by Lia Lee
Anne would lose that if they ever found out about William. Or she assumed so. They had been nonplussed in general when she’d told them that she couldn’t go back to him for information, due to the increased risk to him. That was a common bond between the detectives. It was hard to protect a source when things started to heat up, and no one wanted to be the person to get a source killed. In her case, she thought that if William died, she might die as well. Not that she could give up with Michelle and Evie depending on her, so living dead it would have to be.
Anne was pretty close to that as it was. Every day was the same arrangement. Getting up Evie, talking about the schedule with Michelle, leaving Evie with the sitter, going off to work. The sad thing was that it had been this way for years, but only now did it seem as though her life was lifeless. She didn’t even get to see Evie nearly as much as she’d like, often only when she was getting up or going to bed.
“Don’t punch me if I ask this,” Michelle said.
Anne set Evie’s breakfast in front of her. “When was the last time I punched you?”
“I dunno, you’ve been looking like you wanted to punch something for a week.” Michelle took her plate to the sink. “Ever since—”
“Don’t, Miche. Please?”
Michelle leaned back on the counter and looked at Anne with annoyed half-lidded eyes. “Why are you like this?”
“Like what?”
“Something was clearly heating up with William again—”
“Miche, I swear—”
“And you were happy for like, a millisecond, and now you’ve kicked him out, and you’re miserable again.”
“I am not miserable. We’re all just working really hard on this case.”
Michelle threw her hands in the air. “You’re always working on a case! You’re never just living your life. I know being a cop is important, but I think you use that so you can get out of actually having a life of your own.”
“Too harsh, Miche,” Anne said.
“I’m sorry, but no. You lived for me, and you live for your job, and you live for Evie, but you won’t try to have a relationship because… I dunno. You tell me. How bad could it be if you tried to make it work with William and it didn’t work?”
“Then, Evie has to deal with her father figure walking out the door?” Anne argued. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not? Evie already has to legit deal with her actual father not being here because you haven’t told him he’s a dad. He wasn’t bad at it, either.” Michelle held her hands up. “I know babysitting isn’t parenting, but he hasn’t had a chance to do it. And I wouldn’t be saying anything if you didn’t genuinely seem unhappy. I just want you to try to be happy. No mom has to put her own life on hold just because she’s a mother.” Michelle paused. “Our mom didn’t. Mom dated. Mom had a career she liked. I just don’t want you to not to get to have a life. I already felt bad that you had to put your life on hold to be my mom.”
Anne swallowed and looked at Evie with oatmeal smeared on her face. “It’s complicated. But I’ll think about it when this case is over, okay? I really don’t want him involved.”
“I get that. Do you want me to finish up with Evie so you can get ready for work?”
“I have time.” Anne wiped Evie’s mouth. “I kind of would just like to spend the morning with my daughter.”
Michelle dropped a kiss on Evie’s head and gave Anne’s hand a squeeze before heading out. Anne rubbed her thumb along Evie’s hand. What would her daughter think her role was in life when she was a teenager? What would she think about guys, living the way they did? Anne sighed and tried to live in the moment, just for now, and enjoy the happy sounds Evie made as she smacked her spoon into the oatmeal.
***
William smoothed his hand down his suit and checked his tie in the mirror before he left his car and headed up to Harrold Egerton’s penthouse. He wasn’t sure how long he would have to record for the police, but if this was the last favor he did Anne, at least he’d made it a big one.
Unfortunately, when he and Egerton sat around and talked business, they never talked murders or the dirtying of hands. They talked systems, smuggling, supply and demand. They sipped whiskey, neat, while Egerton told William old stories about his bastard father. They talked about the nuts and bolts of business that William had and would do. For that reason, William was glad that he had enacted a promise from the captain that whatever they uncovered wouldn’t result in William’s arrest. He was putting a lot on the line to get them a direct feed into Egerton’s circle, and it had been very clear what happened to anyone who crossed this man.
“What happened to that lovely girl on your arm from the gala?” Egerton asked. He prodded William’s shoe with his own.
William shrugged. “I had her a couple of times.”
“And then?” Egerton leaned over with a grin.
“I sent her on her way.” It was only partially a lie, but Egerton didn’t need to know about any part of it. Nor did Anne’s wormy little partner who was listening. He wasn’t sure Jeffers and Lopez would come through on their end of things, to be honest, but considering how much they believed they knew about Anne and him, it was simply easier to go along with things.
That had been William’s strategy going in. His father was much like Egerton, so he knew how to play the man. He would play along with almost everything, then take a stand on one thing, something he doesn’t care too much about to prove himself a “proper man,” and then go back to being his little buddy. Men like this didn’t really want someone self-possessed in their employ. Someone who had his own ideas was a potential threat. However, Egerton had always wanted William by his side. It would surely irritate his father, as a bonus.
Anne had been right. Who could be so selfish as to bring a little girl into all of this? William wondered why his mother ever had the poor sense to give his own father a child. As the inheritor of that dysfunction, William believed less and less that he would be that much better. At least he never would’ve had Evie stabbed. And, of course, she would’ve wanted for nothing…
William cut off the thought and laughed at Egerton’s joke. There was no point dwelling on it. William had his suspicions, given how old Evie was, but if Anne wanted nothing to do with him, he couldn’t force their relationship now. He could be a patient man, if he tried.
Just now, he was exercising all the patience he had in him to deal with Egerton.
“Hullo, Daddy,” Clary said as she walked in. She touched her father’s shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
***
Anne sat in the evidence room looking carefully through each piece they’d found related to the case so far. It was tedious, but after a truly mediocre effort at being a secondary, Jeffers seemed to have fallen off the Earth. She didn’t trust his eye, anyway. She’d called DeWinters to head down here and go over it with her. They needed something that would definitively connect Egerton to the murders, or they’d be back to trying to find a hit man who had managed to stay hidden for the better part of a decade.
Opening up the sleeve with the ring in it one more time, Anne looked over it carefully. Having seen William’s ring again up close, she could tell the difference. William’s had been worn much more often. The gem was brighter. With a frown, Anne rose to check the evidence out and headed upstairs to look something up on her computer.
“Sorry!” DeWinters spotted her returning to her desk. “I had to finish up with the mugging from last night.”
“The world continues to turn, even in the face of a case that won’t crack.” Anne sat at her desk, and DeWinters came up behind her.
“What do you have there?”
“The ring we found at the crime scene. Spencer has one almost exactly like it, which is what led us to him from the beginning.”
“Ah.” DeWinters pulled up Jeffers chair. “What are you looking for?”
“The night of the gala, Wil-Spencer said that maybe his mother had given a ring, similar to hi
s, to someone she mentored. I thought at the time that might be the case, but the worn spots on the original got me thinking. Even if his mother had given her own ring to a protégée, it wouldn’t look this new. Natural oils of the hand would have broken down some part of it.” Anne started searching. “I need a picture of Mrs. Spencer’s hands.”
DeWinters nodded and rolled back over to Jeffers’ computer to help search. A few minutes later, he called, “Got one.”
“I thought my generation was supposed to be the digital natives.” Anne walked over to look.
There she was. Pamela Spencer. Tall, blonde, and strong. Her features were softer, so it was clear that William gained much from his father, but those axe blade cheekbones of his seemed to be a maternal trait. Anne wouldn’t have wanted to cross Mrs. Spencer. Not as an MI6 agent, and not as a mother.
This picture had a clear view of her left hand. As Anne suspected, the ring wasn’t worn on her index or ring finger, but on her thumb. The fading on the right side was from when she had worn it on her thumb, the fading on the left was from when William wore it on his index finger and rubbed it compulsively. The evidence they had wasn’t connected to Pamela Spencer because she had given her ring directly to William as a family heirloom.
“So, what does that mean?” Anne murmured.
“Mrs. Spencer had big hands?” DeWinters suggested. He looked at the ring. “As did our perp.”
Anne blinked at the picture. Both William’s father and Harrold Egerton were there, as well as a tiny blond William, and a shining head of reddish-gold hair. She looked between William, Anthony Spencer, and Harrold Egerton. Then, she looked between Mrs. Spencer and the girl.
“Oh no. I know who the hit man is.”
“You do?” DeWinters looked up. “From big hands?”
Anne shook her head. This was hard. She’d liked her.
But Clary—tall, warm, redheaded Clary who had her mother’s cheekbones—was an assassin, and probably a sociopath. She’d smiled at William like an old friend (like a sister, hissed part of Anne), but Anne would’ve bet her own life that Clary had been the one to sink that knife into his side. It was hard to look at a picture of a small child and know, without a doubt, that her parents had somehow made a monster of her.
“Where’s Jeffers? We need to get a warrant for Clary Egerton as soon as possible,” Anne said.
“He’s with the stakeout team.” DeWinters frowned. “Wait, no one told you that? The captain put him on it.”
Anne clenched her jaw. DeWinters rolled back a few feet.
“Girl, I didn’t do it.”
Anne drew in a deep breath through her nose. “Who are they staking out?”
“Egerton—”
“And? What, they’re just watching him at his house?” she snapped.
“No, Spencer agreed to—”
Anne stormed into Lopez’s office.
“Sutton!” he scolded.
Anne slammed her palms on the desk. “This is my case. You sent a civilian in with a wire without telling me? On my case?”
“You’re too close to this informant, Sutton. You know it, and Jeffers knew it. He suspected you might be close to getting romantically involved with Spencer, and I couldn’t let it interfere with our investigation.” Lopez stood and held up a finger when she started to object. “And Spencer came to us after you spoke to him. Something must’ve gotten through. He said he’d prefer if you weren’t on surveillance, and I thought that would be best as well.”
“Where are they?” Anne could feel her whole body turning scarlet when Lopez hesitated. “I can find out, Captain!”
“What do you plan to do?” Lopez boomed. “Pull your boyfriend out of the investigation?”
“No. I plan on keeping the hit man we’ve been tracking from getting a second shot at murdering him. It’s Egerton’s daughter. That’s why her MO changes. When she’s working with him, the bodies are connected to his business, and all killed the same way. When she’s not, she’s being paid by someone else.” Anne paused and sighed. “Or she’s doing it for fun. Jeffers marked two of the cold cases as connected to no one. However, they were men that ran in the same circles that Clary would’ve run in.”
Captain Lopez held up a hand. “Explain the details to me on the road.”
***
Clary poured herself a martini and came over to the sitting area where her father and William were sitting. William watched her for a moment as she stirred her drink with the toothpick and then withdrew the olive. Her eyes blinked almost sleepily as she waited for their conversation to drift around to something of interest.
Clary was only present at their meetings off and on. William knew her in some capacity, since boarding school, but her friendship and her motives had always been a little hard to discern. He didn’t mind having her there, however, as her father was about as interesting as molded bread, and Clary’s personality had always brought a brightness to whatever room she was in.
Egerton had just finished discussing the finer points of the current market in antiquities, and would have prompted William to explain (again) how the dark web could help them smuggle and sell illegal items without the authorities tracking their deals online, when Egerton’s butler came in and announced that William’s girlfriend was here to see him.
William managed to keep his expression neutral since there was really only one person who might claim that title.
“I thought you were done with her,” Egerton said.
“Let her in.” Clary drained her glass and then picked up her cat-shaped purse. “She was a blast at the gala.”
“Oh, we’ve been talking since then.” William gave Egerton a wicked grin. “Sometimes you don’t want to let a girl off the hook completely. I mean, why let it go to waste?”
Egerton laughed and turned to his butler to instruct that Anne be let up. William thought his heart might very well stop. Anne was coming up here while William was wearing a wire in the den of the lion. They couldn’t have come up with a stupider plan if they’d been trying.
When Anne appeared, she was barely disguised. William recognized the pants and boots she normally wore during work hours, but the rest was odd. She wore a dark gray tank top, with the arms of a fuchsia sweater tied around her shoulders, and she had pulled her hair into pigtails.
“Hi!” She waved at William and came up to give him a hug. “Did you forget about our date? I mean, I know you said you were doing business today, but um…” She tapped on her wristwatch. “Lunchtime.”
“You can stay and have lunch with us, young lady,” Egerton said. He was looking Anne up and down in a way that made William want to twist his tentacles into a knot.
“Oh, um, we could. But—” Anne looked at William with big eyes. “We had a reservation. At Evie’s.”
What the hell? William looked into her eyes, trying to suss out what she could possibly be trying to tell him. Was she trying to get him to leave? By mentioning her daughter?
“No, Anne.” Clary cooed. “Stay with us. I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I know! But maybe we could meet up sometime? I work a lot. I don’t have a lot of time just to hang with the girls,” Anne said.
“I’ve never really had much in common with girls my age, unfortunately,” Clary replied, opening her purse and searching for something in it.
William frowned as he caught the look in Clary’s eye. He’d seen that look once before; right before she’d hopped on top of a boy in boarding school and beaten the shit out of him. At the time, he’d assumed the guy deserved it since so many of the guys at school were such spoiled little shits. She looked like a predator spotting her prey.
William took Anne’s hand. “Give us a moment?”
“Certainly,” Egerton said.
William had half-turned toward the door when Anne reached behind her and pulled a gun from under the ugly sweater.
“Hands up!” she shouted, just as the sound of a bullet rang in the air.
William d
idn’t think. He didn’t breathe. He just turned to Anne and pulled her against his chest, holding her there as tightly as he could.
Chapter Fourteen
Anne would never forget the look on William’s face as he held her and blood dribbled down his lips. Pain. Shock. Fear. Anger. No words came from his practiced lips. No tricks left up his sleeves. Never before had Anne felt so keenly what it would mean for William to be out of her life, permanently.
Harrold Egerton had shrieked William’s name. Clary had smirked and aimed her gun again. But Anne was a good shot, even with William’s body sagging heavily against her as a grisly human shield. She caught the side of Clary’s arm, causing the woman to drop her gun.
“You shot me!” Clary protested, as though offended.
The scene had been truly surreal.
Moments later, the other officers on the scene, including the captain, had come sweeping up, taking father and daughter in on charges of conspiracy to murder, smuggling, racketeering, and on and on. Clary, however, was going to be facing multiple accounts of murder one. She had smiled all the way to the cop car.
Now, Anne sat by William’s bed in the hospital. He’d been in for surgery to remove the bullets, and the doctor had said William had done well. He hadn’t woken yet, though, and Anne felt almost continuously that she might just vomit everywhere. She couldn’t do that though. Because she was in a hospital. Where William could die from a gunshot wound.
“Wake up, you idiot,” Anne whispered occasionally. She worried they’d make her leave, soon. She wasn’t his wife or anything. When pressed, she’d blurted to the nurse that William was her daughter’s father, and they’d made their own assumptions, or maybe the nurse had thought it was close enough.
She clutched his hand and closed her eyes. She’d cried so much already that she couldn’t imagine having any tears left, but her body clearly had other plans.
“Rude,” William murmured.
Anne looked up and squeezed his hands. “Will? William! Are you awake?”
“Yes. Please don’t shout. Think I’ve got a mother of a hangover.”
