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Granger leaned forward, elbows on knees. “She meant me?”
“Yeah, she meant you.” Alvin gave him a wry look. “Not used to being taken care of?”
“I mean…” Granger shrugged. “What was she talking about?”
“I don’t know all the details, but after she left Gault set up a fund for her. He didn’t say why, but I figured she was threatening to go public about some shit that went down on tour. I heard her yell something like, ‘not keeping his fucking secret.’ Anyway, Nora never used that fund. I don’t know why not. But it grew pretty big. Gault put me in charge of it right after he set it up, said he didn’t want to know anything about it. When it came time for me to put money into Alvin’s Burgers and Blues, I didn’t have a lot of options. Conor came up with some of it, but I needed more. So I made a withdrawal. Fifty thousand dollars.” He winced as he said it. “It’s a small amount compared to what’s in the fund and I can pay it back. Place is doing pretty well. I might take a minute, but a good payment plan…”
“Keep it.” Granger’s voice sounded harsh to his own ears. “Keep it all. I don’t want any fucking blackmail money.”
“Blackmail? You don’t know that, son.”
“I’m an FBI agent. I know what blackmail is.”
“Okay, maybe it was, but she was looking out for you.”
“She always looked out for herself.”
“Then why didn’t she use the fund? You know what I think? I think she left it alone so you’d have it when you got old enough.”
“I’m almost thirty and I never knew it existed.”
Alvin shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what she was thinking, but I know she cared about you. I think…” He grimaced, his lined face settling into regretful lines. “Truth is, I think she wanted to leave you with me. Let me raise you. But I didn’t think my wife would want that. I’m sorry, son. I thought about it a few times since then, wondering if I messed up. Kendra could have used a brother.”
His mother had wanted to leave him in Lake Bittersweet? The truth of that hit him like a blow. He’d known it, on some level. Known she was nearing a breaking point, and that she was worried for his future. But leave him? With strangers?
Then again, they hadn’t been strangers to her. She had trusted Gault and Alvin. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have taken the risk of blackmailing Gault. She’d trusted them not to report her to the police. In his mother’s rebellious world, that was a lot.
If she had extorted money from Gault in order to provide for his future, why hadn’t she told him about it?
She was ashamed, he realized suddenly. Especially after he’d joined the FBI, it had probably been impossible for her to explain that she’d finagled a trust fund for him from a rock legend, based on threats and secrets. His mother, with all her darkness and her brightness, her sins and her zest for adventure, hadn’t wanted to dump more of her baggage on him, even if that baggage was a large sum of money.
All of a sudden, the thought of that fund touched him deeply. The force of nature who was his mother had loved him, in her own unique and unorthodox way. That love was worth something. It was worth a lot.
“Don’t even think about paying that money back,” he told Alvin Carter. “Consider it my investment in a great burger joint. I think that fifty K is right where it belongs.”
Alvin swiped a hand across his eyes, and Granger realized the relief was making him emotional. “Thank you, son. That’s real gracious of you.”
Granger shook his head impatiently. “Nah. I never wanted money from my mother. I made my own money starting at age twelve or so. I just wanted one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Spit it out. Embarrassing as it is, Alvin is one of the few people who might know.“She, uh, never told me who my father was. So…yeah. I’d take that over a fund.”
Understanding flooded into Alvin’s eyes. “So that’s why you kept lurking around the Blue Drake. You thought I might know.”
“I…thought it might be you.” He winced at how that sounded. “Sorry.”
“Me?” Alvin chuckled a bit. “Your mama was never interested in me. She liked ‘em wild.”
Then he paused and cocked his head thoughtfully. “You know, maybe that’s why Gault set up that fund. He always took care of his band members. So maybe it was Banshee.”
“Banshee?” That didn’t sound promising.
Alvin chuckled. “Those were wild times, and Nora, she was one of the wildest. Banshee was our drummer, and she was hanging around him. But she didn’t like sticking with just one fella, so sometimes she showed up with someone else. We had a roadie from Arkansas that she liked. Frankie. Him and Banshee used to get into it when they’d partied too much. Your mama didn’t mind that either. She liked the drama. I asked Gault once why he let her stir up so much trouble, and he said it wasn’t his call. Guys need to let off steam, they’re going to find a way. I think she had an eye for the sound tech too.”
Granger absorbed every painful word of this. “So you’re saying that since Gault stepped up with some cash, that means my father was a part of his band? Or his crew?”
“Maybe, yeah. Could have been a few guys. Except me or Gault,” he added.
