When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,46

but then his expression shifted to wariness and I realized this wasn’t a dream.

I had fallen asleep, and James had found me sprawled out on his sofa.

I jerked to sit upright, but my center of gravity was off, and I flopped like an upended turtle.

Dammit. This was not the first impression I’d intended to make.

He was sitting on the coffee table, and he slowly reached out a hand as though any sudden movement might make me lash out and bite him.

I batted it away, pissed at him. Pissed at me. Pissed that Mike had put my niece and nephew in harm’s way. Pissed that James had known what was going on and hadn’t warned me.

And that was what wiped away the last bit of my happiness at seeing him. He’d known that Mike was working for Hardshaw—he must have—and he’d never once warned me. I nearly laughed at my idiocy. James had been working for Hardshaw. If he hadn’t told me what he was up to, what made me think he’d reveal Mike’s secrets?

This man does not have your best interest in mind.

James stood and backed up to the fireplace, and I realized the TV was off. He’d walked in, turned off the TV, and sat beside me, watching me sleep. He could have hurt me. He could have hurt the baby.

Why had I been so careless?

I finally got to a sitting position, then rocked up to my feet.

“What are you doin’ here, Rose?” he asked softly, without anger or accusation, but I realized he didn’t look surprised. I supposed he wasn’t. He knew everything that happened in Fenton County.

Which meant he also knew Ashley and Mikey were missing. Somehow deep down I’d known…I’d just failed to let myself acknowledge it.

He not only knew my niece and nephew were missing, he likely knew how and maybe even where to find them. And yet he’d done nothing.

A protective fury rose up in me, making me see red, but I couldn’t lose my cool. I had to play his game, because I’d come to realize everything was a game with him. He was only honest or forthright if and when it served his purposes.

Stupid me. I’d thought I was different. Turned out, I was just like every other person in his life, including his supposed best friend, Jed—disposable. Just another plaything to amuse him until he grew bored and decided to move on.

Why had I expected anything else? He’d told me his limitations in the beginning. He’d been honest about that, at least.

But I was here for answers, which meant I couldn’t just ask for them outright like any mature adult would do. I’d have to beat around the bush to gain what would likely only be nuggets of information.

I was exhausted of it already.

I needed a game plan, and since he didn’t seem to be in a hurry, I took a moment to think this through. Skeeter Malcolm didn’t like people getting the best of him, yet I didn’t feel like kowtowing to him. I never had before, and I wasn’t about to start now.

“Do you know where my niece and nephew are?”

He leaned his shoulder into the smooth river rock and asked in a lazy tone, “Are you askin’ me if I have them?”

I lifted my chin, trying to control my temper. “You read into my words what you will. I merely asked if you knew where they were.”

“No.”

His answer filled me with equal parts relief and anxiety. If he’d known, I might have found a way to convince him to give them to me.

“Do you know where Mike is?”

He released a soft laugh. “No. Trust me, I wish I did.”

“You have answers and I need them.”

His mouth stretched into a smile, but now I was facing Skeeter, not James. This was his crime boss persona, hammered into place over long, hard years. “Do you now? What are you willing to pay for them?”

“Not a damn thing,” I said with plenty of attitude. “How about you be a decent human being and just tell me for the sake of doing the right thing?”

“Come now, Rose,” he said with a slow drawl that let me know this had become a game. “We both know I’m not capable of either of those things.”

A small part of me was ready to blast him, but I knew he believed what he said. He always had, although I’d started to make him believe differently when we were together. It seemed he’d snapped all the way