Chapter Twenty-Four
When I find Gran that evening, she’s at a table, eyeing two men across what looks like a Texas Hold’em spread.
Not that I know how to play—I don’t—but I joined in a couple card games in college and quickly learned my ability to maintain a poker face, to manipulate.
My desire to win meant I was one card game away from a gambling addiction.
Not unlike my killing addiction.
And deciding one vice—especially my particular choice of vice—was more than enough, I never touched a deck of cards again.
“Gran?”
“Shh.” She squints at the man closest to her, who wears a bathrobe and, apparently, nothing else. His white hair looks like it hasn’t been combed in quite a while, but he wears a wry grin, like he’s done something very clever. “I’m busy.”
“It’s Nadia.” I crouch down beside her.
“That’s lovely, dear, but luck is in my favor. You boys better buckle up, this ride is just getting started.”
The other man—smaller and peering at her through thick glasses—says, “What? Speak up.”
“Gran, I have to talk to you.”
“Who are you?” She stares at me with hard, unflinching eyes. My stomach does something funny. It feels like a punch to the gut.
I swallow, manage, “I’m Nadia, your granddaughter.”
“I’m too young to have a granddaughter.” She pulls back slightly, affronted. “Now please go. I’m busy, as you can see.”
I squeeze my hands into fists, take a slow, deep breath, trying to expunge the rising frustration inside me. The last thing I need is more emotion about anything. The monster is there, simmering inside me, just looking for an excuse to come out to play.
“Gran—”
“Time to pay up, gentlemen.” Gran sets a spread of cards down with a cackle.
The men groan. I rise to my feet—it’s time to go.
I need to keep an eye on Brian. I desperately wanted to talk to my grandmother, for her to be lucid just long enough to give me something, anything, even if it was just a pat on the hand and an It’ll be all right, Nadia, despite us both knowing it was a lie.
But the other night when we ate pilfered chocolate cake was an odd exception, a rare moment of the person who gave me a chance at a life emerging from a darkness I can’t begin to understand.
Where does she go when she’s not lucid? Is she just gone?
I’m approaching the entryway when her voice rings out: “Nadia Davis, where do you think you’re going? Without even a hello? A hug?”
Relief wells up inside me, tears forming in my eyes—god, why am I about to cry? I turn to see Gran frowning, the game forgotten, stomping—as well as an eighty-five-year-old woman can, anyway—across the facility’s lobby.
When she reaches me, she takes my arm and whispers, “Let’s go, I have booze.”
—
Gran does, indeed, have booze.
“Where did you get this?” I hold up two airplane bottles of Seagram’s.
“Oh, I have my ways.” She goes to the mini fridge and pulls out soda. “Let’s make some seven and sevens, eh?”
I frown, although another part of me hopes her ability to swipe alcohol is a sign that Gran is special. That she has her own “superpower,” that she is like me, and therefore, I am like her.
“Sure, a drink would be good.” Despite Penelope the RN’s assurances, my grandmother is clearly not being watched more diligently.
I make a mental note to find the nurse before I leave and ask how my grandmother would have gotten her hands on the whiskey.
A quick nip should be okay, but she’s on meds that might interact poorly—especially if this becomes (or already is) a regular thing.
While Gran is busy procuring glasses—seriously, how does she find this stuff?—I mill around the room, trying to sort out what exactly it is I want to ask her. Time is of the essence.
“Gran, I have a problem at—um, work.”
“Mm-hmm?”
She pours soda, takes the bottles of whiskey, and dumps them in.
My gaze lands on the nearest bookshelf, where a thick photo album rests between hardback spy thrillers.
Whose grandma reads spy thrillers? I peer at her, wondering what exactly she did with her spare time when she was younger.
I pull the photo album out, flip through it to see black-and-white images of Gran at nineteen, twenty.
Images of my own father as a baby in her arms.
Gran shoves a glass in my hand. “Bottoms up!” She takes a deep sip. “Ahhh, refreshing. You know what we need? Pretzels. Say, where are my great-grand girls? I miss those ladies.”
“Gran—” I hesitate, then press forward. “I need help. I got an assignment that I’m—I’m not sure if the bad guy is really bad.”
“Oh, that is concerning.” She sets her glass down, smooths her shirt—navy blue.
Like me, she always wears clothing she could spill something on and not stain.
I’d say it’s for the massive quantities of coffee, but let’s be honest, black hides blood too.
Gran reaches out, takes the photo album with hands that shake ever so slightly.
“Have you looked him in the eye?” she asks.
For a moment, she looks at me—really looks at me, the intelligence and calculating steely blue gaze of my grandmother.
“Looked him in the eye?”
“It’s a dead giveaway. Worked for me every time.”
I’m left breathless.
“What do you mean it worked for you?”
She opens the book, settles on the edge of her hospital bed. “You meet someone, you look them in the eye. You know!” She gives a big flouncy shrug. “Now, let’s look at this properly, shall we? Booze and memories, what’s better?”
“It’s Brian,” I finally say, lowering my voice to a whisper. “They want me to kill Brian.”
Gran frowns. “Isn’t he a good husband?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Oooh, look at this.” Gran slides a photo out from behind an image of her with Grandpa.
She stands with a man who is definitely not my grandfather, his arm draped loosely over her shoulders, both of them wearing impish grins, like they’ve been very naughty.
It’s black-and-white, and Gran looks about twenty-five.
By then, she was definitely married to Grandpa.
And she lived in Texas already and told my father more than once she’d never traveled outside the United States.
But the Eiffel Tower can clearly be seen in the background.
“Who is that you’re standing with?” I ask.
Gran chuckles. “Oh, just…” She flutters a hand like it doesn’t matter, but the secretive smile on her face tells a different story.
“You were in Paris?” I try another angle.
That smile widens. She opens her mouth, and I’m sure she’s about to tell me a secret—that she went to Paris and met a man, or that when she was supposedly visiting her sister in Arkansas, she was traveling abroad to do bad things, things like I do, but if Gran did them, too, surely they’re not so bad.
But instead, her brow furrows and she looks up at me, eyes wide. “Wait, who are you?”