Lost City (An Eoin Miller Mystery Book 3) (23 page)

Gaines and I walked down the bank toward the water. We were past the light from the caravans and the halogen outdoor lights. We blended into the shadows, two shapes moving beside each other near the river’s edge. We couldn’t see much beyond varying shades of gray and black, but the rain from the previous night had swelled the river and we could hear it rushing by. There was a nervousness passing between us. It felt like electricity. Dad had given us a bottle of his home brew, and we were swigging from it for warmth. Trading it between us in place of conversation.

I’d been hiding from
the
talk for a long time. Pretending there would be a perfect moment, when we could both let our guards down enough to be honest. I’d come close once before, the night we burned down the old nightclub together, but she had eased away from it and changed the subject.

Now I could feel it coming, and I still wanted to put it off as long as I could. “There’s another way out,” I said. “You could take Laura’s help, give evidence, and get protection.”

Gaines had her back to me, staring out into the gray that surrounded us, as if she could see details that I couldn’t. From behind I saw her shake her head.

“Too late for that. Perry has a hard-on for bringing us down. Looks to me like he has ambitions that go beyond being a Commissioner. He wants another term as PCC and then a run as an MP after that. But he doesn’t have any feathers in his cap. His only success since getting voted in has been to manage the budget. He’s a glorified accountant at this point. He needs something big, and we’re it—the midlands’ biggest crime family in bed with his Chief Inspector? Even if I could make a deal, it would be impossible to get you and my family out from under the charges too. He wants a press story too much.” She turned slightly, enough for me to see a half smile on her lips. “And he’s going to get it.”

“You’ve got a plan?”

“More like a fallback option. A guard against his stupidity, just in case he decides to try and take me down. You remember I helped him out when he was first looking to go into politics?” I did. I’d uncovered his corruption back when I’d helped him find his son. “I helped him get a few steps up the rung, gave him some money, greased a few palms.”

“But he’s the one who ordered this investigation. He’ll have known to cover those tracks.”

“Oh, yes.
Those
tracks. We both made those disappear a long time ago. But I laid others. He gave me his sort code and account number for a transfer once. It’s a great thing, getting access to someone’s bank account. Then you can get the rest. I even got his mortgage details, just a matter of knowing who to ask.”

“So he set himself up. What did you do?”

“House payments. Every six months for the past two years I’ve been sending payments to his mortgage account. Another one went to his partner’s pension. Not large enough that he would notice—nothing that’s going to mean he suddenly gets a letter saying that his mortgage is paid off—but large enough that anyone who was looking for it would see a pattern.”

“How will Becker’s people know to look for it?”

“I did it from an account under the name Linda Haines. You said Becker’s team were on to that, right?” I nodded. “It matches up to money that’s paid
into
the Haines account from a tanning salon in Chapel Ash, one that they would find is still under Channy Mann’s name. They won’t find anything that links to me. But what they will find are regular payments they can’t account for. They’ll follow the trail to see where they go, looking for something that links to me. Instead they’ll find their own Police and Crime Commissioner.”

“Surely they’ll smell a setup?”

“If it was only recent, yes. But this is going back years. I set it up before he even took office. It’s been going on too long, and he’s profited too much from it with his mortgage. The minute they find it, they’ll bring him down. Your man Becker might still have evidence on us, and Laura, but once he gets a sniff of bringing down the Commissioner I’m sure he’ll see sense.”

She was brilliant. Not for the first time, I wondered what kind of career she would have had in politics or her first choice—law.

“So it’s only a matter of time before he’s out of the game,” I said. “If he doesn’t resign over it, we’ll make sure the press do the job for us. That means his hard-on for us won’t be a problem. Let me talk to Laura, maybe Becker. We offer Perry up as a package, along with your information on the cartel, wrap it all up nice. I’m sure we can walk away free.”

We came across a low concrete wall, a defense against possible floods. Gaines settled onto it and patted the space next to her. I paused for a second then slid in.

“No police,” she said. “Whatever it costs. They might well offer a deal. If they don’t, the CPS would. Commissioner or no, it would be too big a case for them to turn down. But for what kind of life? Begging for whatever scraps of freedom they’re willing to throw my way? Humiliated? Made to feel like I’m lucky to get a new name and a new town, always on guard because they might call me back for more evidence, or the political wind might shift and make me an easy target for them? No. This is who I am. I’m going to ride out the next couple of days on my own terms. Or die trying.”

I leaned in a few inches closer. “Let’s try and avoid that last one.”

She chewed her bottom lip at the side of her mouth. Then shrugged. Decision made. “Okay. That’s me. What’s
you.
What are you in this for?”

“It’s my job.”

I knew what she’d really been asking. She knew I’d dodged it on purpose. She shook her head and smiled. Then stayed silent and waited me out, daring me to crack.

It took me less than a minute. “You know why. You’ve always known why. You use it to make me follow you around like a lost puppy, and you know what? I’ve never minded it. I’d rather that than be on the outside.”

She nodded and stayed silent. We sat and listened to the water. Each wondering who was going to say the words that there would be no going back from.

“You’re right,” she said. “I do know. Have known longer than you, I think. It’s been easy, comfortable. There are so many people out to trick me or lie to me, I’ve liked having someone I can count on. But it’s not right. I need you to be with me in this, but I want it to be for the right reasons.”

I leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. She pulled back, just a little, and redirected her own lips to my cheek, where she planted a very solemn kiss.

“You really are an idiot,” she said, her voice a cocktail of humor and anger. “You can track runaways and killers, find rapists and stick-up men, but you can’t spot this?”

I felt something tug at my stomach. A nagging feeling that there was something I’d known all along. Something obvious. “What?”

She scratched behind her ear for a moment.

“I’m gay.”

“How gay? I mean, on a sliding scale?”

My world had turned upside down. In moments like this I usually reach for insults or jokes, but I was too dumbstruck to try either.

“All the way,” she said. Humoring me.

“I’m not that bad a kisser, am I?”

She cracked a smile, and I followed. We both laughed. It was a nervous laughter, two people’s emotions teetering on the edge of the cliff. I knew I had to get this moment right. The problem was I didn’t know what
right
was. Even as she laughed I could see Gaines assessing me, trying to read my reaction. I figured she didn’t know what
right
was either in that moment.

I took the bottle from her and swigged, making a noise as the burn hit the back of my throat. “How the hell did I miss
that
?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been wondering too.”

“Who else knows?”

Now her smile dropped away. The question had tapped into something that ate at her. “It’s not that big a secret. I don’t talk about it, but I don’t hide it either. I’ve had girlfriends in the time you’ve been working with me, but I keep them away from the day job. It never lasts long, anyway. It was easier when I lived further from home. When I wasn’t involved in the family business, I could live a normal life.”

“And how did the news go over with your family?”

“Daddy tries hard. He’s old fashioned, I know he’s not really comfortable with it, but he tries not to let on. He just doesn’t want to hear details, or ever hear a word about who I’m with.”

“And Claire?”

She rolled her eyes. “Is just Claire. Who knows what goes through her head. Sometimes she’s the best sister in the world, sometimes she wants to turn my life upside down. I think that’s why she likes fucking you.” She eyed me again. “Yes, of course I know. She’s my sister. I think she’s liked messing with you. Probably thinks she’s messing with me, too. I should have stopped her game sooner.”

I swallowed that, along with whatever was left of my pride, and moved on. “But people on the street? At the job? They don’t know?”

“Again, I’ve never much cared. I don’t talk about it on the job, but then I don’t talk about any other part of my personal life either. Some people know, some don’t. Before we burned down Legs a few of the dancers tried flirting, I think they thought they could get in good with me, but I brushed that off. It’s impossible to keep it a total secret. I’ve heard the rumors that go on behind my back.”

I’d heard them too, but always assumed that kind of talk came with the territory when a woman was in charge. The men always wanted to gossip, to find some way to bring her down a peg. Now I realized I’d just been the only one not seeing it.

“That’s part of why I played that role. The business suits, the cold attitude, the whole mobster thing. I was building a wall. Creating a version of myself that was completely different from the real deal, a shield to protect myself. And when I figured out what was happening with you, I felt good that at least the new me had someone to count on. When you came back for me that time, saved me from Channy Mann, it showed me I was right.”

“You mean it made you confused?”

She laughed, and I didn’t like the tone. “No. I’ve never been confused. I think
you
are, but not me. But I liked feeling that someone
cared what happened to me, even if it was a man. It felt safe, and there’s not a lot of that going around in our line.”

I looked down at my feet. After a while I felt Gaines’s hand take my chin and lift it up until we were making eye contact again. “How are you doing?”

I didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” I drank deep from the bottle and then went for honesty. “It feels like there’s a test here that I need to pass. Like you tell me all this and I’m meant to know how to react. But I don’t.”

“Eoin, I like having you around. I trust you, and I’m comfortable with you. And the two of us are good together. I’ve always, I mean I
do—”
Her own words collapsed into the same embarrassed fumble that I’d managed earlier. She couldn’t say the words either. “I remember more than you do. I remember us playing together as kids. You were in my life, and then you weren’t, and then you came back in again. You’re a moody dick, but you’re
my
moody dick. I just don’t want
that.
Wouldn’t even know how to think about it. We’re wired for different things. I’ve never needed a boyfriend, but I’ve always wanted a big brother.”

I nodded for a long time, slowly.

Could I live with that? I had no idea. I wanted to say yes, but I wanted a lot of things, and I’d never been able to judge which ones were achievable. I looked up at her and smiled. I hoped that would do as an answer.

“And you,” she said. “You have enough issues as it is. You have
a wife that you’re sleeping with again. You have my sister. You have a drug habit that you think
nobody knows about. And now you have an empty.”

I looked down at the empty bottle held between my hands and just like that, all the booze hit me at once. I laughed and thought about standing up, then almost lost my balance.

Gaines stepped down off the wall. “You stay here and figure your head out. I’m going to bed. We’ve got to go be gangsters tomorrow, if you’re still on my side in the morning.”