Jennifer Morey - Mission - Colton Justice

“I’m sorry. You’ve been a good friend to me, too. I should have told you sooner.” He bent his head above his coffee cup and shook his head before looking back at Jeremy. “But with her dying... I... I just couldn’t. I could see how much you were grieving. If I’d have been the one in your shoes, I’d have wanted the same. Time.”

Two years was a long wait.

Adeline picked up her pen again. “Tess died two years ago.”

Oscar didn’t falter as she pinned him with that fact. “Yes. And that’s why I’m sorry,” he said to her. Then to Jeremy he added, “But to be honest, I don’t think you’ve stopped grieving. When I heard about your suspicion of Livia, it dawned on me why. You’ve always thought Tess was murdered.”

Jeremy nodded. “I’ve told the deputy who worked the accident but he has done nothing. That only supports my theory about Livia.”

“She did have long tentacles into the community, and they didn’t stop at law enforcement.”

“How do you know that?” Adeline asked.

Oscar seemed to catch himself, remembering who she was, a PI Jeremy hired to look into Tess’s death. And he could have possibly implicated himself. “People talk.”

“She never said anything to you? You weren’t aware of her meeting with anyone on the force?”

He shook his head. “No. She had lots of meetings she didn’t tell me about. She wasn’t an open book. She was a walking secret factory.”

Adeline nodded as though she agreed. She must have heard things herself, although she had never been close enough to feel Livia’s evil.

“How long did you see her?” Adeline asked.

“Six months. She never got over me breaking things off, and was always jealous when I was with other women.”

“Did Livia know you met Tess?” Jeremy took up the questioning from Adeline.

“Not at first. Then she sent me a letter. Threatening me. That’s another reason I wanted to meet with you, why it was so important.”

“What kind of threats?” Adeline asked.

“If I didn’t break up with Tess, I might start having some accidents. She said she’d haunt me from prison. Her words exactly.”

Jeremy met Adeline’s glance. Livia had somehow managed to get a threatening letter delivered to Oscar. Did that bring her closer to believing Livia had enough reason to go after Tess?

“When did all of this happen?” Adeline asked.

“Years after Livia and I were together. I never understood why she hung on to so much resentment for so long.”

“Because she’s that crazy,” Jeremy said.

“What happened after she threatened you?” Adeline asked. “Did she ever haunt you?”

Oscar shook his head, propping his ankle on his knee, looking much more relaxed. “Tess broke up with me a few weeks later. Nothing unusual happened. I thought Livia finally let it go, like she was glad Tess and I split up. Tess met Jeremy about a month later. Jeremy was a good man about it. He made sure I had no hard feelings. I didn’t. I knew Tess and I weren’t right for each other.” He looked directly at Jeremy. “I could see she loved you. I could see you loved her. It was obvious. If Livia held a grudge for years over me and Tess, she might have disliked Tess enough to go after her when she met you, a successful man who made her happy.”

“I appreciate you telling me.” Jeremy really was thankful for his candor. And he was relieved he hadn’t been wrong about keeping him on as his general counsel. He also felt reassured that he’d let his wife, Camille, watch Jamie when he or Adeline couldn’t be with him.

As he turned to see how Adeline was taking all this, he saw her scrutinizing Oscar, as though she felt the man was either a smooth talker or hiding something.

Chapter 3

“You dress differently when you go on stakeouts?” Jeremy asked.

After talking to Oscar, they decided to track down the deputy Jeremy had gone to for help on his suspicions regarding Tess’s accident, the one who had brushed him off. Had Livia paid the deputy to help her go after Tess? They had picked up Jamie and then the next day found the man and followed him here, to this café. He sat by himself drinking coffee and hadn’t noticed them.

Adeline glanced down at her black slacks with white-and-black patterned blouse. She’d draped her trench coat over the back of the chair. “I don’t always wear vests.” She did like the Sherlock Holmes kind of feeling she had when she did wear them, though.

“Maybe that’s what looks so different.”

She knew why when she saw him look down at her cleavage, which was modest, she knew. She never dressed sexy when she worked, but she did have some sexy clothes in her closet.

“Does it bother you?” she asked, hearing her own flirty tone.

“No. The opposite,” he said with answering flirtation.

The waitress came to their table, and she and Jeremy ordered coffee.

“Who are you, Adeline Winters?” Jeremy said. “I want to know more about you, more than they tell you about family history of a surrogate mother, anyway.”

Did he? Would she be wise in telling him? The tickle in her heart wouldn’t allow her to decide.

“I’m just a girl from Austin, Texas, who grew up wanting to fight bad guys.”

He grinned with enchantment lighting his soft, smart, daring eyes. “You must have had someone in your life who made you interested in fighting bad guys.”

Like a man who’d taught her to fight? She wished her past had been that fanciful. She had to avert her face, not see his eyes.

“No,” she finally said.

“No one?”

“My mom worked two day jobs, came home for a couple of hours after I got off school, then left for her night job. Every day. Seven days a week. My grandparents lived in Arizona and had given up on her before I was born. She didn’t know my paternal grandparents because my dad hightailed it a few months after I was born...which you already knew.” Adeline turned to the deputy sitting at the table, vaguely registering he was still alone.

“You’re bitter about your childhood?”

He was really going to pry? “No. My mother was an only child. Her mother was too messed up to raise a child properly. It was just me and my mother. We only needed each other.” Adeline often wished she could be part of a family of her own. She’d never experienced that.

“Is that why your mom gave up on her? Or did she abandon her?”

“She kicked her out for following in her footsteps. Mom got herself into trouble a lot and got herself pregnant. But she cleaned herself up when I was conceived. Not being like her mother was important to her.”

The waitress arrived with their coffees. Adeline smelled the flavorful aroma and reached for some creamer.

“I bet your mother would have liked your dad to stick around to help.” Jeremy picked up their conversation.

Adeline stirred the creamer. “She was glad my dad left. My mother is not a weak person. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She wasn’t afraid to work. She wasn’t lazy. She liked hard work because it provided for me. And her. She taught me not to depend on anyone, least of all a man. Why depend on someone who won’t be there when it counts?” Adeline couldn’t stop the angry emotion. She hated how hard her mother had lived to provide for her daughter. It wasn’t fair. Adeline took care of her mother now, but the years of hardship had taken their toll. Her mother had aged before her time. She had circles under her eyes that hadn’t gone away with her lightened load, as though the man who’d gotten her pregnant had tattooed her.

As Jeremy dumped creamer into his coffee, he asked, “She talked bad about your dad?”

Adeline sipped her coffee before responding. “No, but he abandoned us. There’s a difference between a father who doesn’t want his kids and one who does but struggles to pay child support or find time outside work hours to see them or whatever. My dad didn’t want me. He didn’t love me and had no interest in loving me. I get it. I’m good with that. It taught me to choose the people I want in my life and not tolerate those who aren’t good for me.” She set down her cup, growing uncomfortable. “My father wasn’t good for me or my mother.”