Page 16 of Born for Starlight

“My daughter Pattie is the cook. I taught her everything she knows,” Little Grandma said conversationally as I continued to eat. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but the woman who usually serves you, Lettie, that’s my granddaughter. Good woman.”

I nodded.

I was halfway through my meal before the real conversation started.

“You don’t have to tell me why you’re in town.”

“Didn’t plan to.”

“But because I’m old and you’re polite, you’re going to sit there while I tell you what I think might be holding you here.”

I set down my coffee mug. “Shoot.”

“Man like you, with a past like yours, connected to all the other heroes in our town, that gets a woman to thinking. Now, why would a man be staying? Be helping? Be waiting and watching, when he doesn’t have a dog in this race?”

“Boredom?”

Little Grandma gave a regal tilt of her head. “Might could be. But that’s not my thinking. I’m thinking there’s something more specific.”

I really didn’t like where this was going. I would hate to have to lie to this woman. It would feel just wrong. Second, I think she’d see through it in a New York minute.

“Oh, don’t look so alarmed. I haven’t been asking around. That’s not my style, I let information come to me. It always does. Fast.” She laughed softly and pointed a thin finger at me. “You best remember that, child.”

I gulped down some coffee and nodded.

She nodded in return. “Matthew, I like you. I honestly do. Therefore, I’m going to give you just a little bit of advice from someone who’s lived over a century. There’s always choices you’re going to have to make. I’m sure you’ve made some hard ones in your line of work. Something tells me this time is going to be different. This time you’re going to have to decide between old objectives and new priorities. I have some advice for you, child. Listen to your better angels.”

I damn near dropped my fork into my food. That was the same thing my Mama used to say. Listen to your better angels.

Little Grandma nodded with satisfaction. “I see my work here is done.” She patted my hand. “Enjoy the rest of your breakfast. If you need to, take the cinnamon roll to go.”

I don’t even remember leaving. The next thing I knew is I was in my rental, with a white take-out bag in the passenger seat, driving nowhere in particular. I kept hearing Little Grandma’s words in my head. My mother would have liked her. My mother would probably have taken her side against me, too.

I was still thinking about that when the alert on my phone buzzed through the rental’s speakers, the search flag I kept running on Angelica’s name out of professional habit, the same one that had first put her interview about the orphanage on my radar seven weeks ago. A new Julian Harmon episode had dropped last night.

I tapped play before I’d finished parking, because some instinct in me already knew.

It took about four minutes before the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

A quarter of a million dollars. Her name attached publicly. Brazil, and not from a distance, not a check written from three thousand miles away, but her, in person, on the ground. Soon.

I sat in that parking lot with the engine off and listened to the rest of it twice.

Shit!

She’d just handed the people who ran that system every reason to move against her at once. Name, money, intent, timeline, and she’d done it without knowing what kind of people she was messing with.

I thought about the way she’d looked at me twice across a crowded porch at the party when she thought I wasn’t watching. The way she’d said no to my request with a smile that told me she was serious, but I was a fool not to try again. Okay, I might be lying to myself, but I sure as hell was going to ask for her number again. Now there was no choice.

I called Bruno first, because old habits ran deep and Bruno was the closest thing I had to backup. It went to voicemail. I called again. Same result. He’d flown out a week ago, back to his own job. God knew what he was embroiled in now.

I drove straight to Onyx. The receptionist waved me through and I jogged up the stairs to the main office.

Jase was already up out of his chair when I walked in, phone in one hand, the other dragging through his hair like he’d been doing it for the better part of an hour. Simon Clark stood near the window with his arms crossed talking to a blond man I didn’t recognize.

“She’s out of her goddamn mind.” Jase said it to the room, not to anyone in particular, the third or fourth time judging by how worn the words already sounded. “A quarter million dollars and she’s going back there herself. To Brazil. In person.”

“Jase.” Simon’s voice stayed even. “Sit down.”