“We need to ask you a few questions,” Evan told her, wanting to get this over with.
“About what?I really don’t have anything to tell you.”
They’d see about that.
“When you left—originally—why did you leave?”He figured it was best to just lay it out there.He didn’t want to pussyfoot around, pretending he was here as a friend.He wasn’t.They had a job to do, and in order to do it, they needed to get this woman to open up.
“I needed a change,” Meredith said, not looking him in the eye.
“From?”
“My life.”
“You up and left two kids and a husband because you were what?Bored?”
Meredith shrugged.“Maybe.”
“Lie.”
Her eyes snapped to his face.
He got her attention at least.
“Look.We don’t have time to play games.I get that you don’t know who to trust, but right now, we’re about as good as it gets.Now let’s try this again.Why did you really leave?”
She took a deep breath and let it out in a huff, her shoulders slumping as she did.
Just when she was about to answer—with another lie, based on the purse of her lips and the glance to the left—Becs’s phone buzzed.She would’ve ignored it, but Evan nodded toward the device sitting on the table between them.From where he sat, he could see Atticus’s name on the screen.
Becs picked up the phone and tapped it.Her eyes widened, and she turned it toward him so he could see a photograph that Atticus had sent.
He had received a text from Archer earlier, but no picture to go with the brief details.Before he could ask Archer about it, Becs had pulled up in front of his house.
Turning the phone, Becs flashed the screen in Meredith’s direction.“Who’s the baby in this picture?”
Meredith’s eyes widened, and her hand went to her mouth.“Where did you get that?”
“Who is it?”Becs repeated.
Tears formed in Meredith’s eyes when she looked up, meeting Evan’s gaze first.“That’s—”
The door opened and Decker stepped inside.His attention shot to the phone Becs was holding up, then his expression shifted, morphing into something you’d see in your nightmares.
“Where the fuck did you get that?”he bellowed at Becs, taking a step toward her.
On instinct, Evan got to his feet, making it impossible for Decker to get to her.“Back off.”
Decker glared at him, then lunged to the right.“You back off.Where the fuck did you get that?”
Evan blocked him again, this time putting his hands on Decker’s chest and shoving him back.“I said.Back.Off.”
From behind him, Becs said, “Cicily Rose.2006.”
If the kid was born in 2006, that made her sixteen or so.
“Is that your daughter?”Evan asked Meredith.
“No,” Decker answered, still glaring at him.
It was then that Evan realized Decker’s eyes didn’t hold anger or fury as he’d initially thought.Oh, no.What he saw there was significantly worse.
That wasn’t rage.It was pain.
Which meant he’d nailed it in one.That child in the photo wasn’t just Meredith’s daughter.She was Decker’s.
