Dark Secret - Avelyn Paige Page 0,31
me and opens the truck door.
“With you.”
“The fuck you are. You need to stay here where it’s safe,” I fire back, closing the door on her.
“I don’t care what you think. I’m going in this truck or following behind you in my car. Your call.” You have got to be shitting me right now. We have no idea what we’re walking in to. Fuck. Judge is going to have my ass later for this, but I’m left here with little choice. We’ve got to get a move on.
“Get in,” I growl, opening the door. GP scowls as Shelby jumps up and into the front cab, settling into the middle seat. Climbing in after her, I close the door.
“The fuck she doing here?” Stone Face complains from the back seat. “Ain’t no place for a woman.”
“Try telling her that,” I respond. “Let’s just go find this kid and get back before Judge realizes she’s with us.” I shift back into my seat as GP takes the truck out of park and heads south.
Martinsville is about a fifteen-minute drive without traffic, and tonight, it figures everyone’s out on the fucking road. We barely make it a mile before we come to a full stop. GP stews behind the wheel.
Shelby’s knee bounces anxiously next to mine. If she only knew the fury swirling around inside of me. One of my foster fathers used to tell me that I was like a duck on a pond. On the surface, it seemed as if I was still and calm, though under it, I was a raging storm of feet, kicking and fighting to stay afloat. It wasn’t until today that I understand what he meant. Compared to Shelby, my demure is even keel.
It takes another forty minutes before we finally make it to the right exit. As we do, my cell phone rings.
“Yeah.”
“Priest called. He made it to the address,” Judge declares.
“What’s the situation?”
“Place is burned to the ground, and still smoking. I’m sorry, Hash, but there’s nothing left there.”
My fingers pinch the bridge of my nose. Fuck. And just like that, we’re back to square one, and no closer to finding Hayden.
Shelby
“What now?” I ask, tamping down my fear as I follow Wyatt down the hall and into his room.
“I don’t fucking know!” he shouts, his hands flying up as he whirls around to face me. “I don’t fucking know what to do here. I’m off my game. You might not know this, Shelby, but finding people is kind of my thing. I can find anyone online, but I can’t find my own fucking kid.”
His frustration does nothing to make me feel better. In fact, it scares the holy hell out of me. I’d come to Wyatt because he was the only person on God’s green earth I knew would find my baby girl. But he hasn’t done that, and now it sounds like he’s giving up.
“I’ll pay you,” I blurt out without thinking.
Wyatt’s face twists with confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t have much, but I can find the money. Whatever you need, I’ll pay you. Just find my daughter.” Tears pour down my cheeks like waterfalls as the panic I’m feeling builds. But Wyatt changes everything with his reply.
“Fuck you, Shelby. Fuck you. Fuck Kasey. Fuck your goddamn offer to pay me.” I gape up at him as he places his nose a couple of inches from mine. “In case you’ve forgotten, Hayden is my fucking daughter too. I’m not some hired tech nerd you can pay to track her down. I’m her fucking father. Not that you’ve made it possible for me to have a relationship with her.”
With every word he spews at me, I shrink farther and farther away. “I’ll find Hayden, but not because you paid me. I’ll find her because she’s my fucking blood.” He shakes his head in disbelief and steps back, his angry eyes looking me up and down. “Who have you become, Shel? You may look pretty much the same, but I don’t even recognize you.”
“You’re right,” I whisper, realizing the truth of those words as I speak them. “I’ve fucked it up. I ruined what you could have had with Hayden. But you aren’t innocent in this, Wyatt.” I straighten my spine and look him dead in the eyes, finally ready to confront him about the pain he’d caused me in this very room all those years ago. “You chose being a slut over me. I thought we were going to