Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Did this man help?” he asked.
She looked down at her hands. “Yes. Kind of, I guess.”
Nausea rolled in my stomach. “For what?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
She sighed. “I know how to pickpocket.”
That was not what I’d expected her to say. “You know how to pickpocket?”
“Yeah.” She winced. “I can lift a wallet or purse pretty easily.”
“You robbed people?” I asked.
Her face turned crimson. “Yes, quite a bit. I also stole certain things from different stores. Just slipped them into my pocket and walked out. I can look pretty innocent sometimes.”
“You were a thief?” Buddy asked, relief filling his voice.
“Well, yeah.” She focused solely on him.
Buddy rubbed his chin, his shoulders relaxing. “Huh. That’s an interesting talent I never thought we’d need, but you never know. What else did you do?”
“That’s all,” she said. “But I stole from people, Buddy. The judge isn’t going to let you adopt me. I mean, you don’t have thieves in the Albertini family.”
Uncle Buddy snorted. “You’d be surprised what we have, sweetheart, but I need you to tell me the full truth. Did this man ever hurt you?”
She plucked at a string on her worn jeans. “No. He did threaten me a couple of times.”
“Did he touch you?”
“Oh, God, no,” Violet said. “Not at all. Nothing like that. But he found out I was going to be adopted by you and said he wants me to get him into Yara’s antique store so he can rob it.”
She looked under her lashes at me. “He also wants into your office, Anna. I told him you don’t have anything valuable, and he said that all legal files are valuable. That it’s good for blackmail. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to help him, but he said he would tell you all what I’ve done, and he’d tell the police and get me arrested. Then I saw him at the game like he knew I’d be there. So, I ran away instead.”
Anger burned through me. “He’s taken on the wrong family. If he turned you in, he’d have to turn himself in, as well, Violet. He’s blowing smoke.”
Buddy patted her knee. “You’re with us now, sweetheart. There’s no more protecting us and going off on your own, okay? Do you know what the primary job of a dad is?”
She looked up. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”
That hit me right in the chest.
“Um, I guess to make sure there’s food on the table?” she whispered.
He chuckled. “That’s one of the things, but mainly it’s to protect you. Period. It goes one way. If you have a problem, if you have a fear, you come to me, and I take care of it. If something happens to me and I can’t take care of it, you’ve got six brothers as well as a fierce mom. Got it?”
Violet still looked uncertain, but she nodded. “Okay.” Tears finally fell down her face, and she ducked forward into a hug, holding him tightly.
An odd idea formed in my head. “Violet, what does this guy look like? Is he in really good shape, good-looking, tall?”
“No,” she said. “Not at all. In fact, he’s short and very wide. Fat, I would say.”
“Was his name Lenny?” I asked quickly.
She scrunched up her face. “No, it’s Saul Nelson.”
Could that be the other Cupid?
Buddy took Violet to the police station to meet with Detective Pierce and close out her case while I drove through the chilly town and turned around Lilac Lake toward Aiden’s office. I figured since we’d found Violet, I needed to concentrate on getting Nick cleared from this murder charge. On the way, I called Jolene O’Sullivan, somewhat sorry I had her direct number, but some bad things in life were necessary.
“O’Sullivan,” she answered.
“Hi, it's Anna Albertini.” I slowed to maneuver around an icy berm.
Dead silence met my proclamation for a moment. “Hi. Are you angry about any of the coverage lately, and would you like to make a statement to that effect? Maybe whine a little bit?”
“I’m calling you to let you know that Violet Maseretti was found safely. She was camping out in Hayden.”
“Why did she run away from all of you?” Jolene asked.
Irritation smacked me, and I shoved it away. “She didn't run away. She was camping. That's all I have for you, but I thought you should at least print the truth.” I clicked off before she could ask any more questions and pulled into the nicely shoveled parking area of Aiden's wide building.
Shaking off Jolene cooties, I jumped out of the truck and hurried across the salted ground to the front door, stepping inside. Saber sat behind the reception desk with stacks of file folders around him. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting organized,” he said. “We need to hire somebody for the front desk, but I figured I’d put all our cases in the appropriate file cabinets. These just arrived, so I unpacked them.”