CHAPTER FIFTEEN - DANNY
“Listen,” Christine says, hand up, palm out. “Before you slam the door in my face I just wanna say we’ve got mutual business and I’m not taking no for an answer, so just get off your high horse for one second and hear me out.”
Which seems like a lot of preemptive protest from Christine seeing as Eliza hasn’t made a move to either slam the door in our faces or reject us outright.
But then I look down at the little, pig-tailed girl, who is staring up at me making a ‘come here’ gesture with one tiny forefinger, and decide—yeah. There’s a lot I don’t know about this fucking situation.
“Business you say?” That’s Eliza.
“Pssst,” the little girl says, still beckoning me to bend down to her like she’s got some secret to share. Which is stupid because I’m fairly sure people this tiny can’t possibly talk. “Pssst,” she says again.
“It’s Alec,” Christine says. “So…” And then she loses a bit of her steam and just shrugs.
Eliza sighs. Long. Loudly. And then directs her eyes to mine. “Danny.”
“Uh, hey, Eliza. How’s things?”
“Things are perfect, mate. Quite literally.” But then she redirects her gaze to Christine and adds, “Or at least they were.”
“High horse,” Christine reminds her.
“What do you want?” Eliza snaps. Because… yeah. I think I’m getting this now.
“Pssst,” the tiny one says again, still making that little ‘come down here’ motion to me.
“We want…” And then Christine starts getting into details. They spill out of her mouth like a runaway train. Like she can’t talk fast enough.
The little one is tugging on my pant leg now. I look down, then up again, where Eliza is making that what the fuck are you going on about face as Christine gets to the part about the waterfall, conveniently skipping over the reason Alec and Lars went over the damn thing in the first place—which is Christine—and then ends the whole thing with… “And he’s been missing ever since.”
“Oh. Well. Bloke is dead,” Eliza deadpans.
“No,” Christine protests. “He’s not. He’s here in England, in fact. Which is why I’m here in England, knocking on your goddamned door.” Then Christine winces, looks down at the tiny one, and is suddenly unsure if she just fucked up the whole thing by swearing in front of the child.
We both stare at Eliza, waiting for a proclamation. And when none comes, Christine continues.
“Pssst,” the insistent tiny thing says again. Still tugging on my pant leg.
So I bend down, but keep my gaze trained on Eliza as Christine goes on about how she left me in the Cook Islands to “recover” and went looking for answers about Alec’s fate after that tumble, and how she went to the local authorities back home—which has me momentarily distracted because that was a stupid move on her part. Fucking Brasil is there and she could’ve been captured, or tortured, or raped or any of the other dozen nasty things that are always running through my mind about how people can hurt Christine—but I snap out of it just as Christine gets to the part where she says she came to England several weeks back, just doing a cursory check of all known safehouses once she realized no dead bodies turned up after the “incident”, and found him—
“What?” Eliza gasps.
“Yeah,” Christine continues. “He’s here. At that goddamned estate.”
By now I’m face to face with the tiny one, but still looking up at Christine and Eliza. So, the little person pats my scruffy cheek to make me focus.
“What?” I ask her. Which is absurd, because as I’ve mentioned, people this tiny can’t talk.
“I’m Alecandra,” she says. “Come play with me.”
She’s got a weird accent. So I’m not sure if I heard her right, but then again, I’m pretty sure I heard her right.
I don’t get to the part where I say no, I’m not going to play with her. Because I stand up and look at Eliza. “She’s—”
“Yes,” is the answer, but it comes from Christine.
Which makes me turn to look at her. Then back at Eliza. Then down at the tiny person who is still very busy tugging on my pant leg and spouting off a whole litany of things we’re going to do when we stop this all this nonsense grown-up stuff.
She talks quite well, even though for some reason she sounds like a life-long Brooklyn-er with her weird tiny-person speech patterns. Because she says things like ‘have tea and biscuits,’ and ‘play hopscotch and jacks.’ Which comes with a disclaimer that she’s not good at jacks but she can hopscotch well. And do I know how to hopscotch?
I picture myself hopscotching. I know what it is but never in my life have I given it a try, and so, just to shut her up, I say, “Sure,” but then look at Christine and say, “This is why?”
And she knows the question I’m asking, even though I haven’t asked it. Because she nods, but in the same moment, she shakes her head no, too, like there’s more to this story that isn’t self-evident, and gives me one of those later looks.
And then Eliza says, “That’s not her name. She just can’t say it right yet. It’s Alexandria. But we just call her Andra.”
Because of course they do. “And who is we?” I ask.
“Everyone calls me Andra,” Andra says. “Even my Uncle Theo, but he sometimes calls me ‘pigtails.’”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “So listen, Eliza. I get that this is unexpected and whatnot. And I didn’t know we were coming here—hell, I haven’t even thought about you in years—but I have been in touch with Russell and—”
“When?” Christine interrupts.
“Hilo,” I say. “And I’ve already made a deal with him for help anyway. So if you could just put all of this”—I make an all-encompassing motion with outstretched arms—“aside and let us in so we can discuss a plan of action—”
Which is when she cuts me off with a very loud laugh. “I don’t give two shits what deal you have with Russell, I’m not getting involved with saving Alec van den Berg. He can rot in bloody Hell for all I care.”
At which point Christine must decide swearing is not forbidden in front of the tiny one and says, “You fucking owe me,” in the meanest, most serious, I-will-kill-you-where-you-stand voice she can muster.
Which is pretty good, I think. Because my heart skips a beat in the wake of her threat and the tiny one even stops her tugging.
Eliza leans back on her heels. Not in a taken-aback way either. But in a I-bloody-dare-you-to-try way, complete with wide, incredulous eyes and a smirking grin.
And here we are.
The impasse.