“What’s your name?”
“Horacio Duke.” Then he adds, “The second.”
I give him a look of disbelief.
“It was my uncle’s name, and my dad really liked his brother.”
“Well,Horacio the Second, tell me this: is thirty dollars an hour really worth going to prison?”
He swallows hard. “Prison? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Dude, who do you think the sheriff’s going to believe? A concerned father and citizen who donates to the sheriff’s association, or a perv with photos of third graders on his phone?”
“But they aren’t bad! They’re only surveillance photos.”
I shift my weight and cross my arms over my chest. “Maybe we can work out a deal, Horatio.”
He swallows again, making him look like a guppy flopping on dry land. “What kind of deal?”
“You tell me exactly what the Labelles hired you to do and what you’ve told them.”
His face pales. “That breaks the rules of being a PI.”
“Then I guess you can congratulate yourself on your ‘ethics’”—I make air quotes—“while you’re sitting in jail.”
He makes a face, adjusting his glasses, then reaches into his pocket. “Like I said, I only started working the case a couple days ago.”
“Go on.”
He pulls out his phone. “They asked me to follow their granddaughter and find proof that you’re an unfit parent.”
I level him with a dark look, and he flinches, unable to meet my gaze.
“I didn’t find anything.”
“Then why the fuck do you look so guilty?”
“I…well, I have photos of Jane’s bruised face and found out she had a bloody nose.”
“And…?” I prod. Do they plan to say I don’t have control over my daughter, and I’m the reason she’s misbehaving at school? But something in his eyes suggests he planned to tell them a different story. Which is why Evelyn was so direct on the phone the other day. She was setting the groundwork for her case against me. “They’re going to say that I hit her.” I feel like I’m going to be sick.
He takes another step backward, the back of his shoe hitting the edge of a bookcase. “I get paid bonuses if I dig up dirt they can use in court. It’s nothing personal, man.”
“Nothing personal?” I snatch the phone out of his hand, then hold it up to his face to unlock the screen.
“Hey!” he protests, reaching for it, but he doesn’t put too much effort into trying to get it back as I open his photo app.
He has scores of photos of my daughter—sitting in her classroom at school. At recess. Getting on the school bus. Sitting on the school bus. The two of us at Tea of Fortune. Jane sitting in her bedroom window seat.
I lift my gaze, gaping at him in horror.
“I haven’t sent them to the Labelles yet. I was hoping to get something good today.”
The blood drains from my face, and I feel like I’m going to puke. This man has violated my daughter. TheLabelleshave violated her.
“But you’ve told them about her bruises.”
“I had to. They’re paying me.”
