Page 69 of Kiss Kiss Bang
Again she laughed. “It’s store-bought.” Then she looked at her daughter. “If you eat all your dinner, we’ll talk about cake.”
“I see we’ve been watching Peppa Pig today.”
Olivia took a sip of her wine to hide the smile.
“Yes, today the daddy pig took them to school and he let the piggies eat as much cake as they wanted.”
She rolled her eyes, and took another sip of her wine as Joey chuckled.
* * *
After dinner while Olivia cleaned up with Joey’s help, he said, “She’s awesome, Livie.”
“She’s a handful sometimes. But she is sweet, and so funny you tend to forget how tired you are and give in to her whims.” She finished washing the dishes. “All right, so what did you find out?” She rested her hip against the counter and put down the dishrag.
He went around the island and hopped up on top of it. They were now face to face. “You’re not going to like it, but I’m going to make sure you both are okay.”
“Spill it, Clad. I’m getting more scared.”
“Connor is missing.”
Her eyes widened and she began to bite her nails almost instantly. “Missing?”
“His parole officer called. He was supposed to report two days ago and never showed. They can’t locate him. There’s a search out for him.”
She slumped. Maybe Joey was right. Maybe she was a shitty judge of character.
“You don’t go anywhere without me until Connor is behind bars, got it?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
It saddened her to know her friend’s life had wandered that far down the wrong, dark, path. She knew it was bad, he had spent the better part of the last eighteen years in and out of prison.
“Mommy?” Sophie called out, coughing. “I don’t feel well again.”
She pushed off the counter and went to find her daughter in the living room, looking miserable. She bent down to touch her daughter, the conversation about Connor was effectively over.
“Come on, sweets, time for some medicine and bedtime. You feel a little warm.”
“I want Joey!” her daughter cried. “Joey!”
Joey picked her up and carried her to her room, rocking her and soothing her until she fell asleep.
* * *
Joey paced around the living room waiting for Olivia to finish changing an asleep Sophie into pajamas.
“Is she okay?” he asked, the moment Olivia stepped out of Sophie’s room.
“She’ll be fine. This damn algae thing is going to be my first order of business. You better pray I win.”
“The sugar industry will castrate you. You need to take some of their land to build it, plus you’d be regulating the fertilizer run-off into the waterway. You’ll lose the election if you even talk about it.” The problem had been that the sugar industry, which had a lot of money and lobbyists, did not want their land used for the reservoir and they absolutely didn’t want regulations tightened. Also, a lot of their pesticides ran off into the lakes and bay, which was the cause of most of the toxic algae.
“There was federal funding already earmarked for the reservoir after last year’s outbreak, but even after I’ve petitioned the McGregor a dozen times to account for the money, no one seems to know what happened to it. And now we’re having a worse year. Something’s gotta give. I’m hoping the people are mad enough to ignore the lobbyists and vote for me.”
“Going after them isn’t going to be easy, darlin’.”
“I don’t care. It needs to get done. Have you actually gone to see it for yourself? Drive up about forty minutes and you’ll see how bad it is. You can’t even see the water with the thick level of algae and the smell is putrid. Wildlife is dying.”
