who’d loved to chatter about everything, always trusting her thoughts to her mom, suddenly brought tears to Megan’s eyes. Those sturdy little arms would wrap around her neck and cling so tight.
Clearly, Violet didn’t trust her thoughts to Megan anymore.
If she had only asked… Of course, she shouldn’t have had to. Megan should have been honest, instead of choosing to wait until Violet asked, which would have signaled she was old enough to handle a truth that would rock her world. But there had been no perfect solution to the mess Megan had made. None.
There had only been damage control.
Throwing open the closet doors, she stared blindly at the neat row of clothing. Formal wear. Suits. Business casual. Casual casual. Purses and belts hanging from a unique hanger that Bonsom, their maintenance man in Ghana, had fashioned from akasa, a local wood. Shoes lined neatly on a three-tiered shoe rack for easy access. Orderly.
Exactly what her thoughts weren’t right now.
Megan hoped with her whole heart and soul that he had handled the shock of finding out about his daughter well.
Violet had sounded okay, but Megan knew her daughter, and meeting her father must have been the most important thing in her world to prompt this titanic mutiny.
If things didn’t turn out well, Violet would be so hurt. And he hadn’t had a chance to prepare. He would have been blindsided by the news. Who knew what was going on in his personal life? She could only learn so much on the internet. What if Violet had to not only contend with her father’s reaction, but the reactions of his loved ones? Given his position in the NOPD, what if an illegitimate daughter was not only a shocker, but an embarrassment?
Megan had almost placed Violet for adoption. She’d learned all about the process. She knew children sought out birth parents all the time, but reunions didn’t always yield fairy-tale endings.
If only they’d have had the one all-crucial conversation, they could have come up with a solution to deal with this mess together. A solution that would have prepared Violet and not left him unexpectedly facing a daughter who looked so much like him.
Megan’s thoughts raced with a plea—Please, please, please don’t let Violet be heartbroken. Or…Nic.
There, she’d said his name. In her head at least.
CHAPTER THREE
“NOW WHAT IN HELL IS this problem you couldn’t tell me about on the phone, Jurado?” Dominic DiLeo, newly installed Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, demanded when he caught up with the night’s shift commander.
“It’s a juvenile, Chief.” Deputy Chief Emile Jurado cast a scowling glance around the operations center as if afraid half the duty shift might overhear them. “Picked her up last night in the Quarter for curfew infraction.”
Nic stared at the short powerhouse of a man, clearly missing something. “What’s the problem?”
Another glance around the room. “Not here.”
“Let’s go to my office.” Nic led the way through the rank and file of New Orleans’s finest, inclining his head in silent greeting whenever he made eye contact with any of his men.
Keeping the benign expression on his face proved to take some effort. He was in no mood to play twenty questions this morning. Not after a near-sleepless night spent dealing with his younger brother Damon’s latest drama.
No one in the family was remotely unhappy Damon’s girlfriend had dumped him and run. No one was even surprised—except by how long she’d hung around. If Damon ever listened to anyone, he wouldn’t have been shocked Roxy had vanished from the apartment they’d shared with no more than Ciao scribbled on a napkin and the contents of their joint checking account.
Nic was damned tired of cleaning up Damon’s messes. And everyone else’s for that matter. Nic had put his own life on hold after his father had died. As the oldest, it had been his responsibility to see everyone settled.
Vince’s residency at Charity Hospital should have been the end of the line for Nic. He’d gotten his youngest brother through med school. Marc traveled as a bounty hunter. Anthony had a life with Tess and the twins. Damon was a train wreck, but Anthony had given him space for a dojo above the auto repair shop, so at least Damon could teach martial arts whenever he wasn’t getting involved with the wrong kind of woman.
His baby sister, Francesca, had blown out of New Orleans the day after she’d graduated from high school, so there wasn’t much he’d been able to do there. Except blast her for not keeping in touch. On voice mail, usually, since she didn’t bother picking up his calls.
Everyone was as settled as they were going to be. But no sooner had Nic started looking forward to a life that didn’t involve taking care of someone named DiLeo than he’d been derailed when the new mayor had appointed him as the new superintendent, a glorified title for the chief of police.
“We’ve got to clean up this department, Nic,” the mayor had said. “We’ve got to earn the community’s trust again. I don’t care what the good old boys around here say. They’re part of the problem. You’re the right man for this job and the Feds agree.”
What was Nic going to do except trade his title as commander for superintendent and postpone living a while longer?
In the corridor to his office, he reached for the door—
“Wait a sec, Chief. You don’t want to go in yet.”
Nic paused with his hand on the knob and glanced over his shoulder. “Why not?”
“She’s in there.”
Nic shook his head, unsure he’d heard correctly. “Let me get this straight. You picked up a minor in violation last night and she’s not at the curfew center, but in my office?”
Jurado shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because she refused to talk to anyone but you.”
“Help me out here, Jurado. Where’d you pick her up?”
“Big Mike’s place on Iberville.”
That got Nic’s attention. He’d taken a stroll to Big Mike’s place on Iberville last night, and since he didn’t believe in coincidences… “You want me to start guessing wildly?”
“Got the call after midnight. Ever since we received that anonymous tip Busybodies Massage Spa was a front for prostitution, we’ve been keeping an eye on the place.”
“That much I already know.” He’d still been Eighth District commander when Big Mike, proprietor of Insane, Ink, had leased space to Busybodies to keep his doors open in the down economy.
“Disturbance in the massage spa. Customer allegedly got handsy with one of the therapists,” Jurado explained. “The owner called in because she thinks we’re looking for some reason to shut her down. She was afraid this customer would cause trouble if he didn’t get what he wanted.”
“Let
