Chapter 24 #2
Mellow from all the history, and an easy interview in which Pete Clarke confirms everything Fred Evans told me, I let my guard down.
The shock of seeing the blonde sitting in Miz Skirmish’s gingham wing chair is sharper than a bullet.
I stumble a step. De Leon immediately slides in front of me, his hand going to the pocket of his cargo pants, where I’m guessing he has a weapon.
“No,” I say to him. Through the buzzing-static surprise of seeing her, I realize I’ve never shown De Leon a picture of her. I was so focused on Ness and his goons, it never occurred to me we’d need to dodge our target, too. “That’s Miranda Porter.”
She crosses one long leg over another and smooths her cream silk skirt over her knee. “Hello, Max.”
I nod numbly at her. There’s more than an awkward pause. A long, prickling silence stretches.
De Leon finally breaks it. “I’ll wait at the bar.”
I nod at him and drag myself to the empty chair across from Miranda.
Miz Skirmish, all smiles, bustles in with a tea service. She pulls over a spindly table and sets it between us. After preparing the tea to Miranda’s smiling direction, she pats Miranda’s shoulder and bustles off.
“Did she tell you I was here?” I ask.
Miranda gives me a smile that’s all icicles under blue-steel eyes.
“My best friend since I was four? She’s Leeza Skirmish’s cousin.
” She takes a sip of tea and leans forward over her rounded belly—shouldn’t she be bigger at eight months?
—to snarl, “I grew up around here, Max. I’ve known these people all my life.
And whatever that cow Tilly Mitchell might say, I still have friends here.
One of whom is on the way to arrest your arse for invasion of privacy and harassment. ”
I straighten my spine, pushing my shoulders against the chair’s padded back. Maybe what I’ve been doing isn’t nice, isn’t polite, but it’s not manslaughter, either.
“You sure you want to play it that way?” I ask her. “Your friends have been awfully forthcoming about things you might not want me sharing with an officer of the law.”
The perfect peach flush of her cheeks pales a shade. “Really,” she says flatly. “What? That I was a wild child? That I had more than one boyfriend before I got married? Is that why Logan sent you here? To pick apart my character?”
I let another silence stretch while I decide whether to take her down now or let Logan do it in court.
Finally, I decide Logan has enough on his plate. He doesn’t need to deal with this bitch, too.
“I know your half-brother drowned in the pond behind your house while you were upstairs having sex with Fred Evans. I know the housekeeper and your parents were gone. That you were all drinking, even though you were underage, even in England. And that you were supposed to be watching Nicholas.” Her teacup rattles against the saucer and she puts it down hastily.
“And I know there’s no statute of limitations on manslaughter.
Think it through for a minute. Do you really want me telling anyone but Logan what I know? ”
She puts her head down so I can’t see her eyes and takes a ragged breath. “You monster.”
“You’re not in any position to judge me, Miranda.”
She curls her hands over her belly. “This is my baby.”
“She’s Logan’s daughter, too. He wants custody. He’ll take good care of her, but you’re not going to be part of her life. Or his. Or Emily’s.”
She raises her head and I’m tempted to scoot my chair back. She looks utterly feral, eyes bloodshot and bulging, lips peeled back from her teeth, the cords in her neck raised in sharp relief against her skin.
She’s not my mother. She can’t hurt me.
I shift and settle deeper into the chair.
“Of course, this is about her. That creepy little mare. She shouldn’t be allowed near my baby—”
When I realize she’s talking about Emily, my vision washes red. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Are you one of them, too? Oh, that’s fucking priceless—”
“I mean it, Miranda. Not another word about Emily. She’s a thousand times the person you are, and she’ll be a thousand times the mother you’ll ever be.
You don’t ever talk shit about Emily to me.
I don’t know what you thought you’d accomplish, coming here, confronting me, but now you know what we have on you.
Do the smart thing and give Logan custody.
Go quietly away and leave him and Emily alone for the rest of their lives. ”
“I fucking will not. You don’t have anything but old rumors. Nicholas’s death was ruled an accident—”
“No,” I say very firmly. “It wasn’t. There was no inquest. I’m guessing that’s because your parents paid off the coroner.
But I’ve got Nicholas’s death certificate and the cause of death was drowning, not illness.
Push me and I’ll happily make my last stop before I leave this swamp of a country the District Attorney’s office. ”
“Crown Prosecutor,” De Leon grunts, loudly enough for us to hear him, even though he’s standing twenty feet away at the bar. He’s sitting on a stool facing us, watching and listening. Good man.
Miranda’s eyes flick to the case I’ve set next to the chair.
I kiss my teeth at her. “It’s all uploaded to the Cloud.
You can trash every piece of kit I brought with me.
It won’t make any difference. You’re done.
Concede gracefully and nothing else happens to you.
Logan just wants his daughter. He doesn’t want her mother to spend the next decade in prison. He doesn’t want a war.”
Miranda’s face crumples. Tears like glittering drops of snowmelt slide down her porcelain cheeks. “She’s mine.”
“Stop thinking like that. She’s Logan’s. Accept it.”
She swings her head back and forth, a slow-motion shake like she’s trying to throw off my words one by one.
“I’ll drag him and Emily through the courts,” she says slowly. “They’re not fit parents. A judge will never give them custody.”
“Crown Prosecutor it is,” I respond.
“You’re bullshitting,” she spits. “You don’t have anything but that fucking cow’s bile.”
“I have two eyewitnesses. I have their testimony on video. Even if they refuse to testify, the videos are admissible.”
I know this for a fact because Logan’s British solicitor walked me through what evidence she could and couldn’t use while I was still being wracked by the “bad Balti” De Leon inflicted on me.
“Who? Erica would never talk to you.”
I make a note of the name, but I don’t plan to spend any more time in this cold, wet country tracking her down. “Fred Evans. Pete Clarke.”
“They’re lying. Fred’s a goddamn stalker. He’d say anything to get back at me.”
I shake my head at her. “You know what he told me? He told me he still loves you. His whole life is in ruins. His wife left him. Took their daughter with her. He can’t even leave the village because of that thing on his ankle.
But he doesn’t seem angry or bitter. He’s just broken.
You broke him, Miranda. Just like you broke Nicholas.
I’m not giving you a chance to break Logan’s daughter. ”
She’s up out of her chair, flying at me, her palm crashing into my cheek, much faster than I thought a woman as pregnant as she is could move.
I take the hit. It’s not the first I’ve taken. May not be the last. I roll my head with it. Let the heat of it wash over my face, up my sinuses. I let De Leon drag her back.
I let a slow, cold smile spread across my face as I roll my head back and look up at her. “Goodbye, Miranda.”
“You arse!” She yells at me, tugging against De Leon’s hold on her arm.
I hold her eyes and continue giving her that cold, victorious smile until she sags in De Leon’s grip.
Leeza Skirmish bustles out from wherever she’s been lurking, hand pressed to the base of her throat in genteel distress. “What’s going on here?”
“Assault,” De Leon grunts. “On one of your paying guests.”
“Goodness!” Miz Skirmish squeaks. “Miranda, I can’t be having this.”
Miranda finally succeeds in pulling away from De Leon. Or, more likely, he releases her when he decides she’s no longer a threat. He still positions himself between her and me as she gathers up her bag and is bustled away by a frowning and flustered Miz Skirmish.
“Time to go, Max,” De Leon says.
I couldn’t agree more.
We’re out the door in less than twenty minutes.
Maybe even less than ten. I pack up the few things we left out this morning before heading into Exeter and carry the bags downstairs while De Leon settles up with Miz Skirmish.
I can hear Miranda crying as I pass the small office off the bar, but I don’t stop either to check on her or to take a parting shot.
I want out of here. I’ve done what I came to do and now it’s time to go home.
To where my bumble’s waiting for me.
De Leon falls into step with me on the way to the front door, takes his bags out of my hand, and walks with me to the waiting Uber.
My skin starts crawling as we near the car.
Maybe it’s eyes on us. If Miranda found us, Ness’s mercs can, too.
Maybe it’s just paranoia. Once we climb into our seats, I pull the hoodie up over my head and sink down so they can’t get a shot over the backrest.
“You okay?” De Leon asks as the car pulls out onto the street.
“Never better,” I tell him.
“You need an ice pack or anything for your face?”
I shake my head. I feel the heat and sting, the throb in the bone. But I don’t care. I’ve conquered the dragon. Now I can go home.
De Leon didn’t bother to share with me why he keeps his plane in Philly rather than New York or further upstate, but since it’s less than two hours’ drive on top of the transatlantic flight, I don’t argue with him.
I am a little surprised by the change of driver, though.
As soon as the rickety plane stairs descend, Mac pushes off Manny’s limo, parked on the tarmac. His blue eyes are bright despite it being close to one in the morning. Then I remember it’s only one in the morning for me. Fucking time difference.
“Mac, what the hell are you doing here?” I ask as he wraps me in a hug.
“Lo told me about your close call. I wasn’t letting anyone else see you safely home.”
I thump him on the back until he releases me. He steps back and offers a wary hand to De Leon, who shakes without hesitation. “Master Chief.”
I had no idea De Leon knew Mac, or vice versa.
“Thanks for bringing our boy home safe,” Mac says. “Lo’d like it if you came to his for a debrief, but I appreciate you may feel you’re off the clock.”
De Leon shrugs. “I’m not getting paid by the hour. I’m happy to debrief.”
Mac makes me get into the limo while we wait for De Leon to talk to a guy in a high-vis jumpsuit. Manny’s limo isn’t armored, although the windshield and rear windows are bulletproof, but I don’t argue. I feel safer in its familiar confines.
“Mission accomplished?” Mac asks me as he watches De Leon through the windshield.
“Yes,” I say. And more. Now that I’m hours away from it, I wonder if I did the right thing, confronting Miranda and letting her know what we have on her.
I could have walked away. Maybe it was stupid not to.
Maybe the same instincts that have pushed me in first Emily’s direction and then Cynnie’s pushed me to protect my friend.
Maybe it was something more basic and less admirable than that.
Whatever, it’s done. I pull out my phone, hook back into my own network via the router in the limo, and place some orders that I was contemplating while in England but wanted to do from behind my own aliases and firewalls.
Miranda’s accusations are still itching under my skin.
I need to spend some time sanitizing any public record her lawyer could find about the things Logan, Emily, and I purchase.
I don’t want the evidence I’ve gathered undermined by an accusation of pedophilia.
Fuck if she’s going to prevent Logan from getting custody by smearing his name that way.
Once I’ve checked out of the toy company’s website, I flip my phone over to my messages.
I’m back. All okay with Ty?
Brenna answers as De Leon climbs into the SUV beside me and Mac starts the engine.
Brenna: All good, Daddy Max. I chapped him and his girl to a PG movie. They kissed, no tongue. Trip okay?
The lack of tongue makes me smile.
All okay. Tell me the magic words again?
She sends back a row of smiling emojis.
Brenna: You’re not a pedophile, Daddy Max. You’re awesome and you’re going to make a little very happy.
I send her back a thumbs up and flip over to my string with Cynnie.
I’m back, baby. When can I see you?
At De Leon’s insistence, I didn’t tell anyone our timetable. No one but Logan and Mac know we’re back, and I’m a little surprised he told Logan.
Bumble: Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Oppa! Now!
I chuckle and De Leon, who still doesn’t understand the whole concept of privacy and is shamelessly reading over my shoulder, snorts.
I need a couple of hours to get back to the city and meet with Logan. Breakfast?
Bumble: Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Can’t wait!
I flip over to my string with Logan.
Do you mind if Cynnie comes over? I chew over my next words, then send them before I wimp out. I’m pretty desperate to see her.
Logan: Tell her to come now and she can watch a movie with Emmy until you get here. We’re too keyed-up to do anything but wait for you.
Thanks.
I flip back to Cynnie and let her know the plan.
She sends me the ecstatic bumble chibi in response.
Smiling, I put my head back and close my eyes.
I got a little sleep on the plane, but what no one quite mentions about small planes is how noisy they are.
And we hit turbulence coming down the East Coast, so my nap was interrupted by nausea.
I hear Mac and De Leon talking quietly as I drift off, but I don’t focus on their words. Between the two of them, I know I’m safe enough to sleep.
Mac bringing the car to a stop wakes me. I rub my eyes and look out the window at Logan’s quiet neighborhood in the East Village.
“I’ve got to get the car back to Manny,” Mac says. “If you need me back tonight, text me. Otherwise, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Whup your jet-lagged ass back into shape with a half-marathon.” At my groan, he grins at me in the rear-view mirror. “Glad you’re home, Maxie.”
“Thank you for coming, Mac. It means a lot.”
“Any time. Anything for my boys.” He hooks his thumb at the door. “Scat before I get a ticket for loitering or something.”
De Leon grunts and slides out of the car, pulling his bags after him. I grab mine and follow him into Logan’s townhouse.