Page 88 of Luck of the Devil
“That seems like a stretch,” he said. “How would they know the other felt threatened?”
“I don’t know,” I said, exhaustion washing over me. “It’s all hypothetical right now.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding distracted. “If she wasn’t a mistress, then who was she?”
“I have no idea.”
“Okay,” he said, his forehead creasing as he considered the possibilities. “Mistress or not, how did your mother get to know her? Especially since her friends don’t recognize her.”
“That’s the question, right? My mother lived a small life. She didn’t meet new people. She rarely left her bubble.”
He nodded slowly. “Regardless of who she was, it seems like they must have connected through your father. Agree?” He gave me a questioning look.
I considered it. “While it seems likely, I don’t want to declare it as fact.”
“Agreed, but if they are connected by association to your father, how did it occur? Could she be one of your father’s clients?”
I considered this for a moment, then said, “Or the wife of a client. What if she had information about her own husband and approached my mother? Like what if she was married to the Richard Aunt Hannah overheard him talking to?”
“And if not Richard, then some other underhanded partner or client.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what if you show the photo to the people in his office and see if any of them recognize her? That way we can figure out if she knows your father through his profession.”
It was a good place to start—with one problem. “They might tell my father.”
“Would they?’ he asked. “Or would they just gossip about it?”
I only took a second to come up with the answer. “Gossip. But I’ll have to come up with an excuse to show up at the office. I can’t just come in and show them the photo and take off, or their tongues will really be wagging.”
“You could say you’re checking on your father. Is he back at work?”
The thought of seeing my father felt like a punch to the gut. It took me a second to respond. “He is, but I’m not sure I can face him right now.”
He gave me a quick glance, then nodded. “We’ll hold off on that one for now.” He took a beat, then softened his tone. “You’re gonna have to face him at some point. You think you can get yourself ready for that?”
“I want to face him,” I said, the anger in my belly beginning to smolder. “But when I look at him, I want to be ready to nail him to the wall.”
“I can wait for that.” A slow smile spread across his face. It was terrifyingly menacing, and some part of me soaked it in.
I had a partner in this. A real partner, and not the self-indulgent, back-stabbing partner Keith Kemper had turned out to be. I knew in my gut that Malcolm had my back. Just like I had his.
I knew I should question that feeling, but I didn’t want to. I was going with my instincts, just like I used to before I’d lost everything last fall, and right now, my instincts told me that I could trust him. Hell, if I was honest, I never felt this sure about Keith, even in our best moments.
“There’s one thing I can’t quite wrap my head around though,” I said. “When I asked my father if he’d told my grandparents about my mother’s accident, he told me to do it. He practically sent me to them. I can’t believe that he’d send me here, knowing Aunt Hannah might tell me everything. It makes me wonder if my mother ever confronted him about Hannah’s accusations.”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
I tried to put myself in my mother’s head over twenty years ago. “You’re probably right. If she liked her life as it was, then I don’t think she would have confronted him and risked losing it all. Even if she had proof. I think she’d keep it to herself.”
I took a second to let that revelation sink in. Further proof that she didn’t give a damn about our safety.
As if reading my mind, he said, “Just because he was involved with bad people didn’t mean he didn’t care about you and your sister.”
The way he said it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me.
But that didn’t make sense. Malcolm had said his own father was a piece of shit. So, who had he been thinking about? His friend Jed? But that still didn’t fit, because from what he’d said, Jed had left the criminal world behind to raise a family.
