“Oh no.” She braced herself. “Tell me.”
If he could take all of this away for her, he would.
But then you wouldn’t be here.
“The cameras caught the same car driving past several times last night. Once at eleven. Then around eleven forty-five. And again at one. We ran the plates. The owner is a lady called Betty Jean Mathers.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name. Maybe she’s one of my neighbors.”
“Betty Jean has a nephew called Vincent Frank.”
“Oh God. You think that Vince drove past my house. Three times?”
“More than that, unfortunately. We went back through the footage and he’s driven past on two other nights. The car’s license plate didn’t set up any alarm bells until it went past several times and Brody decided to do some digging.”
“Shit. Why is Vince driving past my house?” she cried. “What if he’d decided to do something?”
“The good news is that he knows I’m here. So he’s not likely to try something. He might know about the new security system since we charged your father for it. At the very least he’s got to assume we put one in. So he’ll be careful since he won’t want to get caught. That’s why he borrowed his aunt’s car. Vince doesn’t want to get caught. But I do want us to be extra cautious. Vince is a wildcard. We don’t know what he will do. And we don’t have any hard evidence on him yet.”
If necessary they could fake that evidence, but they had to tread carefully. Vince was one of her father’s main guys and it could wreck the case that was being built against the police chief if they did anything to him now.
“Right. I get it.” She shook her head. “Any evidence would have to be rock solid to go up against Vince, anyway. My father or my stepbrothers would likely just get rid of it.”
“It might seem like Vince and your father and stepbrothers have all the power, but they don’t. They’re just men. And I will not allow them to ever hurt you.”
Maya took in a deep breath. “Right. I know. I just . . . I don’t want you to be hurt, either.”
Lord, she was sweet.
“That’s nice of you to worry about me, but you don’t need to take that on. Understand? It’s my job to worry about you, not the other way around. And I’m going to take care of your babies too.”
“Maybe I should move them somewhere safe. It’s just . . . Tank . . .” She glanced over at the open doorway. “I know you probably think I’m silly to care so much about a dog?—”
“I don’t think that at all,” he told her in a tender voice. “I know they’re your babies.”
“They are. They’re all I have.”
He didn’t like that. They weren’t all she had. He knew that she thought no one would care if she died or not, but he knew that wasn’t the case.
She had friends. Livvy and Millie.
He even thought her brother might care. He knew that he’d been in contact with Ink a few times to check on her. Although Matthieu thought he could have done more.
And Matthieu cared.
Too much.
“I think I might go back to bed,” she said, looking completely overwhelmed.
Merde.
He wished he could let her. But he couldn’t let things go on how they had been these past few days. “Soon, you can. But we have to talk about something else and you’re not going to like it.”
Oh crap.
She could tell by the look in his face what he was about to say. This was the conversation she’d thought they’d been going to have when he’d first knocked on her door.
“I really don’t think we need to have this chat,” she said hastily.
