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Oh my gosh, I thought, believing every single threat the woman spat.
“Nick called you.”
“Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?” At that point, Granny lifted the cane once more and slammed it down. “He’s always had more sense than you.”
There was a snort of laughter, and it took a minute for me to realize where it came from. Shit, I thought, covering my mouth, but it was too little, too late. When James and his grandmother turned to look at me, I did my best to feign a cough. “Sorry. Got a tickle.”
Granny stared at me for a moment before she apparently decided I required more than just a cursory introduction, but she turned back to her grandson instead. “The point is, James, you’re going to the island.”
The island? Is that a metaphor? Wasn’t that the title of some eighties horror movie?
“For fuck’s sake!” James raked his hands through his hair and tried to stare the old, cantankerous woman down with a blazing fire quite similar to her own. “You make it sound like some kind of mental institution. And it kind of is, because it’s the only place where you can control me. Because I can’t leave! And I can’t get any service to call a plane.”
“Uh...James?” I started backing discreetly to the stairs. “I’m just going to go—”
“How could you be so foolish?!” her voice boomed out over the stairwell.
I froze, terrified to move but also intrigued to hear the rest of the odd, hostile conversation. James seemed to have many battles of wit with the sorely unarmed, but his grandmother was a worthy adversary.
She paced forward with a speed unnatural for a woman her age and jabbed a gnarled finger into his chest. “Calling a press conference to hand the company over to that worthless little ingrate? How could you?”
It was an interesting choice of words, considering that the ingrate was her grandson as well, but I had to silently agree with the part about Robert being worthless.
James didn’t answer because he was too busy looking at the windows, wondering if any were left unlocked.
Granny didn’t seem to expect a response, for she was clearly the kind of woman who was perfectly content to play both sides of a conversation on her own. “I’m assuming this is the girl, is she not?”
My blood ran cold as she headed my way and turned that incriminating digit and beady-eyed glare on me. For a split second, I actually flinched, fearing she might pry open my mouth and check my teeth for deficiencies. Fortunately, she didn’t give me a dental exam, but I certainly felt like I was encountering some sort of uncomfortable visit with a proctologist.
After a split-second scrutinizing, during which the world seemed to stand still, she cocked her head to the side in a birdlike gesture of approval. “Very nice, James. Well done.”
My entire body breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived, due to her next terrifying declaration.
“She will accompany us to the island.”
The tentative smile spawned by his grandmother’s blessing melted right off James’s face as he turned abruptly on his heel and headed for the living room bar. “Shit, I need a drink.”
I sank down on the stair I was standing on as she bustled by and shoved him out of the way with her handbag, then disappeared behind the bar.
“Allow me,” the old woman snapped, pulling out bottles at random and slamming them down on the counter. “Perhaps that will give you time to conjure up an explanation as to what the hell you could possibly be thinking. Do you think your father desired this, for that fool Robert to be in charge?”
“No.”
“You know this is not what he wanted,” she said assuredly as she splashed random liquors into a tall glass, then shoved in a withered handful of ice. “In fact, I imagine the poor thing rolling over in his grave!”
James watched her frantic motions, but he didn’t seem to be seeing her; his mind was somewhere else. “Robert stepped in when he got sick,” he finally said, “and Dad didn’t seem to mind.”
“He was waiting for you, James!” She slammed the drink down on the counter, spraying a mist of alcohol into the air. “He was waiting for you to come home, to take what’s yours!”
James snatched the drink up and glared at her, completely ignoring the fact that it was some awful-tasting, toxic stew of wine, scotch, vodka, sours, rum, and whiskey, with a little tequila on the side and both an olive and a strawberry floating in the liquid that looked like it was fresh out of a witch’s cauldron. “You make it sound like some sort of campaign,” he spat before he took an absentminded gulp, glaring her down all the while. He coughed and gagged a bit, then continued, “We’re not fighting the French anymore, Granny. This is fucking business, Rob’s business, and that is exactly what I’m going to tell the press, so you and everyone else better get used to hearing it. The only thing I’m going to have in common with Cross Enterprises from now on is that it shares my damn name.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she said, her voice growing surprisingly soft but somehow scarier. “You’re going to the island.”
James froze, as still as a statue, then pale. After staring at her for a minute that felt like an hour, he suddenly backed away from the woman as if she was something to be feared. “No, Granny, I’m not.”
Her lips twitched up in a sorceress-like approximation of a smile. “Sweetheart, contrary to your opinion, you most certainly are.”
Then, in what felt like slow motion, his fingers moved up to loosen his collar. When he stared down into the multicolored drink, little beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he took a faltering step back. “Did you pour this, or did I?”
