Healing the Scars: A Small Town Enemies to Lovers Novel by Olivia Reign

Author:Olivia Reign [Reign, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joyce Oliver Books, LLC
Published: 2023-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Rex

Dallas

I slipped out of my cop car, grabbed the bottle of wine, crossed the parking lot, and took the steps to the County Tax Office. I bypassed the seating area where a few people lingered and headed up to the office where Sarah Yates worked. I knocked on her door.

“Come in,” she called, and I stepped in and forced a grin on my face.

She looked up, and exasperation and wariness marked her face. “What do you want?”

“Oh, come on,” I said, holding the bottle up. “I heard you had another baby? What is it now, baby number four?”

“Three.” She sighed. “If you’re here, it means you want something.”

“Is that how little you think of me?” I asked, pressing the charm. I hated schmoozing bitches just to get what I wanted, but it was part of the job. I had to find Ava if she was alive, and if she was living, I needed to find a way to shut her up for good. Handing Sarah the bottle, I asked, “Can’t I just be happy for you and bring you a gift?”

She took it. “Not that I’ve proven you to have ever done so before. What do you want, Rex?”

“I need access to your records for ten minutes tops,” I said. “I need to run a search for someone.”

Sarah looked at me. “And your fancy police station records can’t do that?”

“We only get access to people with records,” I explained with a fake smile. “This woman is not a felon; she’s just a civilian who might be in contact with one.”

Rolling her eyes, she went to her desk and swiped her card. “You have ten minutes. Not any more.”

She led me to the back, where a row of computers sat. “These are for the clerks, two who are out of sick today, and the other is out of lunch. I’ll be timing you.”

“Thanks, sweetness.” I kissed her cheek, hating the scent of a stinky cat on her.

When she left, I sat, tapped the computer awake, entered the system, and typed Ava’s name into the bar—the results—nothing, well, not from the past seven years. The only tax records were from when she had worked during our time together. After that—bupkis.

No taxes. That did not mean she was dead.

When the house burned down, even though the inspector had not found a body or two in the rubble, I’d gotten the coroner to make Ava dead. With her and that boy gone, I’d be free from responsibilities and whatever it took to care for a woman and her spawn.

That boy.

I never wanted kids. And when I’d found out she was preggo, I’d wanted to ditch her, but I’d stayed. Only to get wrapped up in her shitty whining that much more.

Baby wants this, and baby needs that…

Jesus.

After skimming the list, I closed the search engine and returned to Sarah. She looked up from her coffee cup, and from the now-absent bottle of wine on the table, I knew she was not drinking coffee. I didn’t blame her—public service jobs were shit.

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