“Really?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” he admonished. “You’re family now.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It takes some getting used to, you know?”
“I get it.” He pulled away from the curb and headed out of Ocean Grove. He blew out a short breath. “Now for the not-so-good news.” He glanced into the rearview mirror and lowered his voice. “Nico’s parents are suing for custody of Cody.”
“What?” I saw Cody startle at my exclamation. I reached back and patted him on the knee. “Sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I lowered my voice. “What gives them the right? They didn’t want anything to do with Cody when Allie was alive. Why now?”
“I’m guessing it’s about money. Kinship guardians get assistance from the state. They may have also heard about the life insurance policy. It’s a good thing you’re planning to put it in a trust for him. That way, no one can get their hands on it but him.”
“Or his guardian,” I muttered. I let my head fall back on the headrest. “He’s never even met them. Allie contacted them after Nico went to prison, and they told her they wanted nothing to do with her or the baby.”
“Do you have a record of that?” Tino asked.
I shook my head. “Allie said she texted them.” I looked down at the phone in my hand. “And I have Allie’s phone.”
Tino grinned. “Yeah, you do.”
The trip to the prison was otherwise uneventful. Tino talked about my options with the trust for Cody and what I could expect from a custody hearing. He said he was going to push for it to happen as soon as possible. “The one hiccup might be Nico. He’s Cody’s father, and he hasn’t had his parental rights removed. Do you know anything about his relationship with his parents?”
I shrugged. “Not much. I got the impression he didn’t get along with them. They refused to pay for him to get a lawyer when he was arrested.”
“That could work in your favor,” he said.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Getting into the prison wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated. Tino had already warned me about what we could and couldn’t take in. Cody had been surprisingly calm when the officer told him he couldn’t bring in his backpack and that he would have to take the pictures out of the frames. I figured it was because the guy explained it in a way Cody could understand and told him how much he liked Batman too.
We were taken to a small room with one barred window high up on the wall, a long metal table, and four metal chairs. The officer let us in and closed the heavy metal door behind us. I immediately felt claustrophobic. “Christ, this is grim.”
“It’s not supposed to be the Ritz,” Tino replied.
“Where’s Daddy?” Cody asked.
“He’ll be here soon,” I answered.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and a guard walked in. He saw Cody and smiled, then said to Tino, “You got thirty minutes.”
“Thank you,” Tino replied.
He held the door open, and a much-changed Nico came through wearing orange prison clothes. His dark hair had been cut almost military short, he had way more tattoos, and he wasripped. He was on the short side, although not as short as Miguel, so the bulk made him look like a brick shithouse. His blue-gray eyes, which were bright with laughter in his picture, now looked hard and wary.
Cody stayed close to me, his earlier enthusiasm dimmed. “Daddy?”
Nico looked down at his son and smiled so brightly it transformed his whole face. That was more like the Nico from the picture Cody was carrying. He crouched and said, “Hi, Cody. I’m glad to finally meet you.”
Cody held out the two pictures he had. “I brought a picture of Mommy.”
“Oh shit,” Tino murmured under his breath.
Before I could head him off, Cody said, “She died.”
Nico shot a shocked look up at me for confirmation, and I gave him a slight nod. To his credit, Nico didn’t freak out at Cody. His eyes got shiny, and he said hoarsely, “That’s really sad, Cody.”
Cody sniffled and nodded. “Uncle Zach said it’s okay to cry as much as I want.”
