Chapter 16
They ate their dinner in the sunroom, from which they would have had a fantastic view out into the garden, if it hadn’t been dark already. However, Mira was still rewarded with a breathtaking view of millions of stars as she stared through the glass ceiling, which was relatively unusual for central L.A.
During the time they ate, they talked about meaningless things, and avoided the topic they had grazed earlier in the kitchen, which Mira hadn’t liked very much. Connor had told her about the stalker and Mira spoke about her time in Europe, carefully leaving out anything that had happened more than three years ago. Why did she have the feeling that he knew most of it already? Neither her excellent degree, nor her time at a large chemical corporation in the middle of Germany seemed to surprise him.
There had been some kind of truce between them and she was the first to break it. She pushed her empty plate aside and took another sip of the fruity wine. During dinner, a plan had grown in her head – to literally try out that fawn-eye theory for herself. As much as she hated the idea, at that moment, she couldn’t think of anything else she could do to get him to tell her at least part of the truth. Maybe Suzanne had not been so far off with her suggestion that Connor’s former sympathy for a small young girl had turned into something like a slight crush for the now grown up woman, when he had met her again. Her biggest problem right now was that she didn’t know which question to ask first. Maybe she should just do it in chronological order? Or should she just ask seemingly harmless questions and then work her way in with more serious ones? Although, the word “harmless” didn’t really exist in connection with Connor, thought Mira as she studied him silently from the side. There were moments when she believed that she could trust him. And then there were others where she was almost certain that she shouldn’t — that it would be a mistake that could actually cost her her life.
“What were you doing in the hotel?”
He leaned back in his chair. “You always manage to surprise me somehow. Of all the questions I was certain you would ask me, this would have been the last one on my list.”
Mira felt how anger started to boil inside of her. “Why don’t you just stop your games,” she said. “How about you skip your stupid comment about my intelligence or how dumb I am or how naïve. Just for once I expect you to answer. That is not too hard, is it?”
“Alright.” Had he lost a bit of color or was Mira just imagining it? “Actually, I was on my way to see how you were.”
“We already had an appointment for Monday. I cannot imagine what sudden urge could have caused you to want to see me earlier than that. And also,” she raised her head and looked him straight into his eyes, “… you are not the type to be spontaneous.” She held up her hand. “If you are considering asking me how I could possibly know that, just to distract me again, I will get up and leave.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. His lids lowered, making him look like a snake who was trying to hypnotize a mouse. Mira fought to keep her hands calm and prevent them from shaking. She did not dare pick up her glass of wine again, because she didn’t want to give away that she was nervous. In her head, she counted backwards from five. When she reached zero, she would go.
“It’s the truth,” he said calmly and leaned forward. “I was worried about you and wanted to make sure that you were okay.” He fell silent and Mira didn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay, so you want the whole truth. But are you ready for it? Are you strong enough?”
“I don’t know that,” Mira replied honestly. “But I am sick of all the lies. I don’t want to keep wondering any longer what actually happened back then — I want to know it.”
“Are you willing to pay the price to know? Okay.” she didn’t have to answer him, because her answer was written all over her face. “Then let’s start from the beginning. What is it that you remember? I mean, what do you really remember — I am not talking about all those stories told by everyone else?”
“I have already told you this earlier. I heard you arguing, then a shot, and then you brought me up to my room.”
He nodded. “That’s true, I did argue with Jack. But someone else shot him.”
“Who?” Mira whispered. The lump in her throat was so thick that she was almost unable to speak.
“I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “First, Jack was yelling at me that I should just go away, and then suddenly he touched his neck and collapsed in a pool of blood.”
The image that arose in front of her eyes was so brutal that Mira’s stomach turned and seemingly cramped up into a tiny hard ball. “But there was no one else in the room with you two.”
“The patio doors were wide open. The suspect must have been hiding in your garden. I saw Jack collapse. When I finally realized what had happened I turned and saw someone running towards the wall.”
“Why didn’t you help my father? Maybe he would still be alive today, if you had attended to his wound!” It almost sounded as if she had pointed the finger at herself: Why weren’t you able to help your father? Why didn’t you wake mom? Why didn’t you call the police? Why, why, why… A thousand times, her grown up mind had told her that she had only been a child back then. And yet, her heart was still adamant that she could have done something, that there had been something she would have been able to do. No matter what… something.
“He died immediately,” Connor explained with brutal honesty. “You have to realize that there was nothing I — or even a doctor — could have done for him in that moment.” He took a deep breath and wanted to reach across the table to grab her hand, but decided against it. “And before you ask why I didn’t run after the killer, I had to make a decision there and then, as to what was more important. Should I run after the murderer or look after the child of a woman whom I admire dearly and who gave me a second chance in life? What would you have done in my place, Mira? I will never forget the look on your face when you saw the your father’s dead body.” The weird thing was that she believed him, even though she did not remember seeing her dead father.
It was obvious that Connor was fighting to not lose his control. He was no ice-cold killer, despite his sometimes cold and distanced act. This man who sat across from her, had been molded by those harsh and unforgiving events just as much as she and her sister had.
“After you had brought me to bed, what did you do then?”
Now he reached out for her hand. Her fingers felt cold compared to his own, which were feverishly hot.
“I ran away.”
He did not say that he had been scared. That he had only been eighteen years old and that he had panicked. He didn’t have to. Everything, including his relentless sympathy and regret, was held within that one short sentence. “I will never forgive myself for leaving you and Francesca back then. For abandoning you,” he continued with a slightly stronger voice. “However, this is the reason why I cannot and will not let you go, Mira.” His blue eyes were burning with all these suppressed feelings — so many that she wouldn’t even be able to name them all. “Someone is trying to bring up this old story again. I don’t know if it is because of your return to L.A., or mine, or the fact that Francesca is dying, but I will not let anything happen to you. Ever.”
“Did you come back because of mom?” She didn’t know how to react to his admission, which had moved her just as much as it scared her. Connor would protect her at all costs. However, was this something Mira wanted? Her very own contradicting feelings for this man were so intense that it almost hurt.
Connor nodded. “All these years… I have never even been able to tell her how much she means to me. Francesca never asked anything of me in return for everything that she did for me.” Mira saw that he swallowed and then turned to fill both of their glasses.
“How did you meet mom? And what exactly did she do for you?”
“Suzanne never told you?”
Mira shook her head. “We don’t talk a lot about this,” she admitted. “And if we do, then we only ever scratch the surface or keep it so superficial that it would hardly count as a talk.”
“I met Francesca when I was sixteen,” Connor remembered. “Did you know that she volunteered at the charity Streetkids? This was an organization aimed at helping homeless youths. I had been living on the streets for almost two years by then and I had… let’s say… mixed in with the wrong crowd. Francesca promised me that she would find me a good job, as long as I was prepared to leave my past behind me and start completely new.”
What had he done that even now the memories of his past still seemed to haunt him?
“She managed to get me a job in your father’s company. He hired me as a packer in one of his warehouses. It had been a long time since I had had a warm meal on a daily basis and now I was able to earn money honestly. It was,” he looked at her, “a lot less than before, but it was no longer dirty money.”
This explained why Connor, just after he had turned eighteen, had been able to afford a motorbike. In her memory, this machine had been huge, a monster made of chrome and stinking of gas. Mira took another sip of her wine, which had now lost its flavor. Every word out of Connor’s mouth sounded honest. But with every new detail he added to the picture, she seemed to find more and more unanswered mysteries. Every answer created two new questions.
“So, you worked for my dad,” Mira repeated to order her thoughts. “What were you two arguing about?” Surely not about mom, Mira thought. A long time ago, she had had the unpleasant suspicion that the young Connor had had an affair with her mother. This idea made her stomach turn once more for reasons that she didn’t want to address right now. However, as she heard him talk, she realized that he might have even loved her mother at some point, just not in that way. He might have adored her and been grateful to her — all of these things were plainly audible in every single word — but she was relieved to never hear any kind of passionate desire towards her mother. In her mind, the skinny young boy and her mom, who had been in her late thirties back then, had never been a couple in love, but then again, she only trusted her memories to an extent. Mira had forgotten too much by now and she had misinterpreted so many more things, as she now found out.
“How much do you know about your father’s business?”
Mira shrugged. “Honestly, not as much as I would like to, but,” she added quickly, “… that is my own fault. I have never really looked into it or shown any kind of interest in where the money came from that paid for my very comfortable life — until now.”
He looked at her weirdly. “You felt like you had a comfortable life?”
“Well, materialistically speaking,” Mira replied. “But that is not really relevant right now. Or is it?”
He shook his head. “You are right. It’s just that it sounds so weird when you say it like that. I mean, you haven’t been home in so many years, you’ve lost both of your parents, and in this context, the word just sounds odd. That’s all.” He paused for a short moment and Mira would have liked to ask him about his own life, but now was not the right moment. “Your sister married Russell rather quickly, didn’t she? And he is now the head of the company.”
“So far,” she said and noticed Connor’s curious reaction. “Suzanne and I will be taking part in the leadership of Dumont Ltd from now on. We informed him of this yesterday.”
This came as a real surprise to him. His eyes widened. “I don’t think that that is a good idea,” he said seriously. “Russell is not a man who likes to share anything and especially not something that he has called his own for a lot of years now.”
“It doesn’t matter to me if you like my plans or not.” Her almost affectionate feelings for him started to crumble a little. Suddenly, she realized that this was typical for him: he just didn’t hold back and said what he wanted to, whenever he felt that something was wrong in his eyes. He also did not shy away from making decisions for others. He was considerate and strong — exactly what she had looked for in a man just a few days ago. She wondered what it would be like to grow old with this man — surely it would never be boring, but it would be a constant challenge. “Dumont Ltd belongs to my mother, Suzanne, Russel, and me. Dad built the company. It is my right to become a part of it.”
“You are absolutely right about that,” Connor replied unimpressed. “All I am saying is that you chose a bad time to do it.”
“And why is that?” Mira started to feel a slight grumble growing in her stomach.
“Because you know just as much as I do, that everything points towards Russell as a possible suspect in this case.”
Why wasn’t she shocked? Mira had never spoken about this thought openly and had always shied away from even so much as thinking it could be a possibility, but Connor was right. And if Russell had been involved in all of this, had Suzanne been part of it too? Whatever the case though, her sister would never ever hurt her. Never. “You mean everything,” she made a vague gesture with her hand, “is connected? Dad’s death, the attempt on your life, George’s death, and the ransacking of my room.” She searched his face for some kind of clue that she was wrong about this, but she couldn’t find any. “But why?” She shook her head. “I cannot get this question out of my head. What reason could Russell possibly have had, since he had just been promoted to Deputy Managing Director, to kill my dad?”
Connor had gotten up and now pulled her out of her chair. “There is a reason why I asked you how much you knew about your father’s business, Mira.” He took her hands into his and held them close to his heart. Mira was shaking with absolute fear in anticipation of what he might say next. Her eyes begged him not to speak and when he did so anyway, he spoke very quietly, as if he did not want anybody to hear his words. “Your father was involved in illegal trades with the Mafia.”