Two Sides to Every Story (Love Spectrum Romance) by Dyanne Davis Page B

you.”
    “We’re okay, baby. Your mother is getting ready to go see Adrian this afternoon for awhile.”
    “You’re not going, Daddy?”
    “Nah, baby. I have to talk to a real estate agent. Your mama and I talked and we’re thinking of either selling the house or getting a second mortgage.”
    “Why?”
    “We’re running out of money to pay the investigator.”
    A lump formed in Angela’s throat. If she weren’t trying to help Adrian by living in the Pilsen area she could give her parents more money to help. She bit her lips and cringed. “Can you put that off for a little while?”
    “We need the money to pay him.”
    “How much money do you need?”
    “Honey, I wasn’t telling you this to make you feel guilty or to have you come up with money. That’s not what we want; we’ll take care of this.”
    “But he’s my brother. I want to help.”
    “You don’t have that kind of money.”
    “How do you know? You haven’t told me how much money you need.”
    “It varies but it usually runs about two thousand dollars a month.”
    “Daddy, hold off on doing anything with the house. I can handle at least one month.”
    “Will it hurt you, baby?”
    “No, I was just saving it for a trip. I won’t be taking any trips until Adrian comes home.”
    “Your mother and I don’t want you giving up your life. You have a right to go on vacation. You work hard.”
    “Well, I’d rather give you the money,” Angela insisted.
    “Then what? You can’t afford to pay it and neither can we. Why delay the inevitable? You help for a month, the month after we’ll still have to do what I’m going to do today.”
    “But you may not have to. Maybe by then there’ll be a break. Maybe the investigator will come up with something. Who knows? Just take the money and promise me you’ll not do anything about the house.”
    “But your mother and I talked already. We made plans.”
    “Promise me, Daddy.”
    “Honey?”
    “Promise?” she pleaded.
    “I promise.”
    “Good,” Angela answered. “Give me the detective’s address and I’ll send him a check.”
    For a long moment her father was quiet. She knew he didn’t like taking her money and she knew that more than likely he knew it wasn’t for any trip. “Don’t worry,” she assured her father, “this nightmare will be over soon.”
    “I don’t know,” he answered. “Even if it’s over for Adrian it won’t be over. Every day the Chicago cops are in the news. Every day they’re beating somebody, shooting someone in the back. God, I’m glad they didn’t kill my son.”
    “Me too,” Angela whispered, feeling like a traitor. She’d slept with the enemy and it had felt so right. He’d felt so right. “I have to go now, Daddy. I have to work.”
    Angela hung up the phone, sickened by her own actions. She was sleeping with a Chicago cop. What in the world was the matter with her?
    Two days later she was having the same feelings, only intensified. She was sitting across from her brother at the prison, wishing she had better news to tell him.
    “Adrian, why won’t you tell the detective about Teresa? Maybe with both of us looking for her we could find her. Do you have any idea the kind of money Daddy’s paying him? It’s almost two thousand dollars a month. They can’t afford that for long, we both know it.”
    “What do you want them to do, let me rot in here?”
    “You know I don’t want that. But what’s going to happen if they sell the house and have nowhere to live? Daddy can’t work forever. They’re going to lose everything.”
    “They haven’t lost their freedom. They still have that. I don’t.”
    Angela wanted to tell her brother how selfish he was being but didn’t. She had never been in prison. She could only imagine how horrible it was for him. And she didn’t blame him, he was probably going a little crazy being locked up.
    “Did you deposit money in my account?”
    “Yes. Why did you need so much?” She blinked at the hard