by Sylvia Fox
“I bet he’s security. Or a bodyguard, or something,” Desiree announced. “Look at how everybody else is relaxed and smiling; they’re excited about the announcement. But your guy is stone-faced. Except his eyes, they’re darting all over the place. Looking for danger?”
Ayla nodded. “Yeah, you might be right,” she agreed. “He was big… It would make sense if he was a guard or something.”
“How does that help, though? It’s not like you can just call up Winston Watterson, or send him an e-mail, and ask him who his bodyguard is, right?” Desiree asked. She commandeered Ayla’s laptop and punched Winston’s name into a YouTube search and checked on Google Images.
Several times, they found Winston with the same shadow; the handsome man in the black suit. The guy who looked like a grown-up version of Preston. Very grown.
“He’s with him all the time, and always in that black suit. He’s definitely his bodyguard,” Desiree offered. But the knowledge brought them no closer to the man’s identity. Nowhere was his name mentioned.
“This is so crazy,” Ayla muttered, going through the pictures. “I thought I’d never find him.”
8
Mick hated asking for time off. Winston never took vacations anymore, although business often had him traveling, squeezing in a day or two of leisure when he’d find himself in, or near, an exotic locale. Some of his staff had even started referring to him by the nickname “World Wide,” as it shared initials with his own first and last name.
“I’ve been looking at the calendar; any idea when it might be good for me to take a trip home to visit my mum?” Mick asked his boss.
Winston looked up from his phone as the limo they shared rolled slowly through evening traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.
“Oh, back to the U.K.?” Winston asked.
“Yeah, Sheffield,” Mick replied. “She’s been down lately. Anniversary of my brother’s passing is right around the corner. It’s tough on her.”
Winston nodded. “I wish she’d consider moving here. From what you tell me, it’s just her there, surrounded by all those ghosts. The desert might do her some good. But, yes, of course, just tell me when you want to go, I’ll have a Watterson jet ready for you.”
“Nah, it’s alright, mate, those private jets are nice, but a little, ah, ostentatious for me. I’m just a simple lad from Sheffield. I’ll splurge for first class, though.”
“Have it your way, Mick. But if you ever do convince her to relocate, I’ll have a condo ready for her. As near, or far, as you want it to be.”
“Thanks, boss,” Mick replied. He enjoyed the camaraderie of the new, more mature Winston Watterson much more than the playboy he used to babysit. “I’m afraid the only thing that would get her to move here would be grandchildren.”
“Well, then you’d better get started!” Winston chided. “When is Las Vegas’s most eligible bachelor going to settle down, anyway?”
“That would be you,” Mick answered. “I’m a scarred-up old pensioner, just about. Nobody’s looking for me, or especially to have kids with me,” he assured his superior. “They all want to be part of the Watterson fortune, anyway. If any woman were interested in me, I’d assume she just wanted to get close to you.”
“Oh yeah,” Winston laughed. “Women hate military guys. Especially ones covered in muscles. Getting dates must be a such a challenge.”
“Feh,” Mick waved him off. “Dates aren’t the problem. Nobody would want to put up with me for a second one. I’m not exactly Mr. Sunshine.”
“Who needs a second date? There are enough beautiful women in this town to take a different one home every night for ten years. And by then, a whole new batch would move in to replace even them. Live a little.”
Mick shook his head. “Not my style, mate.”
“Suit yourself,” Winston replied, as they pulled into a rundown shopping complex a few blocks east of the Strip, an area that was, surprisingly, home to perhaps the finest Thai restaurant in America— Lotus of Siam. It was one of Winston’s favorites, and he’d invited his guests from Macau to join him there for dinner.
Mick enjoyed the larb served there, the best he’d had outside of southeast Asia. Larb was a sort of chicken salad he’d first tried in Laos when he spent a few weeks there on the trail of a group of North Koreans who’d been suspected of abducting Thai women and taking them back to Pyongyang. A British woman of Cambodian descent had nearly been the victim of a kidnapping off the street directly in front of her hotel, which drew the attention of MI6.
A knife fight in an alley left two unidentified men (North Koreans by all forensic evidence), dead. Mick’s souvenirs of the scuffle were a cracked rib and a scar on his left bicep. On cold, rainy days, the rib ached a bit, but Las Vegas didn’t experience many of those kinds of days, so it worked out just fine.
The chicken larb at Lotus of Siam was authentic and delicious. Mick looked forward to a plate of it, followed by koi soy, the Thai version of steak tartare.
By the time dessert, sticky rice with mango, arrived at the table, the group was begging for mercy, having stuffed themselves with Thai and Lao delicacies.
Mick couldn’t help thinking that as much as being a loner had its downsides, the lifestyle he led now was pretty enviable.
But he still couldn’t help but think of the girl.
Across town, Ayla and Desiree dipped their hands into the large bowl of microwave popcorn between them on the sofa as they each searched their respective laptops for a clue as to the identity of Winston Watterson’s bodyguard.
“Let’s say we find him,” Desiree suggested. “What then? What are the chances this guy is single and just waiting for his baby momma to show up, child in tow, to invite him to join her life, and that of her son, already in progress? I don’t want to be mean, but what’s the best case scenario? A monthly check? I mean, if it’s really even him.”
Ayla looked up from her computer and pondered the question. “I don’t know. But I think… No, I know, there was something between us.”
“Besides his big dick, as you’ve reminded me a million times?” Desiree asked.
“Yes, besides that. There was a connection. It just, everything happened so fast. Besides, there’s no way he could look at Preston and want anything but to be his dad.”
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, Ay,” Desiree said, offering a hand, which Ayla accepted. “Guys can be dicks. They don’t look at kids like we do. For a guy with his career and probably lifestyle, what would a six-year-old be? Right or wrong, he’d look at Preston as a burden, I bet. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. If you go into it with low expectations, some money would be nice, right?”
Ayla nodded.
“So, yeah, get some money to help with clothes and stuff for Preston. Set up a college fund. I just don’t want you to be crushed if he doesn’t want a role in his life. Or yours. Even if you can somehow prove he’s the father.”
Ayla pushed the popcorn around in the bowl, looking for the half-popped kernels in the bottom. “Yeah, that all makes sense. It does. But I just know that if I can get face to face with him, he’ll remember me. And he’ll love Preston. Preston deserves a dad.”
Ayla broke down. Desiree moved the popcorn to the ottoman and hugged her friend.
“I know, baby, I know,” Desiree repeated. “Life owes both of you a break.”
9
Mick called his mother Bev, the next morning. She still had never gotten the hang of the time difference between England and Pacific time, no matter how many times Mick explained it to her.
“Mickey! Is everything alright? It must be the middle of the night there!” Bev replied upon hearing her son’s voice over the phone.
“Mum. It’s morning here. Just after nine in the morning.”
“Friday or Saturday?”
Mick sighed. “Friday. Friday morning. I’m still eight hours behind you.”
“Well, that just doesn’t make any sense at all,” she argued.
/> “Take it up with the Queen,” Mick replied. “The next time you two have tea.”
One of the first things anybody who met Beverly Merryweather would learn about her was that she’d once received a letter from the Queen. Signed correspondence from Queen Elizabeth II herself.
The letter was kept under Bev’s bed, in a wooden box handmade by Mick’s great-great-grandfather.
The subject matter was unpleasant, but it made all the difference to a grieving mother to know that the nation stood with her in her time of need.
Frank, Mick’s younger brother, had been a football star. Football, as in soccer.
Whereas Mick had gravitated toward the rough and tumble aspects of rugby, Frank’s speed and grace with the ball made him a prototype winger.
At just seventeen, he’d been promoted to local club Sheffield United’s senior team, playing with and against grown men, earning more money in his first full professional season than his father ever had in an entire year.
United had a trio of young stars; Frank Merryweather, Graham Nevin, and Marcus Gentry, all three local lads who’d grown up playing together since the age of six— who all had genuine aspirations of one day representing the nation of England in a World Cup.
By eighteen, two of them were starting for Sheffield United and drawing interest from scouts at the biggest, and richest, clubs in the English Premier League and throughout Europe.
Frank turned nineteen and was considered among the brightest young stars in England. After a season in which he scored fourteen goals and assisted on nine others, he turned down a massive contract with Liverpool, one of the powerhouse clubs in European soccer. He looked set to become a megastar, but he wanted to do it on his own terms, in his hometown. He was a legend in Sheffield.
With the training starting for the new season, expectations and excitement in Sheffield were high. Mick was away, on assignment for MI6, but he followed along as well as he could from where he’d been stationed in West Africa.
Bev and Harry—Frank and Mick’s dad— were over the moon.
A drunk driver brought the Merryweather family, and all of Sheffield, crashing back to Earth.
The “Three Musketeers,” Frank, Graham, and Marcus, were driving together to practice one morning when they had a flat.
They pulled to the side of the road, as far as they were able, and all three got out to survey the damage and decide on a course of action.
Neither Graham nor Marcus had any experience changing tires, so Frank was elected. He pulled the spare from the “boot” of the car and squatted down next to the driver’s side rear to get to work on the flat. Graham phoned ahead to let the coaching staff know what had happened.
Just as Graham hung up the phone, and Frank wrestled the tire off, it happened.
Niles McCaughtrey had been arrested several times before that fateful night for drunk driving, but none of that stopped him from spending the evening drinking at every pub in Sheffield, talking up the prospects of their local team and its young stars with the promise of a new season on the horizon.
McCaughtrey took a turn too fast, lost control, and his car spun wildly, smashing into the three players before they knew what hit them.
The police investigation reported that Marcus Gentry and Frank Merryweather were killed instantly. For whatever solace it would provide the family, they were told that death was instant. There was no suffering. Graham Nevin survived the impact and lasted a week in hospital before he succumbed. The inebriated driver, Nile McCaughtrey, walked away from the incident and was arrested three blocks away, pressing a towel to a gash on his forehead and attempting to hail a cab.
The accident shocked the nation and rocked Sheffield to its foundation. Mick was recalled from Sierra Leone for the funeral. He and his father served as pallbearers alongside two of Frank’s best mates. Frank’s Sheffield United away jersey was draped across his casket during the service and buried with him.
Two days after the funeral, a letter arrived addressed to Beverly Merryweather. It bore the royal seal, and Mick’s mother opened it with trembling hands. It contained a hand-written note from Queen Elizabeth II. Brief and direct, it relayed the sympathy of the Crown for the great loss the Merryweather family had suffered. Bev marveled at the letter, and in the days that followed, he found his mother sitting at the kitchen table with the note in her hands, eyes going back and forth between it and a framed picture of a nine-year-old Frank, wearing a broad grin and holding a trophy in his hands.
When Mick returned to work, his superiors found that he had become aggressive and reckless, and they recommended “compassionate leave” so he could process his grief.
He was back in Sheffield when the new football season began, and he attended the first home match with his father. Bev was too distraught and declined the invitation.
A sculpture was unveiled outside the stadium in a pregame ceremony honoring the fallen three. The base of the piece was a replica of Bramall Lane, Sheffield United’s home stadium. A pair of hands rose from inside the stadium, open to the air. Suspended above the hands were three doves, each emblazoned with the uniform number of one of the lost players.
Mick wept bitterly at the unveiling of the statue, an outpouring of emotion, and tears, that he’d denied himself since first hearing the news.
He and his father cheered and sang through a wild come-from-behind victory for the home team.
Once he’d spent a few weeks at home, he returned to Africa, this time to Liberia. He was shot in the leg shortly thereafter; a victim of poor intelligence that put the arms smugglers he was tracking several miles away from where he stumbled upon them.
During his convalescence, Mick received two pieces of news from home. First, Niles McCaughtrey, the impaired driver who’d killed his brother, had been found dead in his jail cell while awaiting trial.
The news never called the death a suicide, and he was only thirty-six, so natural causes seemed unlikely. It wasn’t until years later that Mick’s mother forwarded him a piece of mail she’d received at her home that was addressed to Mick. It was a plain white envelope, with no return address. He opened it in his Las Vegas condo and found just a scrap of paper inside:
“Plausible deniability precludes specifics, but just know that Frank’s death was avenged.”
That was it. Mick often wondered who was responsible; someone from the RAF? MI6? A Sheffield United fan? Whomever handled the hit, it was clean and, to Mick’s knowledge, never prosecuted. It helps to have friends in high places. Or dark places, as it were.
The second bit of news visited upon Mick while he was in recovery was that his father had collapsed in his kitchen and died, felled by a massive heart attack. Harry had been a healthy man, a carpenter who never seemed to feel the ups and downs of life too deeply. He didn’t smoke, drank lightly relative to his friends and neighbors, and was generally at very low-risk of heart trouble. The stress of Frank’s death, however, changed him, and eventually his figurative broken heart stopped his literal one.
Bev became cold and withdrawn, and she could often be found seated in a folding chair in front of Bramall Lane, gazing upon her son’s memorial sculpture while she held Harry’s favorite Sheffield United scarf in her hands.
Mick felt himself drowning in the sorrow that surrounded his mother and his hometown, and he needed to put both behind him. A winding road led him to Las Vegas, Nevada. But he always kept in close contact with his mum, who never took kindly to her letter from the Queen being mocked, even by her son.
“God bless that woman,” Bev responded in light of Mick’s notion that she’d share tea with a commoner. “But I’d certainly have a better chance of her dropping by to visit than my own son, more’s the pity.”
“I don’t suppose you’d want to come to the colonies for a visit?” Mick asked.
“Arizona or wherever you are, was never a colony, you bloody fool,” Bev corrected. It was a game they often played, to Mick’s delight and Bev’s chagrin.
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�Stateside, then, if you prefer. I’ll fly you over on the Concorde.”
“Stop taking the piss, the Concorde’s in mothballs,” Bev’s agitated voice replied. “I suppose you’ll try to have me sail on the Titanic next.”
“There’s an idea,” Mick laughed.
“You know I don’t travel outside South Yorkshire,” Bev grumbled. “You’ll have to come here. Maybe this time put a little joy in an old woman’s heart and bring a young lady home with you. One that might provide me with some grandchildren before I die.”
“If and when I met somebody worth introducing to you, Mum, I promise you’ll be the first to know. But, I’m afraid you’ll be stuck with just me for the foreseeable future. Still want me to visit?”
“I saw more of you when you were working for The Circus,” Bev complained. MI6 had been nicknamed The Circus ever since during World War II when it’s offices occupied a building that had once been home to the directors of a popular British circus.
“Nice to hear you so cheery, Mum,” Mick replied. “I’ll pass along my itinerary when I have it. Love you.”
“Cheers, Mickey.”
10
Ayla was driving to work early Friday morning, exhausted after a largely sleepless night, when her phone rang. Before she looked at it, she said a silent prayer that it would be her boss, Jeff, telling her they were overstaffed and offering her the opportunity to stay home. The calls didn’t come often, and she couldn’t really afford to miss work, but the excitement of seeing Preston’s dad— she’d decided that it just had to be him— made it impossible to get any proper sleep.
She looked down at her phone as she rolled to a red light, and saw the name “Tara” instead of “NPE – Jeff.”
“Hey, girl,” Ayla answered. Tara, Ayla’s best friend from high school, lived with her husband in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, where they ran a B&B he’d inherited from his grandparents.
