over at him. Her face was a cold mask. He hated that look on her face. She was clearly listening to someone talking. Her mother, he guessed.