CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pamela Larsen. My mother. Convicted killer. Guilty of murdering four people by her own hand, and a fifth by her command. Except those four were also killers, whom she’d executed to heal me. She’d spent half her life in prison for that. And her fifth victim? Also killed to protect me. Or that was her excuse. In truth, she’d conspired to kill a man I’d loved, a crime intended to separate me from Gabriel by condemning him to life in prison for murder.

How do I reconcile that? The woman who gave up her freedom so I could walk and the woman who took away one man I loved and tried to do the same to a second?

It cannot be reconciled. Instead, we have come to an understanding. Gabriel will handle her appeal because that helps with Todd’s. I will visit her when she has something useful for me, through the network of fae who curry the favor of Matilda’s fearsome mother.

With Pamela, I got a private visiting room, no glass, no speaker. Ironic, considering she was the actual killer. Also frustrating, when she’d been convicted of the exact same crimes as Todd, given the exact same sentence, and yet she was seen as less of a threat. Women always are.

When we reached the visiting room door, I asked Gabriel, “Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs?”

“No, but I’ve read the book.”

I had to laugh at that, a soft whoosh of a laugh, relief at breaking the tension. “Touché. But that’s what this feels like sometimes. My deal with the devil.”

“Except Pamela hasn’t eaten anyone.”

“Allegedly.”

I opened the door. Pamela was already waiting at the table. Anyone overhearing me compare her to Hannibal Lecter would laugh on seeing her there, a very ordinary woman with graying dark hair, thirty extra pounds, and a face unadorned by makeup, showing every one of her forty-six years. The type of woman who has settled comfortably into middle age and begun the transition to grandmother-hood, ready to start dandling babies on one plump knee while sneaking them candies from her overflowing purse.

When I first started visiting, Pamela would give me a look not dissimilar to what I get from Todd—unalloyed pleasure, the doting parent happy to see me whatever the circumstances. With Todd, that was genuine. With Pamela…I would like to say it was a false front, but it was more a half mask, one that puts a pretty sparkle on uncomfortable truth. Now, when I walk in, I get my real mother, and in her face I see pride.

I don’t need to wear a mask for my daughter—she’ll see right through it. She’s tough and she’s smart, and she’s a little bit ruthless, a little bit arrogant, a little bit cold. As she should be.

In Pamela’s pride, I see the best of myself and the worst, and it is as discomforting as dealing with Pamela herself.

“Gabriel,” she said, and others might hear a purr in that voice, but my ear heard a snake’s warning rattle. “I met your mother yesterday. Lovely woman. Drug addict. Petty criminal. Con artist. Has a much higher opinion of her intelligence—and herself—than is warranted. I can see the resemblance.”

“Hardly,” Gabriel said. “I’ve never done drugs.”

I laughed under my breath and pulled out a chair. “Now you understand why Gabriel and I get along so well. The common ground of maternal criminality.”

“Seanna Walsh is hardly on my level,” Pamela said.

“True,” I said. “She’s smart enough not to get caught.”

Pamela’s eyes narrowed.

“I’d have a higher opinion of your intelligence, Pamela,” I said, “if you didn’t insist on starting every visit by insulting Gabriel, knowing the only person you piss off is me.”

And for that, she smiled. Smiled and nodded, pride shining again as she conceded the point.

“You’ve come to find out what Seanna wanted,” she said. “I only wish I knew. She’s a tiresome woman. All I could guess was that she was trying to get a better handle on you, Eden. And by you, I mean your financial situation. She wasn’t exactly cagey about it, though I’m sure she thought she was.”

“What was she asking?”

“How did I meet Gabriel? How was my appeal progressing? Her version of small talk, into which she not-so-subtly interjected two primary questions. One, what is the exact nature of your relationship with her son? Two, what are the terms of your trust fund from your adoptive parents?”

“And you said?”

“The truth. I know nothing about your trust fund except that you are financially secure, which is all that matters to me. As for Gabriel, that is also primarily a financial matter—a profitable relationship for both of you. He provides employment for you and gets to handle our appeal because of you.”

The last part was bullshit. She just liked to put my relationship with Gabriel in a business perspective. That was how she reconciled things.

We talked for a few more minutes, but there wasn’t any more. Given what Seanna had told Rose, I suspected those questions about Pamela’s appeal weren’t as pointless as they seemed, but whatever Seanna’s angle there, she hadn’t tipped her hand to Pamela.

As we neared the end of our time, I said, “Greg Kirkman.”

No sign of recognition sparked in Pamela’s dark eyes. “Who?”

“Greg Kirkman,” I repeated. “Do you know him?”

“Not that I’m aware of. In what context?”

“Seanna went to see Todd. He refused.”

“Smart man,” she murmured. “Watching paint dry is more interesting than talking to that woman. I hope you told him to continue refusing.”

“I did, and he will.”

“Good. But what does this have to do with…what’s the name again?”

“Kirkman. Before Seanna left, she bribed a guard to pass Todd an envelope. The guard gave it to Gabriel instead. Inside was a slip of paper with that name on it. Nothing more.”

Pamela’s brows rose. “What did your father say about it?”

“We got the envelope after I met with him. I’ll ask him next time.”

“Don’t, Eden. Please. If I didn’t recognize the name, neither will he. But he’ll worry that he should know it, and fret over why Seanna gave it to him, and then he’ll decide he should speak to her. Which is likely her entire goal. Intriguing him into meeting her.”

She was right. I would investigate Kirkman myself and leave my father out of it.