I gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s go play with fire.” I didn’t wait for an answer and headed into the shadows.
“Never got to have fun like this in my last job,” Nolan whispered gleefully behind me.
“You’re late,” Karen announced, opening the door with feigned motherly disappointment.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. I was late and exhausted, but vengeance had dulled the rage. Now I was almost cheerful. It had been a while since I’d gotten my hands dirty.
“I’m sorry. There was a situation that I needed to deal with,” I explained, slipping off my coat.
“Hmm, you’re late, you smell like gasoline and smoke, and your coat is torn,” she noted as I hung it on the rack inside the door.
“All reasons why I could use a large glass of this mediocre wine you promised.”
The explosion had happened a little earlier than anticipated. Nolan’s giddy “Holy fucking shit!” still rang in my ears.
Knox would have been proud. Nash would have been furious. As for me, I was starting to appreciate Nolan as more than a minion.
“Follow me, my dear,” Karen said, leading the way toward the kitchen.
The condo was nothing like the family home in Knockemout. I’d chosen it for proximity to the hospital, not personality. But in the two years that they’d lived here, Karen had managed to convert the off-white-walled, blank slate into a comfortable home.
The large, framed photo of Simon, Sloane, and me the day Sloane got her driver’s license caught my attention as it always did. Though this time, it delivered a punch to the gut in addition to the twinge of regret I usually felt.
Simon wasn’t waiting for me in the kitchen like he had been for so many years of my life. I didn’t know how Karen managed to stay here surrounded by memories of a life she’d never get back.
She was barefoot and casually dressed in a pair of leggings and an oversize sweater. Her hair was held back from her face with a wide, paisley-patterned headband.
I liked that there was no formality among the Waltons. The women I dated—however briefly—were never seen without a full face of makeup, their hair perfectly coiffed, and their wardrobes ready to be whisked away to the symphony, Paris, or a black-tie fundraiser.
“You sit. I’ll pour,” Karen insisted when we entered the small but efficient kitchen. She’d painted the walls a sunny yellow and swapped out the sedate white quartz countertops for terra-cotta tiles topped with cobalt-blue accessories.
I pulled out an upholstered stool in tangerine corduroy and reached for the appetizer plate. There was always a can of my favorite smoked almonds in Karen Walton’s pantry. She stocked them alongside Maeve’s favorite cereal and Sloane’s root beer as if I too were one of the family.
“How is it being back?” I asked.
She slid a wineglass in my direction and picked up her own. “Terrible. Okay. Haunting. Comforting. A never-ending misery. A relief. You know, the usual.”
“We could have rescheduled,” I said.
Karen managed a small, pitying smile as she moved to the oven. “Sweetie, when will you learn that sometimes being alone is the last thing you need?”
“Never.”
She snorted and opened the oven door, filling the room with the scent of store-bought pizza.
I got off my stool and rounded the island to nudge her out of the way.
“You get the salad, I’ll cut the slices. You always cut them crooked,” I teased. She also never remembered to wash the cheese off the pizza cutter, which resulted in a congealed mess that required serious muscle.
She handed over the utensil. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
We both froze. I’d heard the phrase a few hundred thousand times in the Walton kitchen, mostly from Simon when he and Karen shared meal prep duties.
I didn’t know where to look. The glimpse of raw grief as it flitted across her face was like a knife to my heart. I wasn’t equipped to deal with emotions like that. I handled problems, presented solutions. I didn’t navigate personal loss with someone, no matter how much I loved them.
Karen was more a mother to me than my own. And Simon had been the kind of father I wished I’d deserved.
She cleared her throat and pasted a cheerful look on her pretty face. “How about we just pretend everything is normal for a while?” she suggested.
“Fine. But don’t think that I’ll let you win at rummy just because you’re a widow now,” I warned.
Karen’s laugh was nothing like Sloane’s. It was a loud, joyous guffaw that made my chest feel warm and bright. Sloane’s was a throaty chuckle that went straight to my gut.
I could picture her across the table, smiling at me as if we weren’t poison to each other.
A sharp burning sensation against my thumb yanked me back to the present moment.
I adjusted my grip on the potholder.
I’d managed to set fire to a vehicle without burning myself, but give me a frozen pizza and time to think about a certain blond librarian and my guard crumbled.
I forcibly blocked the vexatious vixen from my mind and focused on the Walton woman before me.
It was late by the time I got home and showered the arson off me. I collapsed on my king-size bed and blew out a long breath.
The lamp on my nightstand cast a quiet glow on my copy of The Midnight Library. I wondered if she was reading right now. Or if maybe, just maybe she was lying in her bed thinking of me.
I doubted it. Every time I saw Sloane, she looked both surprised and disappointed to realize I still existed.
I shouldn’t be the only one losing sleep. I picked up my phone. It took me a minute to settle on the right approach. I scrolled through my contacts, found the one I was looking for, and sent it off.
When the message wasn’t immediately read, I threw the phone onto the bedspread next to me and covered my face with my hands.
I was an idiot. A weak, undisciplined idiot. Just because we’d managed to share a civil lunch together didn’t mean…
The phone vibrated against the plush bedspread.
I dove for it.
Sloane: What did you just send me?
Me: The contact information for an attorney who specializes in appeals. She’s expecting your call tomorrow. You’re welcome.
I saw three dots appear, then disappear. I stared at the screen, willing them to reappear. Thirty seconds later, they did.
Sloane: Thanks.
It took that much effort for her to type one word to me?
What was I even doing? I could have had an assistant send her the information. Hell, I could have had an assistant give the information to Lina, who actually worked in my office. I didn’t need to be texting Sloane at—I swiveled to glare at the clock. It was almost midnight.
Disgusted with myself, I tossed my phone on the nightstand and stacked my hands under my head.
The phone vibrated again.
I pulled a neck muscle pouncing on it.
Sloane: Lina told me what happened to Holly today. Is she okay?
Rubbing my neck, I debated waiting to respond, then decided I was too tired to play games.
Me: Everyone is fine.
Sloane: Are you okay?
Was I? I didn’t feel okay. I felt like things were unspooling, slipping from my fingers. I’d made a career of foreseeing every contingency, every play. Yet I’d missed this one. What else was I missing? And why was I slipping now?
Me: I’m fine.
Sloane: My phone has this cool bullshit detector app, and that “sorry, wrong answer” buzzer noise just went off. It scared the cat.
Me: I’m fine. Just tired.
Sloane: You do know it’s not your job to protect everyone from everything, don’t you?
But it was my job to protect my people from my actions and the consequences of those actions.
Me: I saw your mother tonight.
No dots appeared. I’d pushed too far. Or she’d fallen asleep.
I was just dumping my phone on the nightstand again when it rang.
“What?”