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“By whom?”
He laughed now. “My mother mostly.” Mac pulled his chair closer to the bed. “Gus has a few things to sort out at the firm tomorrow.”
“Because of me?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Theo. Gus can look after himself. He’s not going to let two old men push him out of his own firm.”
“Could they do that?”
“Not without one helluva fight. But he does need to prepare for the partners’ meeting tomorrow.”
Theo nodded. The thought that Gus could lose everything was horrifying.
Mac pulled out his phone. “With all due respect to hospital food, I’m going to get something delivered. Do you have any preferences?”
“They can’t deliver here!”
“I know people,” he said. “Don could get takeout into prison for the right price.”
CHAPTER 19
The car that picked them up from the hospital was from a private service. Discreet, professional, anonymous. They left early and somehow avoided the reporters and picketers outside the hospital. Even so, the route they took to Mac’s house was circuitous.
If Theo had thought about it, she knew that Mac was wealthy. Gus had said so at some point, and Mac did drive a Mercedes sports car when he wasn’t trying not to be noticed. But she hadn’t expected the house. It was the kind of building that made you gasp. An American Gilded Age mansion that had lost none of the glory of its heyday. Theo craned her neck to gaze up at the round tower capped by a domed roof. The property was surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence and gate, its traditional red and sage paintwork striking against the surrounding snow.
“Gus says he packed a bag for you when he collected his own things.”
Theo grimaced. She could just imagine what Gus would pack for her.
Mac smiled. “We can try to sneak by later if it turns out to be a bag full of evening gowns and socks.”
They alighted in the driveway and walked up a brick path—which someone had shoveled—to the grand portico. Theo almost expected to find a line of servants waiting to greet them at the bottom of the stairs, but Mac opened his own door and let her in. Inside, the house was as breathtaking, but Theo’s attention was diverted by Horse, who was clearly pleased to see her. She knelt to avoid being knocked over and hugged the exuberant hound with the arm that wasn’t injured.
Once Horse had been calmed, Mac led the way up the wooden staircase and showed her to a bedroom. The bag Gus had packed was sitting on a chair. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom was beautiful, the warm wood of the craftsman style featured but not deified. Theo assumed there had been a professional decorator involved in picking the furniture and paint—except for the painting on the far wall. A violent abstract. It was hard to look at.
Mac might have noticed the slight widening of her eyes. “Dang, sorry. I forgot that was still in here.” He took it off the wall. “A gift from my mother—she’s a big fan of William Burroughs. I keep it up here so I don’t have to look at it.”
“That’s a Burroughs?” Theo had of course heard of the Beat Generation icon who had spent the last decades of his life in Lawrence. She’d read a couple of his novels and seen the odd painting. “Your mother likes William Burroughs?”
“Yes, she’s particularly fond of the gunshot paintings,” he said referring to Burroughs’s technique of creating art by shooting at cans of spray paint.
Theo looked sharply at him. Was he joking? “But after…”
“She shot me?” He smiled. “My mom’s made of sterner stuff than that. It’ll take a bit more than an accidental shooting to turn her off the inherent artistry of guns.” He held up the Burroughs. “Actually, this isn’t one of the gunshot paintings, but it is a hard thing to fall asleep looking at…so I’ll find a dark, lockable cupboard for it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Theo said a little half-heartedly. The agonized faces in the painting unnerved her.
Mac laughed. “Believe me, I’d get rid of it entirely if my mom didn’t look for it every time she visits. She occasionally stays in this room when she’s in town.”
“I’m not putting her out—”
“She never comes to town in the winter,” he assured her. “Or anytime that she can avoid it, really. She thinks Lawrence is something of a left-wing Sodom and Gomorrah. Come on, I’ll show you around the rest of the house before I go to work.”
He took her on a tour of the mansion, which included a cavernous room with a stage at one end. “The guy who owned this place before me was a musician. He and his friends would jam in here—I’m afraid I haven’t decided what exactly to do with it.”
“Roller-skating, perhaps,” Theo said taking in the size of the room. She’d always imagined private eyes sleeping in their dingy offices on the wrong side of town and living paycheck to paycheck. Clearly not.
He chuckled. “It’s handy for parties… There’re always a few closet musicians in the crowd and they’re drawn to stages.”
