‘Terrified?’
‘That would be an understatement.’ He pushed up onto his elbows and cocked his head at the baby. ‘Slept through the night for once, didn’t we, little man?’
‘He was all fussed up yesterday and didn’t sleep, so when he went down it must have been like a rock.’
‘I can relate,’ he teased, and gave Eddie’s pyjama top a tug. ‘Well, I’m up. Can I buy you guys breakfast? None of that fruit smoothie crap, I’m talking pancakes and bacon.’
Miranda gasped for Eddie’s benefit and squeezed him closer. ‘You want pancakes and syrup, bub?’
They escaped the house unscathed by the sleeping beast upstairs, quietly save for a minor outburst from Eddie when he refused to keep his socks on, and arrived at a diner three blocks away just as they opened their doors.
‘Now I don’t feel so bad about not being able to see you tonight,’ Simon told her as he stirred milk into his coffee, his second to make up for the espresso he normally had in the morning. ‘At least I can say I had you part of today.’
‘I wish I could change my plans,’ she said truthfully, but she didn’t feel right about leaving Eddie with Juliet alone.
‘I’ll manage. I probably have some work I need to catch up on, and when I get bored with that, you’ve given me a lot to think about when I’m alone.’
‘I have to say that the disbelief has hit me in the light of day. Did I really –’ Miranda glanced at Eddie, occupied with picking scrambled eggs off his plate, and grinned back at Simon ‘– tie you up?’
‘You did, and the ache in my shoulders is the proof.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she really was, even though she was proud of herself. ‘I’ve never done anything like that before.’
‘Would you want to do it again?’
‘Oh, absolutely.’
The morning had finally shrugged off the night by the time they trekked back, and she stood with the stroller next to Simon’s car for a goodbye.
‘Do me a favour and try to get some sleep when he does,’ he said. He leaned against the driver’s side, arm around her waist as she pushed the stroller back and forth.
‘Because I did all the work?’
‘That’ll change next time,’ he said against her temple, his voice a delicious rumble, then kissed her cheek. ‘Text me?’
She turned her face to his, expecting a peck, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and deepened the kiss. He actually tipped her back, and she felt so light that she was sure without his grip she’d float up into the clouds, still hanging on to the stroller.
‘Oh, wow,’ she whispered as he broke from her, then giggled at his expression of supreme self-satisfaction.
‘That was to keep you on your toes until I get you back tomorrow.’
Miranda whimpered. ‘Now I want to cancel so you can finish what you just started there.’
‘Don’t cancel, just think about me for the rest of the day and then rip my clothes off the next time you see me.’ He leaned in front of the stroller and waggled his fingers. ‘Bye, little man.’
Eddie opened and closed his fingers, calling ‘Bye bye’ to his new best friend.
With Simon’s departure, Miranda headed to the crosswalk. Her good feelings ebbed away as they reached the front door. Regret came easy now that Simon was gone, and it dragged her down.
She wished she had told him what was going on with Juliet and how hard it was. She wished she had told him, and that he had folded her close and told her it was all right.
But she reminded herself, as she turned the key in the door, that there was always a chance he wouldn’t.
Chapter Nine
The Agricola Street house was the first place Miranda lived that had a backyard. It wasn’t much of a backyard, only twice the size of her bedroom, but it was good enough for her, and more importantly it was good enough for Eddie. He loved the playhouse and the sandcastle table that his grandmother had bought him. And Miranda loved her lawn chair. As she watched him run in and out of his tiny shelter, she flicked through a magazine and listened to the music coming out of her iPhone.
Yet this was a poor excuse for a Sunday evening, at least compared to her last few Sundays.
A few times, Miranda had tapped out a message to Simon and considered adding an invitation to join her for a backyard barbecue on the hibachi grill, but that would reveal her lie and she might be prompted to tell him the truth.
Not happening, she thought as she hit send, then went back to her magazine.
She didn’t read, but plotted out possible scenarios for date nights. If Juliet hadn’t gone funny, she and Simon could have gone to the movies like they’d been talking about. They could have checked out a burlesque show downtown. Or they could have locked themselves into his apartment again and just fucked like mad until the dawn.
As comfortable as her lawn chair was, as good as her music was and as cute as Eddie was, running around with a spade and a bucket, she was pissed.
Inside, Juliet had camped out in her bedroom, still determined to give Miranda the silent treatment. She’d pass by long enough to slip outside for a cigarette, and had indulged Eddie in the kitchen while she made a sandwich – at least her snit didn’t extend to her nephew – but otherwise kept to herself.
One more thing for Juliet to commandeer with her bullshit. My money, my future, and now the one day a week I get to be normal.
It would have been easy to stomp upstairs and give Juliet a piece of her mind, but it wouldn’t have made her feel better and the silent treatment was better than tears and screaming that could have rivalled Eddie’s most epic tantrums.
So she stayed in her lawn chair, which she didn’t love half as much as she did the last time she’d brought Eddie out here but pretended to anyway.
The crunch of gravel alongside the house dragged her attention away from her fantasies, and as she rose to greet the intruder he appeared.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ Arch, Juliet’s … whatever he was, raised his hand in greeting and proceeded into the backyard.
‘What brings you around?’ she asked, and didn’t get an answer until he had finished chasing Eddie around the yard, then carried him onto the veranda.
‘I was bored,’ he said, and leaned against the railing as Eddie shimmied down his legs.
Arch was shaped like a garden rake, scrawny with big feet, and recently had decided to grow a beard, probably because Juliet had said something about liking men in beards. Miranda could never figure out where Arch fitted into Juliet’s life, whether he was a fuck buddy or casual boyfriend or just a devoted follower, but she really liked him.
‘What are you doing home, you loser?’ he asked. ‘I thought you had a boyfriend now.’
‘I do, but I thought it would be wise to stay close to home today.’
He raised his eyes to the window overlooking the yard, where Juliet probably had moved when she heard voices. Then he nodded and jerked his head towards the driveway.
‘Let’s walk up and get some Chinese, my treat.’
Miranda was relieved as she grabbed the stroller from inside. If Arch wanted her alone, that meant Arch knew something was up. There was a good chance that Juliet had unloaded on him after their fight at the photo studio. While he’d remain on neutral territory – and Juliet’s good side – he’d show up when he was needed. He was like Hipster Batman.
‘Did she tell you about the Dante Monroe thing?’ she asked once they were headed towards the Silver Dragon.
‘Yeah, and I have it on good authority that it’s not happening.’
‘She seems to think it is.’
‘Well, she lives in a dream world.’ He sounded as bitter as she felt, and just as sad, but he gave a shrug as if to get rid of it. ‘She’s pissed as hell at you over it.’
‘The feeling is mutual. You know she hasn’t worked in two months? And the last time she quit after two days.’
‘In her defence, sitting in a room for eight hours processing cheque
s without a break is kind of a sucky job.’
‘So is mine,’ she muttered, ‘but I do it because we have bills to pay, because priorities are priorities and mine are straight.’
‘Then why don’t you just move out if you’re paying the lion’s share?’
‘Because even the couple hundred dollars I get from her every month is better than nothing at all. It keeps me off government money or having to send Eddie to Pictou to live with Mom.’
Neither said anything for a moment as they turned the corner and onto the sidewalk that ran parallel to the busy street stretching halfway across the city’s peninsula.
‘Besides,’ she said quietly, ‘I don’t want to think about what would happen if she was on her own.’
Arch took his own contemplative silence before speaking. ‘I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.’
‘Easier said than done,’ she countered, and stopped in front of the empty lot across the street from the restaurant. ‘How bad is it?’
He hesitated, and Miranda scowled at him.
‘Tell me. You’re out with her just about every night. I know you make sure she gets home all right. You pop in all the time when she’s on her own, and it’s not just because you’re madly in love with her and can’t stand to spend a day without her in it.’ His cheeks coloured and for a few seconds he looked panic-stricken, but Miranda wasn’t in the mood to argue about his devotion to Juliet and the reasons behind it. ‘Can I trust her to take care of Eddie when I’m not around?’
He sighed and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans. ‘She tries.’
‘But?’
‘But she gets careless and has a short attention span.’
‘Does she take any pills or anything when she’s looking after him?’
‘She does when I’m around. She tries to hide it, but one minute she’s jumpy and then she gets up and goes to the bathroom, and I hear moving around in her bedroom. Then she comes back and she’s calm. When I’m not there, I’m on the phone with her and she’s just jumpy, and you can tell everything is getting on her nerves. That’s how I know she’s not doing anything when I’m not there. When she starts mellowing out, that’s when you gotta worry.’
‘It’ll happen eventually,’ she said, and he didn’t disagree.
Both were sober as they ordered food and made small talk, during which time Miranda decided to take advantage of his generous nature beyond the fried rice and spring rolls.
‘If I let you sleep in my bed instead of the sofa, can I maybe talk you into staying the night?’
‘Nah, I like the sofa. You don’t have a TV in your bedroom.’ He gave her a nudge and a leer that never quite made it to lascivious. ‘You going to give the boyfriend a happy ending?’
If he expected her to shush him, he was wrong. Miranda returned his grin. ‘Probably, but I’m looking to get one myself.’
He made a disgusted face. ‘I didn’t need to hear that.’
‘You asked, and hey, don’t you judge me now that one of us is finally getting some.’ She cackled as he gave an exaggerated shudder, then returned his nudge. ‘Thanks, Arch.’
‘No problem. You know you can call me if you need a break.’
She did, but she didn’t like to depend on him, just like she didn’t want to depend too much on Simon. At least with Arch there was the need to take care of Juliet, which was so strong that some days you could practically see his heart shining through his chest like E.T. Simon had no idea.
Miranda reached into her pocket for her phone, but then pulled her hand back empty.
Calling him to come and pick her up would rob her of the element of surprise, and as she waited with Arch she came up with the perfect alternative.
* * *
No one hated video-chatting more than Grace Neely, and it showed on her face the moment Simon answered her call.
He couldn’t very well blame her. The first month or so of her relationship with Jacques had limited her to this form of communication, and even though she expressed no regrets, her hatred for talking to a computer showed in a tight furrow between her brows.
The polished and lacquered woman he’d first met – and once bedded as a part of Jacques’s pursuit of her – had taken surprisingly well to living in the country. Simon had predicted that she’d make it for no more than a few months, but she’d truly become lady of the manor, as he called her.
According to Jacques, she’d even planted a garden. She wore her hair almost down to her waist, and Simon doubted she owned more than one pair of heels these days. She looked radiant, or would have if she hadn’t been so pissed off at having to engage in this digital face-to-face.
As she flipped through a plastic folder, he noted that she hadn’t given up her manicure.
‘Is this a secure line?’ he teased, earning himself a dirty look.
‘Believe me, I would have liked to have just emailed, but it requires some explaining and I haven’t got the patience to type it all up.’
‘So this isn’t the big wedding announcement?’ Another nasty look, and Simon laughed as he raised his tea to his lips. ‘I’ll send you a gift card anyway. By the way, just in case, I’m not doing any freelance work.’
‘This is about your current job,’ she said, and pulled out a leaf of paper. She held it up to the screen, obscuring the view of herself and the kitchen behind her. ‘I got this yesterday.’
Simon leaned forward and peered at the screen, but the writing was too fuzzy. ‘I can’t read it.’
‘I’ll email it, but while I do I’ll give you the short version: someone is trying to hire us to check you out.’
Simon gave a snorting laugh. ‘Is it a joke?’
Her attention was on the keyboard in front of her, and she was typing away as she spoke. ‘I thought it was just someone too stupid to use Google. A quick search of TAJ Surveillance shows that Jacques is the owner, and when you get into the news reports your name comes up, so the obvious conclusion is that someone is trying to use us to send a message to you.’
‘Big Brother is watching?’
‘Not Big Brother. Sent.’ Grace leaned back and waited for him to go into his email. ‘The request came from a town south of here. Care to take a guess where?’
‘Sussex,’ he said as he opened the email, and a thrill went through him, set off by the sudden suggestion that he was no longer merely doing his job, but apparently goaded into playing a game. ‘Bravo to the geeks you have on payroll.’
‘It was so easy they laughed about it.’
He quickly scanned the email, a simple paragraph outlining the need to run an extensive background check on Simon Philip Reeve, age 38, last known residence Toronto, Ontario. It was such an amateur effort that Simon had to agree with Grace that a message was being sent.
I see you.
Simon leaned back and shook his head. ‘I take it your curiosity got the best of you.’
‘Of course.’
Simon chuckled. Grace was becoming more and more like her lover as her fascination grew with the technology that had first drawn her into Jacques’ life, and her regard for privacy other than her own was quickly slipping away.
‘First off, the official story: Matthew Murray, a country boy, born in Miramichi and educated in Sackville and Fredericton before settling in Sussex to practice estate law. He’s an active member of the community, he volunteers, and old ladies love him. The most scandalous thing about him is his sexual orientation, but no one found it scandalous enough to vote against him when he took his first sabbatical to run for town council, and not when he ran for his seat in the last election. He won by a landslide.’
‘What about the boyfriend?’
Grace raised a brow. ‘I take it by that tone you already have a whiff of something. The boyfriend is Donald Christopher Eaton. He was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, but grew up outside of Miramichi. He goes by Chris. He was a bit of a bruiser when he was younger and came from white trash, but he’s pretty vanilla now. He’s be
en working in the National Park since he and Murray settled down in Sussex.’ Grace shrugged. ‘They’re a quiet, boring couple.’
‘Grace, quit fucking around.’
She grinned. ‘You know about the fire?’
‘That’s all I know. I can’t get anyone to talk to me. I’d drive up there but I’m afraid I’d be stoned in the streets.’
‘Sussex, maybe, but not in Miramichi you wouldn’t. We sent a guy up there and within fifteen minutes he heard the whole story. Chris Eaton may be vanilla now, but he was a miserable fucker when he was younger, and, at the time of the fire he was in bed with his brand-new wife.’
‘I thought he was booted out because he was gay.’
Grace shook her head. ‘That didn’t come until much later. Maybe he was exploring his bisexuality at the time, but within days of him turning eighteen he married Sophie. And he was Sophie’s alibi.’
Simon leaned back in his chair and frowned at the woman on the screen. ‘This is like an episode of Law and Order. Why did his teen bride need an alibi?’
‘Because some claimed to have seen her driving away from the trailer that night around the time the fire was spotted. Chris wasn’t her only alibi, though. They were renting on the top floor of a fourplex and their neighbours told police that they were definitely home that night. Apparently Chris gets loud when he’s screwing around.’
Simon growled and covered his eyes. ‘It’s still just small-town gossip. It might get a bit of press, but it’s nothing to sink his campaign.’
‘Simon.’
‘What?’
‘Ask me about Sophie.’
He opened his fingers and peered at her. ‘What about Sophie?’
‘They’re still married.’
Simon dropped his hands and held them out in front of him as he tried to make sense of what Grace was saying. ‘How does that make sense?’
‘I’m sure it would make more sense if you found out why Murray is paying her rent.’
He went electric with excitement. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘Not yet, you’re not. You’re up against the Prince of the Fundy, poised to become the nation’s boyfriend and grandson in one fell swoop. If you try and stir up the dust right now, you’d be taking a risk –’
Breaking Through Page 16
