Page 80 of Liberating Lily

Still nothing. He glanced over at Paddy.

“Bit of B&E?” Paddy asked. “Should have come in the darkness of night for that.”

Agreed.

He knocked again, not ready to give up. He wasn’t leaving until he spoke to Roberta.

“We’re not leaving until we speak to you, Mrs. St. Clary”

Finally, the door creaked open, but it wasn’t Lily’s mother’s face that peeked out at them. It was a slightly younger woman with her hair pulled back into a severe bun.

“What do you want?”

Harvey raised his eyebrows in surprise at her tone.

“That’s a nice way to greet people at the door, isn’t it?” Paddy said cheerfully. “We’re here to speak to the old bat.”

“What? How dare you!” The woman attempted to close the door, but Harvey had had enough of playing Mr. Nice Guy.

He pushed his foot between the doorframe and the door, stopping it from closing entirely, and then he slowly pushed the door.

“Hey, you can’t do that. I’ll call the police,” the woman said, glaring up at him.

“Really? You’re going to call the police? Is that what your employer would want?”

She flinched back slightly, and he could tell that she wouldn’t be calling the police. It was all a bluff.

“Where is Mrs. St. Clary?” he asked.

“You still have no right to do this.”

“Well, she had no right to abuse her daughter for years, did she? And I’m sure the police are going to be very interested in what we have to tell them.”

Another flinch.

“Oh, this bitch knew all about what the old hag was doing to Lily,” Paddy said, moving closer to the woman. “I don’t like that. Do you like that, brother?”

“No, I don’t like that at all.”

“Selena, Selena! Where are you? Where is my coffee? And who was at the door. Ahh . . . it’s you.”

Roberta St. Clary might have been an attractive-looking woman if it wasn’t for the fact that the evil inside her distorted her outside appearance.

“Where is my daughter?” she demanded. “You took her from me. You kidnapped her.”

“Really? Did you see her protest as I carried her out? No, because she wanted to leave your evil clutches.”

“I will call the police and report you.”

“God, this conversation’s getting boring,” Paddy said as he walked over to a side table and picked up some wax apples that were sitting in a bowl. He started juggling them. “We all know you aren’t going to call the police. If you were, you would have done that already. But you know that we have shit on you that the cops would just love to know.”

Lily’s mother took a step back and nodded. “Fine. Come with me. Selena, serve us coffee in my study.” Turning, the older woman stormed off.

She really was a piece of work.

“Selena, you really should think about your future employment,” Harvey advised. “Although if I find out that you helped that bitch hurt my girl, then you’re going to pay.”

Selena grew pale. Turning, he nodded to Paddy, who put the wax apples back in the bowl and strolled after the old bat.