Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Millie Drakos's farmhouse was the kind of place that made you slow down before you even got through the gate.
The white picket fence stood taller than you expected, and the orchard beyond it was full of trees covered in blossoms. Mixed with the smell of apple blossoms was lavender from her fields behind the house. This was a magical place.
Angelica had called ahead, which mattered.
"She needs a minute to prepare herself," Angelica explained as she pulled through the gate. "It's not personal, it's just how things work."
"I know," I said. "I've known Millie for years."
"Right, but you haven't been here since she and Renzo got married, and things have changed a lot."
They had. The front porch had new rocking chairs, and there were two ceramic planters on either side of the door that I didn't remember from before. Small things. Evidence of a person making space for another person in their life.
Millie opened the door before we knocked.
She was petite, with those high cheekbones that always made her look like a model when the light was just right, and she was wrapped in a thick cardigan the color of oatmeal. She smiled when she saw Angelica, and the smile widened when she saw me.
"Zoe. I’m glad you decided to come."
"I go where Angelica goes," I said. "It seemed safer."
Millie laughed. It was a real one. That was the thing about Millie. When she laughed, she meant it.
Inside, the house smelled like something yummy. Cinnamon and sugar. We settled in the living room with mugs of tea, a plate of huge and soft snickerdoodle cookies. I was in heaven.
Angelica launched in. She was involved in the Make-A-Wish effort this year, had been for the past three, and she wanted to know if Millie was still connected to the same organizer she'd worked with the previous spring.
"I am." Millie reached for her phone. "Actually, I’ve been making a lot of phone calls. Donations started slow, but they’re ticking upwards.”
I took another cookie. "These are fantastic. How can I help?”
“Donations,” they both said in unison.
“We’re having a silent auction, and some of your pieces would be perfect,” Angelica said. Then she turned to Millie. "Can I ask you something personal?"
Millie looked up. "Sure."
"How have you been holding up with all of the travelling? Renzo mentioned you’ve taken three plane trips out of state without him this year. I think that's remarkable. How are you managing to cope?”
Millie set her mug down. She was quiet for a moment, but it was the kind of quiet that was thinking rather than avoiding.
"The thing that helps the most was naming each moment as it was happening. Just: I am walking through this door. I am sitting in this seat. I couldn't think about what came next or I would spiral. I had to stay in the three feet around me."
I thought about that. The three feet around me.
"Having Renzo with me the first trip, helped immensely," she added. "He is annoyingly good at keeping me in the present moment." She said it with so much warmth that it didn’t come out as a complaint.
"You're doing so well," Angelica said softly.
Millie shook her head. "I'm doing better. There's a difference." She looked at me. "How are things with you and Adam? Have you spent much time with James? He’s such a love."
“Adam has approved my first sleepover tonight. It was slow going in the beginning. James was rooting for Miss Angel over here to begin with.” I pointed toward my best friend.
Millie laughed. “For real?”
“For real,” Angelica said. “He said I was pretty, but I truly think it was my Mario Kart abilities.”
“Renzo’s really impressed by Adam,” Millie said.
“He is?” I was fishing.
"He said that Adam is competent and fair and has excellent taste in building materials." She paused. "And that when he talks about you, he makes it sound like you hung the moon."
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
"Renzo said that," Angelica confirmed, apparently done pretending she had nothing to do with any of this.
I processed that for a second.
"Speaking of which." I set down my mug. "Have you noticed that Renzo has been unusually quiet about the project lately?"
The shift in Millie's expression was small but immediate.
"Yes." She said it carefully. "He usually tells me everything about all of his projects. Every setback, every win, who showed up late, whose coffee order was wrong. Lately, I get a brief summary and a subject change." She looked at me. "I told myself it was because things were moving fast."
"Adam's pretty close-mouthed about this project," I said. "But I don't have a baseline for how talkative he usually is about work, so I didn't want to assume."
"I should have seen it as the red flag it was," Millie said quietly.
Angelica had gone still beside me. She was thinking. I recognized the look; it was the expression she wore when something was assembling itself in her head.
"Code's been on his laptop a lot," she said. "Kit mentioned it. She said he'd pulled up what looked like camera feeds of the property."
Millie's eyes met mine.
Onyx Security.
If Code Drakos had camera feeds of the jobsite, it wasn't precautionary. Code didn't do precautionary. He did targeted.
"The only reason Renzo stops talking," Millie said, "is if he's trying to protect someone." She said it flatly, a fact she'd learned from experience.
Angelica pulled out her phone. She found a contact, pressed call, and put it on speaker before either of us could ask who she was calling.
It rang twice.
"Angel." Jase's voice was unhurried. "Is everything okay? I'm here in Wyoming, I can’t come over if you need something quick."
"Oh." A small pause. "I thought you were working on this project here in town with Code."
"No, this Wyoming situation has me tied up. What do you need?"
"Nothing, I just." She found her footing. "I was thinking about the situation with Renzo and Adam's project. Do you think Code and the rest of the team have things covered? I know Renzo's worried."
A beat of silence.
"Yeah, they'll get the sons of bitches." His voice was easy, certain. "Don't worry."
"But it's pretty bad, isn't it?"
Another pause. Shorter this time.
"Wait just a minute, Angel. You're pumping me for information." It wasn't an accusation. It was almost amused. "You don't actually know what's going on, do you?"
"Of course I know what's going on." Breezy. "I'm just worried about everyone here."
"Bullshit." He infused warmth into the word. "Now keep your nose out of things. Everything is handled."
He hung up.
Angelica lowered the phone and looked at us both.
"So," she said. "It's serious."
I'd been thinking about the visit at Millie's for the entire drive back to town, and then I'd gone home, changed three times, and reminded myself that all my nephews thought I was cool.
The little man I wanted to impress opened the door before I knocked. Wearing a green dinosaur shirt, with a sock on one foot and no sock on the other, James flung the door open with the supreme confidence of the well-loved.
He looked at me and didn’t say anything, turning instead and bellowing over his shoulder. "Dad! Zoe’s here!"
Adam appeared immediately, his face a thundercloud. “James, what have I said about you unlocking the door and opening it?”
James chin trembled. “That I shouldn’t.”
Adam crouched down in front of his son. “That’s right, you shouldn’t. And it’s my fault for not having the chain on the door. But, son, I need you to listen to me. You can’t just open the door like that.”
“But you said Miss Zoe was coming over.”
“I know, but until I check and make sure it’s Miss Zoe at the door, we don’t open it. Got it?”
James gave his father a solemn nod. “Okey-doke.”
James turned his attention back to me with the direct assessment that only very small children and very old people got away with.
"Do you want to play Mario Kart?"
“I absolutely want to play Mario Kart.”
Twelve minutes later, I was on the floor with a red juice box, a Nintendo Switch controller, and the knowledge that I might actually lose, despite having practiced for two solid hours.
"I'm winning," James announced.
"I noticed."
"Do you want me to show you how to use the mushroom boost?"
"I know how to use the mushroom boost,” I grumbled under my breath.
"You're not using it right."
I couldn’t argue with the kid.
We played for what felt like a long time and was probably only forty-five minutes. Minutes that were punctuated by James's ongoing commentary on which track was the hardest. He said it was Rainbow Road. He also insisted that Toad was the best character, which I had no way to prove or disprove.
Adam finally appeared in the doorway, like some kind of savior.
“Please say dinner’s ready,” I begged.
He wiped his hands on a dish towel, looked at the television screen, and easily saw I was losing, by a lot.
"Spaghetti’s ready," he said.
James dropped his controller, which amazed me. "Dad makes the best meatballs," he informed me as he pulled me off the floor.
Thank God!
He continued to pull me into the dining room. “Sit next to me.”
I did.
James looked at the food on the table with avid attention, like it might disappear if he didn’t keep an eye on it. “Dad also makes the best cheese bread,” he said as he grabbed his paper towel and tucked it into the collar of his shirt, trying to make a bib for himself.
“And the best s’ghetti, because the noodles are really long and he doesn't care if you slurp them." His eyes sparkled as he thought about slurping noodles.
“What about the salad?” I asked.
“It’s only okay.” Then he thought for a moment. “But it’s good with enough ranch.”
“I’ll keep this in mind.”
I watched as Adam fixed James a plate. He made sure to give his son four meatballs, which he’d made kid-sized. He gave him a really cheesy piece of cheesy bread, and then he also put plenty of salad onto his son’s plate, but doused it liberally with ranch dressing.
“You need to eat all of the salad,” he reminded James.
“But Dad, if I eat all the salad, I won’t be hungry for another helping of s’gehtti.”