Miguel and I were taken to the Sacramento FBI office, shoved in a room and handcuffed to a bench. This wasn’t the first time I’d been arrested, but it was the first time I’d ever been arrested by a federal agency. My reward for trying to save my idiot brother. I couldn’t wait to see Super Agent’s face when he came to bail me out. Only there would be no bailing me out this time. I’d gone too far.
Would he visit me in prison? The conjugal visits would be freakin’ amazing.
A federal prisoner and a federal agent. That would look really awesome on our wedding invitations. I wondered if they made bride-and-groom cake toppers with the groom in an ill-fitting suit and the bride in an orange jumpsuit. Maybe the wedding planner could work orange into the overall theme.
Oh, who was I kidding? He’d drop me like the career-ender I was. And rightly so.
“What’s it like?”
Miguel’s quiet question drew me out of my tortured musings. “What?”
“Having a kid?”
“Jesus.” He’d caught me off guard with that question. I never talked about this. Never. “It hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, but what’s it like?”
“How in the hell should I know? I didn’t stick around past the hurting-like-hell part. Why are we talking about this now?”
“Do you think I’ll be a good father? You know…if I ever get out of jail.”
“I hope… No, I think you’ll do the best you can. At least you’d better.”
“I’ll try. It’s going to suck not being there for the birth. For Alice.”
“At least you’ll be involved however you can. You will, won’t you?” At his nod I let out a tense breath. I’d been half afraid Miguel would run from fatherhood just like our dad had. We didn’t have the best parental role models. “I’ll tell you this… It hurt twice as much doing it alone. Going through everything, making decisions…all of it alone. I didn’t want that for Alice. I didn’t want your child’s mother to go through what I went through.”
I lowered my head, trying to hide the sudden tears at the backs of my eyes. “And I didn’t want your child growing up with half of what he should have like we did.”
“Do you ever think about her?”
“Can we stop talking about this now? This room is likely wired.”
“You’re probably right.” He exhaled a heavy breath. “Thanks.”
“What for?”
“For finding me. If you hadn’t…”
“I told you to shut up. Don’t you ever listen?”
He chuckled. “I love you too.”
“Eff off.” Then after a moment, because I didn’t know if I’d ever get another chance to tell him face to face… “I love you too.”
He grinned at me and he looked so much like our father at our age the tears started pricking my eyes again. What the hell was wrong with me today?
The door opened and in walked Super Agent with a couple of the suits who’d burst through our hotel room door. Man, he looked good. And pissed. Reeeaaally pissed.
“Uncuff her,” he told one of the agents, hauling a chair over to sit on backwards. “You want to tell me why you didn’t follow the plan?” Uh, yeah. Totally pissed. Man, he was hot when angry, all puffed up and stern-faced. Da-yum.
I rubbed at my sore wrists. “There were complications.”
He glanced over at Miguel then back at me. “I can only imagine.”
“What plan?” Miguel asked.
“You stole a car,” Super Agent said, completely ignoring Miguel.
“Sergei put a tracker on the rental and there was no time to procure a new rental. So I improvised.”
Miguel piped up again. “What plan? What the heck is going on here?”
“You were supposed to get him and get to the rendezvous point. What happened?”
“I told you, there was no time. Sergei was on to your plan so I made a new one.”
Super Agent made some kind of hand signal. The other agents freed Miguel from the bench and started to haul him out of the room.
Miguel fixed me with a mistrustful glare, turning to look over his shoulder as they pulled him out the door. “What the heck is going on here, Maggie?”
I only hoped when Miguel heard the full extent of what I’d done for him, he’d forgive me and go along with whatever the FBI wanted. Unfortunately my brother was the kind of guy who would somehow manage to find a way to screw up winning the lottery.