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Lola, it reads just above the picture of a little blond girl on a horse, her arms outstretched, a huge smile painted across her face.
Even if I didn’t know this is Andie’s daughter, there would be no mistaking that they’re related. Same bright blue eyes, same small nose and full lips. Same freckled pale skin.
I bring the screen closer, scanning the little face and wondering which bits the father gave her, if any, when the phone is suddenly snatched out of my hand.
Andie gives me a glare before looking down and cursing. “Shit!” She throws the blanket over me and answers. “Hi, baby.”
“Momma, are you still in bed?” the girl asks.
“Yeah, I worked really late last night,” she says. I try to get up, but Andie puts all her weight on me. “Did you have breakfast already?”
“Miri made me ham and eggs. But…” her voice turns into a whisper. “The sunny part was too runny. It was kind of yucky.”
“Sorry baby. I’ll make you some when I come home. I looked up your scores for your math test. You did amazing.”
“It was too easy,” the kid says with an air of proud confidence.
“Next week’s won’t be,” Andie warns.
“You’re not going to be here to study with me.”
“We’ll do it over the phone.”
“It’s not the same. And you won’t be there at violin. It’s the last one before recital. I miss you, Momma. Can’t you come home?”
Andie sighs and the disappointment in that single breath is so palpable it touches something inside me I wasn’t aware was even there.
“The important thing is that I will be there for recital,” she says. “And I swear I’ll never miss anything, ever again.”
I’m not sure how long the call lasts. Long enough that the air under the covers grows stale and hot. But even though Andie gets off the bed and paces the room, I make no effort to move.
It feels like I’m eavesdropping on something private, yet I’m completely tuned in to every word being said.
I learn a lot from that conversation, more than I could from any files or reports from my private investigators. Things like, Andie is as dependent on her daughter as Lola is on her. She wants to know everything Lola has done, what she thinks, how she feels and Lola in turn shares without censoring anything.
I learn Lola is on probation for standing up to a bully, and doesn’t regret it even though she still has bruises from it. That touches something inside me too.
“Who the fuck is bulling your kid?” I ask the moment she hangs up.
Andie spins to me as if she’d forgotten I was still here. “Just some little punk that thinks she’s better than Lola because she doesn’t wear expensive brands like she does. Lola doesn’t care about that kind of stuff, but Kenzie decided to pick on her friend and she lost it.”
“Kenzie? Kenzie what?”
Her brows pinch together. “What do you mean what?”
“What’s her last na…I…” That’s when I realize that I’m gritting my teeth and I have no idea why. Nor do I know why the fuck I’d want a kid’s last name.
Suddenly, red flags begin to blare in my head. Leave. Fucking run. Danger. Danger.
“Gavin?”
“I have work to do.” Throwing off the blankets, I get out of bed and go to the restroom.
* * *
I go over the documents in front of me, trying to get a clearer picture of exactly who Andie is. I’ve read them before, almost a year ago when I decided to hire her. But this morning, after I came into the office, I opened the files again.
She was born in North Carolina but moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was one. Her father, Jeff Burrows, left when she was just a child and her mother, Tina, was a drug addict. From what I gather, she moved out of California when Andie was just fourteen, but obviously left her daughter behind.
