Chapter 12 #2
“Will not be punished. Ever. The poor guy sweats all day long in the sun and fries his brain while I spend my day inside a climate-controlled building. I have no clue why he insists on driving me around when he should be back in New York anyway, but for as long as you’re over there begging me not to hate you, and since Archer will do anything I ask anyway, I’m saying Mr. Harrison will not be penalized because he was half a second slower off the mark than usual.
It’s not his fault that wank-stain from Channel-Mommas-Basement likes to stalk me. ”
Felix is his own person, his own personality, and a man freely running his own life.
But his father is in there, too, just a little, and it becomes evident as tension falls heavily across our call.
Those mafia beginnings work tirelessly to reach up from the grave and pull his strings.
“How slow was he, Mayet? Because his job is literally—”
“Not to read minds. I run that poor man ragged. I never leave my office at the same time two days in a row, I communicate nothing, since I think all this is dumb, anyway, and I have zero desire to dip his boots in fresh concrete or drop him into the ocean. I have extensive practice dodging the camera guys, since I’ve been doing it for months already, but they caught me off guard today with the Gloria Donohue stuff.
In his defense, if you hadn’t distracted him, he would’ve been where he was supposed to be. So this is me calling it.”
“You’re calling… what?” he drawls. “What are you saying, Chief?”
“That Harrison gets to grow old and fat and jolly all the way to the ripe old age of a hundred and three. I believe I acquired certain decision-making powers over the weekend, no?”
Felix snorts.
“With the power vested in me by the great state of Estefan Cordoza’s abandoned dining room in the middle of no-freakin'-where, I’m declaring permanent protection for the poor, befuddled Theodore Harrison.
He can’t sustain these levels of stress, Felix!
It’s not normal to think you might die just because you stood in the shade for a minute. ”
“You sound awfully comfy up there on Cordoza’s throne. I thought you said yesterday you’re taking a hands-off approach?”
“I thought you said two minutes ago that the city is mine and you love me?”
He chokes out a laugh that has the movement of his stubble scratching the bottom of his phone. “Touché. Wanna talk about the Gloria Donohue thing?”
“Absolutely not. Wait.” A new thought stuns me until I jolt. “Yes. I do. Was it you?”
“Was what me?” He laughs. “Did I whack the bitch?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah. Was it you?”
“No. I was in Copeland all day.”
Am I glad she’s dead? I’m not sure.
Am I mad that she won’t spend the next fifty years in prison? Yeah, a little.
But then my phone buzzes by my ear, so I pull it away quickly and catch the banner popping down with a text from Archer.
Archer
I’ll call you shortly. In the middle of something right now. Love you. Be safe.
Frowning, I bring the phone back to my ear and hang out with a Malone, but not the one I want.
“Do you think someone killed her, Lix? Was she ill?”
“Reports say she went to sleep and didn’t wake up again.
Very natural. Very peaceful.” He pauses, then adds, “There are whispers going around that her cellie lost her kid to her abusive ex’s bad temper.
He was drunk and belligerent, and shit got out of hand.
A month after she buried her baby, she took a baseball bat to her ex’s skull and smeared gray matter all over his bedroom wall.
She handed herself in and copped twenty-five to life for it.
I’m not saying she killed Donohue and set it up to look like something else, but I’m not not saying it either.
If you want me to look into it for you, I can. I’ve got contacts over there.”
“Of course you do.” I stare out at the hill, thankful that Harrison knows to take me home even when I didn’t say the words out loud.
Better yet, there are no liquor stores between here and the house, which means I can’t buy wine for Lawrence.
So sad. Guess I’m staying in tonight. “And no… It’s fine.
” I bring my hand up and rub my temple. “I let that case go as soon as Lachlan was dead and Gloria was put in cuffs.”
“You let it go?” he drawls. “Really?”
“Trying to,” I counter. “I spent too much of my life focusing on the babies who suffered at the hands of a boy who didn’t know better, enabled by an evil woman who did.
Killing her wouldn’t have been my first choice, but what’s done is done.
She can rot in hell. Where are you right now, anyway? It’s nighttime there, right?”
“Mmhm. I’m riding in my car and staring into my darling Christabelle’s beautiful eyes. It’s a special occasion, so I took my girls out for dinner.”
“You were out on a date with your wife, and you still found time to harass Harrison and talk about me? What the hell is wrong with you, Felix!? Jesus.”
“Family steps up for family. We love hard, and we take care of each other. Christabelle understands, and besides, I’ll make it up to her shortly. We’re only ten minutes from the house, and Zora’s already asleep. I’ll get my own soon.”
“What’s the special occasion? Is it someone’s birthday? An anniversary? Did I forget and not even realize it yet?”
He chuckles. “Since you’re hopeless with this stuff, you should know it’s Tiia’s birthday in three days. And Aubree’s birthday is in three weeks.”
Shit. Really?
“But today’s thing?” His voice bubbles with pride. “Zora pooped.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Felix! I thought it was something huge.”
“It was huge!” he guffaws. “I had no clue chicks could shit that much. Zora’s my dainty little twelve-pound princess.
She’s perfect. But I swear, she shat so much, I had to order a whole new mattress for our bed.
She ruined her clothes. And our sheets. I almost called a bio-hazard cleanup crew to come in and take care of it. ”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Every other time I’ve made those calls, it was to make bodies disappear and blood to magically no longer stain the floor. This was a whole other thing, Doc. It was the worst thing I’ve ever smelled in my life, and I know body decomp.”
“Goodbye, Felix.”
“It’s like she ate a fucking gorilla! But then she convinced her stomach acid not to break it down. Instead, that motherfucker sat in her pipes and turned rancid. Which is wild, by the way, cause she literally only drinks booby milk and farts all day long.”
“Okay, I’m done.” I bring the phone down and end our call, then I look out at the sun still high in the sky, because summer is seriously annoying about that sort of thing.
“I don’t accept your resignation, Mr. Harrison.
” I spy the beginnings of the Malone property as we crest the top of the hill.
And worse, right next door, Mayor freakin’ Lawrence’s house, which is a place I am absolutely not going tonight.
“Felix has been put on notice. He’s agreed to my terms.”
“You probably just ensured my death, Chief.” Harrison studies me through the rear-view mirror, his eyes tightening so little lines fan from the sides.
“His compliance was only to settle your temper. But if I don’t come to work tomorrow, it’s because he had me dealt with while you were out of the room.
You don’t seem to understand that much of what happens in this business happens behind closed doors. ”
“Nah.” I look down at my phone again: still no call from Archer. “Felix isn’t his father, and Micah’s too busy shopping for gifts to cross the country and whack you.” I bring my focus up again. “Did you know it’s Tiia’s birthday this week? Because I didn’t.”
He steers us off the road and onto the Malone driveway, winding through the well-kept gardens and past maintained lawns, trimmed hedges, and massive, established trees.
There’s nothing wrong with these gardens, really, and it’s not like I care enough to change anything, since I prefer digging into dead bodies, not dirt.
But having spent a few minutes in New York yesterday, it’s easy to see the difference between a maintained yard, like this one, and a growing, thriving, lovingly tended ecosystem, the way Micah cares for the one across the country.
One is pretty. The other is alive.
“Your silence implies you knew.” I study the house and the wrought-iron gates protecting the front door. The guards, just two of them now that Felix is in another state, watch our approach.
Harrison brings us to a stop exactly where he always stops, and though one of the two guards comes to hover by my door, he doesn’t open it yet.
Which is handy, since I’m not quite ready to get out.
Instead, I unsnap my seatbelt and grab my bag.
“I won’t ever have you punished for standing in the shade, Mr. Harrison.
In fact, if you insist on basing your entire existence around my working and driving schedule, then I insist you come inside and at least sit down.
There’s a water cooler in the corner of the ground floor lobby, plastic cups to drink from, Wi-Fi…
maybe.” I shrug. “Probably. And you don’t have to worry about dead bodies…
we almost never roll them past reception. ”
“No, Chief. It’s not—”
“I spend hours every day worried you’ll die of heatstroke. This isn’t a gentle request. It’s an order.”
Oh God. Do I sound like Cordoza already?
He considers for a beat, turning in his seat and meeting my eyes. “Fine.” He exhales a gusty sigh. “Assuming I survive the night, I’ll spend my days in the lobby of the George Stanley.”
“Good choice.” I drape the straps of my bag over my arm. “Also, since I saved your life and all that, I suppose it’s only fair you now owe me a favor?”
His brows wing high with surprise.