Page 166 of Letters From A Stalker

I lean one shoulder against the bookshelf. “What are we celebrating?”

“Five years since the foundation took over the property, obviously.” She looks at me as if she’s trying to figure out if I have early signs of Alzheimer’s. “We’ve also crossed the two-hundred mark.”

That gets my attention. “Women and children?”

“Women placed safely through the residential program. If we count kids, we passed three hundred months ago.”

For a second, I look around the room. Two hundred. Henry would have pretended the number didn’t affect him, then spent the rest of the evening finding something expensive to repair because that was how the old bastard handled emotion.

My throat tightens unexpectedly. “Do it.”

Renee smiles. “I was planning to.”

“Then why ask me?”

“I enjoy giving you the illusion of authority.”

“That seems to be a theme in my life.”

She studies me for a second before wisely deciding not to touch that one.

“They’re looking at next month, probably a Saturday. Their people will fly in from Minneapolis and help with everything. They’ve been good to us, Kai. A lot of the protective-order work and nonprofit stuff they’ve handled would’ve cost us a fortune somewhere else.”

“I know.”

I do, vaguely.

Renee has mentioned the firm before. I have seen invoices marked pro bono, correspondence and names I never retained because legal administration is one of the things I gladly leave to people better suited to it. For half a second, Julia crosses my mind. A law firm from Minneapolis. The connection is so broad that it barely qualifies as one. There are hundreds of firms in the Twin Cities, and I cannot even remember the name of hers anymore. I knew it once because it was in her intake paperwork, but I surrendered every copy of her file after the transfer and have made damn sure I never looked for another reason to access it. Not that she actually needs any fucking excuse to appear in m thought anyway. She rarely leaves.

Renee hands me a tentative date. I put it into my phone.

My return flight lands early enough Sunday evening that I make it to Mara’s twenty minutes before the time she threatened to start dinner without me. Connor is at his father’s, which means the house feels oddly quiet when Mara lets me in.

“No tiny dictator?”

“Back tomorrow.” She smirks and takes the bottle of wine from my hand and looks at the label. “You know I already own alcohol.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then why do you keep bringing it?” The same reason she keeps taking it.

“Your food is free. I have manners.”

“You slept here often enough during your hoe era.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

I stare at her. “I did not have a hoe era.”

“You went out three nights a week to pick up women.”

“That was not an era.” I frown and the overly dramatic adjective.

“You threw up in my hydrangeas.”

“I had food poisoning and that was just the one time.”

“Well, that particular time you had tequila.”

“Allegedly.”