It was Kai. As I looked at her, the air got heavy, as if the truth I’d set down earlier in the room had built up into a barometric pressure: I hadn’t seen my mother, not in years.
In this photo, she was what? Fifty? She looked older than fifty, and very thin. Maybe from the sickness, hidden, but already spreading through her body. Maybe just because she was a smoker and a natural ectomorph. She was sitting outside, in the sunshine. It was a close-in shot, head and shoulders, with what looked like the river behind her. She still had her waterfall of dark hair, but I could see thick streaks of silver running through it. She’d grown a network of lines around her eyes and her jawline had softened. Her mouth had a set of parentheses deep-scored around it, though, as if she’d spent more time smiling than I would have guessed.
Once I breathed through the shock of seeing her, I knew why he’d picked this close-in shot. It showed only the collar of what looked like an embroidered top in thick brocade. Austin in July was ninety degrees and about as humid as Venus; this photo had been taken in November, when Julian hired him. He didn’t want to risk me noticing that in this “brand new” photo, Kai was dressed for Austin’s mild winter.
“Oh, look at her,” I said, and moved to close. “These are from—Monday, you said?”
Worth nodded. “I got them late Monday night.”
“That’s amazing!” I said. I let my fond smile go wide, wider, until Worth was seeing all my teeth, and damn but it felt good to let them out. I had forgotten how much I loved to step in close, to cut sugar from my voice. “A genuine miracle. Considering my mother died last winter.”
There was a long pause. Worth swallowed, and his face went red all around his white mustache. His whole face looked like Christmas morning.
“Well, now, wait. I said I got them Monday, but who knows when my guy in Austin—I mean, no. Maybe I—” He floundered into a silence.
“Hey, Worth?” Birdwine asked, still not looking up from People. “As a competent investigator, did you happen to suss out what Ms. Vauss here does for a living?”
I gave a self-deprecating shrug and said nothing. I didn’t have to. Birdwine had launched the word lawyer into the room. Another ten seconds passed, and a silent torrent of other implied words came rolling in behind: Lawsuit. Damages. Charges. Fraud.
I reached across the desk and plucked the file up. Worth fluttered his hands after it, but didn’t quite dare to try to snatch it back.
I said, “I believe this belongs to my brother, Mr. Worth, and you’re done working for him.” I slid the picture of Kai back inside and tucked it into my outsize shoulder bag. I started to turn away, but then paused and turned back. “One more thing. You clearly haven’t lifted a finger on this case since November, and yet Julian’s gotten bill after bill from you. You’ve bled the kid for around four hundred dollars every month. Isn’t that interesting, Birdwine?”
“I’m riveted,” he said. He set the magazine down and stood up, fast, filling up his half of the room. “Hey, Paula, do you feel a refund is in order?”
Worth blinked, his mouth opening and closing like a gigged fish’s. He said, “Well, I could, I mean—”
I spoke over Worth. “In fact, I do, Birdwine. I’ll take a check, Mr. Worth, which is nice and trusting of me, considering. Ten thousand’ll cover it.”
He boggled at the amount. “That’s a helluva lot more th—”
“I’ve added in some interest,” I said. I’d sized up his clothes, his office space, his fictional assistant, and I thought 10K was doable for him. Barely. It ought to cut him plenty deep. “It’s what we’ll call a fiscal apology. A very reasonable fiscal apology. Considering.”
Worth had gone white. “I won’t be extorted.”
“Extorted?” I interrupted, and the last vestige of the sweet, blinking daddy’s girl was gone. “This is a goddamn gift.” I walked slowly around the desk toward him, the clack of my heels on his scratched hardwood timed to be a drumbeat of vicious punctuation. “If it takes you more than sixty seconds from this moment to put that check into my hand, I will revoke the offer, and I will take my brother as a client, and I will destroy you.” The closer I got, the more I let my real face, the one I hid behind expensive lip gloss and good manners, out. Out and open and toothy. “This is straight-up fraud. I’ll call the cops and get your ass charged and convicted, and that’s mostly to set the foundation for my civil case. I will have your license, and your business, and your future. If you’re lucky, the judge won’t give me your nut sack, tied up in a big pink bow. But I’ll be asking for it. Believe it.”