The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) (27 page)

“I can’t,” I said absentmindedly. Maybe I could run background checks on Nate’s new foster parents. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I could make sure the people he got paired with were truly exceptional.

“Good. Now try not to be so stupid next time.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, to show he didn’t mean it, and I laughed and wiped the tears from my cheeks. When had I started crying? I got up to go find out what Nate was reading.

I went to bed early that night.
 

When I got up there was a message from Toby on my cell phone, urging me not to go to LA. I considered calling him back, begging him to talk to me, but finally decided that was probably the best I was going to get for now. I sent him a simple text message:
I love you, but I have to finish this
. Then I headed into the bedroom to pack for the trip.

33. Sorry About Your Professionalism

Tuesday morning dawned cool and overcast in Chicago. And windy, of course. I don’t know if New Yorkers really never sleep, or Paris is really full of lights, but Chicago isn’t called the windy city for nothing. I took a cab to O’Hare and waited in line to check a bag and go through a bit of extra paperwork. It takes a longer time to go through security when you’re checking a firearm, but I wasn’t taking any chances this time.
 

Starla had urged me to fly first-class, and I’d relented. Ordinarily I wouldn’t want to charge my client that much, but then again, many of my clients could barely scrape together the funds to pay me. Starla had assured me that she could afford it, and frankly, I was relieved to have the extra padding. It was supposedly still safe to fly at this point in the pregnancy, but I was still half-convinced that I was going to end up hurling chunks for the entire three-hour plane ride.
 

Happily, the nausea stayed away, and the extra room in first class helped with my usual hatred of flying, although I didn’t get to have a cocktail like the other first-classers. I closed my eyes about twenty minutes into the flight, and didn’t wake up until the landing gear went down.

After a long internal debate, I had decided not to tell Cristina I was back in Los Angeles. She would frown in disapproval at my stomach bump, and snort an “I told you so” kind of snort if I told her about Toby. And I just wasn’t in the mood to hear about how I was wasting my life at the PI agency. I had enough problems.

So, when I got off the plane at LAX, I was planning to get my suitcase and go straight to pick up my rental car. I walked into baggage claim with my head down, trying to head for the right carousel while simultaneously digging out my printed confirmation number for the car. Then I glanced up and saw a familiar shock of reddish-brown hair.

My bag hit the floor with a rattling thunk.

Nate had spent the entire weekend working on this trip. He’d used Tom’s credit card to buy a ticket on the first flight to LA on Tuesday morning, figuring that Lena would probably go for a late morning or early afternoon flight. Nate was the one who paid the credit card bills anyway, so he didn’t have to worry about his dad seeing the bill. Next he’d gone to Tom and asked permission to go on a class trip to Washington, DC. Tom had bought his story that he’d applied to be part of the group going and been chosen as an alternate, getting asked along at the last minute. He’d been chattering to Nate about museums for three straight days, more animated than he’d been in months. Naturally, that made Nate feel so guilty that he almost confessed. With Tom onboard, Nate had called the doctor and arranged for extra visits from the home care nurses. He had even been careful not to mention being away to his neighbor Delilah Harker, who was friends with Lena. Nate liked Delilah a lot, but was trying not to get too attached – he wasn’t long for this neighborhood, after all.

School was a little trickier. It was easy to get out of a class, or even a full day, but three days wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. Nate considered a story about visiting relatives – not altogether untrue, after all – or an emergency with Tom, but finally resolved to keep it simple. After some research on the Internet, he decided to call himself in sick with mono, a disease that was bad enough to be gone for three days but not so bad he’d need to be hospitalized. Plus, he reasoned, teenagers got mono all the time. He dragged himself tiredly around school on Monday – not that much of a stretch for him – to set up his “illness,” and called the school’s answering machine early Tuesday morning as Tom, explaining “Nate’s” absence. With Tom’s full knowledge, Nate had caved in and purchased a prepaid cell phone for his “trip to DC,” and he left that number with the school in case they had any questions.

The whole thing could have been ruined if he had guessed wrong and Lena had taken the same flight. As the passengers boarded the plane in Chicago, Nate had kept his head ducked down; lowering his eyes under the Cubs baseball cap he’d pulled on. He made his way to his seat at the back of the plane and didn’t breathe properly until the flight finally pulled away from the gate. When the plane finally landed in LA, Nate set up camp on one of the benches near the kiosks and settled in to wait.

Three hours later, Lena finally came down the escalator leading into baggage claim. Nervous, Nate pulled off his cap and tried to smooth down his hair. He’d been practicing his greeting for hours, but the second she looked up and saw him, the words fell completely out of his head. She looked so
angry
.
 

Before he could collect his argument, Lena stormed up to him, got a death grip on his arm and dragged him over by the windows, away from the busy baggage claim kiosks. “What,” she hissed furiously, “do you think you’re doing?”
 

“I’m coming with you to meet Starla and her kids. And to look for Jason’s killer,” he said weakly.

“No, Nate, you most absolutely are not.”

“Lena,” he wheedled, “come on.”

It must have been the wrong thing to say, because her face went from angry to something a little past livid. “‘Come on?’” she spat. “That’s what you’ve got? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? Does your dad even know that you’re here?”
 

Nate hesitated, considering a lie, but the pause itself gave him away. “Are you kidding me?” she exploded. “A minor traveling across the country without his guardian’s consent?” Her grip on his arm didn’t loosen, and for the first time Nate was actually worried that she might turn him in.

“What are they going to do,” he countered, “take me away from Tom?”

“Oh, no. Not this time, friend. You are not going to guilt me into going along with your stupid, reckless plan.” She finally released his arm, jerking her fingers through the tangles in her hair and pacing back and forth in front of the small bench. “Okay. What am I going to do. Shit.”

“Just let me come to meet Starla, then,” he pleaded. “I promise I’ll hang back when you go to do your interviews.”

She stopped and turned to look at him. “Nate, you don’t even know if Starla is ready to meet you. You can’t just spring this on her.”
 

She sighed, and suddenly the fight seemed to leach out of her. Sitting down on a bench, Lena picked up her big purse, and pulled out a small cell phone. While she was touching the screen she said without looking at him, “Sit down, and don’t move, or so help me I’ll walk you back up to a plane right now.”

He sat down, leaving a foot or so between them to give her some room to be angry, but after a second she rolled up to her feet and paced away from him, making calls to Tom and then Starla. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but most of the conversation was written on her face.

After almost twenty minutes, she finally returned and sat down on the bench next to Nate, looking exhausted. He tried not to smile at her. “Okay, here’s the deal. Tom is not happy with you.” Nate winced. “But,” she continued, holding up one finger, “He has agreed to let you meet Starla and the kids if she’s okay with it.”

“Did you call her? What did she say?”

Lena glared at him. “Yes. She said yes. But don’t think you’re going to get off this easy, buddy. You have broken the law, lied to your dying father, and you’ve compromised my professionalism in tagging along on this case. I look like an idiot.” Knees apart to accommodate her belly, Lena leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “God, what happened to the shy boy who came into my office a few months ago?”

Nate patted her shoulder helpfully. “He spent too much time with you?”
 

Lena made a choking noise that might have been a disguised laugh. “Listen,” Nate said contritely, “I’m sorry about your professionalism.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said sarcastically. “That helps a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, ignoring her tone. “So, um...what do we do now?”

“You,” she said, pointing at him, “will stay right here on this bench. You will not move, except to call Tom and give him a big fat apology. I,” she pointed towards the baggage claim carousel, “will get my suitcase. Do not move. Are we clear on that?”

“Yup.”
 

“Good. Now start dialing.”

34. I Don’t Work For You

Nate had the decency to appear remorseful on the way to Starla’s, but I wasn’t fooled. The little jerk wasn’t the least bit sorry. I was upset, but I suspected some of that was unreasonable hormones talking—after all, if I was being honest, Nate hadn’t done anything that I wouldn’t have done myself. Maybe the kid was right, maybe he had been spending too much time around me. To punish him, I did not stop for my usual post-flight In-N-Out Burger. That’d teach him.

I followed Starla’s directions to get to Conrad’s house, and was a little shocked when I ended up getting off the freeway exit in Malibu. I’d seen plenty of McMansions in Chicago, of course, but I couldn’t imagine the cost of this kind of luxury when you also combined it with an ocean view. The house was huge, perfectly groomed in every way, and almost identical to its neighbors on either side. Conrad—or, more likely, Conrad’s decorator—had elected to express originality in the form of a tasteless fountain in the center of the circular driveway. Angel babies frolicked in the spray, and as I drove the rental car past I saw flashes of orange koi darting in the water. I didn’t know all that much about the wealthy, but I did know that koi were the world’s most expensive goldfish. It made me happy inside to see that someone—presumably the twins—had decorated the fountain base with neon pink sidewalk chalk.

I parked in front of the ornate rounded door and turned the car off, looking over at Nate.

“Nervous?”

He nodded, blushing a little as he stared at the house. “I don’t know, I guess I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I mean, who is this woman to me? But her kids are related to me by blood...it’s so weird.”

“It is.”

He finally turned to look at me, his face so young. “Are you going to tell me to be myself?”

I shrugged. “Nah. I always thought that was stupid. Who else would you be?”

His face broke out in a grin. “You
would
say that.”

“Shush.” I unbuckled my seat belt and elbowed the door open. “Come on, Robin. Let’s do this.”

In cable movies, these kinds of estranged-family-unites plotlines are always played with the big suspense, the powerful piano crescendo, and lots of tears and hugs. In reality, though, Starla just answered the door with a speed that suggested she’d been waiting behind it, and immediately threw her arms around Nate, squishing him into her.

“Hi! Oh my God, you look just like your father, except for your hair, which is maybe from your mom’s side? Did she have red hair? Jason’s was kind of sandy, like the beach. Beach-colored.” She pulled back to look at him—and, presumably, to take a breath. “Oh, sorry, I’m Starla. And you’re Nate. Hi, Lena! Omigod you’re so huge!”

“Hey, Starla,” I said, grinning. She was flushed and excited, wearing tailored khaki shorts and a pink tank top with a generous scoop neck. Her shirt exposed a little bit of tan, muscled stomach, and I tried not to think about my own bloated, cramped belly, or the amount of food I’d put into it before I’d left Chicago.

I dropped my bag next to the front door and leaned back, looking around while Starla turned her chattering powers on Nate. Conrad’s house had a huge entryway, like in movies, only with toys and books piled in corners and on the stairs leading to the second floor. “So, Starla,” I finally interrupted, “Where is everybody?”

“Conrad’s in the backyard fiddling with his grill, and the twins-”

As if on cue, Tristan and Antigone came charging – well, waddling, really – into the foyer though the doorway on the left. Tristan appeared to be chasing his sister, who clutched a handful of crayons to her chest like she was going in for a touchdown. “Mommy,” Tristan whined, “Annie won’t give me colors.” Only “give” came out more like “gib.”

“Tris, Annie, I want you to meet Nate.” The kids looked all the way up at the gangly teenager, who blushed and instinctively squatted down to their eye level. “Remember I told you about him?”

Tristan shrank back, but Annie stepped forward boldly. “Hi,” she barked, making Nate smile in return. He held out his hand and she took it, allowing him to gently raise it up and down.

“It’s nice to meet you, Annie.”

“Dis Tristan,” she replied, stepping aside to expose her twin. “He is my bruddah.”
 

“I see,” Nate said. “Hello, Tristan.” The little boy stuck his fingers in his mouth in reply, but he was smiling around them.
 

Starla squatted down next to the three of them, looking at the twins. “Guys, your daddy is Nate’s daddy, too. That means that Nate is your brother.”

Tristan seemed more confused, but Annie recognized that last word. “But Daddy is all gone,” she said solemnly, clumsily pushing her hair out of her eyes with her free hand. “He went to live in our hearts.”
 

Other hormonal pregnant women may have gotten a little misty at that moment, but not me. Really.

“I know,” Starla said, her voice breaking a little bit. “But Nate is your brother even if Daddy is gone now.”