Page 33 of Pretty Nightmare

“You need to work faster.”

“Wendy—”

“Fuck you. Do not tell me anything, Adam Boucher. I’m not your employee. I serve you at my pleasure. And I do that because we’re on the winning side. But if some asshole is gonna move in and take that win away, I’m out. You hear me? Out!”

“I said I’m working on it.”

She huffs on the other end of the line. “He left a note.”

“Way to bury the lede.”

“Do you want to hear it or not?”

“That’s why I picked up the phone.”

“OK.” She sighs again. “I don’t know what it means, though. It’s like… a code or something.”

“Will you just read the fucking note to me?”

“It says, ‘They pack them in with no regard. They leave no marks and sing no songs. They cover them up and walk away. They did this to you. They did this to me. It ends. It begins. It ends again.’”

It’s a goddamned circle.

“What the fuck does that mean, Adam?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, who can we ask?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

I end the call, turn around, and find McKay standing not ten feet away.

His eyes are locked with mine. But then they drift down to the phone in my hand and linger there for a long moment before rising back up to meet my gaze once again.

And he says, “I really need to talk to you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN - McKAY

Adam looks over my shoulder in the direction of the pavilion. “Where’s Maggie?”

“Indie came and took her on a walk.”

He furrows his brow.

“What?”

Adam sighs, then looks down at his phone, still in his hand, and shoves it in his pocket. “Should they be walking alone?”

“They’re just in the garden.” I nod my head in that direction. “Look. Right there.”

He looks over where Maggie and Indie are walking in the direction of the playset I built after Maggie was born. I admit, I spent a lot of time hurting over the idea that Maggie would not ever get to fully enjoy it.

But she loves that thing now. She plays in it all the time. And she and Indie like to swing together. They have little contests over who can swing higher. And even though it scares me a little to see Maggie flying like that, I like the way they laugh when they’re just being kids together.

It’s not fair. What Adam did to Indie. She was a good mother, she was just… too young. And troubled.

But we did that to her. When Indie came to live with us Adam and I made a deal that we would protect her first. Above all else. Above ourselves.