Something about my pants didn’t feel right.
They felt… looser.
Hand going to my ass, I stabbed my fingers into my back pocket, the same one where I kept my wallet. A wallet that I quickly discovered was missing. “Hang on,” I mumbled. “Where did—” I froze, the events of what happened seconds before replaying in my head.
The collision.
The feel of her hands on my belt.
“Son of a bitch,” I murmured, realization striking me in the face like a twenty-pound sledgehammer. “The little shit pickpocketed me.”
Mad as hell, I strode after her.
Slamming through the drugstore’s door, I stormed outside, eyes searching for her as far as they could see.
But she was gone.
Like a ghost, she’d disappeared.
Completely vanished.
“You have got to be kidding me! First, she steals my wallet right out of my pants—while I’m wearing them, I might add—and then she disappears. Who is this woman? Houdini’s damned sister?”
“Uh, Cap…”
Fuming, I snapped my head to the right, gaze finding Kyle Tucker, or Tuck as I called him, who’d appeared out of nowhere. Assigned to my fire station, he was Hendrix’s best friend, and one of the biggest pain in the asses I’ve ever had the honor of keeping in line day in and day out.
“You alright?” he asked, looking halfway concerned. It was a big deal considering Tuck didn’t show concern over much of anything. Locked up in his head, he kept to himself most of the time. “’Cause you don’t look alright, standing out here, talking to yourself.” His eyes narrowed. “You haven’t been drinking, have you? Because if so, I’ll beat your ass myself so Hendrix doesn’t have to.”
Drinking? Never again.
That was a guarantee.
“I’d like to see you try,” I replied, knowing he meant well. “But to answer your question—no, I haven’t been drinking. I’m just pissed because some little pixie pickpocketed me inside the drugstore and took off with my wallet.”
He blinked. “You got robbed by Tinkerbell?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Chuckling, I ran a lone hand through my hair, mussing my short black locks. “Fairly sure Tinkerbell is a fairy, Tuck, not a pixie.”
“What’s the—”
“I don’t know what the difference is,” I interjected, cutting him off. Dropping my head back, I stared up at the black sky. A migraine hovered at the edges of my consciousness. “All I know is that I’m down a wallet thanks to one pretty little thief.”
“She was pretty?”
Righting my head, I glared at both him and the smirk he wore. “If you don’t wipe that look off your face, you’ll be on boot duty for the next month.”
A scowl quickly replaced said smirk. “Christ, Cap. Do you know how to be anything other than a dickhead?”
I forced a toothy smile. “I do, but I wouldn’t want to spoil you by being sweet.”
Grinning, he flipped me off. “Fuck off.” Walking toward the front door of the drugstore, he pointed back toward my truck.
“By the way, your wallet’s on the hood of your truck. I can see it from here. Don’t know how it got there, but apparently a pretty little pixie didn’t steal it after all. Go get your head examined, you grump. Obviously, you’re losing it.”
Ignoring his smart-ass comment, I spun around. Glimpsing something small lying on my truck, just beneath the windshield, I gripped my bag tight, and high-tailed it down the sidewalk, leaving Tuck to his business.
Reaching my pickup, I snatched up a familiar black wallet, the same one that had been stolen right out of my pocket minutes earlier.
“Why would she steal my wallet and then leave it here?” When I flipped the leather open a second later, I had the answer to my question.
Sort of.
Like my mystery woman, my cash was missing—every dollar. Yet everything else remained. “Fuck me,” I growled. “She got away with close to four hundred bucks.”
I never carried around actual money, much less a wad like that, but I’d withdrawn enough to make a donation, one I considered penance, to the shelter where Maddie and my daughter both worked.
“Sneaky ass little thief. At least she gave me everything but my cash back.” I snorted and continued to talk to myself. “That was nice of her.” Sarcasm dripped from my tone as my blood boiled.
Given the path in life I was attempting to take, I tried my damnedest not to judge anyone. Junkies, alcoholics, gamblers—I didn’t look down on any of them. But one thing I couldn’t stand—other than abusers like I’d once been—was a thief.
Speaking as a man who would’ve given someone the shirt off his back if they asked for it, there was no reason to steal a thing from me. I didn’t know Little Miss Attitude one iota, but if she would’ve told me she needed something, I would have broken my neck to help her.
What I wouldn’t have done, however, is given her cash to support an addiction I was ninety-nine percent sure she had. And given that she frequently bought condoms according to the cashier inside, I had my suspicions about how she supported said habit.
She’s selling herself.
My gut twisted at the thought.
I may not have known the woman, but she was someone’s daughter, maybe even someone’s sister or mother. For that reason alone, she deserved help. And who better to give it to her than me, a man who was planning to spend the rest of his life atoning for all the wrong he’d done?
Nobody.
That’s who.
After shooting Hendrix a quick text informing him that I’d be by later than expected, I jumped into my truck and started the engine. Then, without knowing how much chasing after her would change my life, I drove toward the one place I thought she’d be.
It was one of the smartest things I ever did.
Four
James
Toluca was turning into a dump.
The abandoned buildings and boarded up homes making up the west side of town were proof of that. It cut me to see because West Toluca was where I grew up, and where some of my best memories originated from.
Along with some of my
