“Why? I thought you wanted to marry her?”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, and it was easy to tell that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I needed to know what had happened. “Tell me, what’s going on, Peter?”

“We had this stupid fight, and I was a bit of an ass. We were fighting in the car, and I pulled over. We fought some more, and it got a little physical, she was hitting me, and I had a hold of her hair. Completely in self-defense, of course. Anyway, she got out of the car, and I left her on the side of the road.”

“You left her at the side of the road? Do you even know if she got home okay? You know there is a serial killer in the area, right?”

Fuming, I stood and began to pace as I thought. I would never win any mother of the year awards, but I didn’t want to end up at a murder scene and have my daughter’s face staring back at me.

“Yeah, she was fine,” he said but looked down.

“Are you sure? I haven’t heard from her, and I’ve left her a ton of messages.”

“She used the ticket, didn’t she,” Peter asked, but I wasn’t sure.

“I think so. I don’t know.” I pulled out my phone from my suit jacket to find out, but the phone rang, and Kirby’s name came up. “It’s like she knew we were talking about her.”

I showed the screen to Peter, and he nodded as I answered.

“Hey, finally. It’s nice of you to call me back.”

“I’ve been busy. I plan on staying another two weeks, so I need you to make sure that it happens and that I can still come back to classes,” Kirby said, and my mouth fell open.

“Hi, mom, how are you? Would’ve been a kinder hello.” I mocked my daughter. “I’m not doing that, especially for you to gallivant around Europe. No, you come home in a couple of days like you planned, or you’re out of the FBI program.” I paced as my anger flared. My gaze flicked over to Peter. “And what is this I hear about you having another fight with Peter over something stupid. When are you going to stop acting like such a child and grow up? Peter wants to marry you, and you should be focusing on school and him.”

“First of all, Peter is nothing more than a narcissistic, self-centered, fucking asshole. Marrying him is never going to happen. Second, you will make sure that I have two more weeks off, or I’m going to make it known to everyone you try to impress that you only got your job by sucking cock.”