Page 169 of Homeport

“That might work in your family. We’re not quite so volatile in mine.”

“Yeah, yours prefers the carefully iced blade that slices bloodlessly. I can tell you, Miranda, heat’s cleaner in the end and a hell of a lot more human.”

“What did you expect me to do? Goddamn it, what? Scream at her, shout and rage and accuse?” She swept an arm over the desk, sending neatly arranged papers and carefully sharpened pencils flying. “Was I supposed to demand she tell me the truth? Confess or deny? If she hates me enough to have done this, she hates me enough to lie to my face.”

She shoved her desk chair, sent it crashing into the wall. “She never loved me. Never gave me one free gesture of affection. Neither of them, not to me, to Andrew, or to each other. In my whole life neither of them ever said they loved me, never even bothered to lie so I could have the illusion. You don’t know what it’s like never to be held, never to be told, and to ache for it.”

She pressed her hands to her stomach as if the pain centered there was unbearable. “To ache so hard and long that you have to stop wanting it or just die.”

“No, I don’t know what it’s like,” he said quietly. “Tell me.”

“It was like growing up in a fucking laboratory, everything sterile and perfectly in place, documented, calculated, but without any of the joy of discovery. Rules, that’s all. Rules of language, conduct, education. Do this and do it this way and no other, because no other is acceptable. No other is correct. How many of those rules has she broken if she’s done this?”

Her breath was heaving, her eyes blazing, her fists clenched. He’d watched, he’d listened, and hadn’t moved or raised his voice. The only sound in the room now was her own ragged breathing as she looked around her office at the destruction she’d caused.

Stunned, she shoved at her hair, rubbed her hand over her hard-pumping heart. For the first time she became aware there were tears streaming down her cheeks, so hot they should have burned her skin.

“Is that what you wanted me to do?”

“I wanted you to get it out.”

“I guess I did.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Tantrums give me a headache.”

“That wasn’t a tantrum.”

She let out a weak laugh. “What would you call it?”

“Honesty.” He smiled a little. “Even in my line of work I’m vaguely acquainted with the concept. You’re not cold, Miranda,” he said gently. “You’re just scared. You’re not unlovable, just unappreciated.”

She felt the tears, stood helplessly as they overflowed. “I don’t want it to be my mother who did this, Ryan.”

He went to her, nudged her fingers away and replaced them with his own. “We have a good chance of having the answers within the next couple of days. This will be over.”

“But I’ll have to live with those answers.”

He took her home and persuaded her to take a sleeping pill and go to bed early. The fact that he barely had to bully her into it only proved to him that she was running on fumes now.

When he was certain she was asleep, when Andrew was closed off in his own wing, Ryan changed into the dark sweater and jeans he preferred for nighttime breaking and entering.

He slipped his tools into his pocket, chose a soft-sided black briefcase with shoulder strap, in the event he found something he needed to transport back with him.

He found Miranda’s keys efficiently zipped in the side pocket of her purse. He walked quietly outside, got behind the wheel of her car, and adjusted the seat to suit him before putting it in neutral and releasing the brake. The car coasted downhill with its headlights shut off.

He could have claimed to have been restless, to have borrowed the car to take a drive, had either she or Andrew heard the engine. But why lie when it wasn’t necessary? He waited until he was a quarter of a mile down the drive, then turned on the ignition, switched on the lights.

Puccini was on the radio, and though he shared Miranda’s fondness for opera, it didn’t quite suit his mood. He noted the frequency, then hit scan. When he heard George Thorogood belting out “Bad to the Bone,” he grinned to himself and let it rip.

Traffic thickened a little on the edge of town. People heading to parties, he thought, to weekend dates, or home from either because they weren’t quite interesting enough. It was barely midnight.

A long way, he thought, from the city that never sleeps.

Early to bed, early to rise, these Yankees, he decided. Such an admirable people. He pulled into the hotel parking lot well away from the entrance. He was fairly certain the same admirable trait would hold true for the visitors from Florence. The seven-hour time difference could be a killer the first couple of days.

He’d stayed in the same hotel on his first trip, and knew the layout perfectly. He’d also taken the precaution of getting the room numbers for all the parties he intended to visit that night.

No one took notice of him as he crossed the lobby and walked directly to the elevators like a man in a hurry to get to his bed.

Elizabeth and Elise were sharing a two-bedroom suite on the top club level. The level required a key to release the elevator. And being a farsighted man—and because it was an old habit—he’d kept the access key when he checked out of the hotel himself.

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