Chapter 28
twenty-eight
MAGS
“I’m happy one of us has reason to smile,” Eze told Mags with little inflection as they sat in the back of his car. Abeo was driving and met her eyes in the rearview mirror, rolling his eyes dramatically. It was all Mags could do to stifle a giggle.
She patted Eze’s arm in a patronizing “poor baby” gesture. She wasn’t offended by Eze’s mood. Love had a way of bringing out the best and the worst of anyone.
“Would your parents be okay if you had a serious relationship with Nasir?”
Eze clicked his tongue in annoyance, as if she were foolish for asking. Perhaps she was. “I am my parents’ youngest son, and though they are loving to all of their children, as the youngest, I have more leeway, so to speak, in my…proclivities.
“My father loves me and simply chooses to believe I’m a profligate. My mother, however, understands that what I had with Nasir…well, it was love on my part.”
“His too,” Mags quickly defended the guard.
“Perhaps,” Eze conceded. “In my country, same sex relationships are forbidden and even in recent years, punishable by death.”
Mags sucked in a sharp breath. Eze nodded once in understanding. “My parents will turn a blind eye and always love me, but only if I uphold a strict level of circumspection.”
“So,” Mags surmised, “while you make England your home, your parents would happily agree to Nasir being your guard?”
“Assuredly.”
“And will you invite him?”
“Perhaps,” Eze answered with the vagueness and subterfuge of a career politician.
“Save me from a man’s psyche,” Mags replied, rolling her eyes, earning her a slight smile on her friend’s lips.
“I told Jonathan he could pick me up tonight. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. I will mind, as I’ve told you before, if he treats you falsely.”
“It’s a gamble on my part, I know.” As Abeo pulled up to the curb of the gallery, late because of Eze’s online tutoring class, she added, “Jonathan is the one thing that I would regret for the rest of my life if I didn’t, I don’t know, try.”
Eze nodded in understanding as he helped her from the sedan. Mags was excited to see the new exhibit and to watch her older sister do her professional thing.
She had always looked up to Mirren. Her sister was a badass in her profession, an amazing wife, and the best mother to Mags’ twin niece and nephew.
Mags and Eze began the circuit, pausing before each piece to appreciate the artist’s talent. She accidentally jostled a person at her elbow while admiring a painting of a shepherd finding a lost lamb in the shelter of a castle ruin.
While still studying the painting, she apologized for bumping them.
“Isn’t the artist a master of light. Just look at how the sun is infiltrating even the smallest crevices in the stone.
” Mags’ eyes widened when she finally glanced right and recognized the person at her elbow that she’d been speaking to.
“Justin Turner!” Mags exclaimed. “My word, it’s been ages.” Mags hadn’t seen them since she dropped out of school.
“Oh my God, I haven’t seen you in ages. I had to take a break from uni. I miss seeing everyone.”
Justin’s cheeks pinkened as they returned Mags’ bear hug. “It’s Jina now, or again rather. It’s good to see you too, Mags.”
Justin, or Jina rather, had had a ginormous crush on Bébhinn forever ago when they were in the same hiking club.
“I’d be happy if we never bring up my Justin faze.
Christ, but I was so ridiculously obvious when I was mooning over Bébhinn.
It took a while, but once I learned to love myself, love being a woman who loves other women, yeah, I figured out I didn’t need to change my name or pronouns to be, well, exactly who I’m supposed to be.
“Poor Bébhinn. Crushing on her is one of my biggest regrets, but also one of the best things that ever happened to me. No one should ever have to change who they are for anyone.”
“Well said. I’m happy for you and never be embarrassed by the past,” Mags bumped Jina’s side, I’ve been mooning over the same man since I was fifteen. You got over your crush a lot faster than I have.
“Speaking of the men in my life,” she turned around to find Eze still studying the castle ruin and clasped his forearm, “Jina, this is my good friend and flat mate, Eze Otaji. Eze, this is a friend from university, Jina Turner.”
Once introductions were finished, Mags asked, “Do you have any work here tonight?” The focus was on one artist, but there were still pieces by other artists throughout that sold through Smith Gallery.
Jina rubbed the back of her neck and blushed again. “I don’t have any pieces, no, but my girlfriend does. She’s crazy talented. Tonight is in her honor.”
“No way! My older sister, Mirren, is the one managing this gig,” Mags bragged.
“You’re joking,” Jina huffed. “Anna speaks of nothing so much as your sister. I’m dying to meet her myself.
Speaking of. There was some crazy loon who stopped me outside asking after a Mirren MacGregor.
She must have meant your sister, Mirren Campbell.
The woman even asked if Mirren’s younger sister would be here. She had to have meant you.”
“I guess, but that is odd, and Mir’s been married for years. Surely, if the woman knew our family, she would know that. Did she say what she wanted?”
“She only wanted to know if I knew either sister, and if you guys were inside yet or not. She’d already walked through, but said she was leaving town, so she couldn’t stay.
Before she walked away, I asked her name.
Hannah Keels, not sure of the spelling. I’m sure it was someone Mirren must know, so maybe don’t tell her I said the woman was crazy,” Jina laughed.
“Probably an artist wanting an easy in and pretending to know my sister. I could have saved them the trouble. There is no easy in with Mir. You’re either amazing or you aren’t. Your Anna must be tipping the amazing scale.”
“Oh, she is. I would love to introduce you.”
Mags looped her arm through Eze’s as they followed Jina through the crowd, where she ended up at the shoulder of a beautiful woman, perhaps early thirties, and clearly Anna if Jina’s broad smile was anything to go by.
Mags gave her sister a quick hug while Mirren introduced Anna to her and Eze. “It’s very nice to meet you, Anna. Jina and I had mutual friends at uni. Eze and I haven’t been through your full collection yet, but we’re both truly blown away.”
“That’s lovely of you to say, but I think your sister deserves the credit, if only for believing in me. I would still—”
Anna abruptly cut herself off to grasp Mags’ hand, turning her wrist this way and that. “Your bracelet is stunning. Jina,” she gasped over her shoulder to her girlfriend, “did you see this? Where did you get it?”
Mirren grinned. “My sister is an artist as well, but instead of paint, her medium is embroidery floss. Our family is very proud of her. The PM’s wife wore one of her pieces recently.”
“Stop bragging me up,” Mags shook her head, fighting the heat that wanted to bloom in her cheeks.
“But this is bragworthy, Mags. It’s really beautiful,” Jina said, taking her own close look. “I can’t believe you can get that detail with thread.”
“Oops,” Mirren interrupted. “Duty calls, Anna. One of the servers just signaled me that one of your pieces has a potential buyer.”
Anna let out a high-pitched squeal, promptly covering her mouth, “Oh Jesus, I’m so unprofessional.”
“If I were an artist, I could assure you that I would crow the house down with every sale. My husband is way too stoic in that department,” Mirren shook her head in disgust.
“I’ll walk with you, babe. You’ve got this,” Jina encouraged as they began to move away.
Anna turned back once to ask Mags to give Mirren several of her business cards. “I will.” Mags barely held in her own squeal. Eze excused himself to visit a professor he knew, leaving the sisters alone. For the first time tonight, she noticed that Mirren appeared tense.
“Is something bothering you, Mir?”
Mirren massaged her temples and blew out an irritated sigh. “I hate to even tell you. It’s so crazy. Hell, I feel like a nutter even entertaining it, but I received a call that bothered me.”
“Jesus. What? Now you have to say.”
“I’ve already called Dad. MacGregor, not Morrow.”
She and Mirren had the same parents, but their Morrow father didn’t know about Mirren until she was around sixteen. Thomas MacGregor, Gray’s father, raised Mirren, and he would definitely be the father to turn to with things like weird phone calls.
Eze joined them once more. “Is it okay if Eze hears whatever you’re about to tell me?”
“Yes, and probably the more people that are aware, the better.
When you were only a child, before I married Finn, even, I represented Finn and Fiona for the Smiths.
At the time, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was holding a competition across several mediums, with the winners having their art displayed for a year.
“Fiona won in oil, and Finn in metal work.”
“Of course they did,” Mags grinned, very proud of her brother-in-law and his twin sister.
Mirren grinned but quickly sank back into her story. “Unfortunately, the competition made national news, not for the work but because several horrible things kept happening to the artists.
“Private things were revealed to the media, breaking a marriage apart, a fire destroyed half of another artist’s collection, Fiona’s past was unearthed, a car’s brakes failed, injuring another. One artist was murdered,” Mirren finished with a grimace.
“Christ, Mirren, that’s frightening.”
“Yes. Well, the culprit was none other than one of the competitors. Hannah Todd. Her half-brother, Lance, made the connection between the crimes and Hannah. Her mother was found chained in a painting room where she was forced to paint for her daughter. She was barely alive when they found her.
“She was arrested during Finn and Fiona’s exhibit at the Smith Gallery in Edinburgh. She was deemed a schizophrenic and sent to a high-security mental institution.
“Julia Todd called me this morning. Hannah’s mother.”
Mags felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Something felt off here. “That was so many years ago? Why would this woman contact you now?”
“Hannah was released. Her psychiatrist judged her redeemed and fit for society. She was released without a hearing. Her past crimes, including murder, were not revisited. Her mother is frantic.
“The hospital is being uncooperative. Julia contacted the police and filed a report. They’ve promised to make inquiries at the hospital and with her psychiatrist to ensure the law was followed in her release, but that might take ages.
“Julia doesn’t believe her daughter is reformed. She doesn’t trust that Hannah hasn’t worked the system. She even believes Hannah would have found a way to slip her medications.
“Julia believes it’s only a matter of time before Hannah strikes out, whether it’s her or me.
I’m sick with worry. Hannah is a complete psychopath.
She’s capable of anything. Dad and Uncle Coll are trying to find the woman’s trail once she was released.
They told Julia to move away until her location is found, and they have a chance to speak to the police in Edinburgh.
“She plays with her victims. You have to be careful, Mags. She might try to strike at my family. Promise me,” Mirren demanded.
“Without question. Does Finn know?”
“I called him first. He’ll protect the kids, and between Finn and Fiona’s husband, they'll be safe.”
Mags suddenly gasped, her mind beginning to connect dots. She clasped Mirren’s hand. “Jina. Jina Turner, Anna’s girlfriend. She said an odd woman asked after you tonight. And me.”
“What? My God, surely it wasn’t.” Mirren thought for a moment. “This feels as crazy as it did all those years ago. If it's that woman, how in the hell would she know where to find you or me?”
Addressing Eze, Mirren said, “Margaret can’t be alone until this woman is found.”
“That is not a problem,” Eze nodded in understanding. “I can bring some of my parents’ security from Nigeria.”
“Thank you, I might have you do that, but let me speak with my father first and see how many security teams they have available. I’ll step into the back office and call him now. He and Coll will want access to the cameras here anyway.”
Mirren clasped Mags’ hand. “Prepare yourself, Mags. Dad might want you back in the townhouse where his own security system is already in place.”
“Whatever Margaret’s father prefers, however, I will be calling in enough men to shadow her until this situation is resolved.” Eze gave Mags a look that said, “Don’t argue.”
“Jonathan was going to pick me up here at nine.” At Mirren’s raised brows, Mags shook her head. Later.
“Text Jonathan to meet us at my place,” Eze stated.
“I will message Abeo to make his way back here now. My flat is secure and can only be accessed via biometric authentication. We will figure the rest out once Mirren speaks to her father. This could be nothing, but it could be something. We’ll treat it like something. ”
Mirren let out a deep, shaky breath and clasped Mags’ hand and squeezed in comfort, then turned to go to the back office to call her dad. Before Eze called Abeo and his family, she said, “Have them send Nasir. He’ll have just gotten home, but he’ll come back if you request it.”
Eze gave her his standard dark, steely glare, but he didn’t say no.
Mags walked over and sat on one of the padded chairs lining the wall.
Mags: Change of plans.
Jonathan: Please don’t tell me you’re cancelling.
Mags: I’m not. I want to see you, but you’ll have to meet me at Eze’s place. I’ll explain everything then. We’re leaving the exhibit early. Meet me when you can.