Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next morning at breakfast, the ship was still moving. Imogen wondered exactly how far out into the Gulf Leo was planning on going, but it had been more than the eight hours of patience he’d asked from her sister.
Speaking of her sister, Jury emerged from below deck with Leo. Imogen noticed the Frenchman’s possessive hand on the small of her sister’s back and how he pulled the chair away from the table and slid it in as she sat.
“Thank you,” Jury said quietly, and Imogen saw something she’d never seen before. Her sister blushed.
Imogen’s gaze met Nic’s, and she knew he was a detail-oriented man who hadn’t missed it either.
His eyebrows rose, but he said nothing as Leo sat.
“I hope your accommodations were acceptable last night.”
“Perfectly,” Imogen said as Nic added, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He looked at Jury. “Would you like some toast, ma petite?”
“Please and thank you.”
Imogen knew her sister had manners, but she so rarely saw her use them. Whatever Leo had done to her sister … Imogen low-key felt like clapping.
Instead, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“Open sea. Miles from anywhere, including the rigs. We have a new privacy technology to try out. And the conversation you both want to have is a perfect test case for it.”
Imogen didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but decided to leave it alone. Amazingly enough, Jury simply accepted the jam he handed her and loaded up her toast.
I guess what they say about Frenchmen is true …
When Havit arrived, he filled them in on breakfast selections and promised he’d be back shortly with their respective orders.
As they waited, Leo leaned back with his hand resting on the back of Jury’s chair.
“A helicopter will be out this afternoon to collect you and Niquaise. Your sister and I will return later.”
Jury’s teeth bit down on her lip as her cheeks bloomed red.
“Okay …” Imogen said.
“Jury,” Leo prompted.
“Can you tell Mom and Dad I met someone on our river cruise?” Her blush spread down her neck.
“Are you sure?” Imogen waited until Jury’s brown eyes met hers.
“Very.”
Leo’s fingers toyed with the ends of Jury’s hair, and Imogen almost felt like they should excuse themselves to leave Jury and Leo alone.
“Okay. I’ll tell them you’re having a much-needed adventure and will keep in touch?”
“Perfect,” Jury said.
“And it is the truth, is it not?” Leo added.
Jury looked over at him, and her blush spread further. “Sure is.”
“Well, great. New tech. And a chopper ride. What a … is it Saturday? I’ve lost track,” Nic said.
“Does it matter?” Leo asked.
“Not a bit. At least not until Wednesday.”
“I can’t believe you still go to that shop. Independently wealthy, and yet you still draw on people with needles.”
“I like it. It’s a canvas seen like no other. People appreciate them. They show them off instead of hiding them away in rooms no one else gets to enter.”
“Touché.”
“Besides, it helped you and them.”
“You have proven your point.” Leo then looked at Imogen. “You found what they’d left for you.”
She nodded, still wondering about his independently wealthy comment, but let it go.
“And was it surprising?”
“Beyond.”
“I figured as much. He’d left a doorman at the Roosevelt a million dollars, I learned. Yours had to be good.”
“A million dollars? To a doorman?”
“Let us deploy the new privacy upgrade after breakfast, and we shall have that talk we came for. Shall we?”
After a delicious breakfast, Leo gave the order to his men to “deploy the package,” whatever that meant, and they all went below deck to Leo’s library.
“Okay, now we may speak freely, I hope.”
“Do you know if they’re alive? Or do you suspect they are?” Imogen asked immediately.
Leo shook his head at her question. “I do not. I have suspicions, but no facts.”
“So, you brought us all the way out here because …” Imogen prompted.
“I was intrigued. By both of you.” His gaze cut to Jury. “Especially you.”
“This was just another leg of a wild goose chase?” Jury replied.
“No. More so to tell you that there is nothing to be gained by going further down this road. I am one of the last people to have a conversation in New Orleans with Lachlan Mount alive. We helped him … dispose of some of his personal effects. And then the keys.”
“You really don’t know anything else?” Jury asked.
“No facts. Just suspicions.”
“Are you going to share them?” Imogen asked.
“Of course. Why else bring you here? Well, why else in addition to my own personal satisfaction?” He paused.
“Lachlan Mount was not a stupid man. He had a profession one does not retire from. You die—most likely. Or go to prison—less palatable. He knew this. This was why he would never entangle himself with a woman for the long-term.”
“Until Keira.”
“Indeed. I believe he had an exit strategy. He was too intelligent and resourceful and in love not to. Maybe it was possible to put her at risk for a time because she had been so unexpected, but not once they had the bébé. There was no way he was leaving things to chance after that. Not the man I knew.”
“What kind of exit strategy?” Nic asked.
“While I can prove nothing—which was the whole point of the explosion—I know he would have protected that woman and his child with his life. He was willing to die for them. But them going out like that? In an explosion? Doubtful but convenient, if you were leaving the country, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“But what about us?” Jury finally asked. “Even if Mount had no family, Keira did. She wouldn’t have just faked her death and disappeared without a trace and left us in the dark forever.”
“To save her husband and child? To give them a future together? You think not?”
Imogen thought of the letter her sister had written them.
Marrying my husband has taken me down a very different path, one you will never understand.
“Yes, she would have,” Imogen said. “She loved us, but she would have done anything to protect her daughter. She would have done anything to protect her husband. She absolutely would have.”
“Im, no.”
“Yes, Jury. You read the letter. You don’t know the world she lived in. We don’t know what she’d been through. And besides, the alternative sucks way more.”
Nic wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his side.
Leo looked at Jury. “I happen to agree with your sister. Mount was ready to leave. His planning would’ve been elaborate.
Is there a chance they’re dead? Of course.
But to my mind, no. Not at all. But how else does one escape the Feds?
They were never going to stop. They were recruiting help from dark places too.
It is a subject matter best left alone. If they are out there and they ever want you to know the truth, then you will know. ”
“I agree,” Imogen said. “I would rather live with the hope that they’re all safe and happy and not accidentally put them in danger by digging into things that are best left alone.”
“Give it a year. Maybe ten. Let things cool off. Let speculation die down. You never know what may come your way.”
“Patience is not my—” Jury started, but Leo interrupted her.
“Ah, but, ma petite, anyone can change. Can they not?”
Jury’s cheeks reddened, and Imogen made a mental note to ask her sister what in the world had happened between them the next time they were alone. Except … Jury was staying behind with Leo while she and Nic were being picked up by a helicopter.
Because Leo wants to be alone with her and she with him? Because they are having a much-needed adventure?
Imogen resolved to find even a moment alone with her sister before she left the ship.
“I would never want to put them in danger either,” Jury said.
“Or yourself.” Leo’s gaze assessed her pointedly.
“Or myself.”
Yeah. She definitely needed a moment with her sister.
“I can live with it,” Imogen said. “Especially if it means they live, happy and free.”
Nic hugged her against him again. “I know I’m not involved here, and I didn’t know any of them, but if it were me, I’d contact you someday. When it was long forgotten and all the Feds had retired and no one remembered my name.”
“That would be a long wait with Lachlan Mount,” Jury said.
Nic shrugged. “People forget fast. That’s why heroes of antiquity were obsessed with being remembered. Give it time. You never know what can happen.”