Forever in Your Service

by Sandra Antonelli

  “Yes, he will. Are you going to tell me off for breaking my promise?”

  His head listed to one side. “Did you break your promise?”

  Quickly, she shook more ice into her mouth.

  “Thank you for not letting that woman kill my brother.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, mouth full of cold.

  He lifted her hand and kissed the middle of her palm.

  “I scared the hell out of you, didn’t I?”

  “You did, yes.”

  “Have you vomited yet?”

  “I don’t always vomit.”

  Chuckling, she smiled, lips sticking to her teeth far less than before. “You know I find your vomiting endearing.”

  He looked at her, the cold blue of his eyes flickering with warmth and passion and fear and fury. “Christ, Mae,” he said softly. “Christ.”

  “I’m sorry I frightened you,” she said, just as softly, with just as much warmth, passion, fear, and fury.

  “If I didn’t understand your point of view before, I sure as hell do now.” Kitt moved the tube connected to the cannula drip in her left hand and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress made a crunching noise.

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t set out to prove anything to you.”

  “I know. I was dead. You needed to be productive.” Kitt glanced at the glass wall and the door. Five minutes, he had five minutes—seven tops. That was probably all the time Reed and Bryce could stall for. “I’m sorry about the dog. I knew Taittinger would run when he came to. I just didn’t think he’d take Felix with him.”

  Mae sighed and leaned back into the pillow. “Since he’s microchipped, it should be easy for Bryce to find him and Taittinger. Then again, Taittinger could dump him somewhere.” She went quiet for a few long seconds. “Do you think Ruby killed Molony?”

  Kitt stroked her hair, a snarl of French braid. Despite fighting for her life, her hair had stayed in place all morning, the bed its undoing. “She did or Tzin did. With her connections in the world of auctions, art and wine, I think Ruby played everyone. Bryce and the locals may get more out of her, depending on the amount of damage done by the denture cleaner you got her to drink. You have quite the deadly knack with cleaning products, Mae.”

  “I didn’t kill Ruby.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “But I wanted to.” Mae shook her head. “I tried to.”

  “You did what you needed to.”

  “I knew you’d say that.” She laughed suddenly. “Ruby Bleuville and her strawberry hair. Ruby—chichiltic, right in front of us the entire time.”

  The left corner of Kitt’s mouth twitched ever so faintly.

  “Were you waiting for me to say something?”

  “It was bloody obvious, Mae. How did you miss it?”

  “How did you miss it?”

  “I’m a terrible spy, remember? Plus Foley has that red birthmark on his head.”

  “Jaysus, I bet Taittinger thought he was protecting her from Tzin Coyote until she killed Nash. He tried to tell us that it was Ruby, not Foley, but we didn’t listen. Has she said anything? Has Tzin?”

  “Tzin is in a coma. Ruby has a tube down her throat. She did, however, give a written statement implicating Foley and the Coyote brothers.”

  Mae stared into the cup of ice chips, going quiet for a few moments.

  “Mae?”

  She exhaled uneasily. “How could what I did to Ruby feel so right and be so bloody wrong at the same time? How could I stand there and watch her choke and feel so smug about it? I feel so morally bankrupt.”

  “She shot you.”

  Mae lifted her eyes. “She shot me after she drank the poison I gave her.”

  “Don’t you know? Life is not black and white or even shades of grey; it’s a whole palette of colour, and some choices you make can’t be shaded as good or evil, but as necessary forms of justice. Revenge is a human form of establishing social justice. Revenge activates the reward centre in your brain, and releases dopamine so you get a sense of pleasure from it. You asked me before and I admit it now,” he said. “I get a sense of gratification from my work.”

  “You find killing gratifying?”

  “Of course not. I once told you I have a very high sense of justice. I find aiding those who struggle with oppression, cruelty, a lack of justice, or autonomy gratifying. I live and have lived a life of privilege. This is how I choose to give back; this is how I choose to support a world so that others can...are you laughing?”

  “Yes.”

  “It does seem rather ridiculous when I say it out loud. Listen to me now. You feel guilty when you have no cause to. You saved Reed’s life, you’ve saved my life and your own life as well. There is no reason to feel guilt for that.”

  “Well, I was raised Catholic. I’m still Catholic.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to a priest.”

  “I have.”

  “You told your brother about me?”

  “You told your brother about me.”

  “Point taken. What did Padre Sean say?”

  Mae looked at the ice in the cup. “He told me to walk away.”

  “Smart man.”

  “Then he said love was precious and I’d be an arsehole to reject such a gift from God,” she said, an ice chip between her front teeth.

  Kitt chuckled softly. “The point I’m trying to make is what you struggle with, your moral ambiguity, it rests at my feet, but your actions, your assistance, however horrible, was necessary. It gave us a chance to make things right, to save lives. It gives us a chance.”

  “Is there still an us?” She slurped.

  “Was last night really the last time?”

  Her head turned slightly and Kitt thought he saw the flicker of a smile tug the corners of her mouth. “We agreed to talk about this when we’re both home again,” he said. “Except what that means is so uncertain.”

  “Because people in your line of work never really retire, Kitt.”

  “I wish you hadn’t been right about that. I do apologise for it, and more, for what’s to come. Circumstance means it’s go on as we were, with our secret, very long engagement, what neither of us want. It’s a compromise. Yet, even compromise might not be tenable.” Shoes chirped across tiles outside the room, hospital staff moved quickly up the hallway. Kitt stepped away from the bed and took a breath.

  “I don’t want to be right. I want to be with you.”

  Kitt’s smile lit up his eyes. “Bryce is married, but Bryce is not a field officer and marriage is not realistic for a field officer. It’s not safe for you.”

  “Or you.” Mae’s lips twisted into a childish pout.

  “It may not be what we want, but it’s not rational for us to go on any other way than as we are, secretly engaged for a very long time.”

  “Because, departmentally speaking, I’m your trusted employee who knows how to keep your secrets, so it’s stay as we are or walk away.” She shook ice into her mouth.

  “Not to heap on more gloom, but your walking away may not be necessary if I go to prison.”

  She snorted, crushing the ice she was supposed to be sucking. “Why would you go to prison?”

  Kitt inclined his head. “Aside from how I threatened hospital staff if they didn’t see you and Reed straightaway, I’m in this country illegally and I’ve killed two men.”

  “One. You killed one man...” Her mouth popped open for a moment, bits of ice melting on her tongue. “Derek. You...you... Oh.”

  “Yes. Into the Volkswagen boot he went with Grant. I wanted to spare you another struggle with your morals.” He paused, until the hurried footfalls of hospital staff and others subsided. “I am sorry. I said I would never lie to you and yet...I did.”

  Mae swallowed.

  Kitt leaned forward and kissed her. “Now then, don’t be alarmed. Don’t try to fight. Don’t argue with them or with me. When they ask, tell them anything they want to know.
Bryce will be here soon, and that may help, but first we’ll have to deal with the locals.”

  She glanced at the door as it creaked. “You should have let me go.”

  “I should have walked away.” Head slanted, he smiled, watching her eyes widen as the door hinge hissed.

  “Run,” Mae said, but Kitt didn’t run. Instead, he got to his knees, put his hands behind his head, fingers laced together, and the door swung open, and then Mae looked beyond him, at a man clad in black tactical gear, at a woman holding identification.

  The woman lifted her badge, a gold eagle at the top, the man snapped handcuffs on Kitt. “Mrs Valentine, I’m Agent Isabel Tanner,” she said. “Homeland Security Investigations. You and Major Kitt are both in a fuck-ton of trouble.” Attractive, middle-aged, her tailored suit smart, Tanner had a full head of white hair, exactly like the woman who had wanted to kiss Australian Reed at Taittinger’s New Year’s Eve party.

  “Jaysus, Mary, Joseph, and all his carpenter friends!” Mae flung the cup of ice to the floor. “Is anything or anyone here not a feckin’ phoney?”

  ON THE FOURTEENTH OF February, Kitt walked passed the satellite TV installation van parked at the kerb and went up the front steps. He climbed the interior staircase to his flat and let himself inside, tossing his bag on the chair beside the coat rack. His bag hit polished wood with a thump.

  There was no chair.

  There was no coat rack.

  There was no...

  He gazed around his home, finding it lacked the certain qualities that made it his home. The fringed Persian rug in shades of green similar to the green of Mae’s hazel eyes did not lie upon the floor. The button-backed Chesterfield sofa, the dining table near the big bay window, the Minton pieces on the bookshelf, the books, the lamps, the framed antique maps, everything, right down to the pillows in the window seat, it was all gone. The flat smelled of fresh paint, cleaning products and wood varnish.

  His shoes squeaked on the gleaming polished wood when he stalked toward his bedroom. He hesitated for a moment then shoved open the door. His bed and wardrobe missing, the white timber plantation shutters closed.

  Kitt went into the en suite bathroom, the space pristine, stark white and gleaming, void of towels, toiletries, toilet rolls, and toilet brush. An absent toilet brush was an odd thing to turn a man’s happy homecoming into gaping, befuddled astonishment.

  He turned in the doorway and faced the bedroom. Nothing. There was nothing left in the flat. No stick of furniture, not a stitch of clothing, not even a bloody ball of dust.

  Dry-mouthed, he returned to the vacant sitting room. Water. He wanted water to dispel the dryness of his tongue and wash down the goddamn lump growing thick and hard in his throat.

  The kitchen’s swinging door, usually open into the sitting room, sat shut. Kitt kicked it, one booted foot smashing into the centre of the white-painted surface. The door flapped into the kitchen and returned, a pendulum on an oversized grandfather clock. He watched the motion, his mood swinging empty, wretched, empty...wretched...empty...wretched. A lump in his throat became a fist that reached down into his chest to squeeze the foolish, quixotic heart he never wanted to have. Yet there that heart was, aching with wretchedness, and self-pity, desolate, contemptible self-pity.

  Mae had done the smartest thing. She’d left him, walked away and embraced the certainty of safety. His personal items had been moved out, the lease on his flat had been terminated. Permanently.

  Eyes on his boots, the only footwear it seemed he had left, Kitt laid the flat of his hand on the kitchen door and pushed, gently. A toolbox lay open near the butler’s pantry entrance. A lone stool topped with a small stack of books stood at the end of the worktop where he’d eaten Mae’s scrambled eggs, drunk her coffee and swallowed the aspirin she’d left out when he’d been abysmally hungover. This sort of hangover was new.

  Woefully, pathetically, he moved into the kitchen, looking at scuff marks on his shoes. He pulled out the stool, glancing at the book at the top of the pile: Butlers and Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals. What a lovely reminder of a love lost. He chastised his silly, yearning, already lonely heart and set the books on the worktop. The butler’s pantry door squeaked and swung open.

  “Oh!” With a start, Mae halted, soiled white bath towels in her arms, the door bumping softly into her backside.

  In seconds, the lump in Kitt’s throat broke apart. “Hello,” he said, semblance of a relieved smile twitching on his lips, quieting the heartbeat that had thumped in his ears. “My apologies for startling you.”

  Mae hugged the darkly smudged towels. “You didn’t startle as much as surprise me.”

  “The same way I did in New Mexico, when you thought I was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  The remaining lumpy bits in his throat dissolved into relief and amusement. He’d spoiled her plans and she’d spoiled his surprise. “Forgive me. I didn’t think. Well, I did think. I thought it would be a nice surprise, but you’ve had enough surprises. And so have I.”

  Mae swallowed, hand over her heart. “Jaysus, Kitt. Jaysus.” She tossed the towels on the worktop beside the books. “I thought I was hallucinating from painkiller withdrawal.” She rubbed the shoulder that had been pierced by a small-calibre bullet.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Mostly at night.”

  “That’s common. Come here and kiss me. Or are you going to stand there looking like a chambermaid who’s walked in on a man alone in a hotel room with his trousers bunched around his ankles, pitiful inadequacy in hand?”

  “No. I’m not going to kiss you. One thing will lead to another, you’ll wind up standing in this empty flat with your trousers nearly around your ankles, and we’ll be back where we were in October, only without the bloody wet Christmas tree, Bryce and feckin’ Llewelyn.”

  A rattling bang came from the rear entrance off the pantry. The pantry door swung open again. A lean black man in blue coveralls. “Leak was small. There’s no real water damage.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “I’ll get started replacing the old pipe. Wall will need a patch and lick of paint after,” he said with a Jamaican accent, brown eyes looking Kitt up and down.

  Kitt flashed a smile.

  “Thank you, Mr Desmond,” Mae smoothed her apron, “I’m quite capable.”

  Kitt chuckled softly, and head-shaking Desmond pushed the door, revealing a wet-dry vacuum and attached hose visible held by a chubby man with Elvis sideburns.

  “Done, missus, I’ll put it back downstairs for you,” Elvis sideburns said.

  “Thank you. Let me know if you need it again, Mr Kew.” She nodded, the man and vacuum hurried through the kitchen, through the sitting room and out the front door, Hoover hose clattering against the wood frame. The sound of hammering filtered from behind the pantry door.

  “Your timing, Kitt.” Mae faced him, hands smoothing over the hips of her apron as she tried to smooth over her irritation and gave a soft, tetchy laugh. “Your timing has been off since you came home with that Christmas tree.”

  “I can see that. Decided to redecorate?”

  “Just freshen things up.”

  A slab of alarm hit his gut. “Where am I to live while you freshen up?” Kitt rose from the stool. “Where am I to sleep, next door with you in your spartan home and pea-sized single bed?”

  “You and your shite timing.” She huffed all at once. “This really isn’t how I pictured this moment.”

  “It’s not how I pictured it either. There was supposed to be kissing. And furniture I could kiss you upon.”

  “Kew and Desmond are here, Bryce is coming, and I have a new tenant to accommodate.”

  “New tenant?” Fear rippled up his spine, a chunk of concrete settled on his chest. Desmond shuffled back into the kitchen, a drop cloth over his shoulder, tin of undercoat paint in hand. Kitt watched the man go into the butler’s pantry. Relationships, entanglements that were murky with emotion and expe
ctation, where feelings were hurt and bitter tears were shed, he’d avoided those all his life, never stopping once to consider he’d ever wind up being the one hurt and full of bitter tears. Oddly, he was numb. “New tenant?” he said again, the weight on his chest making breathing calmly arduous.

  Irritated, Mae began folding the dirty towels. “Walk away, you said. It would be safer. Safer. It’s funny what we think of as safe. I had hoped you’d be released. I know you well enough. I ought to have guessed you’d find a way, especially after having missed Christmas so spectacularly. I’m rather disappointed with myself for not moving faster, for needing help with this.”

  Safer. New tenant. Oh, Christ, she had heeded his advice. She was leaving. “Is this what you want, Mae?” Kitt said, looking around the empty kitchen. Why was it people always converged in kitchens to talk or argue or hash out ideas? They’d been in this kitchen last July, when he’d confessed he’d been in love with her for years and here they were now, and he was still in love with her while she, quite sensibly really, was leaving him.

  He decided he hated kitchens.

  “You know it makes the most sense.” She stopped fiddling with the soiled towels.

  Hammering began again. For a ridiculous second Kitt thought it was his heart, until his brain told him it was construction-related. He looked out into the vacant sitting room and brought his gaze back to her. “You walking away makes perfect sense, but it has dropped my trousers around my ankles.”

  A furrow appeared in her forehead. “Why would you think I’m walking away?”

  A similar furrow rumpled Kitt’s brow. “My flat is empty and you’ve said there’s a new tenant. Is someone moving in here or did Stephens move out of your flat next door?”

  Briefly, she pressed her lips together, suppressing a grin with her veneer of professional calm, her eyes locking on his. “In the process of freshening up this flat, I...found a leak. To fix it I had to expose a pipe running along the staircase between floors. Hence Desmond the plumber-handyman and all the hammering.”