A throat cleared at the end of the hallway, and I jumped. I looked over at Slyce, who had a grin on her face and one eyebrow raised. I scowled at her and shook my head. Her smile dropped, and she sighed before turning around and going back down the hall.
I was still angry with her. We weren’t friends. She was here only because of her job. The one that required her to locate Frankie and me and keep us safe.
She wouldn’t tell me who hired her, or who we needed to be kept safe from. She assured me it wasn’t Richard. That he didn’t know where we were, nor was he looking for us. He was too busy with his new family.
A family that consisted of three little girls like Frankie had been. I’d wanted to warn the woman, wanted to save those girls from the heartache Frankie had endured. But she knew what she was getting.
She knew because she’d been my best friend. I’d told her everything Frankie and I had endured, and when I finally found the strength to press charges, she’d called me a liar.
I’d lost everything trying to protect my daughter.
And I’d failed.
I turned away from Slyce and walked into the living room, leaving Derek to fix the leaky pipe. I wouldn’t risk Frankie’s safety because I couldn’t keep my legs closed.
That was why I had a vibrator. Sure, it wasn’t as good as the real thing, but the real thing came with complications. It came with heartache and conflict that became dangerous. And I didn’t mean that metaphorically.
No, I would enjoy the eye candy and maybe think about the man later tonight after Frankie was asleep. But making a connection was out of the question.
“Schoolwork’s done,” Frankie crooned as she stepped out of the hall, looking for me. When she found me on the couch, she smiled and then turned toward the kitchen.
I jumped up from my perch and followed. “Frankie,” I hissed.
“Hi,” she said in a cheery voice I hadn’t heard in way too long.
Derek looked up from his place on his back. His head and shoulders pushed into the cabinet as he worked on the pipe. “Hi.” He smiled back at Frankie, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. There was something about the way he looked at my daughter that had my nerves on edge. Something that reared up when any man looked at her.
It was different from the way the men at the clubhouse looked at her. Different from how Richard had looked at her. But something about it had me on edge and kept me watching from the corner of my eye, my muscles tensed and ready, even though I couldn’t articulate why.
“Frankie, don’t bother the man.”
“I just want to watch what he’s doing. What if I want to be a plumber when I grow up?” my daughter asked with a smirk.
“I’m not a plumber,” Derek said softly.
“You aren’t?” I asked, dread pooling in the pit of my stomach. If he wasn’t a plumber, what the hell was he doing here? He hadn’t actually said his name was Derek; he’d only nodded when I’d asked him.
You’re so stupid, Katrina!
Richard’s words ran through my head on a loop. I’d missed so many red flags where he was concerned. Between him and Clay, it made me doubt I had any self-preservation skills at all.
“Not officially, no. I’m a contractor. I build houses, so I do a little bit of everything. I’m building houses for the club, so when you called King about the pipe, he asked me to come by and fix it.”
My shoulders relaxed a fraction. He was who he said he was. Though the moment of panic reminded me that I was too damn trusting. I looked over at Frankie; it was clear she was already enamored with a man we’d only just met.
“You build houses? Like the entire thing?” she asked, and Derek nodded with a smile. “That’s so cool.” She turned to me. “Isn’t that so cool? Dad couldn’t change a light bulb without grumbling.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want her to think about Richard. The counselor we’d seen assured me that Frankie would be fine. That she was young, and while the memory might always be there, it shouldn’t shape her life the way it would have if she’d been older.
My daughter hadn’t had a good life. For the first two years, the woman who gave birth to Frankie had abused her. Marsha Wade wasn’t Frankie’s mother. A mother didn’t poison her child for years hoping to get attention.
I could only assume Frankie’s father had something to do with that. Her file had said he left Marsha when she found out she was pregnant. Then he’d signed away his rights when Marsha went to jail. He hadn’t taken responsibility for the life he had helped create.
Was Marsha the person who had hired Slyce? Not long after Frankie came to live with us, Marsha had assaulted the social worker who worked with us. She’d gone to jail, and that was when the judge stripped away her parental rights, allowing the first step in our journey of adopting Frankie.
After her parole, Marsha disappeared. Richard wasn’t the only person who had me watching over my shoulder. He wasn’t the only reason I was quick to accept Slyce’s help.
Marsha Wade was always at the back of my mind. The only reason I knew what she looked like was that I’d sat in thecourtroom during her trial. I wanted to know everything I could to keep Frankie safe.
