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  Great. More details for his brain to picture. The man is eating canned meat over a sink.

  Miles sputtered, punctuating every other word of his sentence with an invisible finger poke. “You know what? You better believe you will. Unless you want to wake up with a wolverine in your Jeep.”

  Cormac scowled. “I don’t have a Jeep.”

  “It’s a figger of speech.”

  “I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”

  Cormac heard Miles swallow.

  My god, he picked the spoon up out of the sink.

  Cormac could only imagine how dirty a sink in Miles’ world might be. Again, he tried hard not to picture the meat being spooned into the man’s mouth. For some reason he pictured it with little webbed feet.

  “Look, Miles. We’re done. You told me you had intel. You said you’ve been years collecting it.”

  “I have.”

  “Notes scribbled on the back of a half-used napkin aren’t intel. I asked you to do me a favor and waylay Charlotte, and then next thing I know you’re throwing a zoo at her.”

  “Ain’t no zoo. I work with wild animals.”

  “That isn’t the point. You were supposed to slow her down, hell, even kidnap her for a bit. You weren’t supposed to try and kill her with a snake.”

  Miles chuckled. “If Knuckles had got her, it would have been kidnapping. She just woulda been wrapped up in snake belly.”

  “I know you killed Jason Walsh too, idiot. They found pufferfish toxin in him. You haven’t done a damn thing I’ve asked you to do right since the beginning.”

  Miles grunted.

  Cormac sighed and turned on his car to get the air running. Miles had him sweating with agitation. “You have some really deep-seated issues, Miles. We’re done.”

  “You still gonna put my money in that account?”

  “Sure. I’ll give you nine hundred.” Back when he’d first located Miles, Cormac had been about to offer him ten thousand dollars for his information. Before he could even mention a price, Miles had pounded the table and demanded five hundred.

  Miles cleared something rattling in his sinuses with a pig-like snort. “Make it a thousand.”

  “Sure.” He wasn’t going to give him a penny anyway. The only thing worse than a psycho was a psycho with a little cash.

  He heard Miles suck his tooth with his tongue.

  You don’t want to miss a morsel of that sweet, sweet canned meat, do you, buddy?

  “I’m gonna head back then,” said Miles.

  “Back where?”

  “If I told you it wouldn’t be back there.”

  Cormac shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Back where Simone can’t find me. That’s all you need to know.”

  Cormac closed his eyes.

  Stupid. He should have known when Miles kept referring to Jamie as Simone it meant he couldn’t have any useful intelligence on her. How much could he have uncovered if he didn’t even know her real name?

  He was about to hang up when Miles spat one last thought at him. “I’ll tell you whut though, Jim. If you don’t catch Simone, I’ll be back for her, you, and everyone around here.”

  Cormac put his car in gear and pulled from the curb, following in Seamus’ tracks. He didn’t like being threatened by anyone, let alone the sorry sack of flesh on the other end of his phone. His patience had finally ended.

  “I’ll tell you whut, Miles,” he said, imitating the man’s accent. “If I so much as see a lizard around here, I’m going to take you out. And I can promise you my gun is more reliable than your animals.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The prison guard jerked open the barred door and threw a cardboard box into the middle of the cell.

  “Alright, Beatty, put all your crap in there. You’re moving.”

  Beatty stared down at the box, blinked at the guard, glanced at Stephanie, and then looked back at the box. She stabbed a finger into the center of her own chest. “Me?”

  “Yep. You’re moving down the hall.”

  Beatty’s eyes grew wide. “Why me? I’ve been in this cell longer than she has.” She pointed at Stephanie, who leaned against the wall with her arms crossed against her chest, watching the drama unfold.

  The guard motioned to the box. “Just move it.”

  Beatty jumped down from her bunk, glaring at Stephanie.

  “This is your fault. You did something to get me moved.”

  Stephanie picked up the car magazine she’d borrowed from the prison library and flipped through the pages. She’d been learning how to replace a carburetor.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said without raising her gaze. When she did glance up, she spotted MuuMuu hovering behind the guard, just outside the cell door.

  MuuMuu smiled and waved. Stephanie waved back.

  Beatty watched the exchange as she began tossing things into the box. “Her? You got her moved in here?”

  Stephanie returned to flipping the pages of her magazine. “Get your stuff in the box before I feed it to you.”

  Beatty gasped and addressed the guard. “You heard that. You heard her threaten me.”

  “And I’m going to let her feed it to you if you don’t pick up the pace. Let’s go.”

  Beatty huffed and reached for a roll of toilet paper.

  Stephanie put a hand on the roll to keep her from taking it. “That’s mine.”

  Beatty’s face turned a shade of red Stephanie hadn’t seen before as she bent to pick up the box. “You’re going to pay for this.”

  “I doubt it,” mumbled Stephanie.

  The guard led Beatty out and MuuMuu entered, carrying her own box of things.

  Stephanie smiled. “Hey, girlfriend.”

  “Hey. I think you have a better window here,” said MuuMuu studying the two-by-two square of light above Stephanie’s head.

  “I imagine they’re standard, but we are south-facing.”

  Stephanie climbed into the top bunk.

  “You’ve got bottom, MuuMuu. I can’t spend the rest of my time here wondering when that seven-wonders-of-the-world body of yours is going to come crashing down on my head.

  MuuMuu laughed. “You’re funny.”

  Stephanie flopped back on the bed. “I’m just happy to have you here. You know, in case I get audited.”

  MuuMuu scoffed. “Worse part is, it wasn’t even my audit.”

  “You broke the ribs of someone else’s tax collector?”

  “My mother’s. She’s a terrible person.”

  “The tax lady?”

  MuuMuu shook her head. “My mother.”

  “Then why did you help her?”

  “Because she told me to.” MuuMuu sat on her bunk and Stephanie heard the bed groan.

  “Even though she knew you’d get in trouble?”

  “Uh huh. She was always doing things like that. She had me buy drugs for her from the time I was little. She—” MuuMuu cut short. “She did a lot of terrible stuff.”

  Stephanie hung her head over the edge of her bed to peer down at MuuMuu. “So even with all that you tried to help her?”

  MuuMuu shrugged. “She’s my mother.”

  Stephanie rolled back to stare at the ceiling. “We have a lot more in common than you think, Muu.”

  MuuMuu stood again and stacked another roll of toilet paper from her box on top of the one Stephanie hadn’t allowed Beatty to take. They had three rolls now. They were practically millionaires.

  “When I got in here I started counseling and the group helped me realize I don’t have to do what my mother says. Doc said she’s a toxic person and what I did wasn’t my fault. Said she doesn’t control me and even if she made me, I don’t have to be made in her image. She isn’t God.”

  Stephanie rolled on her side and propped her head up on her elbow. “They told you that, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “And it worked?”

  MuuMuu grinned and held her arms
out at her sides. “I feel free for the first time in my life. I feel like the world’s off my shoulders.”

  Stephanie snickered. “You could probably hold the world on those shoulders.”

  MuuMuu laughed. “You’re crazy.”

  Stephanie squinted at her new cellmate.

  “Tell me more about what they told you in therapy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Declan and Charlotte sat up in bed in unison, both with eyes wide. Somewhere a dog was barking and a man was begging for the animal to stop.

  “Abby,” said Charlotte, sliding from beneath the sheets. She wore Declan’s boxers and one of his t-shirts as makeshift pajamas. She and Declan had spent a good part of the evening speculating on who might have tried to kill him and where Miles might strike next. When it got late, it seemed silly to try and sneak her back into the house past Andy and Butch.

  Who knew what sort of deadly animals might be strewn around her yard in the dark?

  Declan stood and beat her to the door, striding toward his living room, Charlotte on his heels.

  “It’s Seamus. I can hear him,” she muttered, recognizing the voice as they grew closer.

  Declan flipped on the light and found his uncle with his hands outstretched in front of him, the door open wide behind him. Abby held him at bay, punctuating a never-ending growl with the occasional bark.

  Charlotte scurried past Declan and grabbed the Wheaten by her collar.

  “What are you doing here so late?” asked Declan. “You usually sleep at the bar on late nights.”

  Seamus looked at Charlotte, amusement lighting his expression. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Declan rolled his eyes. “Charlotte’s house isn’t safe. It seemed a better idea to keep her here.”

  Seamus glanced down at Abby. “I think she’d be safe anywhere with this devil dog by her side.”

  Something about the shifty way Seamus kept glancing behind him made Declan uneasy. “What’s going on? Why do you look so shifty?”

  Seamus hung his head and ran his hand along the top of it from front to back, smoothing his fuzzy hair. “There’s something I have to tell you. Something that couldn’t wait.”

  “About Jamie?” asked Charlotte.

  “No—”

  Outside, someone closed a car door and Seamus turned to shut the front door behind him. “I wanted to warn you—”

  “What’s going on?” Now Declan knew something was up. As Seamus’ head turned, he noticed a mark on his uncle’s cheek. “Why is your face red? You look like someone punched you.”

  “That’s just it. Someone did—”

  Someone outside knocked on the door.

  “Who is that?”

  Seamus held up his hands as if he were begging. “Listen, I need to tell you I didn’t know—”

  “Who is it?” Declan pushed past his uncle and flung open the door.

  A man in a suit stood in front of him. His lip looked swollen and his jacket hung at an odd angle. It took Declan a moment to realize the lapel had been torn. The man’s dark hair flopped across one eye.

  They stood staring at each other, silent.

  The man looked a lot like him.

  The visitor was older, but even in the dim light spilling from the living room, Declan could sense the truth.

  “How...?”

  The man’s eyes rimmed with tears and he opened his arms. “Declan. It’s Dad...”

  Declan took a step back to avoid the embrace. He whirled to face Seamus. “What is this?”

  Seamus sighed and dragged his hand across his injured cheek. “I don’t know. He showed up at the bar and we, we didn’t exactly get a chance to talk.”

  Declan turned back to his father and stood there, blocking the man’s entry. He couldn’t imagine a story that would explain why his father had disappeared, why he hadn’t come back to claim his son when his wife went missing, or why he would show up now, nearly twenty years later.

  “Please, let me come in and explain.” Cormac looked past Declan to Seamus. “To both of you.”

  Declan took a deep breath and expelled it. He took a step back to make way.

  “This oughta be good.”

  “I’ll take Abby to the bedroom,” said Charlotte.

  Declan shook his head. “No. Stay here. You’re part of my life now.” He glanced at his father and muttered, “More than he ever has been.”

  Declan felt ashamed as soon as he said it. Not because his father didn’t deserve his venom, but because he’d sounded childish. Bitter. He could feel his childhood hurt and resentment swirling in a maelstrom in his chest. He took another deep breath to try and calm the storm.

  I need to approach this like an adult. Don’t lash out.

  Charlotte let Abby sniff Seamus’ and Cormac’s shins and released her collar when the dog had decided the two men posed no threat. Bored with the guests and annoyed at being awoken, the Wheaten found a spot on the living room rug and flopped down to drop her head on her forepaws. The bruised brothers found places on the sofa beside each other and Declan sat in a single chair, Charlotte in another.

  “Talk,” said Declan.

  Cormac took a deep breath and held his hands out in front of him, as if he were showing Declan how wide a loaf of bread was.

  “Look, there aren’t a lot of excuses for how I left you and your mother. I could say it was because I worked for the FBI and that the undercover work made it too dangerous to have a family. And that would be the truth. But the greater truth is, I wasn’t ready to be a father. I threw myself into my work until I’d convinced myself I had to leave you both to do my job.”

  “Did Mom know you worked for the FBI?”

  “Yes, of course—” Cormac tilted his head. “Yes and no. She knew, but she didn’t know the kind of work I did.”

  “Which was?’

  “Undercover mostly. For months at a time after I left. I did the work most of the other agents couldn’t.”

  Cormac leaned back with the hint of a smile curling at the right side of his mouth. Declan sensed bravado. His father was proud of his work.

  He felt his mood darken another shade.

  You’d do it all again if given the chance.

  Declan stared at the floor a moment, quelling his urge to grab the man across from him and shake him. Scream at him. Hit him, for what he’d done to the abandoned little boy he’d been. For what Cormac had done abandoning his mother. Indirectly, he’d signed her death warrant.

  “Mom disappeared. Did you know that?”

  Cormac shook his head. “Not until about a year later.”

  Declan saw his father’s expression soften. Pride had given way to...regret? Maybe. He looked sincere but as an undercover officer, wouldn’t he be adept at Oscar-winning performances?

  Declan turned his attention to Seamus. “And you didn’t know he was alive?”

  Seamus shook his head. “No. I swear, Declan. Tonight I saw him for the first time since he left.”

  “I couldn’t tell Seamus either,” said Cormac. “He loved your mother. He couldn’t have kept it from her.”

  Seamus shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable to find his brother had known he’d had feelings for Declan’s mother.

  Cormac patted Seamus’ knee. “I always knew you’d take care of my family.”

  Seamus glared at his brother and Cormac pulled his hand away.

  “It wasn’t fair of you to put me in the position you did. To make me take care of your grieving family when I couldn’t do anything to make their pain go. Men came. Dressed like cops. Told us you died of a drug overdose.”

  Cormac nodded. “Yes. That way I could send Erin money and she would think it was my pension.” He raised his hands to create air quotes around the word pension as he said it. “She could get on with her life.”

  Declan scoffed. “And more importantly, you could get on with yours.”

  Cormac nodded. “That’s fair.”

  “Why are you back now?”r />
  “I’ve been on Jamie Moriarty’s trail for years. I’d been using Assistant D.A. Jason Walsh to trap Stephanie, so we could leverage her for information on her mother. Maybe draw Jamie out of hiding. But an asset I was using for the job killed the D.A. Accidentally, he said, but I have my doubts. He’s got this weird thing for animals…”

  “Miles Davis,” said Charlotte.

  Cormac turned to her. “You know his name?”

  “He tried to kill me with a python and an alligator.”

  Cormac didn’t react to Charlotte’s odd confession. It was as if she’d said gun and a knife.

  Declan leaned forward in his chair. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  Cormac nodded. “That might have been my fault. I’d asked him to stop you from helping Stephanie. He might have misunderstood what I meant by stop.”

  Declan’s cheeks flared with heat. “You asked a man obsessed with killing people with wild animals to hurt Charlotte?”

  Cormac waved his hands before him, as if trying to block the words his son spat at him.

  “No. No, I never asked him to kill her. I mentioned to him I wanted you”—he nodded toward Charlotte—“out of the picture. He then took it upon himself to slide a snake through your window.”

  “But why would you work with a psycho like that?”

  “He had a thing about Jamie. Hated her. Spent years hunting her. He claimed he had information...” Cormac drifted off and sighed, holding his son’s steady gaze. “I didn’t know about the animals. I made a call and it was a bad one.”

  “But he’d already killed Jason,” said Charlotte.

  Cormac winced. “At that point, I thought Stephanie had killed Jason.” He ran both hands over his head, pulling back his thick, dark hair from his forehead. “I’m afraid in trying to catch a monster I may have created one.”

  “Or at least enabled one,” mumbled Charlotte. She looked at Declan. “Miles tried to kill Jamie before, you know.”

  “I know.” Cormac’s head cocked. “Wait. How do you know that?”

  “Jamie told me.”

  Cormac cocked an eyebrow at Declan, who scowled.

  “They’re not partners. Jamie kidnapped her friends and threatened to kill everyone if she doesn’t clear Stephanie.”

  Charlotte nodded. “And the good news is now we know Stephanie is innocent.”