Page 105 of Broken
“I’ll take him,” Jacqueline blurted.
“Oh, that’s great! I’m so happy.”
“What have I gotten myself into?”
Naomi laughed. “It’ll be great. He’s so smart.”
“But I’m paying you guys for him. There’s no way you’re gifting him to me.”
“No, Jacqueline—”
“Text me the food you feed him. I’ll swing by tomorrow and pick him up.”
“Love you,” Naomi said.
“Love you back.” Jacqueline hung up and shifted to Prescott.
Intense eyes were drilling into hers and she melted from the heat of his gaze. “Congrats on the pup. When are you moving in?”
She barked out a laugh. “I amnotliving with you.”
“Sorry, babe, but you don’t have a choice. You can’t live in Z’s condo with a dog.”
“What about Ethan? He just lost his mom. He just moved in here with you. Then, I move in with a puppy? How is that fair to him?”
Prescott pulled up Ethan’s new daycare on his laptop. He was sitting in circle time while the teachers read and acted out a story. He pointed. “There he is, and he looks okay to me.”
Pausing, she watched Ethan. He was listening intently, then he started giggling.
Her heart warmed, and she smiled. “He’s adorable. Okay, I’ll think about it.” She shifted in the chair. “Let’s get back to work. Initially, I wondered if Gloria and Bert’s murders were revenge hits, but then I added Hawk and Addison into the mix and reviewed their files. They partnered on missions pretty much right after Addison started, but their missions never included Gloria or Bert, so I kept digging.”
He nodded.
“I started looking into missions where they testified against someone,” she continued. “There are dozens, so I’m checking if any of those overlap with Addison or Hawk.”
“Hawk only does kill missions.”
“What about Addison?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Did I tell you I witnessed Bert’s murder?”
What the hell?
“No.”
“That’s on me. I’ve been preoccupied.”
“What happened?”
“Dakota Luck and I were on a video chat with Bert when someone broke in, shot him, then slammed down the laptop.”
“So, Bert saw him.”
“And he knew him.”
That would have been helpful to know at the beginning of her investigation, but busting his chops now would benefit no one. So, she opted to move on. “How do you know?”
“He said, ‘What the hell areyoudoing here?’”
