Val sat at the foot of the bed, sipping coffee and watching Max futz with a tie in front of the bedroom mirror. From the first floor, Lydia’s laughter reached them through their closed door. Hopefully that meant the kids were already warming up to Jamal.
“You’ve never heard of a group of guys who go to a secret smoking room or possible sex club after work, have you?” she asked.
Max’s hands stopped. He looked at her through the mirror, an eyebrow cocked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Is that a no?”
“Yes, that’s a no.”
Thank God. She probably wasn’t dealing with an evil sex-slash-faith-healing cult again. Chances seemed slim anyway.
He continued knotting the purple silk around his neck. “Is this related to Lacy Zephyr’s visit a couple days ago?”
“Maybe. Yes.” She’d told him Lacy came by, but had kept the details to herself out of respect for her first client in about half a decade. Now she realized she couldn’t get Max’s help without bringing him fully onboard. She’d tried keeping him in the dark once before, during her investigation into Blue Serpent; it had turned out disastrously for them both. The specter of Lacy’s disapproval could take comfort that Max was good at keeping secrets. “How well do you know her husband?”
“Aaron? Not well. I see him at meetings sometimes.”
“So you don’t know what he does in his spare time, say, after work?”
“No idea.”
She regarded him over the rim of her mug, drumming her fingers on the sides of the ceramic.
Max straightened his tie, glanced at her in the mirror, and frowned. “Don’t even ask.”
“Please?”
“No. Aaron and I aren’t friends.”
“But you could be.” Lord knows he could use more friends. Of course, he could say the same thing about her, especially since Stacey took off five years ago for destinations unknown, but this wasn’t about her.
“I’m not palling up with someone I barely know just to find out what he does after work.”
“Okay, fine.” She took another slurp of her coffee. “Could you at least find out what his schedule looks like over the next week or so?”
Shoving the end of the tie under his vest, he turned to face her and shook his head.
“Then I’ll have to spend all day and night staking him out. Don’t know how long that’ll go on for. When my mom comes to visit in a couple days, you’ve got it covered, right?”
Max’s gorgeous hazel eyes drilled into her, his lips tightened in a half smile. Hot damn, never had bemused frustration looked so sexy. She loved twisting his screws just to get that look.
“To state the obvious, you are manipulative,” he said as he snatched his suit coat off a loveseat in the corner and slipped it on. “I’ll see what I can do, all right?”
She jumped up and kissed him, careful not to slop coffee on his suit. “Thanks. You can punish me later.”
“You bet I will.” He slapped her ass and seized her lips with his, kissing her with such force, she thought he might throw her on the bed and make love to her right then. When his kiss turned her insides to liquid and she started pulling at his belt buckle, a feverish desperation for him burning in her belly, he pulled away, stepped past her, and bounced down the stairs.
She gasped, the void where he used to be like a splash of cold water to her face. “Tease,” she called after him.
He snickered the rest of the way to the first floor. Yeah, real fucking funny. She’d make him pay for that. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight, that’s for damn sure.
After Val composed herself, she followed Max downstairs and into the living room. Sitting cross-legged on the shag rug at the foot of the couch, Jamal did something with a pack of cards that the kids found riveting.
“Getting acclimated all right?” Max asked Jamal as he threw on his heavy overcoat.
“Yes, sir.” Jamal flashed a broad smile. “Your kids are wonderful.”
“I think so, too, though I might be biased. And call me Max.” He cocked his head toward his wife. “And call her Val, no matter what she tells you. See you tonight, kids. Be good for Jamal.”
The twins ran to him and threw their tiny bodies into their father’s arms, nearly knocking him over with their youthful vigor. After he returned their hugs, he gave Val a chaste kiss free of the heat from a moment ago, one safe for their audience.
“Love you,” he said, then whispered in her ear, “Be nice,” before scratching the dog behind the ears and leaving through a door in the kitchen that led down to the carport. Toby sat and whined at the door, like he did every morning.
Val stood unmoving for a moment with her hands on her hips, alone with Jamal and the kids. Jamal sat back down on the rug and resumed his card game—some kind of matching thing—while pretending not to notice the glare she fixed on him. Despite the fact she’d hired him and he’d done nothing wrong so far, every instinct told her to kick him out. They already had one stranger—her long-lost mother—on the way to squat in her home for who knew how long. Why deal with two? But she could already hear Max’s disembodied voice of reason—That’s exactly why we need a nanny. You need help with the kids, your mother will demand even more of your attention, and a job outside the home will keep you sane.
Well, Jamal was going to be here all the time now, doing the things she usually did, so she’d better get used to it. Her wristwatch showed ten past eight, a little early to run the errand she had planned. What to do, what to do…
She spotted a neat stack of envelopes on the kitchen counter and frowned at Jamal. “Did you handle our mail?”
“I brought it in. It’s part of my job description.”
She didn’t remember that detail, but whatever. None of it looked opened, and in any case, most of it was junk. There was, however, one piece that looked like a personal letter with her name handwritten on it, no return address. Another one of those damn things. Since she’d become moderately well known, she started receiving fan mail and hate mail in equal measures from people who incorrectly assumed she cared what they thought of her. The missing return address suggested this piece belonged to the latter group. She should toss it, though it could be something from her mother again, who also wrote letters by hand. Or something from Delilah, who had a history of sending her mail with no return address.
She ripped it open and read it, just in case:
Valentine,
You have the name of a saint, yet you are not that blessed thing. We all have paths to follow, a purpose, and you disrupt that purpose. I ask you to stop, for the sake of your soul. HE is not pleased with you. When glass and steel rain down from above, know it was meant to be, and is only the beginning.
Huh. A little on the weird side, but short and not a rape or death threat, so fairly tame by hateful troll standards. It definitely wasn’t from Delilah; not her style. She crumpled it up and spiked it into the trash, pissed she’d wasted her precious time—well, not so precious anymore. Not with her substitute at hand. What was she supposed to do now, stare at this guy all day? Investigating her mother’s future murder, and Lacy’s husband when Max returned with Aaron Zephyr’s schedule, probably wouldn’t actually take more than a few hours a day at most. She didn’t want to leave the kids for any longer than necessary anyway. Yet they’d hired Jamal for his morning-to-evening babysitting services.
Val forced herself to relax. “I need to run an errand,” she said, though it came out a little bitchier than she’d intended. She tried to tone the hostility down. “Are you…going to be okay here with them? Alone?”
“Yes, ma’am—Val—uh, ma’am.”
She took a step toward the door, then turned back. “You’ve got everything you need, right? Their nap schedules, their favorite books, their lunch and snack foods—”
“Yes, I’ve got it. I wrote it all down,” he said in a gently reassuring tone. She’d need to get used to that voice, and train herself not to mistake it for condescension.
“And it’s one snack before lunch. Don’t let them trick you into giving them an entire package of Oreos. They’re more clever than you might think.”
“Oreos on lockdown. Clear as crystal.”
“You remember all the codes for the locks and alarms on the house, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you’ve got my number if you need anything?”
“I sure do.”
She nodded, walked to the living room’s threshold, stopped, and turned again. “Don’t let anyone in here who isn’t Max or me, no matter who they say they are. I mean it.”
Jamal smiled again—he did that a lot, maybe because he had nice teeth—though a hint of uncertainty tainted his friendly gaze. Probably wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into. “Yes, ma’—Val. I won’t let anyone in.”
“No one.”
“Got it. No one’s coming through that front door, not on my watch.”
She should’ve left then; instead, she stared at him until a bead of sweat trickled down his temple.
Simon broke the standoff. “We’ll be fine, Mommy. Go talk to the cop.”
Val softened a bit at that. If Simon knew he and his sister would be fine, then they’d be fine. As long as she didn’t inadvertently change the future, what he’d seen would come to pass. Val embraced them both in long hugs, kissing their foreheads. She thought they might cry when she left; they didn’t. They knew they’d see her again soon. Still, when Val walked to the door leading down to the carport and grasped the doorknob, she saw her hand shaking. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to her babies while she left them with an overpriced babysitter. Would they really be safe without her? They’d have to be. Max was right—she couldn’t be with them all the time. She’d have to trust other people eventually, and that time was now. God help Jamal if he screwed it up, though.
Swallowing back a lump in her throat, Val forced herself forward, away from her children, into her car, out of the house, and back into the world she’d been hiding from for over five years. Tendrils from its black underbelly would likely rise up and try to seize her again. But there was no way around it if she wanted any chance to save her mother.
Time to go see the cop.