Page 134 of On the Power Play

Delia set her phone down and grabbed the bag of beef skeleton from the fridge, then used a knife to slice open the packaging. She tried not to inspect the bones too closely as she dropped them into her mother’s massive stock pot. Why she owned such a large piece of cookware when there were only two of them in the house was beyond her.

Delia glanced back at the recipe and blew out a breath. Right. She was supposed to chop the vegetables first. Sauté them? Optional. Definitely opting out on that one. She walked to the fridge and opened the door, then pulled out the celery and carrots. Setting them on the counter, she reached up into the hanging colander her mother kept filled with onions and squealed.

The sensation was wet and smushy, both things that onions were not supposed to be. She tilted the bowl and looked inside to find three onions, all of them shrivelled and weeping. Kind of like her soul at that moment. Delia's face pinched as she grabbed them and threw them in the trash, then used a damp paper towel to wipe out the colander and thoroughly scrubbed her hands with lemon dish soap.

Now what? She couldn't make bone broth without onions. Unless she wanted it to taste only of cow knuckle, which sounded abjectly terrible. Knowing her mother, she'd probably find the lack of flavour more appealing, but Delia couldn't bring herself to make a partial batch. I don't do things halfway. Ugh. Did everything have to remind her of Jack?

She stomped into the living room and pulled her coat—the coat—from the closet. She stopped at the door. The grocery store was eight minutes away and open until eleven. She could hop in the car, buy the onions, and be back in just over twenty.

Mary's voice rang in her head as she touched her hand to the doorknob. "Dels, those days are gone. You can't just get in the car and go somewhere, okay? You need to phone your security guard every single time. I know it's crazy, but you just never know when some weirdo is going to spot you in a parking lot or when a crowd of people is going to amass. Love it or hate it, I'm going to use the C-word. You're a full-on celebrity now, babes."

She dropped her hand from the door and dialed her new on-call guard service in Toronto. They'd already done their risk assessment of her home and community and it still felt pretentious to ring and ask them to bring a car around. But Mary was paying them for twenty-four seven service, so she might as well use it.

Within fifteen minutes of her call, the car was out front. Delia waited like she was supposed to even though the street seemed sleepier than a bear in the middle of winter. When Bryce, the guard who had taken them to the airport ages ago, was on her step, she opened the door.

"I'm sorry to bug you."

He checked that the door locked behind her. "Not bugging. This is my job."

"What do you do when I don't need you?" she asked as they walked down the steps. She was hoping for something juicy, but all she got was,

"Usually watch the news."

Barf. Delia tried to look pleasant as she slid into the back seat. “Is ‘the news’ a cover for reality TV? Ooh! Or that channel on TikTok where rabbits eat strawberries that are magically growing on vines so the bunnies have to lift up on their little hind legs to reach them?”

Bryce gave her a look in the rearview mirror. “Seatbelt?” She nodded. “Do you have a purse?” Delia held it up. “How many kilograms?”

She scoffed and pulled her purse to her chest. “We don’t ask ladies about their weight.”

He rolled his eyes. “Just secure it with the clip there on the console. So it doesn’t become a projectile.”

Delia did as he asked, disappointed she hadn’t at least succeeded in dragging a lip-twitch out of him. It was fine. She’d win him over, just like Alvin. Though, that had probably been more Mary’s doing.

As Bryce pulled the car away from the curb, Delia pulled out her phone and texted her friend.

How many more booty calls is it going to take to convince Alvin to move to Toronto?

We’re back on this again?

These guys are stuffy

That’s good. It means they’re doing their job

When do you get back from the Etobicoke?

Tomorrow. Meet up for lunch? Then . . . take that meeting with Christian?

Delia frowned. How was it that Christian was so uncommunicative before releases and then wouldn’t lay off when she was trying to delay a meeting for the first time since they’d started working together.

She started typing.

Has he been texting you, too? I told him?—

Her head whipped up. Their horn blared. Bright lights blinded her from the window on the opposite side of the car.

“Hands over your head!” Bryce barked from the front seat.

Delia somehow managed to do as she was told, and her phone clattered to the rubber mat. It was the last sound she heard before the screeching tires and the crunch of metal.

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