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Micki sighs as I turn the key on the cherry-red Porsche Carrera S. “Too bad you couldn’t rent a motorcycle like the one you have in Chicago. Might be fun to go buzzing around in the mountains.”
“You like my bike, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” Her voice rises with excitement.
“Too bad that’s not practical for this trip. No place for the luggage. And it’s often rainy.”
She twists and looks back. “We’re being followed.”
I glance at the rearview mirror. “Yannick. I thought they’d gone ahead, but they must have dropped back. I’m not expecting anything, but better safe than sorry.”
“Do you have enemies here?”
“Haven’t lived here in so long that any enemies would have forgotten me by now. My only concern is you.”
Micki scoffs, “Sam would have to sell a boatload of art, a body part, or rob a bank, to buy a ticket.”
“Maybe he socked money away while he sponged off you.”
She winces but doesn’t answer.
Contrite, my automatic response is just as stupid. “C'était stupide de ma part. Je suis vraiment désolé, ma chouette.” Her eyes are big question marks. Crisse, I’m as bad as Maman. “Sorry, ma chouette. Just telling you it was a stupid comment, made even more asinine by apologizing in the wrong language.”
Moving one hand off the steering wheel, I squeeze her fingers, then put my hand back where it belongs.
“I’ll have a burner for you to use until you have a new phone and number. GSU routed the burner number through the company. If Sam somehow connects, they will monitor the call.”
A shudder ripples through her. “After that last call, I never want to hear his voice again.” The utter disgust tells me everything.
“How explicit was he?” I ask.
“All innuendo. Everything was tone of voice and double entendre. Nothing we could use in court. I didn’t think to record it either.”
“Too bad. I want to see his ass nailed to the floor of a jail cell, with the toilet just too far away to reach.”
“Eww.”
We take a slightly out-of-the-way route so I can show her Mitchell Island in the Fraser River, drive past Langara College, and point out the VanDusen Botanical Garden, Queen Elizabeth Park, and Granville Island Public Market before we cut back west to Kitsilano. I’m hoping to take her mind off Sam—and meeting Maman.
The reiterated threat of a surprise makes me want to take an even more meandering detour around the Greater Vancouver area, but even if we waste a few hours, the sword of Damocles still hangs over me. I gun the engine and we race to meet our fate.
ChapterSixteen
To be a queen of a household is a powerful thing—Jill Scott
Micki
A gabled house,the siding painted dusky blue with white trim and a welcoming red door, sits a good hundred feet from the street, steps leading to the porch jutting out into a curated flower display of daffodils and tulips. A manicured lawn rolls toward the sidewalk paved with large stone, enhancing the country cottage look. The tops of tall maples and oaks that poke out from behind the steep, pointed roof remind me of home. There’s no fence but a vigorous hedge, JL says is forsythia, edges the sides of the property. The right-hand front windows have leaded panes. The smaller upper floor is probably an attic.
“Does your mother garden?”
“No,” JL says. “I pay for a guy who does all the yard work. Maman has mild COPD.”
“The house is beautiful.” I’m reminded of Chicago bungalows. Never realized they might be common elsewhere too.
“It’s a Craftsman bungalow. Inspired by architecture from India, they started in California and spread all over the Northwest before moving to your neck of the woods.”
I feel bouncy with excitement. This seems like a good omen for the trip. “We should do a tour when we’re home. I read somewhere there are still 80,000 of them around. So cool that your mom lives in one.”
