“There is someone,” I blurted, seeing it as the only option.
He stopped pacing and looked at me with his brows lifted. “Who?”
The words sat on my tongue like a grenade. I couldn’t bring myself to pull the pin. Instead, I gestured to my right.
Bray followed my arm with his gaze as if he expected to see someone standing there. “What?”
I huffed in frustration, wanting him to figure it out so I didn’t have to say it. I gestured again, this time with both arms like I was showcasing a prize on a game show.
He frowned. “The bay? You think someone threw it in the water?”
“Oh my God,” I grumbled and dropped my arms with a slap at my thighs. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the patio’s end. “My father, Bray! He’s in that prison!”
“Oh.Oh!” he said when it sunk in. “Oh shit, he is?”
“Yes. I thought you read my file.”
“Yes,yourfile. That detail isn’t in there.”
“Well,he’sinthere.” I pointed with my free hand and realized he was still holding my other. His thumb took a brief journey over my knuckles. It sent a hot zap straight to my chest.
“Do you think he knows where the diamond is?” Bray asked.
“I don’t know, but he’s the only person left to ask who doesn’t want to kill me. I think.”
His grip tightened on my hand, and he chewed his lip, thinking.
“There’s only one problem though,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not going in there to talk to him.”
He slipped his grip free and closed the distance to the railing with a few steps. He’d commanded me to do several unpleasant things since we’d met: become a nanny, make friends, go to work with a sprained ankle. But I could tell by hispensive silence he put this task in another category. Relief washed over me when I realized he wasn’t going to demand I do it.
When he turned back around, the fire lit the eager look on his face. “What if I could get him to come to you?”
“What? How?” I mentally stumbled in confusion. “Last I checked, they don’t give day passes to federal prisoners unless they’ve got areallygood reason.”
He stepped toward me and looked like he wanted to take my hand again. “Saving your life is good enough reason for me, but don’t worry. I still have some strings to pull.” He reached in his pocket for his phone and lit up the little rectangle.
A grin tugged at my mouth while I watched him tap at his screen. “Taking matters into your own hands.”
“Indeed. I’ll have to make some arrangements, but it shouldn’t take long. Maybe by tomorrow. Would you be ready?”
The question hit me like a sledgehammer and left me winded.Would I be ready to see my father tomorrow?The answer must have beennobecause my brain refused to connect and make anything come out of my mouth.
Bray stepped toward me. “Erin, I know this is asking a lot, but it’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of it.”
I looked up into his big, hopeful eyes and wanted to tell him there was no such thing assafewhen it came to my father. Even if it was a conversation in a padded room, my father would find a way to scheme, to outmaneuver. To create danger.
But Bray was looking at me like he’d take a bullet for me if it came to it. I may not have trusted my father, but I trusted Bray to make this work.
“Yes, I can do it. But, Bray, you have to know, whatever strings you’re going to pull to get to him, he’ll be ready with ten strings of his own. He’s always conning. Don’t forget this is the man who used his own daughter as bait.”
Sympathetic pain furrowed his brow, but he nodded. “I know.”
I shivered at the thought of what we were going to set in motion.Tomorrow.I’d be face-to-face with the man who’d derailed my life. The man who hadgivenme life and used it for his own purposes.
