chapter 15

Her eyes flickered, seeing me, and the ends of her mouth curved down. “What do you mean?”

“I need you to ask your father to do something. That means I need you to bail him out, first step. You are blocked from doing that. What can I do to help remove that block so you can stomach the idea of seeing your father?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Beat him up? I don’t know . . .” She looked away.

I frowned, moving closer. “That’d make you feel better? If I beat him up?”

Her head folded down, and she was tapping her pen down onto her desk.

I looked her over, seeing the rigidness. The tension, so I took a moment, one moment, and put myself in her shoes. I considered what I’d told her, what she’d said. Her mother. The truth. Her father. His hand in how he helped to take away her mother.

My gut flickered. “I could have that done. Easily.”

She looked up, her eyes clouded over. The tension still visible on her face, tightening around her mouth.

She didn’t agree, but she didn’t disagree either.

I took a