I bob my chin in her direction. “Put your phone on
the table and turn it off.”
“Why?” she asks with so much wide-eyed innocence
that I know she knows exactly why. But she takes out her
phone and powers it down, so I proceed.
I cross my arms on the table and lower my voice. “You
know it’s illegal to blackmail people, right? What you’ve
been doing is a crime.”
“Yes, I know that,” she says.
“Okay. But there is nuance here and you can work
with that. If you were, for example, to send a file to the
lieutenant governor’s office, a file that has been edited
carefully to keep your face out of it, that could be used as leverage. Not to blackmail or extort, but as a guarantee
of your safety. You could include a sad explanation that
the poor girl in the video shouldn’t be victimized again
by having the unedited tape go public. Make clear that
no one wants that and the victim should be protected.
His people will understand that it’s a threat without you
having to make a threat or ask for money.”
“So I send it to his office anonymously to let them
know they need to back off.”
“Yes. But…” I hesitate for a moment, considering
what I’m about to say. Inserting myself into this could
put me in danger, but I want to see this man. To look
him in the face and let him know that I’ve beat him
at his game. Not the little pervert Roy Morris, but his
powerful brother. The muscle and money. The rush of
it flows into my blood.
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I smile. “I could follow up with a visit to the good
lieutenant governor to explain that you’re an underprivi-
leged little girl who lives in a trailer with her grandparents, and if any tape goes public, you would be revictimized
and many criminal charges would be filed. It would be
less a threat and more a courtesy to him, really.”
“Hm. I won’t get any money, though.”
“No. But you won’t get dead either. We have to go
back to that county to start the court process moving. He
could stop it if he wanted to, or he could hire someone
to shoot you dead on the highway out of town.”
“True.” She’s quiet as I accept the check from our
server, but then she nods. “I’ll think about it.”
“Thanks for taking it under consideration,” I say dryly
as I open the bill portfolio.
When I get out my credit card, I notice her gaze slide
to the receipt total to take it in. She wants to know exactly what kind of lifestyle she’s buying for herself with this
little deal between us. More signs of intelligence.
“Do you really know how to cover your tracks on-
line?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s no problem.”
“All right, then.” I snap closed the portfolio and slide it to the edge of the table. “We might have ourselves a plan.”
247
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kayla is settled on the pullout couch in the living room
of the suite with blankets and fluffy pillows and, most
important of all, the television remote. When I leave her,
she’s holding up her newly painted nails and admiring
them in the blue light of the TV.
She’s uploaded a very short clip to a password-
protected server on the dark web, and she assures me
that her face isn’t visible but Roy Morris’s is. I’ve left
that decision up to her. Despite what she thinks, I don’t
want to be anyone’s mom. More to the point, I’m not
capable of it.
We’ve decided to write the IP address and password
on a little card and hand it off to the lieutenant governor as entrée into his office. That will give him less time to
come up with a counter-scheme to cut us off at the knees.
I imagine he’ll be quite interested in seeing me as soon
as he spots his brother in flagrante. I chuckle softly at the thought. I can’t wait to see his face.
After shutting the bedroom door behind me, I climb
onto my big bed to call Luke. I can manipulate him
into accepting Kayla’s relocation, but there’s no urgency,
really. If he doesn’t say yes now, he will eventually. I’m
more than willing to use intense persuasion and the very
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Problem Child
shallow well of patience I possess. And honestly, Luke is
too kind to say no.
You up? I text to Luke.
When he sends back an excited little smiley face, I hit
the call button and listen to barely one full ring before
he answers. “Hey there, sexy,” I drawl.
“Hey yourself. What’s going on? I’ve been dying to
talk to you all day. Is Kayla doing okay? Are you?”
“Yes, we’re both great, to be honest. I took her shop-
ping. Got her hair cut. That kind of thing. She was in
pretty rough shape.” I mean, she was fine, but let’s face
it, her cuticles were a mess.
“Oh, wow. Is she … Jeez, Jane. Is she all right? ”
“I think she’ll be all right with a lot of care and a little security, but it will take time, you know?”
“Yeah. I do. She needs peace and support. Did you
figure out what happened to her? Where she’s been?”
I sigh and stretch out on the huge pile of brocade
pillows. They’re a little scratchy, but I still feel like a beautiful princess. “This has all been so crazy, Luke. A
whirlwind. Pathologically independent as I am, I almost
wish you were here.”
“Aw, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
We both laugh at that. He knows I’ll never be a sweet
girlfriend, and he doesn’t care. He likes that I don’t de-
mand much. I don’t need anything from him. Not really.
I just want.
In some ways, Luke is as damaged as I am, but the
jagged edges of our broken parts fit together nicely.
He wants icy calm, and I’m incapable of providing
much else. Except, of course, when I’m ready to stir
things up.
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Victoria Helen Stone
“She’s a lot like me,” I say on a sigh. “Same family, of
course. Same issues. And she’s very smart. Very capable.”
“I bet.”
“But no one is looking out for her here.” I toe off my
boots and let them thump onto the floor. “She got mixed
up with that pimp, an older guy, and he got into trouble,
and he basically took off with her. She’s been sitting in an empty house, doing whatever he told her to do.”
“That’s where you found her?”
“Yeah. I tracked down the guy and offered to just …
buy her back from him.”
“Jesus.”
“It gets worse.”
“Oh no. Is she hurt? Is she pregnant?”
“No.” I hope not. “No, it’s not that. The guy. Her
pimp…”
“Little Dog?”
“Yeah. He took off after I called. We think he meant
to strike a better deal with a third party, sell Kayla out
to someone else. These men trade girls like they’re cars.
Except he never made it back to Kayla. He was killed last
&nbs
p; night. Stabbed to death.”
“Okay, Jane. You need to get the hell out of there right
now. I’m serious. This is dangerous. Come home now.”
“I know it’s dangerous. I’m fine, I promise. We left
Tulsa this morning. We’re in a hotel in Oklahoma City
now. No one knows we’re here. We’re completely safe.”
“Maybe I should come down there, then.”
I smile at his words, because he really does want to
take care of me—and he’ll want to take care of Kayla too,
because that’s the kind of man he is. That’s good news.
Really good news.
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Problem Child
“We’re all tucked in for the night,” I say soothingly.
“Tomorrow we’re going to the authorities.”
He blows out a long breath, and I can imagine the
way he’s rubbing his forehead right now. He did the same
thing when he heard that his niece had to be rushed to
the emergency room with a high fever.
Luke is a good man. I haven’t known many of those
in my life. To be honest, I haven’t known even one before
Luke, and I somehow managed to collect him along the
way. Lucky me.
“Kayla needs a home,” I say simply.
He draws in a breath on the other end of the connection.
“Okay. But what does that mean? You’re staying there?”
mean at all! I mean that I’m going to try to get custody
and bring Kayla home with me. If I can guide her through
the last two years of high school, be a mentor to her, she’ll be in a great place to get into college and make something
of her life. If she stays here, she doesn’t have a chance.
These people…” I growl instead of ranting about them.
“Oh,” Luke says. “I see.”
“These people are eating her alive. She has the same
challenges with emotion that I have. I know what that’s
like. I can actually help her, and I can’t really say that
about too many kids.”
“Yeah.” The word is a little faint, but then he clears
his throat and lets go of his shock. “Well, of course you
have to.”
“Oh. Of course. I can’t just abandon her. That would
be wrong.”
“Whatever you need from me, you only have to ask.
This is going to be a huge change for you.”
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Victoria Helen Stone
I explode in a hard laugh. “That’s probably the un-
derstatement of the year.”
“Listen.” I can hear him settling in to help already,
his voice edging into determination. “She’s practically
an adult already. And you’re her aunt.”
“True.”
“All she needs is a little bit of support for a couple of
years and a nudge in the right direction. You can do that
easily. No problem.”
“Right. I can do it.”
“Absolutely.”
In that moment I really do wish I were home with
him. I’d even cuddle right into his arms for a few minutes
before turning his attention toward sex.
He treats me like I’m real even if I’m not, and some-
times just being near him feels like intimacy. I’ve always
needed sex to access that feeling, and I certainly need
it with Luke too, but sometimes, on very special occa-
sions, I feel close to him without it. Right now he wants
to make my life less stressful, and even a sociopath can
appreciate that.
It’s time for the biggest step, and I have to approach
carefully. “I’ll need a bigger place.” I let it sit there for only a moment. “Kayla can’t live on my couch for more
than a few weeks. That wouldn’t be fair. She needs to
feel like she has a home.”
“Sure,” he says faintly.
“But listen, that’s not your problem. We’ll discuss all
those complications when I get home. It’s not something
I need to figure out now.”
“You don’t. You have enough on your plate. Don’t
spend any time worrying about it at all, okay? You just
concentrate on Kayla.”
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Problem Child
I feel another surge of anticipation at the thought of
this fun new adventure.
“What will you have to go through to get her moved?”
Luke asks.
“I looked into it,” I say. “If she were in foster care,
it would get complicated. Tons of paperwork and court
hearings and agreements between the states. But on first
glance it looks like her mom can give me temporary
guardianship, especially if Kayla agrees. All I have to do
is get everyone to buy into the idea that Kayla belongs
with me.”
His chuckle is warm and soothing. “I’m not sure it
will be as simple as you make it seem.”
It won’t, but I don’t mention our planned meeting
with Bill Morris. “Eh, the approach is always the same
with my family. They’ll want to be bought off. We just
need to find the right combinations of levers for threats
and rewards. Kayla says she can get her mother to agree.”
“Stressful,” he sighs.
“Yes. But I might be home within a few days if it all
works perfectly.”
“God, it will be so nice to see you, Jane. My bed is
lonely as hell without you.”
but I bet I can make a little field trip to your place when I get back. If you don’t mind a quickie.”
He laughs. “You know I don’t.”
“Okay. I’ll check in tomorrow. And I’ll see you soon.”
“You’ll be great at this,” he says.
Yes, I believe I will.
253
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kayla insists on accompanying me to the lieutenant gov-
ernor’s office, and I’m quite proud. I told her it would be safer for her to stay hidden, but she brushed me off. “Like I’m gonna let you secretly sell me out to this asshole while I eat french fries at a random diner.”
Good girl.
In this day of digital menace, her presence won’t put
her in true jeopardy anyway. The threat she presents won’t
vanish even if she does. Not at this point. Not with me
involved. Roy Morris and his brother have let this go on
too long and it’s gotten very messy.
Bill Morris’s best bet by far is to cut his losses with
his loser brother and wash his hands of the whole thing
before it gets worse. But privilege comes with a hell of
a set of blinders. It’s my job to tear those off and let the full picture shine right into his eyeballs.
A visit to the lieutenant governor sounds important
and stately, but the Oklahoma senate isn’t in session, so
it really just means a trip to a downtown Oklahoma
City office building where Bill Morris runs his drilling
company. There are no marble halls or bas-reliefs here,
just gray carpeting and an elevator ride to the ninth floor.
The internet says the lieutenant governor earns more
than $100,000 a year to serve as president of the state
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Problem Child
senate and fulfill “other duties assigned by the governor.”
The senate meets for only a few months a year, so that’s
nice work if you can get it.
Kayla is padding along in her sparkly flip-flops beside
me, but she’s not wearing short shorts or a fancy new
blouse today. Instead we stopped to buy a new outfit:
a frumpy knee-length skirt and a yellow T-shirt with a
unicorn on it. She looks frail and young, especially with
her edgy new haircut hidden by uneven French braids
that cause her ears to stick out from her narrow head.
She smiles shyly when we approach the reception-
ist’s desk.
“Hello,” I say quietly, “we have an appointment with
Lieutenant Governor Morris.”
The white woman with the short gray haircut main-
tains her polite smile but shakes her head. “I’m afraid I don’t have any appointments on the schedule today, Ms.…?”
“He told us to drop by today, and I rearranged my
schedule for this visit. I’m sure he’s just forgotten. If you could give him my card, he’ll remember.”
“I … I suppose that would be okay. Please have a seat.
I’ll be just a moment.”
I hand over my business card, which identifies me as
an attorney with a law firm in Minneapolis. The card on
which I’ve written the IP address is tucked just behind it.
Kayla and I take seats on two leather armchairs, and I
grab a fancy architecture magazine to flip through.
“He’s on the phone,” the woman says when she returns
to her desk, “but I left your card with him.”
“Thank you.”
I take the time to reach out to the partners of my law
firm with an ingratiating email answering a few questions
about Rob’s cases that I’ve seen floating around in group
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Victoria Helen Stone
emails. Kayla plays a game on her phone and swings her
feet until one of her sandals flies off and she has to retrieve it. I smile indulgently, then aim a lovingly exasperated
eye roll at the receptionist. She laughs quietly.
About ten minutes later she perks up with a start.
“Oh! He can see you now. Would you like to wait here,
young lady? I can find you a Coke somewhere.”
Kayla gives a quick shake of her head and darts to my
side to hold my hand.
“She’ll come with me,” I say, clutching her little hand
tightly, and we follow the woman down a long hallway
toward a closed maple-wood door.
“Mr. Morris,” she says as she sweeps open the door