Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,26
breath, to school her thoughts.
“You and me…” she murmurs. “We’re not the same. We’re not thinking or feeling the same thing. But there you go. You got what you wanted; your stunt got you access to me, it got you a phone call after I was able to leave you behind for all these years, you know the truth about this hypothetical child, and now you can go on with your life like we never met. Call off the fucking dogs before you get me killed.”
And then she hangs up. Gone, in a cloud of rage, and when I try to redial a second later, I get the same message I’ve gotten a million times before. “The number you are calling is switched off or out of range. Please hang up and try again.”
“You thought you could be a father?” Mom grabs my bad arm and spins me around when I set my phone on the counter. She has tears in her eyes and shaking hands. “And you never said anything?”
I look over my mom’s shoulder to Soph. “Did it work?”
She nods. That’s all she does, because we made a deal, and she’s a businesswoman at her core.
“Jamie!” Mom shouts. “Answer me. All this time, you thought you might be a dad? And you didn’t say anything?”
“No.” I sniff and try to pull myself under control. Because maybe Cam thinks she’s alone in her grief, but she’s dead fucking wrong. “The risk was there, since we didn’t use protection that one time. But no, I didn’t think she would hide a child from me. That’s not who she is.”
I walk around Mom and go to Soph. “She said he’s innocent. What’s Oz got on that file?”
She gives a small shake of her head. “He doesn’t have much of anything. He had a fax, an order handed down from a different office, that Will Quinn is Jake Williams, and Jake was to be arrested. He did as he was told, he did it with a little extra oomph, since Will was talking to Liv. But it’s done now. It’s not a part of his workload at this point.”
“Good.”
I turn away from her and snatch up my phone once more. I have a promise to keep. A job to do. I also have hundreds, thousands, of texts and emails coming through from folks who want the cash reward, and are lying about knowing where Cam is.
I ignore them all, go to my social media, and, drafting up a response, I show Soph before I hit post.
She nods, copies my wording verbatim, then she posts it to the gym website.
“The statement made by a Rollin On Gym and Stacked Deck representative this evening at 7:23pm is no longer valid. Jamie Kincaid has made contact with his friend, the reward has been transferred to the appropriate recipient, and the offer no longer applies. Any further contact or search done in regards to this person will not be honored with the finder’s fee. Thank you for your swift response. We’ll see you all at this year’s tournament.”
“That’s a shitty statement.” Evie glowers. “You just used our platform for your own personal gain. And you cost us half a million dollars to do it.”
“No.” I turn to her. “I found her, she came to me, and I didn’t pay a cent for it.” I snatch my phone from the cord connecting it to Soph’s computer, and cross the kitchen. “It worked exactly how I knew it would. Now I’m going home. I’ll see you guys at the gym tomorrow.”
Victoria
That Rat Bastard
“Did you see that thing on the news the other night?” Lita sits at her workstation a full week after Jamie’s bullshit television stunt, and peeks around our mirrors to catch my eyes. “I swear, I was sitting at home eating my dinner, and this cutie was on TV describing you!”
“Hm?” I apply a thick coat of lipstick and pretend that I’m not completely enthralled by her every word. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
She goes back to her own mirror to work. “I don’t mean you you, but the description he gave… Damn, Tori, I was half tempted to try my luck for the reward money.”
“Reward money?” Fake, fake, fake.
“Yeah. This hot fighter was on the TV, and he said how he was missing his ex-girlfriend. Blue eyes, dark hair, five-six. I was hardly paying attention until he mentioned the chin, and hell, I thought, ‘that sounds just like Tori’!”