Page 40 of Coyote
I got a text ten minutes later from Breaker,
Callie’s coming too, your mom spent the night, so she’ll take care of the kids.
***
I was too rattled to go back to bed, even if it meant cuddling up to the woman I loved. Instead, I put on a pot of coffee and started rummaging through the file Hacker sent me on Rufus. I had to verify this was him before I did something that I couldn’t take back.
I’d never thought of myself as a cold-blooded killer but the thought of someone burning Bethany and Nessa alive provoked my rage in the worst kind of way. I’d seen videos of people who self-emolliated and in my opinion, it was possibly the worst way to die. Why someone would do that to an innocent woman and child was beyond my ability to reason. Whoever did this was a sick fucker who needed to be removed from society.
Reading through the info, Rufus was an average guy who grew up in the area, graduated high school, flunked out of college, and ended up managing a local liquor store. He was in his late thirties, though he looked older, and was unmarried. Although he wasn’t drunk either of the times I faced off with him, it didn’t mean he wasn’t drunk tonight. I kept reading, zeroing in on all the details.
Since criminal records are not open to the public in California, Hacker would need to do a shady deep dive to get a hold of that information. I felt reasonably certain he was doing that right now. Being a former military intelligence specialist, he had his ways of getting information others couldn’t.
I got up, grabbed a cup and as I poured the fresh brew into my cup, a small voice sounded behind me. “You got cookies?”
I turned to see Nessa standing there in her nightgown with Ruby trotting behind her.
She repeated, “Cookie please, doggy hungry.”
I laughed at her creativity and wondered if I was allowed to give her treats in the middle of the night. Maybe little kids are like mogwais, and you don’t feed ‘em after dark? Her adorable face looked so earnest that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her no, and decided I’d risk having a gremlin on my hands. It was almost time for breakfast anyway.
“I don’t know if I have any cookies. Let me look around.”
Her face lit up. She zoomed over to me and held up both arms. Jeez, she wanted me to pick her up and carry her around like her mom did. Carefully reaching down, I hefted her into the crook of one arm. “Better?”
She nodded. “You got cookies?”
“I don’t know, maybe I have a snack cake. Let’s look.” Opening my cabinet, I shuffled a few things around. I almost always have orange cupcakes with icing on top. I bought them by the dozen, individually wrapped. My hand found the familiar shaped box and shook it, there were a few left inside. Thank fuck I had a sweet tooth. I pulled one out with my free hand and handed it to her.
She held it in both hands, looking a little confused. Shit, I don’t know why I expected a two-year-old to fight through the wrapper on her own. I sat her on the counter, pulled the bag open and handed her the snack cake.
She sniffed it and then comped a big bite out of it. I watched curiously as she poked her finger into the orange filling and wiggled it in Ruby’s direction. The little dog started dancing around at my feet.
I picked Nessa up with one arm, grabbed my coffee with the other, and headed back to the kitchen table trying not to trip over Ruby who was getting more excited by the minute.
I sat down with Nessa on my knee, getting us comfortable. She swung her feet and hummed as she broke off pieces of her snack cake and tossed them to Ruby who was wolfing them up as quickly as she could. I had the strongest feeling that I should tell her to stop, but I didn’t want to risk her having a meltdown.
The little girl started giggling as she watched the dog’s antics, and I noticed something interesting. She had dimples, just like me and my sister when she smiled. I know dimples are hardly a rare occurrence, but the resemblance to photos of Callie when she was a toddler was unmistakable.
Nessa turned and shoved a bite of cake against my lips. I went ahead and let her feed it to me because she laughed like it was the funniest thing ever. Gazing down at her, I realized how innocent and adorable kids were.
She really couldn’t be mine, she was too young, but just the thought that she might be mine, made my chest ache with want. I brought one arm out to wrap around her middle because I wanted to hug her and also because I didn’t want her falling off my knee.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that even though she couldn’t be mine biologically, I wanted to become her father. She needed one and I’d make a great dad—and now I’d reconnected with Bethany I didn’t want to let her go.
Chapter Sixteen
Coyote
I’d expected Nessa to want to go back to bed, but I guess kids are like the energizer bunny, once they start for the day, they’re unstoppable. It was still early, and I didn’t want to wake up Bethany, so I sat and chatted to Nessa to try and keep her entertained. I had no idea what this little girl liked, but I remembered the games I’d played with my sister’s kids. We were in the middle of a game of ‘guess the animal’, where I’d make noises and she had to say what I was, the next thing I knew there was a quiet knock at my front door. I turned off the security system and opened the door to find Breaker and Callie.
Callie’s eyes flew open, and she exclaimed, “What in the world are you doing?”
When she reached out to take Nessa from me, her sticky hands grabbed onto my shirt, and she snuggled closer. My sister immediately backed off. “I’ve never seen you carrying a child around. It’s weird.”
I stepped back so they could come in and grinned at her bemused expression, “I can’t imagine why, I’m dad-like on some days.”
Callie snorted with laughter, “No. You’re not dad-like at all, you’re silly Uncle Coyote.”