She raised her glass, chinked it with Andy’s.
I want to share spring, summer with you, Angie, get those kayaks out. Get out onto the water—work on the old boat, have barbecues on the deck, have you and Ginny there with me. I want to spend fall and next winter with you, dammit. I want a normal relationship when things settle down. I want us to see if this can work.
She stilled the glass halfway to her mouth. And it struck, in drunk, blinding clarity as she caught her image in the mirror behind the bar—shocked a little at what she saw—she wanted to try.
She wanted to be better than that drunk ex-cop looking back at her from a seedy bar mirror. Better than the sum of her past, her childhood. She wanted to go back in time. To that grove of trees in her memory. To find the answers, and her twin. And to dust off and try to start again. From whatever that start point might be.
Yes, James Maddocks. I want to try. I want to try to be normal. Her eyes burned.
I’m going to finish this search and then go home and try.
If she died in her effort to revisit her past, well that was her lot. She needed to stare death in the face in order to be reborn, as drunkenly philosophical as that might seem. If there was a threat to her life out there—bring it on. She wasn’t going to mess in anyone else’s sandbox of an investigation—she was just going to look into the eyes of Semyon Zagorsky. And ask.
She stood abruptly, then steadied herself with her hand on the counter.
Andy came to his feet beside her.
She shook her head, not looking at him. “Go home,” she said with a clumsy wave of her hand. On second thought, she glanced up at him with bleary eyes. “It’s not worth it, Andy, so not worth it. Trust me.”
She pushed herself off from the counter and tried to hold a straight line as she navigated her way around the strippers’ stage, aiming for the stairs that would lead back above ground.
CHAPTER 44
SUNDAY, JANUARY 7
It was Sunday morning, and Kjel Holgersen had the day off. Pressure was easing with the bulk of the Amanda Rose barcode case having moved with Maddocks to Surrey. If Kjel had a life or a half-decent apartment or some hobby or something, he might have stayed at home. But he didn’t. Staying home alone without being blind-tired and crashing into bed or without something to fully occupy his brain was dangerous—he’d been down that road before. That’s when the shadows crept out of the closets of his mind. That’s when those demons started to dance and beckon with enticingly dark promise. So he was here, at 11:00 a.m., hungry for the Flying Pig Bar and Grill’s Sunday brunch mashup—a low-priced, high-carb, full-fat fry-up replete with sausages, maple syrup, bacon, and eggs with a stack of lumberjack-size flapjacks on the side. And all-you-can-drink coffee.
He pushed through the old wooden pub doors and drank in the aroma of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed caffeine and the familiar buzz of the police bar.
“Homes from home, Jack-O, ol’ boy,” he said as he made his way to the bar to place his order. Jack-O didn’t stir in the infant carry pouch into which Kjel had stuck him. The pouch hung warm against Kjel’s hollow stomach, halfway zipped into his bomber jacket. Dog knew a good thing when he saw one—probably figured if he moved, he might get chucked out. The sensation of the old pooch’s little beating heart—his warm three-legged body cuddled close and trusting—sent an odd punch through Kjel. It stirred things he really couldn’t handle having stirred because it could just tilt him back over the edge, and this time he’d no freaking clue whether he’d scrape back up that interminable hill again.
“Yo, Colm,” he called to McGregor. The big redheaded bearded Scotsman came up to Kjel’s end of the bar, his apron du jour stretched around his strapping torso, different one each day. His shtick. Today’s said, BRUNCH = EXCUSE FOR DAY DRINKING.
“What’ll it be, Detective?”
“The number one mashup times two. One packaged to go.”
McGregor wiped his hands on a white towel, rang the order into his system. “Got a wee hole in your stomach today then?” He glanced up, did a slight double take. “What’s that you got in there?” He tilted his bearded chin at the baby carrier.
“That’s who gets mashup number two.”
“A kid?”
Kjel angled himself sideways so McGregor could peer into the carrier. “Look like a kid to you?”
McGregor frowned, then guffawed. “That be Maddocks’s hound,” he declared in his great booming Scottish accent.
“Boss has gots me babysitting.”
The pub owner raised a bushy thatch of red brow. “It trusts you then? To sit like that in a wee bairn pouch.”
“Everybody’s gots to trust somebody.”
Kjel turned to survey the scene and find a table while McGregor bellowed his order through the hatch to the kitchen. He spotted the odd couple again—Leo and Grablowski. Ensconced in a secluded booth near the back of the pub, huddled over coffee mugs and partially eaten plates of food in front of them. A sinister sensation unfurled in Kjel. It tasted of distrust, suspicion. Curiosity. His mind went to the article that Leo had shown him on Pallorino being that angel’s cradle kid.
He ambled over to the booth.
As he approached, Grablowski made a call on his cell phone. Leo was watching, leaning forward with interest.
“Yo,” Kjel said. “Whassup, dudes? Can we’s join you?”
Grablowski’s head shot up. His brow lowered, and he glanced sharply at Leo as if to say, Get this fucker away. Leo opened his mouth, but before he could protest, Kjel was sliding himself and Jack-O onto the padded seat in the booth beside the crusty old detective.
“What in the hell is that?” Leo said, his gaze shooting to the baby pouch.
Kjel threw him a grin. “You know how cold it is out? Flippin’ winter. Old three-legged little man here don’t like to be cold. Ain’t so speedy hobbling on a dog lead, either. So I gots him a carry bag.”
“A baby pouch? Are you kidding me?”
“Ergonomic baby pouch. Boughts it at Mountain Equipment. Pricey Gore-Tex shit. Good for the momses back and all. Ands for baby posture.”
“It’s a dog, Holgersen. You’re not even using the damn leg and arm holes.”
Kjel tilted his chin toward Grablowski, who’d turned in his seat in an effort to shut Holgersen off from the conversation he was trying to conduct on his cell.
“He’s on the phone. Do you mind?” Leo said.
“He can go talk somewheres else—” Kjel stopped midsentence to listen.
“I’m just giving you one last chance,” Grablowski was saying, his back turned to Kjel and Leo, “to get in on the deal . . . Yeah. Yeah, I know it’s your life story, Detective, but it’s going to be out there. If not through me, then through someone else. This way you have control—”
“Fuck off, Grablowski.”
He heard her voice, loud and clear, yelling at the shrink. “Pallorino?” he said softly to Leo.
Leo shrugged. But the bastard had a little gleam in his eyes.