Ava would not be deterred. “Just tell me this. Does it involve Maya? Is she in some kind of danger?”
“Maya is involved… indirectly,” he admitted. “But I’m going to make damned sure she’ll be okay.”
Isabelle came bounding down the stairs from the apartment. “Hey, bro,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Aren’t you supposed to be out chasing criminals?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” he countered. “Why is everybody so worried about my work schedule?”
“He slept in his truck out in the parking lot last night,” Ava told her daughter. “Because Letty and Maya are in some kind of trouble with the FBI.”
“Oh, shit!” Isabelle breathed. “For real? Do they really think Letty killed her sister? I mean, that’s cray-cray. Letty would never.”
“What do you know about any of this?” Joe asked sternly.
“That’s what I’d like to know, too,” Ava said pointedly. “Young lady?”
Isabelle took a half step backward. “I promised Letty I wouldn’t talk about it. To anybody. She’s in big trouble, okay? That’s all I really know.”
“Who is Letty’s sister?” Ava asked. “Why is there an FBI agent staying here? And why am I always the last to know anything?”
The office doorbell chimed and Maya and Letty walked in.
“Maya Papaya!” Isabelle exclaimed, as the little girl jumped into her arms.
Letty had dark smudges under her eyes and now she warily regarded the assembled family.
“This is about me, isn’t it?” she asked Joe. “You told them?”
“I didn’t say anything, Letty,” Isabelle volunteered. “I kept my promise.”
“Nobody’s told me nothing,” Ava said. “Don’t you think it’s about time you filled us all in?”
Letty silently nodded in the direction of her niece.
“Come on, Maya,” Isabelle said, understanding the unspoken cue. “Let’s go upstairs and play school before it’s time for me to go to real school.”
Joe poured a mug of coffee and handed it to Ava, then poured one for Letty, who waited until she heard the two girls’ footsteps ascending the stairs. She took a sip of coffee, then put the mug aside. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Ava.”
Hercoffee grew cold while the whole story poured out, a torrent of jumbled words and emotions, betrayal, regrets, grief and fears. Letty held nothing back. Nothing, with the exception of the object she’d found sewn inside Maya’s stuffed elephant. For reasons she didn’t really understand, she decided to keep the nanny camera’s existence to herself, at least for the time being.
Ava listened without interrupting, until Letty mentioned the name Declan Rooney.
“Him!” she said, scowling. “That man was the devil. I should have known he was bad news the minute Chuck brought him and your sister to this motel. I guess that Irish accent of his had us all fooled. That and those damned blue eyes of his.”
“Not all of us were fooled,” Joe said. “And as it turns out, Rooney’s accent was as fake as the rest of his story. He grew up outside Boston.”
Her tone softened. “Letty, I still can’t believe I didn’t notice until right now the resemblance between you and Tanya.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t figure it out, or you never would have rented me a room,” Letty said.
“I probably would have anyway, though. Because of Maya. And also, because I sensed you were a good person,” Ava said. She turned and gave her son a pointed look. “What happens now?”
“That depends on Letty,” Joe said.
“I’ll meet with the FBI agent today. Then I guess I’ll do whatever she wants,” Letty said. “I’m out of options, and I’m tired of running.”
They heard footsteps clattering down the stairs, and the discussion was suspended.
“Letty,” Maya said, running into the office. “Isabelle says she has to go to school now.”
