“What’d he want?”
“He was thinking about asking you to come back to the force. He wanted my opinion on how best to approach you with the topic. I told him I had no idea, that I didn’t really know you all that well, but he insisted I knew you better than probably anyone else in Redemption.” She breaks long enough to let a nervous laugh out. “I thought it was a really weird thing for him to say, since, does anybody know the real Jackson Stiles?”
“Green.”
She stops. “Hmmm?”
“Breathe.”
She nods. “Right.”
I gotta admit, her story rings true. Especially considering the fact she still has no idea Walker called me, or that I visited him today. Unless he suspected me of tailing him. In which case, he might have spilled the beans to her.
Perfect story.
The way Green bites her thumbnail like it’s her last meal tells me she’s thinking about something. Hard.
“What?”
She chews on her lip some before telling me, “I still can’t decide if he works for Anonymous, or if this is all just a fluke.”
Um. “Anonymous?”
“The texter. It’s really the first time I’ve heard from him directly, actually.”
“You call him Anonymous.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to call him?” She hesitates, frustrated. “Or her, I guess.”
I’ve got a few ideas.
“Dickbag. Dickless. Dickometry. Dickometer. Dick─”
“I get it,” she cuts me off. “Oh my God.”
She’s right. The name can come later. “So you’ve heard from him before?”
“Or her.”
Okay. Patience, Stiles.
“Let’s just say him for simplicity’s sake, shall we?” She’s gotta make everything difficult.
“Fine. Him. Yeah, but only a few times, and only through other people. Person. Just one person, actually.” Her voice becomes heavy and softer with those last words. I don’t like the sound of it.
Do I wanna know?
“And who’s that?” Of course, I do.
She takes a shaky breath but looks me straight in the eyes. “My dad.”
It takes me a second to register what she says.
“Come the fuck again?” Are all dads dicks now?
And P.S., I knew that shit-bag was bad news.
“And maybe my boss? I’m not a hundred percent sure about that one, though.”
Welcome to today’s broadcast of fuckery in progress.
We’re gonna come back to the dad thing. I’m officially pinning it under “things I need to wrap my head around for one thousand, Alex.”
“What’s the link to your boss?”
Before she explains, she reiterates, “Try to remember, I was going to tell you all of this today at brunch.”
“Duly fucking noted, Green. Can we get to the meat of this BS?”
She stands, paces, and wrings her hands.
“Remember that article I wrote about you?”
“You mean the one I can basically quote word for word?”
Really?
“Right, that one.”
“Uh huh.” Of course, I fucking remember it. The damn thing may as well be ingrained inside my head.
“The article that ran wasn’t the article I submitted.”
Um, okay. “Are you saying your boss wrote it?” I’m interested in where this is headed.
“Yeah, I mean, well, he took parts of what I turned in and kind of twisted my words.”
“So you didn’t think I was a low level scumbag looking to score easy money?” ’Cause that would be a relief.
Not.
“No, at the time, I totally thought you were a scumbag. But like I admitted, very recently, I didn’t know you then.”
Good to know she can be honest about it, but damn. Ouch.
“So you think because boss man took what you submitted and turned it into a Stiles hate fest, that─”
“Maybe he might be working with this guy. I don’t know for sure. It seems coincidental to me that they both seem to have it in for you, though. Not everybody can possibly hate you that much.”
I raise a questionable eyebrow at that statement.
“Can they?”
Technicalities.
“Beside the point, Green.” I have a feeling, as time limited as we are right now, that I’m gonna need to get the full-on, Emma Green rant session version to understand this shit. This should be a blast.
“I think you need to rewind and start from the beginning.”
“That’s a really long story, Stiles.”
See.
“Okay.” Let’s see if we can shorten it. “Start with when you left Florida.”
Green leans against the couch again. “I don’t know everything my dad was into. I only know most of it toward the end wasn’t good. But he was always very protective of me growing up. So when I finally found the nerve to tell him I was leaving, I was shocked, to say the least, that he was okay with it.”
Doesn’t sound too complicated so far. Lots of dads are assholes. Look at mine.