Beautifully Forgotten (39 page)

Dane took a moment to think on that. “Yeah, a time or two.”

The woman responded to that by snorting.

Ember started to talk. “Lena mentioned that Heidi had been blackmailing someone in your family and you suspected it was your dad. Any idea what she had on him?”

He shifted in his chair. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in whatever it was Heidi was doing with his family, but considering his last encounter with Ember, he felt obligated to give her something.

“I don’t, but my dad plays a dangerous game of seducing women. Any woman is fair game, even married ones. He is discreet, so most don’t know just how much of a player he is, but it wouldn’t surprise me that he has secrets he wants to keep quiet.”

“And your uncle?”

“He works hard. All the time, in fact. He doesn’t like my dad, or me by extension, but I don’t think he has time to do anything blackmail-worthy.”

“And your grandfather?” Ember asked.

“He’s an arrogant, egotistical misogynist who I hate with a passion. I’d love to believe he did something illegal so I could watch him being hauled off to prison. It’s my dearest wish to see dear ol’ grandpa in county orange. Asshole. Wait. Why do you care?”

The other woman leaned back in her chair and balled her hands into fists. “We’re not really sure why we care. I’m trying to find someone, and I was told to investigate who Heidi was blackmailing.”

“Who are you looking for?” Dane asked.

He got the sense she wasn’t going to answer, but then she did—not that her answer made any sense to him at all. “My son.”

“How’s your son linked to Heidi?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. I was told he died at birth, but I recently found out that was a lie and somehow what happened to him is linked to Heidi.”

“Well, shit. My dad could potentially be involved? Kidnapping is a felony, right?” A smile curved his lips at the thought.

“According to a nun who worked at St. Agnes while I was there, there is a link between my son and someone Heidi was blackmailing.”

“Wait, Heidi lived at St. Agnes too,” Dane said, remembering how Heidi had bitched about living in a place so decidedly beneath her. Who even spoke that way?

“Yeah, she did,” Ember confirmed.

Dane put his elbows on the table.

“I don’t see why my dad would be interested in the baby of a teenage orphan”—Dane looked at Ember’s friend—“unless it’s his.”

“It’s not.”

“Didn’t think so. Well, I’ll sneak around and see if I can find anything that might help.”

“You would do that? Why?” Ember asked, genuinely surprised.

“Because despite my behavior the last time we met, I’m not that big of an asshole. I was high and drunk, which I know doesn’t make it okay, but I’m not normally that violent or aggressive unless the lady likes it that way.”

“Too much information,” Darcy said at the same time that Ember did.

“Give me your cell number and I’ll see what I can find out. If you’re looking at people Heidi was blackmailing, you might want to talk with Todd.”

Surprise rang from Ember’s voice. “Lena’s ex?”

“Yeah, they were hanging together for a while. Maybe he knows something.”

Lucien walked the familiar streets of his youth in his search for answers. His mind drifted to Darcy. She hadn’t been wrong about him acting like a caveman when it came to her. Now that he had her back in his life, he wasn’t about to watch her step into danger. If that pissed her off, tough shit. Thinking of Darcy reminded him of one of their conversations. She had asked if someone had helped him to get to where he was. He’d thought on that quite a bit since she’d put the notion into his head. There were countless jobs that he had gotten over the years that he thought himself lucky for getting.

One of those jobs was working for Santucci—the bastard who had let him hang. He had looked into Santucci and knew that the man was still running his operation out of the same gentlemen’s club Lucien had visited as a kid. At the time, Lucien had thought that Santucci was one of the big fish, but he knew better now. His operation was small, so small it didn’t even warrant attention from New York’s finest.

The place was rundown, the years taking a toll on the small brick building. The inside looked exactly the same. Hell, even the red velvet curtain looked as if it were the same one from fourteen years ago. The memory of what he had done behind that curtain soured his stomach, even as his dick started to harden.

He didn’t get far before he was stopped by the thugs, which he expected. What he didn’t expect was to see his old pal Jimmy. He wasn’t the kid he had been. Lots of years of hard living had turned the young-faced kid into an overweight and tired-looking man.

Like Lucien, recognition flashed in those bloodshot eyes.

“Lucien Black. Well, fuck me.”

“Jimmy you’re looking . . . older.”

“I look like shit, but not you. Living the life, aren’t you?”

Lucien wasn’t interested in walking down memory lane, so he said abruptly, “I want to see Santucci.”

Jimmy’s smile showed his yellowed teeth, of which he had fewer than he’d had as a kid. “Santucci’s busy.”

Lucien leaned closer, his voice deceptively soft. “I’m not asking. Unlike you and your boss, I jumped into the deep end of the pool and lived to tell about it. We both know what that means, so stop wasting my time.”

The cocky grin faded from Jimmy’s face, because he knew that Lucien had made alliances with men who gave people like Santucci nightmares. Even as a legitimate businessman, Lucien didn’t turn his back on friends, regardless of what side of the law they chose.

“Follow me.”

Santucci looked exactly the same, and like Jimmy, he knew exactly who entered his office. Unlike their past encounter, Santucci stood and came from around his desk to take Lucien’s hand into both of his.

“Nice to see you again. Can I get you something—a cigar, Scotch, a woman?”

“No, just information.”

Santucci waved to his men, and they all filed out of his office as he gestured to a chair. “Please sit.” He returned to his spot behind his desk before he asked, “What do you want to know?”

“The job you offered me—did someone encourage you to offer it to me?”

Confirmation burned in his shrewd eyes. “I wondered if you’d ever figure it out. Same reason I didn’t bail you out from jail. I was told not to.”

Someone had been playing the fucking puppet master with his and Darcy’s lives. Fury burned like a fire in his stomach. “Who was it?”

“You aren’t going to believe me.”

“Who, damn it?”

“Your very own Sister Margaret.”

Lucien didn’t know who was behind the curtain, but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting that answer. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No, she used the argument that my soul was damned, so I should do something good. She didn’t realize the kind of work you would be doing for me and had a change of heart because she didn’t think a life of crime working for me was in your best interest. Anyway, being Catholic, I couldn’t refuse a nun.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Lucien was seething by the time he barged into Sister Margaret’s room, but before he could peel a layer of skin from the old witch’s bones, she brought him up short by saying, “So you spoke with Santucci. I should have expected that.”

“Do you think this is some kind of game? This is my life—Darcy’s life—you’re fucking around with.”

“I was protecting you.”

“From what?”

“More like who.”

“Honest to God, Sister, if you answer another one of my questions with a fucking riddle, I am going to send you to hell myself.”

“Keep your skirt on. I watched out for you because I knew you were hurting and people do stupid things when they’re emotional. I was protecting you from you. It’s why I let you sit in juvenile detention for a bit. Now you need to go; I’ve had too many visitors for one day.”

“What?”

“Darcy and that Ember girl were here earlier. I told them a few things and now you know all that I do.”

“Why would you look out for me when you always hated me?” Lucien demanded.

“I didn’t hate you specifically. I just don’t like children.”

“And yet you worked in an orphanage.”

“God calls whom he chooses. Sister Anne was there to offer to you children all that I lacked.”

Her eyes grew serious before she added, “Sister Anne was the finest person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She asked me to look out for you when she was gone. I was merely fulfilling her wishes.”

And once again Lucien felt the burning behind his eyes. For this old bitch of all people. She hadn’t had to help him, he realized. She could have said one thing and done something else. He walked over to her and pressed a kiss on her paper-thin cheek and was rewarded with seeing a blush bloom there. And for just a moment he could see the young girl she had been, looking up at him like he was the cat’s meow.

“Now get the hell out of here before I take my ruler to you.”

And just like that, the moment was gone.

Darcy sat in her office, but, of course, she couldn’t focus. It had been three weeks since she’d learned about her baby being alive. He wouldn’t be a baby, though; he’d be almost fourteen. Was he happy? Did he have a loving home? She had been his age when she’d met Lucien. What did he look like? Was he beautiful like his father? Did he have her hair or eyes? God, she wanted so desperately to hold him in her arms. And yet she needed to be mindful that he may not want to be a part of her life because he was no doubt wondering where the hell she had been. Her heart ached, but even if she didn’t have a place in his life, just to see him and to know that he was happy and healthy would be enough. Thinking about all those years they had missed was hard: first words, first steps, first day of school, first crush. It wasn’t fair, and there were times that she wanted to rage at the injustice of it, but yelling, though satisfying, didn’t accomplish anything.

Lucien was off doing something, but what, she didn’t know. He was still trying to protect her, but she could no longer find it in herself to be mad. His focus, like hers, was on finding their son and, even more, he loved her enough that he didn’t give a damn if his need to keep her safe pissed her off. It was a beautiful, if somewhat fucked up, gesture. As hard a time as they were going through with their loss, she was grateful to have him back in her life.

She and Ember were making plans to go to St. Agnes to check out the attic. They were going to sign in as guests of Ember’s friend Brandon. She wasn’t hopeful that they were going to find anything, though.

The sound of her phone was a welcome distraction.

“Darcy MacBride.”

“Darcy, it’s Josh.”

“Oh, hi. Have you found something?”

“I’ve been looking into the liquor order. From what I’ve been able to find, that shipment your mom gets is not a credit card transaction, but from an actual bank account.”

“That’s good. What’s the name on the account?”

“Don’t know. Whoever set it up did a really good job at keeping it private.”

“Where’s the bank?”

“Again, I don’t know. The account was set up to be anonymous.”

“Damn it.”

“However, I do have some good news. I’ve been able to determine that the vodka is not coming from a local liquor store. I’ve checked sales receipts for twenty stores in the area around your mother’s apartment and none of them match the two cases a month delivered to her. So I started looking at bars in the area, and all the places I visited were very helpful except one. I was actually shown to the door.”