22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
T he building is a single story and appears more like an overgrown bungalow than a hospital or long-term care facility. One thing my job has afforded me is the ability to put my mother somewhere nice, even if she doesn’t have a clue it’s the best.
“You’ll wait here?” I ask.
“Sure you don’t want me to come in?” Lorcan’s voice is soft, and his eyes sincere. “I got these big shoulders you can lean on if you like.”
Without thinking, I run my hand down his arm. “Maybe later.”
He catches my hand and gives it a squeeze. “You’re armed?”
“Always.”
“Anything seems off, I’m coming in.”
“It’s an old-age home. It’s hardly a guns-blazing scenario.”
He doesn’t laugh at my joke. Instead, his eyes burn with more intensity. “I protect my own.”
“It’ll be fine.” I rub his cheek with my thumb. “Promise.” This place isn’t part of my cover story. If he comes in, he’ll learn more than he bargained.
He tips his chin in the direction of the building. “Text me if you want me to come in.”
I nod and climb out of the car. At the door to the facility, I enter then stop at the front desk to check in. Mom hasn’t been eating. The worker explains it’s most likely the start of a severe decline. Her semi lucid days are numbered.
Although I don’t come here often, her room is burned into my brain. Single bed. Dresser. Nightstand. All in a glistening white. Antiseptic but efficient and newer than lots of other facilities. The day I agreed to have her moved here was one of the hardest of my life. At that point, the best part of my mother was already gone.
I slip in, and I’m startled when a figure rises from the leather armchair in the corner. Fear pierces my heart as I glance over my shoulder. I hope to God Lorcan hasn’t followed me.
“Malik.” I shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous.”
“Dai Qing sent the SOS to me. I couldn’t stay away. I know how hard this is for you.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” My focus strays to my mother sleeping in the bed. Dai Qing would never come, and the fact Malik has, unasked, is both a blessing and a curse.
“I didn’t like how we left things.”
“Lorcan’s waiting for me outside.”
“What?”
“I got the SOS. I had to get here. They won’t let me leave without an escort. Zhang came after me yesterday.”
Malik crosses the room in a few strides. “Zhang came after you?”
“You must not be in deep enough if you don’t know that.”
Malik’s brow furrows, and he reaches for me. I avoid his touch and shift closer to my mother’s bed.
“I was at the bar when Zhang left his office. He didn’t order anyone after you.”
“Well, it happened.” I yank my hands out of my coat pockets and throw them out wide. “I almost died yesterday.”
“The Donaghey brothers—” He doesn’t finish because my mother twitches in the bed.
I yank the wooden chair closest to her toward the bed and sit down, taking her hand in mine. “Mom?” There’s no response, and her breathing goes back to normal. She gets into such deep sleeps. I rotate toward Malik, my mother’s hand still clutched in mine. “It’s all twisted up. Do you know what the bureau knows? I think Chad and Finn fought at The Cage around the same time. They knew each other. I’m sure of it.”
“You’re not there to dig for that. Going after that kind of information will put you in danger.”
I laugh. “You think I’m not in danger? Jesus, Malik. The games these two men are playing. I have no idea who is telling the truth. Lorcan is convinced Finn killed their father. Finn tells me he didn’t, offered to help me search for someone else. That’s what I’d do if I was guilty. You don’t hide. You offer. You direct. You manipulate.”
Malik’s brow clears, and he shoves his hands into his pockets. “It’s what I’d do.”
“Our file says it was the Russians, right? They aren’t on the radar. I haven’t even met them yet. Why does the bureau think it was them and Lorcan’s not on that trail?”
“Maybe you need to set him on it.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, with no evidence. That’ll go down well. I might as well hold up a sign and ask them both to suspect me.” A stray hair from my ponytail falls into my face, and I push it behind my ear. I’d give anything to talk this through with my mom or my dad. They were full of thoughtful advice as I grew up. Even unraveling this other side of Chad would be helpful. What did they piece together? Why did I know nothing?
“Of the two Donaghey brothers, which one is more likely to be honest?”
“Axel,” my mother murmurs in her sleep. “Axel.”
Malik’s brow creases. “Your father?”
“Yeah,” I say as she stirs in the bed. “She must still have some vivid dreams.”
“Ho-Jun.” She clutches my hand. “Ho-Jun.”
“Who’s that?”
“Chad’s father.” I smooth the black hair that’s fallen across my mother’s forehead. “Shhh.” I run my fingers along her temple. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “I’m here, Mom. Kimi is here.”
Her eyes fly open. “Chad. Chad. My Chadwick.” Her dark, wild gaze meets mine. “Where’s Chad?”
“Are you hungry, Mom? They said you didn’t eat.”
Malik comes forward. “I can get the nurse, arrange for something to be brought to the room.”
“Where’s Chad?” She looks around us to the door.
My heart kicks up a notch in my chest. At any moment, Lorcan could come in. Malik needs to leave. “You should leave. Seriously. Lorcan was drunk. If he gets it into his head to come in, I can’t explain why you’re here. You work for the Zhangs, and as far as we know, they tried to kill me yesterday.”
“Where’s Chad?” She’s louder now, more insistent.
“He’s in the hall,” I say in a tender voice, letting my eyes connect with her vacant ones. “Chad stepped out for a minute.”
She relaxes into the bed and gives me a sad smile. “I had a dream he died.”
“It was a dream,” I whisper.
“Kimi.” Malik comes closer, his hand hovering by my shoulder.
“Go, please. You can’t help me anymore.” The gulf that’s opening up between us is starting to feel insurmountable. He knows things he’s not telling me.
“You know where to find me.” The door clicks closed behind him.
“Where’s Axel?” Mom’s body is a slight outline under the covers.
“He went with Chad, Mom.” I grip her hand, willing her to come back, to push through one last time. It’s been so long since she was here. “Are you hungry?”
“Axel’s getting him out, you know.”
I frown. “Getting who out?”
“Chad.”
“From what?”
“Who are you?” She cocks her head and examines my face, but nothing registers. “Do we know each other?”
And she’s gone again.
“In another life.” I kiss her forehead. “In another life, you were the best mom.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet?” Her eyes drift closed.
Tears prick at the back of my eyes, and my attention is trained on the ceiling when the door clicks open again. I rotate, annoyance sparking in me. “Ma—”
“Sorry,” Lorcan says, hands raised. “It was taking bloody ages. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Oh.” I flush. Malik’s name had been so close to slipping out. “I-I was about to leave.”
“How is she?” He nods in my mother’s direction.
“Lucid, sort of, for a brief moment. Mostly rambling about things I couldn’t understand.” I push my hands into my coat pockets and take a deep breath.
Lorcan comes closer to the bed, and her eyes pop open. She squints at him and then starts puffing and trying to raise herself up. But she’s too weak. The monitors beside her go haywire, and a nurse comes charging in.
“You’ve upset her.” The nurse rushes to my mother’s side.
“We’re leaving.” My focus flicks between him and my mother. Something about him set her off, but he seems unperturbed. He watches the nurse calm her without a twinge of recognition.
“Get him out.” Her gaze strays to Lorcan. “Out. Out.”
He backs up, hands raised. “I’ll go. I’ll go.”
My fingers are on his chest, backing him out of the room, and I follow behind him, listening to my mother’s frantic calls for him to get away from her.
“Is she like that a lot?” We’re headed down the hall together, and his brow is creased with concern.
“Yes.” Never. Not once. He can’t question what happened. If he’s prompted to dig, I’m in trouble.
“Must be hard.” His hand falls on the small of my back.
“Not going to get easier.” At least that part is true. Even her moments of recognition are plagued with inaccuracies. It’s impossible to have a conversation with her make sense. Sometimes I remember the last good talk I had with her, and I wish someone told me we wouldn’t get to speak like that again. If someone froze time and said, This is the last time you’ll get to do this . The moment would have been seared into my brain, savored for the rainy days to come when all I’d want to do is chat with her.
“The nurse at the front desk said it’s early onset Alzheimer’s.”
Goose bumps rise on my arms, and I step away from the hand on my back. “You asked?”
He opens the entrance for me. “You’re mad?”
“Of course. It’s an invasion of my privacy. I brought you here as an act of trust. You snooping is… that’s a violation.”
“I wasn’t snooping.” His voice tightens. “I wanted to understand what I was walking into.”
“You shouldn’t have been walking into anything.” I yank open the car door. “Because I asked you to wait in the car.”
Lorcan climbs in beside me and gestures to the side of the building. “I was minding my own business, and then I saw a black guy exiting out the side of the building.”
I don’t miss a beat. “That’s racist. Some black guy exits the building and you become suspicious. He’s probably visiting family, or he works here.”
“Call it whatever you want. It was suspicious, so I went in.”
“I was fine.”
“The nurse said the guy I saw wasn’t a registered visitor.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “An employee?”
“Not with how I described him to them.”
“You’ve had a few drinks. Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?”
His gaze is like granite. “Drunk or sober, I can spot something off. That’s my job.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t see him.”
Lorcan focuses on the scenery outside the window. “I’ll look into it more. It doesn’t sit right with me.”
A heavy silence sits between us for a moment. “I can look into it,” I say. “They trust me here. I’m more likely to get camera footage and information.”
“I can be quite charming when I want to be.”
A half smile touches my lips as I start the car. “I’m sure. I would—I would rather Finn didn’t know about my mom if that’s okay with you. It’s—it’s something I keep for me.”
He makes a sealing motion with one hand. “Your wish.” He rubs my leg. “I’m sorry about your mum.”
“Me too.” I ease the car onto the highway. “Me too.”
While I drive, I pray I’ve convinced Lorcan to leave the snooping. I can’t have him discovering Murray or Malik. One leads back to the Zhangs and puts Malik in danger. The other leads to the FBI and sinks us all.