“Good morning.” From Leah. “You have napkin shreds in your eyebrows.”
“Because of course I do. I’ll go wash my— No!” Her hands shot out to keep Archer at arm’s length since he’d crumpled up a napkin and licked it. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare do that disgusting thing when a mom spits on a napkin or Kleenex and then scrubs your face with a spit-soaked napkin. God. Revolting.”*
“At last we agree on something.”
“Agh! Jeez, Mom. You scared me.”
“In my defense, I was standing on the other side of the open fridge door.”
Sure. That was it. Not the fact that you’re fully dressed at 10:30 a.m. and having breakfast with the family.
“Say what you will about my parenting skills—”
“Nobody’s got that kind of time.” From Paul, who continued the vicious cycle of stealing food from other plates by taking Jack’s bacon.
“I never did the spit-on-a-napkin thing.”
“Y’know, I have to concede that point, Mom.” Hey, when she’s right she’s right. And is it my imagination or are we having a normal family-type breakfast the way millions do all over the world?
“Ow!” From Paul, who jerked back and clutched his knuckles, but never stopped chewing.
“Keep your fingers off my plate and away from my bacon or the next one goes between your eyes,” Jack warned. He twirled the spatula between his fingers like a rock drummer and Paul pretended he didn’t flinch.
“Auntie Em, did you hear? Did Angela tell you? About what Dennis said?”
“I heard.” She tsk’d and condensed a vague lecture into a short phrase: “I warned you.”
“You warned me that if I persisted, Uncle Dennis would promise to randomly murder someone and call me a bitch and then I’d throw up? I thought I was having some déjà vu yesterday. It was like you foresaw it all.”
“Yes, yes, you love sarcasm, you’ve all made that clear over the years. But if that admittedly unpleasant confrontation is what it took to come to your senses, fine. Jack, is there any bacon left?”
“Sure, Mom.” He went to the microwave, grabbed his tongs, put a rasher* on a small plate and handed it over. “It’s not as crisp as you like, though. I didn’t know you were— I mean, I can cook it a little longer if you like.”
Their mother shook her head. “It’s fine, Jacky.”
Paul finished Jack’s bacon, then leaned in. “Can we get back to the incarcerated shitstain who has invited all our wrath?”
“Must we?” Emma muttered.
“What are we gonna do to him? Shouting epithets at Angela while horrified onlookers pretend they can’t hear or see anything is a privilege, not a right. He’s gotta pay.”
“He’s serving a life sentence,” Angela reminded them. “He’ll never see his family again. He’ll be in a cage until he dies. I think we can safely say that ICC has this.”
“Speaking of ICC.” Leah helped herself to a glass of orange juice and sipped while she looked at her phone, then up at Archer. “I spoke with CO Maller and it looks like we’re going forward.”
Leah hadn’t been talking to her, but Angela jumped in anyway. “The guy with the gambling addiction?”
“Gambling problem. Yes.”
“He got canned yesterday,” Archer added, “so Leah’s gonna see about getting him a new job.”
“He did? She is?” I slept for four hours and missed all sorts of updates!
“Angela got someone fired again?” Jordan shook his head. “You’re a general menace, you know that, right?”
“It wasn’t me this time, it was Leah. And Uncle Dennis, who had something of a breakdown that after today we’re not going to discuss anymore.”
“Why’d you do that?” Jack asked Leah.
“When did you do that?”
“I set up an interview for him an hour ago, and I’ll meet with him next week,” Leah replied, seeming surprised at the sudden interest. “What? We always need good security people. A client tries to smack one of us around every month or so.”
“Can we talk again about how much I hate that aspect of your job?” Archer said. “Because I fucking hate that aspect of your job.”
“Leah can take care of herself,” Jack said stoutly.
“Of course she can, I knew that within ten seconds of meeting her.”
“Hey, that’s right!” Paul poked Archer in the shoulder. “She stabbed you!”
“Twice. So, yeah, Leah can take care of herself. I just hate that she has to.”
“Regardless. We’re always in need of good security, so.” Leah shrugged. “I made some arrangements.”
“Except.” Angela cleared her throat. “Technically, he’s not a good security guy. He totally ignored the rules because you butted into his personal life.”
“That’s another way to look at it,” Leah admitted. “But we all know it was more complicated than that. He did us an enormous favor and suffered for it. Why wouldn’t I try to help him? Chances are he won’t make the same mistake twice.”
“You hope.”
“I hope,” she conceded.
“But how did Maller even know to reach you?” she asked Leah. “Oh, wait—he must have gotten your personal info off one of the intake sheets.”
“Actually.” Now Leah was the one clearing her throat. “Detective Chambers called and told me a couple of hours ago.”
“He called you?” What are you freaking out for? You made it clear he sure as shit wasn’t supposed to call you anymore. Still, she couldn’t help saying it again. “You?” First the pastry swan, now this? Usurper!
“Yes.” Leah was doing a wonderful job pretending this was an ordinary morning. “And I think he’ll be stopping by today.”
Angela could feel herself getting pale, which was clinically interesting. So that’s why people faint. All the blood leaves your head and it becomes too hard to stand up. “No. Oh no, he won’t.”
And because this wasn’t an ordinary morning, because the Drake family could never have an ordinary morning, that was when someone knocked on the kitchen door.
“In fact,” Leah continued, “I’ve got a very strong hunch that he’ll be here any moment.”
More knocking.
“Son of a bitch.”
“You gonna finish that?”
Angela shoved her plate at Mitchell and stood in the same movement. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Why are you getting upset?” Jack asked. “Don’t you like Detective Chambers anymore?”
“He’s not working Dad’s case. Which I made clear. He’s not supposed to be here. Which he knows. So I will handle this.”
“That’s the problem,” Leah said quietly. “You’re not handling anything, Angela. You’ve been handled. For years.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she replied flatly.
For whatever reason, that made Leah sad; she broke their gaze and stared down at her plate. “I know.”
FORTY-SIX
“Nope.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Right now.”
“We’re not doing this.”
“It’s important.”
“Don’t care.”
“In private.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
“Three minutes.”
“No minutes.”
“Two minutes.”
“God, you’re bad at this. No minutes!”
“Jeez, Angela.” Her brothers were staring at her in amazement, and Paul added, “Give him a hundred twenty seconds. It’s two minutes out of your life.”
“Two minutes out of my life, then one day, then one year, and then you turn around and it’s been a decade. No.” And was she just supposed to pretend Jason didn’t make himself extra-hot on purpose before coming over? Was she supposed to act like she didn’t see how great he looked in dark jeans and an aqua polo shirt? And ignore the fact that he didn’t shave on purpose just to fuck with her and flaunt his stubble?
Bastard.
“One minute,” Archer said, “and that’s our final offer.”
“Done.”
“Wait!” Argh! What a stupid time for a lapse in concentration. It’s the stubble’s fault! “This isn’t an auction, it’s not their decisi—”
“You’ve got sixty seconds, Detective.” Mitchell looked at his watch. “Go.”
Jason sucked in a deep breath and got started. “Our first visit to ICC. Dennis would only talk to us for five minutes, claimed he didn’t want to go over his allotted visits for the month.”