Thin Skinned, Margo Collins [recommended reading TXT] 📗

He snorted.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just that Hale Beaumont was picked up this morning on a raid with some known drug-smugglers. Let’s just say he wasn’t trying to get clean.”

Oh. And I would just bet those smugglers were Phil and Ron. I didn’t know why it had been stupid for Phil to bring me to Antonio, but he was definitely paying for it.

I fought the urge to reach up and grab my pendant. I was glad it was tucked into my shirt. “That’s not surprising, Detective,” I said. “I didn’t get the sense Hale was thrilled with our plan.”

“And yet he agreed to it?”

“He did.”

“He’s not really the agreeing type.”

I laughed. “No, he’s not.”

“Any idea why he agreed?”

I shook my head. “I can’t claim to have any idea what goes on in the head of someone like that.” Especially when they’re under pressure from someone like Antonio Lobo.

“Hm. Did you get the signatures you needed from the Beaumonts yesterday?”

I glanced at the paperwork still sitting in the center of my desk. “I did.”

“Good. That’ll make your life—and the baby’s—easier.”

I all but breathed a sigh of relief when Detective Moreland turned to leave. But then he turned back, and fear jumped up into my throat again.

“You know,” Detective Moreland said, and I held my breath, “we’re working on a new grant for a community initiative program. If we can get it worked out, it would provide for a counselor from the Child Advocacy and Protection Center—the CAP-C—to work with children present at a potentially traumatic crime scene.”

I allowed myself to breathe again. “Yes?”

“Yeah.” He glanced through those knowing eyes of his out the window. Then he bent his head toward the ground and scratched the back of his neck with one hand before casting his gaze up at me from behind his dark, cop sunglasses. “I do believe you would make an excellent addition to that team.”

Would I? I wondered after the detective had given me his contact information and left. Or would I simply do whatever was expedient to get my way?

Was I a bad counselor? Or a good one?

I didn’t know.

I stared at the form I had to fill out to complete my report. It was still blank, because I didn’t know what, exactly, to say.

Then I went back to reading the code of ethics online.

So do I really have any ethical dilemmas?

I considered everything I’d done as I arranged to ensure the court’s decision was in Baby Paige’s best interests.

I’d broken confidentiality—by all rights, no one was even supposed to know who my clients were. But Antonio wasn’t going to tell anyone. And really, I hadn’t announced it—the Beaumonts had.

On the plane, at least.

Anyway, there was no legal record of anything. And nothing that had happened had to be reported, at least as the Texas Code of Counselor Ethics was concerned. The parents couldn’t kidnap Paige, because they had been her legal guardians at the time. I hadn’t seen any illegal activity. So there was, technically, nothing to report.

That’s not to say I hadn’t done anything wrong—according to my own sense of morality, anyway.

I’d threatened people. I was certain that I had allowed a drug lord to threaten and bribe people on my behalf. I’d come within inches of demanding a corpse be desecrated. And I was certainly about to lie in a report about how I’d gotten the Beaumonts’ signatures. None of that was okay, by any stretch of the imagination.

But Paige was going to be okay. Better than okay, even, now that she had her aunt and her aunt had the money to care for her.

I skimmed a little farther down the list of prohibited actions in the ethical code.

Oh. Right.

At least I didn’t show anyone my anus.

I shook my head at myself and began writing.

THE END

Continue the Shifter Shield series with another Lindi Parker book, Under Her Skin.

www.margobondcollins.net/the-shifter-shield-series/

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About the Author

USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.) The Lindi Parker Shifter Shield series is one of her most popular to date and includes both the continuing story of Lindi’s adventures as a member of the Shield and a brand-new, forthcoming prequel series. Keep an eye out for Thick Skinned, the second prequel novella!

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