“How could she do that?” I sounded like I was whining, but I didn’t care. Poor Gigi. I thought of Rae, so adamant that she was doing her best. Having her friends over to get high while her daughter slept upstairs. My skin crawled and I rubbed my hands over my arms to get rid of the goosebumps.
Lance shrugged. “She’s a junkie. I told you. Once a junkie…”
“Yeah. Right.” I thought back to Gigi telling me how she learned to play poker, and I wondered which one of them taught her. Was it this Scarecrow person? Or the junkie Lance talked to? Or one of who knew how many others? It boggled my mind. Poor Gigi.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We?”
“You, me, we. I don’t know.”
“You’re here to keep an eye on the kid. Which you’ll do. Right?”
I nodded. “Right. Of course.”
“It’s my job to find out what happened to Rae after she met up with The Scarecrow. Where is his normal hideout, did anybody see her around there, that sort of thing. I have to track her down, and I will. It’ll be all right.”
I sank into the chair again, my knees weak. Rae. What the heck had she been doing all this time? And poor Gigi. How many close calls had she had? Her mother was involved with a guy who sold people. I shuddered to think how close Gigi might have come.
“You okay?” Lance asked. His voice was gruff, his eyes staring intensely at me.
“Of course.”
“You seem a little shaken up. It’s okay to be shaken up.”
“Is it? Thanks for the permission.” I turned my head away so he wouldn’t see the tears threatening to overwhelm me.
“What is it? Come on. Listen, I was upset, too. Okay? You wanna hear that? I was upset. I was more than upset. I wanted to kill Bobby for doing drugs in that house while my daughter was upstairs. I wanted to fucking kill him for it. I wanted to kill Rae for letting him do it. I wanted to kill her for putting herself in danger when she was raising my fucking kid. She put Gigi in danger, too. And I know that’s why you’re upset, so don’t bother telling me you’re not.”
I didn’t bother. He was right.
“But Gigi’s okay. She’s here, with us. And we’re not gonna let anything happen to her.”
I looked at him, trying to read him. He was so different from one minute to the next. First, he’d been cold, distant. Now he was caring, for all the gruffness he tried to put out. He couldn’t fool me.
“I believe you,” I admitted.
“You do? I’m surprised.”
“I can tell.” I grinned. “I see how everybody likes her, wants to protect her. That’s reassuring. And as ridiculous as it might sound…I feel better about her being here than I did about her being with her mother.”
He nodded slowly. “That doesn’t sound ridiculous. I guess I understand what you mean, though. The outlaws versus the junkie.”
“Yeah. The outlaws are the ones I’d rather have her with. I saw the way they treat her. It’s sort of sweet.”
“Yeah, it’s weird.” He grinned.
I grinned back. For a brief moment, it was just the two of us. Two people. Not a criminal and a “good person.” Two people who cared about the same person and wanted what was best for her. For a moment, we could put our feelings about each other aside.
Chapter Eight
Lance
Once Gigi was in bed, it was time to relax a little. Everybody had been on their best behavior all day, so the drinks and swearing started flowing fast and heavy when she was upstairs with the door closed.
“God damn, it’s been a long week.” Flash took a whiskey from Erica and tossed it down his throat.
“You’re complaining about my little girl?” I asked, only joking.
“Hey, I’ll be the first one to say she’s a great kid, but it’s a little exhausting being cheerful all the time.”
“You don’t have to be,” Erica pointed out, pouring me a drink. “Just be your normal self.”
“No, don’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “We don’t wanna scar the kid for life.” Flash took a swipe at my head, but I ducked just in time.
Everybody else loosened up, too, and on one of the side room a bunch of club members got an actual game of poker going. Once they had a beer or two in them, things usually got a little out of hand. They deserved it after everything they’d done for Gigi and me.
I noticed movement on the stairs and watched as Jamie came down from Gigi’s room. She looked less than thrilled by the way things turned around while she was upstairs.