Stay (Dunham series #2) by Moriah Jovan Page A

vinaigrette. I think Granny Clampett
would approve.”
    “And Hannibal Lecter.”
    “And why is he the bad guy? He’s just epicurious .”
    Knox snorted.
    She handed him a breadbasket and he piled a dozen
cookies in it. “Orange juice?” she asked sarcastically.
    “Is there any other drink in the world? No, there is
not.”
    “Your doctor told you to lay off the sauce a while
back.”
    “You know what? As long as Justice doesn’t know and
you keep your mouth shut, what my doctor wants doesn’t matter.”
    Vanessa pursed her lips. “Don’t you think the
suicide-by-sugar plan’s kind of stupid now that you got your
inheritance and that family you always wanted?”
    “Well, you’re probably right about that, but until I
decide to get on the wagon, you don’t breathe a word.”
    She signaled a server to take the food out to the
grand parlor so Knox wouldn’t try to carry it himself. “So. Dad . You think you can handle the phones and play chess at
the same time?”
    He smirked. “Yeah, I think so. Give my love to
Laura.”
    “Sure thing.”
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    7: Low-Rent Rendezvous
     
     
    By mid-afternoon, the office teemed and thrummed
with the comings and goings of attorneys, county deputies, Kansas
City cops, state troopers, criminals, and witnesses—
    —just another day in a prosecutor’s office.
    Eric sat at Knox’s— his —desk sorting through a
handful of very old résumés and wondered if he should try to get in
touch with any of these people.
    A state trooper burst through his door, dragging a
blond twelve-year-old boy who turned the air blue with profanities
he’d learned direct from his mother and grandmother. Eric sighed
and pointed to one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk.
    The officer snarled at the boy and cuffed him to the
chair without having to be told. With one slap upside the kid’s
head, he stalked out, his dignity offended by having to wrestle
with the brat.
    The boy spat at Eric, but it missed his mark; it was
an old tactic and every cop knew to park the kid far enough away
from any available human target.
    “What’d you do this time, Junior?”
    His nostrils flared. “Fuck you, Cipriani,” he
returned. As usual.
    What a waste of skin, doomed from birth. It wasn’t
the kid’s fault; he hadn’t chosen his family. When he still
wouldn’t answer the question, Eric went back to reading résumés,
knowing his phone would ring at any moment—
    “Cipriani.”
    “I want to file charges on that boy of yours.”
    Eric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, not
bothering to correct the assertion, considering “that boy of yours”
was county shorthand for “Simone Whittaker’s kid, you know, the kid
with the same name as the prosecutor.”
    Yes, it is true that Simone Whittaker had a son
approximately nine months after I left for college and claims that
I am his father. DNA testing has confirmed that I am not. Your
press kit includes copies of the lab tests and all court documents,
including his original and amended birth certificates.
    “Do something with him. That’s the fifth time in two
months he’s taken off with something he could pawn.”
    “What was it this time?”
    “Brand new CB radio.”
    “They still make those?”
    “Eric!”
    “Sam, I don’t even know why you bother calling. Just
send me the damned bill. As usual.”
    He hung up and looked at the boy, who stared off to
his left, out the window at the bleakness of winter. He did that a
lot, Eric had noticed, as if he were far away, perhaps on a pirate
ship or the space shuttle on his way to Mars. Maybe in a car
running two hundred on a NASCAR track or pumping a bicycle in
France, a hundred other cyclists on his tail. He remembered those
fantasies, the escape, the need to get away from his life. Too bad
the kid couldn’t read; there were whole libraries available to lose
himself in.
    Thirty-two-year-old Eric Cipriani looked at the
twelve-year-old Eric Cipriani, wondering how many