The After Party (A Badboys Boxset)

by Karr, Kim

He nodded. “She’s your Achilles’ heel. Mine was my Millie, and I’d have done anything, and I mean anything, to keep her out of harm’s way.”

  Relief was all I felt. I’d stayed away from him because I thought he’d be disappointed that I didn’t follow through with the plan that would have, without a doubt, put Tommy and Patrick away for life, and in doing so, eased the hold Patrick had over my old man. I feared he’d think that I’d pretty much fucked it all up by picking Elle. Sure, Tommy and Patrick would still do prison time, but nothing like the life sentence they would have been given had the transaction been witnessed by the DEA and the source of the cocaine identified.

  “How do you feel about this girl?” he asked, his voice going soft, quiet.

  Done trying to deny anything, I admitted, “I love her.”

  “Does she prefer winter or summer?”

  I shrugged.

  “What’s her favorite movie?”

  I shrugged again.

  “Does she like chocolate?”

  I raised my brow. “I’m not certain. What’s with the twenty questions?”

  He blinked a few times. “Come here,” he said, reaching for me.

  I eased forward.

  “If you love her like you say you do, then you’ll find out even the smallest details about her. It’s your business to know what her favorite flower is, her favorite smell, color. If she likes a table or prefers a booth. Would rather stay home and watch a movie or go out. Remember, Logan, it’s the little things that matter the most. And always, always, say good morning and good night. Never let a day go by without that.”

  More wisdom.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “I don’t know all of those things yet, but I love her.”

  He leaned closer and took my head between his hands. “I know you do. I know you do. Now the hard part begins—showing her every day that you do, no matter what.”

  He was choking up and the emotion was overwhelming. He wasn’t an affectionate man and when he became emotional, it was usually out of anger. In that regard, I was a carbon copy of him. The change in demeanor compelled me to hug him. As I started to wrap my arms around his big body, he bear-hugged me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. For nearly thirty seconds we stayed that way and then we broke apart.

  My grandfather cleared his throat. “I’m so proud of you for so many things. I don’t think I tell you that often enough. But I want you to know, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret having kept you in Boston. I should have made your father move to New York City when your mother asked him to after you were born. Or I should have at least made you start high school there. If I hadn’t been so selfish, you would never have been a part of this fucked-up world of mine.”

  I shook my head back and forth. “Don’t say that, Gramps. You’re one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have known what was real. I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be grounded. I am who I am mostly because of you.”

  Tears streamed down that old man’s face.

  “I mean it, Gramps. I love you.”

  With a lift of his hips, he took a hankie from his pocket. “Enough,” he said as he blew into the white cloth. After he stuffed it back in his pocket, he said, “Over in the top middle drawer of my dresser is a silver box. Bring it to me.”

  The emotional litany having affected me as well, I was thankful to be able to get up and walk around. The box was one I remembered from the house. It had been in his room and I was pretty certain it belonged to my grandmother. I’d never really paid much attention to it but as I picked it up, I noticed that although it had a very slim shape it was heavy. And the box itself was quite ornate. Scrollwork embellished the sides, and in the center of the top was an oval with a coat of arms.

  Suddenly curious as to what it was, I handed it to my grandfather. “Here you go.”

  He took it with both hands and carefully set it on the table beside him. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.”

  With great care, he set his hand on the top of it, like it was precious. “This box was given to me by your grandmother’s father. Millie and I weren’t even eighteen when we got married. We were so young, but we were determined to leave Ireland. Her father had no money to give us and he knew going to America was going to be a hardship on his daughter. I tried to reassure him that I would take care of her, but he wanted to ensure that she would be okay. That’s why he gave me this. In case I ever needed something so badly, and had no way of getting it.”

  My brows bunched.

  With his hand still on it, he went on. “It’s a snuff box and it belonged to his great-great grandfather. I’m not sure what it was worth in 1956 when it was given to me, but I had it appraised in the seventies when all the violence on the streets got out of hand. At the time I was thinking of taking my family and disappearing and wanted to see how far it would take us.”

  “How much was it worth then?” I asked curiously.

  “One-point-one million.”

  Shocked, I gasped. “And you leave that in your dresser? Shouldn’t you lock it up?”

  “Na, everyone thinks it’s just a cheap box.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d had no idea.

  Moving past its history, he opened it up and took out two key rings. With shaky fingers he managed to pocket one of the keys before holding the other up to show me. “This key is to a safety deposit box at the Chase Bank over on Washington Street near Franklin Park. Do you know which bank I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah, I know where it is. The one on the corner of Park Avenue.”

  “That’s the one. Inside that safe deposit box is your grandmother’s engagement ring and our wedding bands. I want you to take them and when you’re ready, you give that diamond to that girl of yours.”

  I stared dumbly at him.

  He put the key ring back inside the box and handed the box to me. “I don’t have as much to give you as your grandfather Ryan does, but I want you to take this. Use it if you ever need to. Think of it as a security blanket, like I did.”

  Unease washed through me and I shoved it back his way. “What’s all this about?”

  Sensing my worry, he reassured me. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and now that you found the girl you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, it seemed like the right time.”

  The box had somehow transferred into my hands. “Gramps, Elle and I just met. We’re nowhere near ready to get married.”

  He patted my hand. “Time isn’t what matters; knowing she’s the one is the only thing that does. Sure, take some time to get to know each other, but don’t wait too long, Logan. Life can pass you by so quickly.”

  “Are you sure you want to give me Grandma’s ring?”

  He eased back in his chair. “Millie wanted so much to see you grow up. And when she found out the cancer was going to take her, she hated that she was going to miss it. She made me promise to give the ring to you when the time was right.”

  Words stuck in my throat.

  “Promise me you won’t wait too long. Promise me, Logan.”

  For him, I found the words. “I promise, Gramps. And I’ll bring her by next week.”

  His dark eyes glinted with contentment. “I’d like that.”

  “Is there something going on?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  Somehow I managed to convey what I’d always felt in my heart and gestured between the two of us. “Gramps, this means more to me than all the money in the world.”

  His smile was bright and prideful as he looked at me. Then he closed his eyes, and shortly after that he dozed off.

  I left his room with another knot in my gut—something just didn’t seem right.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELLE

  Spring was in early bloom this year.

  The breeze was light and cool.

  The air fragrant.

 
; The landscape almost indescribably beautiful.

  From the rich, vibrant colors of azaleas, rhododendrons, and tulips bursting across the adjacent meadow to the fence separating this holy ground from the wildness beyond, with its overabundance of yellow daffodils growing against it.

  The grass, too, was picture perfect. Although barely green, it was still soft and welcoming. And each building had planter boxes outside its windows filled with hundreds of purple violets.

  Then there were the pathways. They were made of smooth gray stones that peeked out beneath a mat of leggy clover and dandelions. The dandelions. The reason I picked this location over so many others Michael had suggested.

  Green Meadows was a small cemetery on the west side of Boston in Watertown, and although Michael thought it was too small and too far, I thought it was perfect. It reminded me of my childhood, of my sister and me running through the fields, picking dandelions and blowing on them.

  Perhaps sensing in a way that I knew what Lizzy would prefer, Michael had conceded, and Green Meadows was the place we’d laid my sister to rest. The funeral gathering was small and nondenominational, the sermon short, and the gravestone marker was simple. It read:

  Elizabeth Sterling O’Shea

  In loving memory

  Anything else would have been hypocritical.

  To say loving wife and mother would have been a lie. Lizzy had deserted her husband and child for a life she had somehow found more fulfilling. A life filled with drugs, sex, and money.

  To say loving sister, well, since we hadn’t spoken in fifteen years. That said it all. The last time I saw my sister was when my mother died and I was lying in a hospital bed. She came to say goodbye and left me alone with our father, who by any definition was a monster.

  And to say loving daughter would have been a joke. I hadn’t talked to our father in twelve years, and when I finally found the strength to track him down and call him to let him know Lizzy had died, he told me, “She has been dead to me for years.” When I hung up, I knew that would be the last time I’d ever talk to him.

  After the casket was lowered, we all began to leave the cemetery. Michael took my hand and I tried to pull it away, but he just seemed to grip it tighter. I couldn’t wait to see Clementine, to hold her to me. Michael and I had both agreed she was too young to attend.

  Coming to a halt, I glanced back. I knew Logan was somewhere in the distance watching me, but that wasn’t why I stopped. I had a few things I needed to say and do. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up,” I said to Michael.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” he told me and headed that way with the dozen or so other people who had attended. Aside from his sister and her husband, and his father, I didn’t know anyone there.

  With the delicate silver bracelet I’d recently found gripped tightly in one hand, I closed my eyes. The bracelet was the one that my sister had given me on my tenth birthday. It was meant to bring me comfort on those nights my father would insist on having sex with my mother when it was clear she wasn’t interested. It was also the same one I had thrown at her when she told me she was leaving me alone with our father. The same one I’d found in her car. The dainty silver chain was a lot of things, but right now it was a keepsake I’d hold on to. I’d save it and give it to her daughter one day when thoughts of her mother might surface.

  My sister’s daughter would never know her mother. Never know she’d been abandoned. Never know the things mothers and daughters should share. I’d paint a pretty picture for her, though, of how wonderful her mother was, because there was a time she was. Still, I was certain there would be days she’d cry for her mother. And that broke my heart. At the right time, I’d give her this, and tell her a happier version of the story of how it came to be.

  Letting my tears fall, I picked a dandelion from the ground and clutched it in my other hand. With a gust of breath, I turned toward the heavens and whispered, “Blow, Lizzy, just blow.”

  As I walked toward the car, I breathed in a deep lungful of the spring air. The sweet scent of the just opening cherry blossoms was poignant, and I was content with the place my sister would lie forever more.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asked, handing me a tissue once I’d gotten into his car. He had driven himself, opting to forgo the formality of limos and the procession of cars following the hearse to and from the cemetery.

  I drew in a deep, cleansing breath. “Yes, I am. What about you? Are you okay?”

  He looked at me. “I have no idea. Elizabeth seems like the wind, she blew into my life and out so quickly.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  Remaining silent, he eased out of the parking lot and onto the main road. Once his tires were no longer on the gravel, he glanced over at me. “I will be . . . okay,” he said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “I just want all of this to be over, so I can focus on my daughter. She’s what’s most important to me.”

  Easing my hand out of his grip, I pretended to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “She’s going to be fine, Michael.”

  He nodded. “I know she will.”

  Catching the worry on his face, I had to ask, “What’s next?”

  He hesitated and then said, “We take one day at a time.”

  Whether purposely avoiding what the real question was or caught up in his grief, I couldn’t be certain but I had to know. “I mean about the drugs. Is all of that over? Are you and Clementine free from danger now?”

  With a thoughtful expression, he glanced over at me. “You know, I think we are. With the five million dollars’ worth of drugs now in the possession of the police, there’s nothing left for anyone to go after.”

  I blinked. Shocked that he was lying to me. “The news reported cocaine worth about half that was found.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  The blatant lie threw me for a loop. That was not what he’d said. Was he testing my knowledge of the situation? Did he know where the rest of the cocaine was? Was he hiding it? Did he have it? Was he keeping it for himself? And if so, what the hell was he going to do with it? Was Michael even more involved than I had thought? For Clementine’s sake, I had to hope not. Still, I had to put my faith in him that he’d do what was best for her. I didn’t have much of a choice. If I didn’t follow his rules, he’d cut me out of her life, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  From this point forward, though, my eyes would be more than wide open.

  We rode the rest of the way back to his house in silence. With my eyes focused out the window, my mind started to drift.

  I had two men in my life. Both had earned my trust. One was regurgitating the police’s theory that my sister’s death was the result of a fall after a self-induced drug overdose and, rather than dealing with the fallout, whoever she had been with at the time tossed her body in the river. The other believed my sister was murdered . . . by her husband . . . the very man sitting beside me.

  I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  The police were still investigating but with no solid leads, their theory would hold true and the case would be closed in no time.

  Michael O’Shea was no longer my sister’s husband; he was now my sister’s widower. I wasn’t sure what I was. My sister and I had been estranged, and up until three and a half months ago, Michael and I had never met. Still, he’d been the one to call me upon Lizzy’s disappearance. Concerned, I came to Boston. Once I’d arrived, I met Clementine, my one-year-old niece, and after that I knew there was no way I was leaving. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her, and I wanted to be a part of her life. And Michael, not even knowing me, had let me into his daughter’s life. Something he didn’t have to do.

  Then there was Logan McPherson. He had entered my life just over two weeks ago by way of accompanying his father to deliver a threatening message to Michael concerning the missing drugs. My sister had somehow gotten herself involved in a drug ring in which the Irish Mob played some kind of part. The details were sketchy,
the facts unclear. What wasn’t confusing, though, was Logan’s concern for me.

  We were drawn to each other in the strangest of ways, and we came together in a way I’d never known with another man.

  I’d since come to trust him. To love him. It wasn’t that I thought Logan was lying about Michael; it was just that I thought his theory may have been a little tainted. He hated Michael for some reason, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that hatred was what was leading him to believe things that just might not be true. Until I could be certain, or, of more concern, in case Logan was correct, I had to focus on convincing Michael to appoint me as Clementine’s guardian.

  “We’re here,” Michael said, parking in front of his stately brick home.

  “I need to give you the spare garage door opener back. It’s in the Mercedes,” I said, snapping out of my reverie as I opened the car door.

  Stopping me, his hand went to the black hose below the hemline of my dress. “I need to talk to you about that.”

  In an obvious attempt to remove his hand from my skin, I moved toward the door and turned sideways to look at him. “Sure, what is it?”

  “I hate to do this to you, but I’m going to need Elizabeth’s car for the new nanny. Unfortunately the engine in Heidi’s car died, and she’ll need a vehicle to be able to take Clementine places.”

  Surprised, I said, “Sure, of course. When did you need it by?”

  The careful politeness that had developed between us since the night he asked me to do the unthinkable seemed to be thick in the air. “No rush. Just as soon as you can figure something out. I have to go to work on Monday, but I can shuffle back and forth if I need to, and Heidi said she’s trying to figure something out. I wouldn’t ask, but I’m just worried that if something happens to Clementine, Heidi won’t be able to get her where she needs to. I really hate to throw this at you.”

  He had a point. Besides, I didn’t really need a car. The weather was nice and I lived close enough to the boutique to walk. The only issue would be coming to see Clementine, and of course, taking her anywhere, but I’d figure that out later. “No, it’s fine. Let me see if Peyton can pick me up later tonight and if so, I can just leave it.”