Page 82 of Bad Mother

Mirabelle nodded. “In the early days, I would walk the strips, hat pulled low, looking for Roger. I didn’t dare gamble anywhere myself. He also knew I was good and could earn money that way.” She chewed at her lip for a brief moment. “But I also found it hard to stay away from cards. They had always been a draw for me. Something that had always... lured.” She looked up at Gavin. “You have it too. You know what I mean.”

He nodded slowly, hesitantly, but admitted, “Yes. Yes, I know.” He had been a natural with cards all his life. Sienna knew it as well as he did. They had pulled him, all the way out of Reno. All the way to the World Series of Poker.

A small smile lit Mirabelle’s face, a real one, but her eyes were still filled with sadness. “And so,” she said, pulling in a shuddery breath, “I took a job as a magician’s assistant to a kindly Greek magician who knew I had secrets, who paid me under the table and understood that I couldn’t marry him but never stopped asking anyway. And I convinced myself Danny was dead because the alternatives were too agonizing tolive with.” Grief took over her features, but she went on, her eyes meeting Sienna’s. “And I met a seven-year-old girl, watchful and sensitive like my Danny had been. I protected the all-but-motherless child, and she helped fill the terrible vacant hole in my heart. And life became bearable again.”

Mirabelle’s eyes were beseeching, and Sienna’s heart ached to hear the torment she’d lived with for so many years. She let go of Gavin’s hand and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around the woman who had mothered her when her own had not. And yet she couldn’t help the low hum of guilt that resonated within her. She’d benefited from Mirabelle’s mothering, while her own son had suffered so intensely without her.

And because of it, lives had been lost.

Even more devastating was the fact that all this time Danny had been righthere, not thirty minutes away. Roger’s family might have helped him initially, but apparently, their help had been temporary. They’d helped him to disappear and then wiped their hands of him. And Danny.

And Danny had suffered. But he’d remembered his mother, possibly only vague recollections that felt false and unreal as time moved on. He’d imagined her. Dreamed her.Becomeher when he’d needed to. The soft place he barely remembered except in the way she’dfelt. His protection. His savior. It was all too awful to consider. Especially now, when their lives were perched in his terribly troubled hands.

Sienna stepped back. “So what does he want?” Gavin asked. Sienna looked at him. His eyes had softened, though the pain was still there. “Vengeance?” he asked. “Vengeance for what? You were a victim too.” Mirabelle gave him a sad but grateful smile, reaching out for his hand. He took it, and they shared a moment, mother and son who had never truly known each other until that moment and yet knew all the things that truly mattered.

“He doesn’t see it that way,” Sienna said. She told them about the final note, about Danny’s loneliness, his suffering, his blame, keeping it short and very simple.

“He’s on the other side of that wall,” Gavin said, gesturing to the door with the locks. “If we can get to him, maybe there’s a part of him we can still appeal to. It’s gotta be getting close to three a.m. We need to hurry.”

Mirabelle nodded, a light of hope entering her eyes for the first time. “Let’s get through that door,” she said. “To Danny.”

Sienna reached for the box Gavin had only managed to scuff and scrape with the lock itself. “Maybe you’re right about breaking it rather than searching for the key,” she said.

Gavin nodded, but he looked as though something was bothering him. “The key,” he murmured. “‘Ask Violet about me; she has the key.’” He looked at his mother. “Search your pockets,” he told her.

Her brows knitted, but she did, reaching in the one on her right and coming up empty handed. She reached in the other pocket, and her eyes widened as she pulled something out and held up a small silver key. “He planted it on me while I was unconscious,” she said. “How did you know?”

“It was in his note to me,” Gavin said hurriedly, reaching for the key and the box. “I just remembered it now.”

Sienna’s breath came short. If Gavin was right about the time, they had a little over two hours before the blast went off.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Sienna’s heart beat rapidly, and she stepped forward, watching as Gavin stuck the key in the lock. It opened with a tiny click. Their eyes met very briefly, and then he set the box down, tossed the key aside, and lifted the lid. Three items sat inside, and he pulled them out one by one. A magnet of what looked like a flag, but not one Sienna recognized—though admittedly, she had never committed them all to memory—a small china doll; and a pin with a blue ribbon on it and the number ten, with the zero crossed off to make it a one.

Gavin set them in a row, and they all stared down at them in silence. “What flag is this?” he murmured. Neither Sienna nor Mirabelle answered.

“Isn’t Texas the Lone Star State?” Mirabelle asked, looking down at the red, white, and blue flag with a white star in the center of the blue portion.

“Okay. Yeah. It is,” Gavin said. Not being a Texan, Sienna couldn’t picture their flag, but that seemed logical. Then again, lots of places had stars on their flags, even internationally.

She had the urge to laugh, but as much as she knew if she cried she wouldn’t stop, she knew the same would be true if she gave in to laughter.

“What about this?” he asked, picking up the china doll. It had dark-red hair and fine porcelain skin.

Sienna took it from him, studying it, and tried to rub the small red smudge off its forehead with her thumb, unsuccessfully. Whatever had stained the doll’s skin was permanent, and likely purposeful. She frowned down at it before setting it back on the table.

For a minute they were all quiet as they tried to puzzle out the contents of the box. “Why don’t we do a more thorough search,” Gavin suggested. “Maybe there’s more that goes along with this. I’ll check the undersides of the counters.”

They split up, each searching over and under and behind, looking at the walls and the floor but not finding anything. Sienna rubbed her head. Something was niggling at her about the mark on that doll’s head. That doll... “Dolly,” she breathed.

Gavin turned, joining her as she walked back toward the box and its contents. “The girl he threw the checkers at,” Sienna said. Mirabelle approached, looking at her with confusion. “It’s from one of his writings,” she explained. He’d thrown checkers at her head. He’d left a mark.

“Okay,” Gavin said. “So the—maybe—Texas flag and a girl from his story named Dolly. And this?” He held up the pin, turning it over. It was one of those pins you might buy for the birthday boy or girl, but the blue ribbon made her think of a first-place winner, especially considering the ten had been turned into a one. “Number one,” Gavin said, setting it back down. “So the number one has to be part of the code, right? Maybe each of these items represents the other four numbers. What number state is Texas in the Union?”

Sienna let out a sound of frustration. “Does anyone know that kind of thing off the top of their head?”

“Maybe a Texan.”

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