London Undone

by Nan Higgins

  The rest of the evening went by in a flurry of shuffling chairs, heavy food and sweets, lots of laughter, and a few more tears. When London went to bed that night, she realized she could barely remember the food or conversation, but she felt she would never forget what Quentin said before they sat down to eat.

  Chapter Eighteen

  London woke early the next morning and lay awake, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Reggie was off work until after Christmas, and of course, Quentin was on winter break, so they’d both be sleeping in. Quentin had gotten up at his normal time the first few days of break, but he’d been sleeping later and later. It was December twenty-third, and London had a lot to do today. She waited until almost six a.m. and slipped out of bed to shower and dress.

  Before leaving the apartment, she peeked past the screen into Quentin’s alcove, finding him sleeping soundly on his stomach, his legs tucked under him and his butt up in the air. She covered her mouth to keep from giggling. She wrote a quick note to Reg and Q, letting them know she was out running errands and would be back with lunch and dessert, grabbed her coat, and tiptoed out the door.

  As a small business owner, London made it a policy to patronize other small businesses as much as possible, and this included coffee shops. She mostly stuck with Fox in the Snow, which had, in her opinion, the best coffee in the city. But it was very early, and Starbucks was not only open, it had a drive-thru. She made her second and probably last trip to Starbucks for the year and got a salted caramel mocha, venti-sized, to match the tasks she had in store for the day.

  She’d drained nearly half the cup when she arrived at Thomas’s office fifteen minutes later. She waited only a few minutes before the pretty receptionist told her she could go on back. She looked at the time on her phone and saw that it was barely after seven. She knew Thomas arrived early, but she was surprised to see administrative staff at this hour. Hopefully, the receptionist made a lot of money for her trouble. London was still barely coherent this early; she couldn’t imagine having to be friendly and fully coiffed with a full face of makeup and attentive attitude to match.

  “London.” Thomas opened his office door and waved off her extended hand to pull her into a hug. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “I’ve only been here a couple minutes.”

  “Good. You look well.”

  She laughed. “You know damn well that looking well doesn’t happen for me before nine a.m. But thank you.”

  He chuckled and pulled one of the chairs facing his desk back, giving her space to move in front of it. “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable.” He shifted back behind his desk and sat, pulled something up on the computer screen, and nodded. “I know you have an idea why you’re here today since you got my email.”

  “A vague idea, yeah.”

  “Again, I have to apologize for the delay in relaying all this to you. Tate had initially set all this up through a different attorney before he had his surgeries. After we met and became friends, he wanted to start transferring things over so I’d be managing his funds, but we were in the midst of that when he died, causing delays. Due to the nature of my friendship with him and with you, I fought to be the one who took care of all this. It wasn’t about the money for me; I want you to understand that. I made next to nothing and let the previous attorneys keep most of the fees. I wanted to do one last thing for Tate.”

  “I understand.” She was touched. Tate had impacted so many people, and she was pleased Thomas wanted to honor him. “I appreciate that, and I know Tate would’ve loved you for this.”

  His eyes clouded. “He was very special.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  He shook his head. “Now, let’s get down to business.” He looked again at his computer screen, clicked a few times, and London heard the buzzing of pages being filtered through the printer behind him. He grabbed the sheets and swiveled back to lay them on his desk. “Tate was very successful at his job. He was also very frugal, spending only the minimum needed for living expenses throughout his career. He had nearly no debt, and what little he did have has been paid off already, as have his funeral expenses. What’s left goes to you.” He slid one of the papers across the desk. “Did you bring your bank account information?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. She got out the checkbook she’d gotten for free but had never used—who writes personal checks anymore?—and wrote “VOID” in large letters across one of the checks, ripping it out and handing it to him.

  He took it from her, grinning. “You could’ve just let me copy the info I needed. You didn’t have to waste a check.”

  She shrugged and shook her head.

  He wrote the information on two different sheets of paper. “Okay if I shred this?” he asked, holding up her voided check. She nodded again and watched him shove the small paper into the machine that ate it up. He then asked her to sign the bottom of both sets of papers. When she was done, he handed her one set to keep.

  She stared at the sum Tate left her. It came with no conditions or ultimatums. She wasn’t required to live someone else’s life or reach someone else’s goals. He’d given this gift in death as freely as he’d given acceptance and unconditional love in life. Even now, he was finding ways to tell her she wasn’t alone, that she had family, and she was loved.

  “One more thing,” Thomas said. “Something I didn’t mention in the email. I wanted to talk about it in person.”

  “What is it?”

  He pulled a plain white envelope from his desk drawer, the kind used to mail a bill. “He wrote you a letter when he was getting ready to transition in case something happened to him.”

  She swallowed hard. Another letter. Her deceased relatives certainly had a way of speaking to her from beyond the grave. With shaking hands, she hugged it to her chest. “Have you read it?”

  He blushed. “Yes. It wasn’t entirely my business, although I could pretend I needed to read it to make sure there was no pertinent legal information inside. Honestly, I just wanted to…to feel him again, the way he was. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I get it.” She stood, gathering her paperwork, and once again, he stepped around the desk to hug her.

  “Don’t be a stranger, okay?” he said.

  “I won’t.” She moved to leave, and as she reached for the door, Thomas spoke.

  “London?”

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  He paused, biting his lip. “How’s Grant?”

  She smiled. “He’s good. Really good. Do you want me to tell him you asked about him?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I just wanted to know he was okay.”

  She nodded and left, closing the door behind her. She checked the time on her phone and saw that her appointment had taken much less time than she anticipated. Given what her next errand was, she thought it was positively divine intervention that allowed her to have this brief interaction with Tate. Hoping it would fortify her, she walked the few blocks from Thomas’s office to Schiller Park and read his letter.

  * * *

  The nervousness she’d felt all morning was gone. Tate’s letter was tucked into the left breast pocket of her coat, and as she walked into the jail, she put her hand over her heart and felt the reassuring crinkle of the pages.

  Detective Harper met her at the entrance and gave her a concerned smile. Since the night London texted her requesting to speak to Amanda Alexander, Detective Harper had been trying to talk her out of it.

  “The prosecutor will never allow you to visit. We can’t take the risk that anything you say could affect the outcome of the trial. If it looks like we let you intimidate any party involved, it could ruin our chances at a guilty verdict.”

  It had seemed as if that was the end of it until yesterday, when London received a call from Kyle Brown informing her that Amanda had made a plea deal agreeing to testify against her friends in return for serving less time. She would be incarcerated for only eight months with credit for the time she’d already sp
ent behind bars.

  “I want to see her,” London said to Kyle. She kept her voice low and steady, not wanting him to hear a trace of the rage she felt at the news that this woman would be spending only a few months in prison.

  Kyle had paused. “Yes, Detective Harper mentioned you’ve been interested in speaking to her. You’ll have the opportunity to face Mr. Morgan’s attackers in court, and I think that would be the best way—”

  “She came to my store.” She struggled to maintain her composure, but her anger was so thick that it felt like an erupting volcano. Hot rage bubbled through her, and she heard her voice waver. “After what she did to Tate, she figured out where I work and came to find me. I need to know what she had to say.”

  Several phone calls and texts later, she got word that she’d be given twenty supervised minutes with Amanda, and she couldn’t discuss the specifics of Tate’s murder or Amanda’s plea deal. And now she was emptying her pockets and going through the metal detectors, her eyes fixed on the ugly gray doors in front of her. Once past those doors, she’d be face-to-face with Amanda Alexander.

  She thought maybe she’d be talking to Amanda on a telephone, with a thick layer of glass separating them. Instead, she was led to a small room with a few tiny circular tables. Amanda sat at a table in the center, her cuffed hands resting in front of her.

  “Twenty minutes.” Detective Harper sat at the table nearest the door and pulled out her phone.

  London sat across from Amanda. Even with her tan jumpsuit, unkempt hair, and dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes, Amanda was very pretty. They stared at each other without speaking for nearly a minute.

  “I know you’re not allowed to talk about what happened the day you murdered my best friend,” London said.

  “I didn’t—”

  “You killed him,” she growled. “You may not have thrown a single punch, but you are as responsible as the ones who beat him.”

  “London,” Detective Harper warned. “Remember our agreement.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment to gather herself. “How did you know where I worked? And why did you come to Hell that day?”

  “I’d heard about your success with your store on the news a few times, so when Tate talked about you, I knew exactly who you were. I thought it was cool he was so close to you.” She cleared her throat nervously. “He…he told me he’d bring me there someday to meet you. So you were easy to find.”

  “I see.” London shifted uncomfortably. The fact that she’d been so easily located by someone involved in Tate’s death was unnerving.

  “And as far as why I came…” Amanda pinched her lips together for a moment, and tears filled her eyes. “You have to understand, I’m not a monster. Everything happened so fast that day, and I didn’t mean—”

  London held her hand up. “I didn’t come here to listen to you tell me you’re really not a bad person. If that’s all you have to say, I’ll just go.” She stood, and the chair moving against the linoleum floor made a high-pitched screech that hurt her ears.

  “No, wait!” Amanda reached across the table, not quite touching London with the tips of her fingers. She stayed that way, with her cuffed hands outstretched until London sat back down.

  Amanda pulled her hands back to her body and held them up to her chest with her fingers woven together in a pleading gesture. “I had something of Tate’s. I was bringing it back to you.”

  London shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Before our date, Tate raved about all the awesome playlists he had on his phone and how he had the perfect one for our road trip. When I told him my car was older, and I didn’t have a way to hook it up to my radio, he said he’d make a CD for us to listen to.”

  London swallowed the lump in her throat. That was exactly what Tate would’ve done.

  “A few days after the…after Tate died, I realized the CD was still in my player.”

  “Where is it?” London startled at the sound of Harper’s voice. The detective had moved directly behind her.

  “I left it in the store. I thought London would find it and think maybe Tate forgot it there or something.”

  “What?” London gasped. “Where did you leave it?”

  “On the rack of postcards, tucked between a few of them.”

  “I take it you haven’t found the CD,” Harper said. “I’ll need to send an officer over to the store right away.”

  “But why?”

  “It’s evidence until CPD and the prosecutor’s office say it’s not.”

  London was crushed. Before she even had a chance to process the fact that she had something in her possession from Tate’s last day, it was being yanked away from her.

  Detective Harper looked at her watch. “Time’s up.” Only seconds later, an officer came in from the hallway to escort Amanda away. She barely had time to cast a glance over her shoulder, catching London’s eye for the briefest moment, before disappearing from the room.

  London was starting to wish she hadn’t come. Until today, Amanda had been a monster who had lured Tate to his death. Today, she’d proven herself to be human, and that made it so much worse. It was easy to understand how a monster could be responsible for her best friend in the world being gone forever, but Amanda was a woman who’d tried to return a meaningful possession. In that moment, London knew it would probably take the rest of her life to understand the flaws and limitations of humanity.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “It snowed all night,” Reggie whispered. London barely opened her eyes to check the time on her phone. Six fifteen a.m.

  “What?” she mumbled.

  “It’s Christmas morning,” Reggie said, “and it snowed all night. Come see.”

  London got out of bed and went to the window where Reggie had the curtain pulled back. Glistening snow covered the city in great, round tufts. There had to be at least six or seven inches.

  “Let’s go tell Q!” London grabbed her robe. Reggie followed her into the living room, and when they got there, they both stopped short. Last night after Quentin fell asleep, Reggie and London had put a bunch of gifts under the tree for him, giggling and shushing each other the entire time. Now, he sat near the tree with two gifts in his lap wrapped in paper they didn’t recognize.

  “Merry Christmas.” He stood and hugged them both, handing them the presents. They opened their gifts to find that Quentin had framed two large pictures. Reggie’s picture was of the three of them at Betty and Herb’s in front of the fireplace, and London’s picture was from when they stood in front of the big Christmas tree at the center of the city in the Columbus Commons. In both photos, they were all smiling broadly, and in the one in front of the tree, Quentin was laughing.

  “How did you do this?” Reggie asked.

  “Herb helped me,” he said. “He took both of those pictures, and I asked him if I could do chores to earn money to print them out and buy the frames so I could give you something for Christmas.”

  London and Reggie looked at each other, and London saw the tears in her eyes mirrored by Reggie’s. “They’re just beautiful, Q. Thank you.” London reached over and squeezed him, and Reg moved to the other side of him to hug him on that side. She could never have imagined that someone she’d known for so short a time could become so precious to her so quickly. Quentin had lived with them only a month, and already she couldn’t picture her life without him.

  “You really like them?” he asked.

  “Very much,” Reggie said. “We love them.”

  “Oh, good,” he said, and the relief in his voice broke London’s heart, but not as much as what he said next. “I thought it would be a good way to remember the time I spent here with you once I go back to Compass or to a foster family. I got copies for myself so I can remember too.”

  London looked over Q’s head at Reggie, and mouthed, “Now?” Reggie nodded and guided Quentin over to the couch.

  “We need you to start opening your gifts.” London moved to the far
side of the tree where a package was tucked behind all the others. “We were going to save this one for last, but I think we’re both too excited.” She sat on the couch next to Quentin and handed him the gift.

  He smiled as he unwrapped the shiny paper, carefully setting each piece on the coffee table as he went. When he opened the thin box and saw what was in it, his smile froze and turned into a look of puzzlement. He picked up the top sheet of paper—a form that hadn’t yet been filled out—and showed it to them as if they hadn’t seen it before.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “They’re adoption papers,” Reggie said.

  Quentin’s mouth dropped open. “Adoption?”

  “Yes,” London said. “They’re blank until you tell us whether you’d like to be part of our family.”

  “We’ve gotten Joan’s blessing,” Reggie said. “As of yesterday. She printed out the paperwork herself. If this is something you want, we’ll go forward. You can think about it as long as you need to.”

  Quentin’s mouth popped closed and he shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”

  “What’s wrong?” London’s heart was in her stomach. She tried to figure out how to prepare herself for taking Quentin back to Compass and saying good-bye to him. She couldn’t imagine it. Everything in her felt heavy and cumbersome, as if her hope of adopting him had become an anvil.

  “I just can’t believe you’d think I would need time to think about it,” he said, cracking a smile, and London’s heart, an anvil only seconds before, now felt filled with helium.

  “Really?” she asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure!” And even as he smiled, Quentin started to cry. “I thought you guys would never ask me!” They held him and let him cry. As he was winding down, he gulped and sat up straight.

  “What is it?” Reggie asked.

  “What will I call you?”

  “Call us?”

  “Like, am I gonna call you Mom or something?”