The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

As I’m speaking, I take her shoes from her and go down on one knee.

“Ta very much.” She watches me fit her shoes over her ankle socks, twisting her hands in front of her. “Kylo’s a really complicated character. Way more complicated than Han. I’d like to be able to create characters that complex.”

“Huh.” I didn’t think of it that way, but I can see why my little author would be interested in him.

“And he’s sort of a daddy,” she says in a rush. “Like a very angry emo daddy. With gigantic anger-management issues. Who tries to kill his baby when she rejects him. He’s not a role-model, I mean. I’m not saying that. But he’s kinda hot. In an angry, pouty way. Not as hot as you, Daddy, but a little hot. Tiny bit hot.”

I straighten and cup her chin in my hand. “Do you have a crush on Kylo Ren?”

“Kinda,” she admits. “Not like a crush-crush. Not a big crush.”

“A little crush?”

“I might have dreamed about him forcing me,” she whispers. “Once or twice.”

Or a million times. My little girl and her rape fantasies.

“I’ll get a black cape, and a red lightsaber, and we’ll act that out. First, I’ll freeze you with my Jedi mind powers, and then I’ll carry you back to my Sith lair, and then I’ll force you to your knees and freeze you again while I fuck your face. How’s that for a scene, little Rey-of-sunshine?”

My little Rey-of-sunshine looks like she might faint. “Yes, please, Daddy,” she squeaks. “But he’s not a Sith.”

Of course, she’d argue that, geek that she is. “You are too much fun. C’mon, let’s go find Niall before your rape fantasies give me such a stiffy they bar me from the gym.”

I drag her off to the gym, thinking about where I can get a lightsaber, and which of my club-brothers will have Stormtrooper uniforms, and never once about Miranda and the baby that might be mine.

* * *

A full work-out with Niall, rather than the abbreviated one I had yesterday while saving my energy for our scene, loosens all the knots watching hours of video footage put in my muscles. While I’m spotting Niall on the bench, I tell him about our CCTV-fest.

“Glamorous life of a detective,” he snorts.

“Screw you, Bob-the-Builder.”

Niall’s told me he runs a contracting firm in Orange County, and that although he has several crews working for him, he can’t keep off the tools himself. “Too much brickie in me blood,” he claimed. Since my own father was only one generation off the hammer and nails that makes me like Niall even more.

He chuckles, not taking offense. Something else I like about Niall. He has the same sense of humor I grew up with. It’s not something all Americans understand, British humor. Emily, who packs her own wallop of snark when she wants to, gets it, thank God for her.

“Need me to watch yer girl today?” he asks, as we move toward the treadmills, where Emily’s already dutifully climbing digital hills.

“No, I’ve got her covered. But thanks for the offer.”

“Any time. I mean that, yeh gobshite.”

“Wanker.”

With my endorphins surging from the workout, my body loose from the Jacuzzi afterwards, and my mood lifted by the craic with Niall, returning to watching CCTV footage seems unbearably depressing. Widows might be the worst part of my job but watching an empty corridor minute by minute is a close second.

Emily seems undeterred. She takes the laptops from me when I remove them from my room safe, and when I tell her I’m going to take a quick shower, she skips off to her own cabin, singing Rusted Root’s “Send Me on My Way.”

She moves on to the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be” while I’m shaving. Hearing her soft accent trying to wrap around words like “haver” has me laughing so hard I nick my chin. She encores with the Scissor Sisters’ “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” as I pull on a black muscle shirt and relaxed jeans. Hearing her singing makes the prospect of corridor-watching less bleak, and I grab a reward for her that might make the time pass faster for both of us.

When I lock the connecting door behind me and survey her cabin, I realize I underestimated my little girl.

There’s no sign of her, or the laptops, but there’s no question where they are: inside a huge fort of cushions and bedding she’s built between the couches and desk.

As I walk over to the blanket fort, I hear her giggle.

“Hmm, where did Emily go?”

A peal of giggles answers me.

I move back to the bed and pretend to check under it. “No, not here.”

When I turn around, I catch a pair of bright eyes peeping at me before she ducks back inside the fort. “Where’s Emily?”

More wild giggles.

I lift the edge of the blankets but don’t look inside. “Is she in here?”

“Yes, Daddy!” She crawls forward on her hands and knees so she can peer up at me, with a cheek-splitting grin. “I built a fort.”

“I see that. Is it big enough for Daddy?”

She nods earnestly. “I made it Daddy-sized. It’s even big enough for a wolfy-daddy. But you have to come in on your hands and knees.”

She shuffles back and I squeeze in, careful not to bring the whole thing down on our heads. There’s plenty of space inside, and she’s set up my laptop on the coffee table, easily seen from the pile of pillows she’s lying on, while her laptop is on the floor in front of her so she can type. I stretch out behind her, keeping my surprise hidden behind my back. She wriggles so she’s resting against my length and sighs happily when I nuzzle her neck, before she taps my laptop to start the playback.

“I have an idea for how we can make this pass a little faster, baby doll,” I whisper into her hair, as the empty corridor begins rolling.

“Yes,