“But who is that?” Simone asked, but I saw the rising fear in her eyes and knew she didn’t really need an answer.
I scrolled down. Underneath the picture Sean had sent was a line of text. It said: Greg Lucas?
Eleven
Simone waited until we were on our own outside before she ripped into me. I suppose I should be thankful for that, at least. She got all of three strides past the outer doorway, then whirled to face me, shoulders hunched like a boxer about to strike.
“What the hell’s going on, Charlie?”
“I’m doing my job,” I said, keeping my voice quiet.
“Oh yeah? Your job is to keep us safe,” she said, stabbing a finger in my direction. “Not to go digging around and upsetting my father by making it obvious that you don’t trust him.”
I sighed. “It’s not a question of that,” I said, even though I knew it probably was. I dragged out my phone again, flipped it open. “Look at the picture, Simone. No, look at it! Can you honestly say you can see the resemblance?”
“From a picture like that?” she said, without hesitation. “Could you recognize your father from a blurry snapshot that’s less than two inches square, taken probably thirty years ago, before he grew a goddamn beard?”
Damn. I hated it when she was right….
Her breath huffed out into a cloud around her head in the frozen air. I glanced back at the entrance to the store, just in case our voices were carrying. Rosalind was standing a little way back behind the glass doors, holding Ella’s hand. Ella was chewing her hair and rocking from one foot to the other. Rosalind was watching the pair of us argue with narrowed eyes but it was difficult to tell if she could hear us or not. Maybe she didn’t need to.
“Simone,” I said, “calm down before you upset your daughter any more than she is already.”
“She-”
“Just listen for a moment! Remember, there’s a lot at stake here. Not just your happiness,” I said, not wanting to mention the money out loud. “You’re already convinced this guy is Greg Lucas, that he is your father, but until we get that DNA test to confirm it, we have to keep checking him out. And even you have to admit that he doesn’t seem in any hurry to get that test done, does he?”
Simone stared at the snow beneath her booted feet and took a deep breath, even though she was still humming with anger. “It’s already done,” she muttered.
I stilled. “It’s what?”
She looked up at me and the defiance was back in all its glory. “We took the swabs and labeled them and sent them off this morning.”
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “You took the swabs-yourself,” I repeated flatly “So-no doctors, no witnesses, no legal standing whatsoever.”
She had the grace to flush. “I don’t give a damn about legal standing! As long as I know he’s my father. Why would he be so keen to have the tests done if he had something to hide?”
Why indeed?This changed things. In fact, it changed them a lot.
“So why the secrecy?” I countered, a little blankly. “Why hide it from me, what you were up to?”
“We weren’t hiding it from you, Charlie,” she said. “It’s just, well, Greg didn’t want Rosalind to find out.”
“Rosalind? Why on earth not?”
She shrugged uncomfortably, shoving her hands into her pockets and kicking her feet through the slush, like a naughty kid. The windchill was making my cheeks numb. “He said it’s always been a bit of a sore point- his first marriage. He said he never told her about me, and finding out- when that private eye, Mr. O’Halloran, came to see him-has been one hell of a shock for her. I guess he didn’t want to upset her more than he had done already, so he suggested we didn’t tell her about the test. But we’ve done it-doesn’t that tell you something about him?”
That he’s sneaky and underhanded-even with his own wife? I didn’t think voicing that opinion would win her over, so I didn’t bother. “When will you know the results?”
“A few days apparently. Greg says the lab he got the testing kit from promised a fast turnaround.”
“When did he get it-the kit, I mean?”
Simone opened her mouth, frowned and closed it again. “I don’t know,” she said. “When we went into the den this morning, he had it in his desk. I didn’t ask. Surely the important thing is that we’ve taken the test, isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. When Simone had first brought the subject up — only yesterday-Lucas had seemed reluctant, or was that just Rosalind’s reaction? Either way, he must have had the kit sitting ready to be used. It spoke of a certain amount of premeditation, of planning. He could be genuine, trying to reassure his daughter. Or he could be just buying time.
For what?
After all, who was to say that the address of the lab wasn’t just that of some crony, waiting to send back a sheaf of official-looking paperwork? I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a genuine result and a clever fake, and I was betting Simone wouldn’t, either.
The door was pushed open and Ella came running out, leaving Rosalind inside. The little girl flew over to Simone, who bent to scoop her up. Ella put both arms round her mother’s neck and held on tight to the collar of her coat.
“What is it, sweetie?”
“Are you being cross with Charlie?”
Simone sighed. “No, sweetie, we just needed to talk about a few things, out here in the quiet.”
Ella turned, fingers clamped into fists, and threw me a curveball. “You’re not angry with Grandpa and Grandma, are you, Charlie?” She pinned me with that clear violet gaze. It lanced straight through my chest and slid into my heart, sly and brutal as a blade. A revelation.
Damn. When did this child manage to climb under my skin so deeply?
I reached out a hand and brushed Ella’s curls back from her face, even managed to dredge up a reasonable facsimile of a smile from somewhere.
“No,” I said, my voice soft. “Of course not.”
She smiled at me, full, open and without guile and stretched out both arms, reaching for me. I hesitated for a second, then let Simone hand her over to me. Ella cuddled on tight, burying her face into the collar of my shirt, her hair tickling the underside of my chin. I held her very close, breathing in the soft smells of the baby shampoo Simone used to bathe her, and strawberries. For some unaccountable reason, I felt my eyes dampen and I determinedly put it down to the rawness of the wind. But right at that moment I would have killed or died for her, without a second thought.
And that’s when it really hit me. If Lucas and Rosalind did turn out to be trying to pull a fast one, it wasn’t just Simone’s heart they were going to break.
I looked back through the doors to where Rosalind was still watching us. For a second I allowed everything that was running through my mind to channel into that one hard stare. After only a moment, she turned away. I felt the rage lose its color until it was dirty gray like the snow, and just as cold.
If this was no more than a cruel hoax, how would Simone even begin to explain it to her daughter? They didn’t really love you, Ella-they were just pretending….
My mind snapped back to the target I’d just fired at on Lucas’s range. The last four shots. Two in the heart. Two in the head. And if anybody threatened my principals, I knew I had the guts to shoot like that for real. I’d already proved it.
Ami angry with them, Ella? No. But if they hurt you, that’s when you’ll see me really angry….
For the next two days, everything was calm. Rosalind and Lucas were perfect hosts. They played the role of doting grandparents with aplomb and spoiled Ella rotten. Felix Vaughan was notable by his absence. No more information arrived about Lucas from Sean-good or bad. Knowing there was nothing further I could do until the DNA test results came back, I’d just have to stay close to Simone and Ella, and wait for the first sign of trouble.