by Amy Atwell
His vision sharpened at her tone. “Goodbye?”
“I’ve thought about this a lot, so don’t think it’s a knee-jerk reaction to you—” She pointed to his shoulder as her words dropped off. With a quick cleansing breath, she continued, as if she were delivering a canned speech. “I appreciate everything you’ve risked for me and my family, but this…between you and I…it’s not going to work.” She turned away.
Any fog in Mickey’s brain cleared as her words induced panic. She wasn’t just leaving. She was leaving. “Wait, you love me, Iris. I heard you. You said you didn’t want to lose me—that you wouldn’t let me go.”
She paused, her back still to him. “I’m not letting you go. I’m walking away.” She braved facing him. “I can’t do this, Mickey.”
“Can’t do what?”
She gave a helpless shrug as she leaned back against the doorframe. It tore him up not to be able to wrap her in his arms. “I’ll never understand your job,” she said.
“Iris, I uphold the law.”
“It’s more than that. It’s how you uphold it. You go undercover. You live a life of secrets, of disappearing when you need to solve a crime.” She raked that stray curl behind her ear. “You live a lie for noble motives—I get that, but I can’t be a part of it. And yet, I can’t ask you to give it up—it’s who you are.”
“But if you love me—?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I grew up in that world—my dad off on his crazy ventures, never knowing where he’d gone, when he’d be back. I won’t do that with my adult life. I couldn’t face the day-to-day secrets—the questions, the fears, wondering whose life you might be saving at the risk of your own. Whether you were hiding the truth or lying to me, I’d become bitter, and that’s no future for us.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Really?” Her brows shot up, and her tone implied she knew otherwise. “And does your mother know you’re pretending to be a jewel thief? Does your father even know you’re in Las Vegas?”
“That’s different—”
“Is it? If you can’t trust your parents with the truth, how could you ever trust me?”
He recalled that he’d asked her to call his parents. He looked her in the eye. “It’s my job.” That was one truth he knew.
She smiled sadly. “As it should be. But it doesn’t have to be my life. I’m sorry.” She bent and pressed her soft lips to his cheek. Teardrops mingled with her kiss. Without waiting for a reply, she covered her face with one hand as she turned and hurried blindly out the door.
Mickey pushed himself to sit upright, the sharp stab from his fractured ribs nothing compared to the tight pressure squeezing his chest until it hurt to breathe. To think. To exist. He’d found a woman worth loving, a woman who believed the best in him even when she thought the worst, but she couldn’t face the reality of his career.
He thought of the life Iris had planned for herself. A sensible husband, a stable career, a regular schedule. While he’d do almost anything for her, he couldn’t give up who he was. Being a cop was his life—it was all he’d ever wanted. And now he understood that while Brian’s death had been a tragedy, the real tragedy would have been if Brian had allowed Suze to talk him into quitting. Brian had lived his life doing what he loved, being as complete a person as he could be instead of the shadow his wife had tried to make him.
At least Iris wasn’t asking him to do that. She was brave enough to love him and let him go, and she was expecting him to do the same.
Maybe that was best for both of them, but that sure didn’t stop it from hurting like hell.
***
By the time Hunter dropped Iris off at her apartment building, she’d successfully pulled her emotions back within a fragile shell, grateful they were no longer zapping her like exposed wires. She hadn’t really expected Mickey to understand. Sure, he saw what he did as heroic—and it was—it was just she wasn’t prepared to be the selfless heroine and watch him taunt death everyday. To wait endless hours and wonder if she’d ever see him alive again—no, she couldn’t bear that. She shouldn’t have to. She didn’t want to.
But then, he hadn’t asked her to. He’d made no move to stop her when she walked out. A humbling reminder that she’d confessed her love for a man who’d only sworn to protect her and her family. Granted, he’d offered to risk his life for her, but now she knew he did that every day.
She exited the elevator to find Foote guarding her apartment door, crisp and alert.
“You must have gotten some sleep,” Iris said as she fitted the key in the lock.
“Nearly six hours.”
“Lucky you.” That was six hours more than she’d gotten.
“Do you want me to come in and go through the apartment?” he asked as she opened the door a crack.
Her shoulders slumped. “Must we? Seriously, after the night we all had last night, none of those men would be stupid enough to be lying in wait inside my apartment.” Letting herself in, she closed the door softly and leaned against it. Right now, solitude wasn’t only welcome, it was a necessity.
A shadow of movement made her breath catch. Apparently, one man was stupid enough to be lying in wait for her.
Cosmo stood in the middle of her living room.
Chapter Nineteen
“You son of a bitch.” Iris’s fists settled on her jean-clad hips.
He riffled a hand through his wild silver hair. “I guess I deserve that.” His pale face looked thinner, more haggard, and his eyes, normally bright like a child’s, had a haunted, exhausted haze to them. No flamboyant excuses, no grand gestures, his hands dropped to his sides as he stood and awaited—what?
Her judgment? Her forgiveness? Her acceptance?
“How dare you waltz in here after three days like nothing’s happened?” Remembering that Foote stood outside the door, she managed to keep her voice down. Barely.
“Well, of course stuff has happened. There’s been jewels stolen, and people shot, and—”
“I’m not talking about the alexandrite here, I’m talking about us.”
He blinked at her with wide eyes. “Are you angry with me?”
Oh, he was good. “Don’t try that innocent act on me. I passed angry on Saturday, and that was before I was kidnapped, thank you. Now, Mickey took a bullet for you—you’re lucky he’s not dead, or I might very well be patricidal about now.”
He locked on to the most positive news she’d given him. “Mickey’s all right then, is he? Good man, Mickey. Always knew he liked me.”
“He doesn’t like you, Cosmo. He’s a cop.”
Her father did a double take, but recovered quickly. “Well…of course he is. What, you thought I didn’t know that?” He licked his lips.
Iris vented an audible groan.
“Come help me coax Edgar out from under the bed. He acts like he doesn’t even know me anymore.”
She followed him into the bedroom. If nothing else, it made it less likely Foote would overhear them and burst in to see whether she was all right. In case she did decide to throttle her wayward father, she’d hate to be caught in the act.
Cosmo was on his hands and knees beside the bed. “Come on, Edgar, it’s me. Daddy.”
Watching him coax the rabbit out for a cuddle pissed her off. He hadn’t even offered to hug her. “Edgar’s probably seen through all your lies, and he’s done with you.”
Cosmo looked up at her, then rose with creaky knees. “I doubt if anyone really knows what I’ve been going through, so if you’ve got questions, why don’t you ask them?” He pushed a hand through his wild mop of hair again, sending it into further disarray.
This weekend—and before—had taken its toll on him. He was starting to get old.
Her hands dropped to her sides as she acknowledged he wasn’t the adversary. She didn’t want to fight him; she merely wanted answers. “Why, Cosmo?”
“Why did I steal the jewels?”
“Oh, I’ll get to that in a minute. Bu
t first, why did you have three families?”
He heaved a sigh. “It’s not that simple a question.”
“Then don’t lie to me with some simple answer.”
“I didn’t expect you to be bitter,” he said as if he couldn’t fathom it.
Iris barked out a laugh. “I’m not…bitter.” But at least part of her was. All her childhood, she’d been an inadequate daughter, and she wanted to know why. What had he wanted from her?
Cosmo sat on the bed. “I had the good luck—or maybe misfortune—to fall in love with three remarkable women. I traveled in Russia for a year doing my magic act with a local circus troupe, and I met your mother. She was smart, talented, beautiful. I learned she was carrying you before I returned home, so I brought her with me.”
“But you apparently already had two wives, so why marry a third?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to learn you’re going to be a parent. I wanted to do the right thing. Now, would it have been better if I hadn’t married her? Would you be prouder of me if I’d left my first wife—my childhood sweetheart who’d never been able to have a child—after I’d strayed? Would you think better of me if I’d left Russia without a word to Irina and abandoned you to being raised by her family?”
“At least then I would have had a family.”
“You do have a family. You’ve always had one. I’m sorry we all disappointed you. I never fit your image of what a father should be. Your mother was an artist—more involved with her design work than with you. I tried to surround you with good people, even if they were gamblers and performers. We loved you.”
She pictured his definition of good people—his poker-playing cronies, the couple with the trained housecat act, the Asian acrobat family, burly stagehands who taught her rope tricks, the costumer who’d allowed her to help sew sequins on leotards. They’d all lavished time on a little girl. And yet, as a teenager, she’d turned away from all of them.
“You can’t have a family unless you participate. You were always so withdrawn that I never knew what you wanted from me. I just knew I wasn’t doing it right.”
“Why couldn’t I be the most important thing in your world?” Her voice sounded small and childlike to her ear.
“Who says you aren’t?” Then he spoiled it. “But you’re asking me to live in only one world—my world as your father. I don’t know any man who can do that.”
“Come off it. You make it sound like all men have multiple families.”
“Most do. Oh, they might not have simultaneous marriages. I admit, I wouldn’t recommend that to the average man. But through divorce they have ex-wives, children, stepchildren, multiple in-laws. That’s before you add in their careers, or maybe they’re sports enthusiasts—you know ‘golf widow’ isn’t just a catchy term. It’s a real life for many women.”
Iris thought about David, how he could be lost for an hour if the conversation turned to golf. Or the nights he’d canceled dinner plans because he was still with a client. No, he didn’t have crazy schemes, but had she really held any more of his attention?
“I made sure I was always there for your big moments—your birthdays, the school play, that week when you had your wisdom teeth removed.”
Closing her eyes, she smiled. Cosmo had made her milkshakes. Sort of a catastrophe, setting him loose in a kitchen with ice cream, syrup and a blender.
“But you’ve always withheld yourself from me. I never knew what I was doing wrong. I just knew I was a screwup as a father as far as you were concerned. And lately, it’s felt like you didn’t even want me in your life.”
The hurt in his voice chafed her. All these years she’d accused Cosmo of being so selfish, had she been just as self-centered? Had her expectations been too high? In the end, had he harmed her or her mother with his multiple families?
“You’re my firstborn child, and you’ve made me so proud. I wish I could be that father you want, but after this many years, I think we’ll have to agree that’s hopeless.” He stood and smoothed his hands down his coveralls before he looked at her again. “If you could just love me…a little…as I am…”
A sob welled up within her, and she quit trying to rationalize anything except that he was here. She rushed to his open arms, nearly toppling him with her velocity, but he caught her just as he always had.
“There, there, Rissie. I’m here, and I love you. I never lied about that.”
“I do love you, Dad.” So what if he wasn’t a storybook dad, he was her dad. She loved him despite the flaws and foibles. Deep within, her bitterness started to melt as she surrendered her fairy-tale images of the ideal family. Maybe if she quit expecting her father to live up to some level of perfection, she could quit expecting it of herself, too.
She’d planned a future with David because he wanted a time commitment from her more than an emotional one. It had been so businesslike, practical, dull. And believing she’d never been able to hold her father’s love, she’d pushed Mickey away rather than risk losing him.
But Mickey had invaded her senses from the first time he’d touched that loose hairpin. He’d goaded her emotions, engaged her intellect. She’d done more living with him in those brief hours she’d spent with him than in all the months she’d spent with David.
Maybe life wasn’t the interminable ticking of the clock from day to day, but the fleeting magical moments that built memories.
Drawing back, she was able to look her father square in the face and saw a sheen of tears in his eyes that matched hers. “Leave me like that again, and I’ll kill you.”
He chuckled. “Once I wrap this up, I’ll never disappear again.”
***
Hunter had hoped to get some sleep, but the information he read on a previous day’s murder victim made him return to the hospital. Mickey was never going to believe this break.
He tucked his head into his partner’s room. Mickey lay in bed, propped against some pillows. The television suspended high on the wall played some news channel, but instead of watching it, he was staring at the ceiling.
“Counting your blessings?” Hunter asked as he came in.
Mickey rolled his head to the side to contemplate him. “Iris get home safely?”
“Yeah. Foote’s watching her place. She’s fine. After last night’s escapades, I hope she gets some sleep. You, too.” He stood over the bed and looked at the various monitors. Mickey had more wires coming out of him than a switchboard, but at least his face had lost that ashen gray color. “You’re lucky to be alive, you know. Turner doesn’t usually miss.”
“Yeah, lucky.” He turned back to stare, unseeing, at the television.
“Wow, is that the anesthesia talking—” Hunter pulled up a chair, sat and stretched his tired, swollen feet and no doubt filthy shoes onto the neatly pleated white linens, “—or have you given up again? Because I thought you wanted back in the game, that’s why you said you came out here.” He watched his partner, not happy with that listlessness around the younger man’s eyes.
“Get me out of here, and I’ll finish the job, okay?”
“You don’t go anywhere for at least twenty-four hours,” he answered emphatically. Easing up, he added, “Besides, I bring good news. Your friend Donovan gave me an excuse to show up on his doorstep.”
This caught Mickey’s attention. “What happened?”
“A journalist for the Las Vegas Sun didn’t show up for work yesterday. Today, he turned up dead. Single gunshot. Time of death, Sunday night.”
Mickey’s brow furrowed. “How’d you tie any of that to Donovan?”
“Seems the business editor at the paper got a call from this journalist Sunday evening. He wanted his editor to pull a story he’d written on Robert Donovan. Said he hadn’t been able to verify all his facts, and he feared he might be putting the paper at risk.”
“Now there’s a coincidence.”
“Exactly. I had the editor email me the story. It’s all about Donovan signing a major deal to buy proper
ty in Moscow with plans to double the size of his casino there, with the expectation that the Russian government will allow him to restart his gambling operations. Except Donovan hasn’t signed the deal yet. It appears to be on hold for at least a couple of days.”
Their gazes locked and held.
“Gives you a possible connection to the dead real estate broker and translator.” Mickey gave a half-hearted smile. “Wish I could go hunting with you.”
“Don’t worry.” Hunter wiggled his toes inside his shoes one last time, then pulled his legs down and stood. “Even if I nail Donovan, we still have to track down Turner.”
“Do you think he poses any immediate threat to Iris?”
“Your friend Sergei stuck a knife in his arm. I think he’ll lie low at least until dark.”
Mickey nodded slowly as if he were still distracted. “Did you have to arrest Sergei?”
“I was spared that,” Hunter said. “He pulled diplomatic immunity. Did you know he had a Russian government passport?”
Mickey blinked at that piece of news.
“Yeah, the various branches of Cosmo’s families are full of surprises.” Awkwardly, he patted his partner’s bare arm. “Get some rest. There will still be plenty for you to do to wrap this up when you get out of here. Then, you and Iris are home free.”
“Not exactly home. Not free, either.”
Hunter stopped in the doorway. “Sorry to hear that. Did you call it, or did she?”
“She did.”
Hunter nodded, then left without a word. There wasn’t anything you could say to a guy to ease that kind of heartache. He and Mickey hadn’t known each other that long—only a few months, really. He liked the guy, and he liked Iris, too. What he knew of her.
For a moment he was tempted to call Allie, but he pitched that notion in less than a heartbeat. Nothing good ever came from messing around with other people’s personal lives.
***
Iris escorted Cosmo and his rabbit out of her bedroom so she could shower and change.