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“Maybe,” she said. She tapped her thumbnail against her teeth and fell to thinking again.
I didn’t ask her for more. I knew she’d talk when she was ready. My only mistake was thinking she’d talk to me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I came down to breakfast the next morning, following the smell of toast and Earl Grey. I pushed open the kitchen door and stopped, staring at the two people seated at the table. Helen lifted her chin and her companion turned slowly to face me, hands wrapped around a mug of tea.
“Hello, Billie,” Taverner said. His voice was flat and his eyes were anything but friendly.
“Am I hallucinating?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I called him,” Helen said, lifting her address book with a nervous smile. “Now, you are free to yell at me later, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hear me out first.”
I sat down across from them, folding my arms over my chest. “Alright.” Helen poured another mug of tea and pushed it towards me.
“Drink this. Or save it and throw it at me when I’m finished, if you must.”
She attempted another smile and I waited until she let it fall before I reached for the cup. I didn’t look at him.
Helen cleared her throat. “We need reinforcements. Vance is expecting trouble—specifically, he’s expectingus. He isn’t expecting Minka or Akiko, and that makes them valuable to what we’re about to do. It also makes them vulnerable. They’re not pros, Billie. They need protection. Besides,” she went on in a reasonable tone, “he isn’t expecting Taverner.”
He was staring down into his tea, his knuckles white where he was gripping the mug. I didn’t say that he looked good, but he did. He’d kept his rangy build. The shoulders were still broad, the hips still narrow. He looked a little softer through the middle, but hell, who didn’t at our age. And he’d kept all his hair although it had gone pure silver, the ends of it curling like they had when he was thirty. I kept up the inventory until I got to his face to find he was watching me watching him and I jerked my attention to Helen.
“What sort of fee did you promise him?” I asked.
“Are youkiddingme?” Taverner said suddenly. He looked up and I realized he was angry. Livid, actually.
Helen rose. “I think I’ll give you two a minute,” she said. She slipped out of the room.
“She was always the tactful one,” I said.
“Really? That’s how you’re going to do this?” He shoved his mug away, sloshing a little of the tea over the side.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said calmly. “I’m annoyed withthem. I wasn’t even consulted about including you.”
“And including me isn’t exactly your strong suit, is it?”He placed his palms flat on the table and pushed his chair back. He stood and I did the same.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did it ever, for one moment, enter your mind to let me know you weren’t dead?” he demanded.
I opened my mouth and closed it again. It was a full minute before I spoke. “That’s why you’re angry.”
“Angry? I’m not angry, Billie. Angry is when you find out the dry cleaner lost your favorite shirt. What I’m feeling is the sort of emotion you don’t even admit to your confessor. Five days after Christmas I get a call from Sweeney telling me you four are dead. That’s all, just the bare fact of you no longer being in this world. It is now the middle of January,” he said, pointing to the calendar tacked on the wall to make his point. “That’s weeks later.Weeksof thinking you were gone.”
I might have pointed out that all of this could have been avoided if Sweeney had bothered to call him back after I’d made contact and he knew we were alive, but Sweeney had been after the bonus. No way he would have taken the risk of Taverner either taking the job himself or tipping us off. But I figured none of that would make him feel better, so I said something else instead.
“I’m sorry.”
He folded his arms over his chest and gave me a long look. “Do better.”
“I am sorry, Taverner. I didn’t think—”
“No. But then, you never do.”
It was a good line and he was smart enough to use it forhis exit. When he’d gone, Helen crept back in. I flapped a hand at her.
“It’s fine, Helen.”
