by Lori Devoti
Her eyes, dark and round, stared at me. “You think?” Then shaking her head, she walked past me, out the door and to my truck.
I smiled. Harmony was going to be okay, which meant I’d be okay. I could survive anything as long as I had my family. I needed them. I huffed out a breath.
Which meant Bubbe and I were going to have to have a long talk.
A week later I was sitting on the front steps looking through Harmony’s artist notebook. My daughter and I’d had a long talk after the scene at the studio. We’d stayed up most of the night, in fact. Luckily the next day had been Saturday. My girl had needed a few days to adjust before returning to her life. It wasn’t often a girl saw her mother kill her hoped-to-be-boyfriend. At least I hoped it wasn’t going to be an everyday thing. With almost four years of high school left, who knew?
Anyway, she knew who she was and where she came from. Bubbe and Mother were thrilled-with that, at least. They were not so thrilled with Makis’s claims.
Bubbe had babbled on about genetic tests, but she was blowing smoke. She knew without any help from science that Makis was telling the truth. Bubbe just knew things like that-at least once the possibility had been plopped down in front of her. Without Makis staring her in the eye and making a claim, I don’t think she ever would have acknowledged the relationship on her own.
But he had and she did and that was that-although his appearance had already added a new dimension of conflict to our home. He and Bubbe would work it out eventually-or not.
I wasn’t getting involved. At least not until one of them blew my house down around me.
Makis and I’d had a long chat too. He told me all about Harmony’s father, how he died, why he’d searched me out. And he told me about Michael. His affair with me hadn’t been part of the plan, but how the sons had been happy when it happened. How Michael’s death was another casualty of their war, how they now suspected Nick/Tim had been the dog who’d killed him. That Nick’s fascination with me may have started then.
I struggled with coming to terms with that, that my rebellion had given sons like Nick fuel, but I got past it. Finally accepted that I wasn’t responsible for others’ insanity, could only do what I thought was best…just. And leaving the Amazons, standing up for equality between men and women, hearth-keepers, warriors, artisans, priestesses, all of us that was right.
After sorting out those issues, I’d had my talk with Bubbe, visited my son’s fake grave, and driven to the hospital where she’d left him so long ago. I hadn’t gone inside. Hadn’t talked to anyone…yet.
He was out there, and I was going to find him, but he was now ten years old. Me popping up and claiming him as mine wasn’t going to be simple. I needed to think about it, prepare myself, and decide when I did find him exactly what I was going to say, how much truth I was going to tell this child. I’d spent so long lying to the first one. Lies had almost become more natural than truth-but that was over.
Harmony knew all-her heritage, her brother, even Bubbe’s betrayal-and, superball that she was, she’d rebounded with barely a flicker of disbelief. I suspected she was the one not telling me something now, but I was letting it go for a while. I owed her that-at least until I thought her secrets put her in danger.
Now I sat on my front steps, flipping through my daughter’s notebook, admiring her work, and feeling grateful my life was back to normal, almost.
Detective Reynolds stepped around the corner. He was dressed casually in jeans and a Packers sweatshirt.
I flipped the notebook closed and lay it on my lap.
He stopped a few feet away, next to the banister, cocked one hip against it. “Kind of weird how everything wound up…all neatlike.”
The sun was battering down with all the strength it could muster on a fall morning. I squinted as I looked up at him, but didn’t raise a hand to block it. The warmth felt good.
“Has to work out that way sometimes, I guess,” I replied.
“Does it? Doesn’t seem to.” He moved his hand on the railing. “How’s Zery?”
I lifted one shoulder. “Don’t know. We don’t talk much.” After being released from jail, she’d gone straight back to the safe camp. I told myself she was needed there, that after learning about the sons, the Amazons had a lot to sort out, but it still hurt. Of course, I could have called her, or gone to see her when Bubbe and I visited my son’s faux grave, but I hadn’t. I guessed Zery and I both needed time before facing whatever our relationship had become.
“She came with the mothers when they claimed the bodies,” he said.
And Dana, she’d gone with them too, but she hadn’t mentioned seeing Zery.
“You know what happened to the missing skin?”
The question caught me off guard. He’d never mentioned the missing patch where the girls’ givnomais had been removed. Now he was acting like I’d know exactly what he was talking about. Which, of course, I did.
Makis and the sons had left Nick’s body in his apartment along with his notebook and knife, but they had removed the tattoos, given them to Alcippe so she could complete the ceremony to release the girls from this plane. They’d set things up to look like he’d attacked another girl, one who got away, but not before shoving his own knife into his chest.
“Any leads on the last girl?” I countered.
He stared behind me, at the shop’s front door. I’d heard a creak a few seconds earlier, knew someone was standing there listening.
“Not a one,” he replied, then slapped his palm against the railing and turned. “I’ve got tickets to the Badgers next weekend. You ever been?”
I shook my head.
He stepped away from the railing. “Saturday, noon. We’ll tailgate. Wear something red.” He slipped one last glance to the door, then strolled around the corner.
“You going?” Peter stepped through the door, onto the concrete behind me.
He looked good, relaxed in a pilled fleece and jeans with a tear in the knee. What was it about worn-out clothes that was so damn sexy?
“What are you doing here?” I’d fired him before racing off to save my daughter. Or thought I had. Maybe slamming him into a wall, then peppering him with tchotchkes hadn’t been direct enough. I hadn’t seen him since then, although I’d picked up the phone more than once.
“Guess he survived our little encounter okay.” His eyes were focused on the spot where Reynolds had disappeared around the side of the building.
“You don’t sound too excited about that. What happened, anyway?”
Reynolds and Peter had both been gone when I returned with Harmony. I figured Peter had gone to help Makis. I’d expected to hear from Reynolds, with a warrant in his hand. I had kneed him in the groin: assault on a police officer. But I guess he got sidetracked, what with finding his serial killer with a six-inch-deep gash in his chest and all.
When he’d shown up today, I’d thought for sure he’d bring up our last meeting, but he hadn’t.
Maybe he was saving it to discuss over beer and brats.
“What did he tell you?” Peter asked.
I snapped my attention away from my musings. “Nothing. We hadn’t talked until just now.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets and wandered down a step-still far enough away I didn’t have to strain my neck too much to look up at him.
“I jumped on him. He fired and missed. I slapped his gun out of his hand, then ran up the stairs-back out the window.”
I nodded. Pretty much what I’d figured.
“So, you going with him?” he asked again.
I arched a brow. “I might.”
He walked closer then, sat down beside me, and stared out toward Monroe Street.
I faced the front too, placed my hands on Harmony’s notebook. Traffic was light today, but it was Sunday, not much going on.
“I can help you find your son, now that you know what happened to him.”
My fingers straightened, splayed out stark white against the notebook’s bl
ack cover. “Why?”
“It’s what I do.” He placed his forearms on his knees and laced his fingers together. “And I want to help…you.”
I didn’t reply for a while. Felt my breath entering and leaving my lungs, realized just how hard and cold the step was beneath my butt.
“You want your job back?” I asked.
“I hadn’t left. Check the schedule. I had the week off.”
I shook my head. Next time I’d have to throw something bigger at him, maybe my truck. “I haven’t forgiven you for Harmony. I don’t trust you.”
He slid his hands up and down his thighs. “I know, but you will. I’ll make sure of it.”
I looked at him, expecting to see a grin or at least a smile, but his expression was dead serious. “In the meantime, are you going to let me help you?”
I gripped Harmony’s notebook, thought about the little boy out there somewhere growing bigger every day. Days I’d never get back. “You can help.”
Then he smiled. “Good.”
And it was. It was all good. Things weren’t perfect, but they were out in the open-or as out as they were going to get for a while-and I had friends, family, and two men who seemed inexplicably willing to put up with my crap.
And somewhere I had a son. I couldn’t wait to meet him.
Lori Devoti
Lori Devoti grew up in southern Missouri and attended college at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she earned a Bachelor of Journalism. She, however, made it clear to anyone who asked, she was not a writer; she worked for the dark side-advertising. Now twenty years later, she's proud to declare herself a writer and visit her dark side occasionally by writing dark paranormal romances and urban fantasy novels with a little death and a lot of adventure.
Lori lives in Wisconsin with her husband, daughter, son, an extremely patient shepherd mix, and the world's pushiest Siberian husky.
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