Then There Were Three

by Jeanie London

  Violet shot Megan an uncomfortable look, clearly not wanting to rehash all this now. Not with Megan or a strange police officer in the room. Megan turned toward the wall, making herself as invisible as possible. She watched Nic in her periphery. He looked all business, but she had the sense he was starting from the beginning for his benefit and hers.

  Or maybe so that if any ethical questions arose, the fact that he hadn’t known about his daughter would be well-documented.

  “I took a radio taxi to the airport from my friend’s house then a flight to the States,” Violet began. “What airport?”

  “Santiago. It’s the capital.”

  “Is that where you live?”

  “No. We live in Los Andes. It’s north. In the mountains.”

  “Who’s we? You and your mother?”

  “And GigiMarie.”

  “Is that your stepfather?” he asked.

  Violet gave a snort of pure disbelief. “Mom is not married. GigiMarie lives with us. She’s like a grandmother.”

  With a few fast motions, Violet whipped out the cell phone from her pocket and started pressing buttons.

  Megan’s heart stepped up its pace. Why wouldn’t Nic be interested in whether or not there was another man rearing his daughter? Hadn’t she researched him online, trying to find out whether or not he was married? It wasn’t as if they’d done a lot of catching up since her arrival. Nothing so simple.

  Violet held her phone to Nic. “That’s GigiMarie in the middle.”

  “Is that a penguin?” Nic asked incredulously, and Megan knew what photos Violet was showing him. “Where are you?”

  “Chile. Didn’t know there are penguins there, did you?”

  “No clue,” he admitted.

  Deputy Chief Jurado hid a laugh behind a cough.

  “Yeah, the south is really close to Antarctica,” Violet explained. “We visit the parks in the Lake District on weekends. Pack a picnic and the bikes and go say hi to the fuzzies.” She turned the phone back toward her and glanced at the photo with a half grin.

  “Sounds like fun. Have you lived there long?”

  “’Bout a year and a half. Be time to relocate soon. We never stay anywhere longer than two years. Right, Mom?”

  “Right.” Megan tore her gaze from a recent award from Cops for Kids, which appeared to be a youth program sponsored by a number of city departments. Nic had been honored for contributions that had gone above and beyond the call of duty.

  “Project’s almost over, another month or two at the most.”

  “Then where are you headed?” he asked.

  Megan opened her mouth to reply, but Violet cut her off at the pass. “You know, that’s a good question. You’ll have to ask Mom because I don’t have a clue. She usually asks us where we want to live, but for some reason she didn’t this time.”

  That drew Megan around, where she found her daughter glaring at her. “I assume you’re referring to New Orleans.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I suppose that’s one part of the mystery solved.” Megan folded her arms across her chest. Of course the timing hadn’t been coincidental. “Would you mind sharing how you found out?”

  Violet slipped the phone into her pocket one-handed, didn’t look the least repentant. “You left your email open.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me about it, Violet? If I left my email open, I obviously wasn’t trying to hide anything.”

  Megan could feel Nic’s gaze on her, but the man had sense enough not to comment. Deputy Chief Jurado tried to vanish into a corner himself.

  “Right.” Violet accused. “You turned down the project. You never even asked us if we wanted to go stateside. GigiMarie hasn’t seen her sister in a long time.”

  Translated: Violet wanted to be around family.

  They might not be all that close to Megan’s parents, but they were still the only family Violet had known she had.

  “So that’s what started all this.” Not a question. “Well, FYI, young lady, I didn’t turn the project down. I simply postponed making a decision. Helping Hands is having trouble with a grant, so I had a window before I had to commit. If you had asked me instead of making assumptions, I’d have explained that. I wanted time to think things through before discussing the situation with you.” She glanced pointedly at Nic. “I don’t think I need to explain why.”

  Violet rocked in the chair with a huff. Folding her arms over her chest, she clamped her mouth shut tight.

  So much for keeping the lines of communication open.

  “Pup, we can talk more about this later, okay?”

  Silence was her only reply.

  After a few moments, Nic intervened. “Ready to get back to the statement, ladies?”

  Deputy Chief Jurado eased toward the desk, and Megan decided she liked Nic’s second in command right there. The man was quite gentlemanly.

  “I didn’t know about the curfew. I swear,” Violet said, eager to talk with her father though she’d shut down on Megan. “I wouldn’t have been out walking around if I had, but when you left, I wanted to see where you went.”

  “So you followed me from my place?”

  Violet flashed a quirky half grin. “I was stalking you.”

  Nic clearly wasn’t thrilled. Because his teenage daughter was walking the streets at night or because the deputy chief looked amused at Nic’s expense, Megan couldn’t say.

  Megan wasn’t thrilled, either. For any number of reasons, not the least of which was the reality of shared parenting. Violet had figured out how to bump one parent for the other rather quickly.

  “When exactly did you arrive in New Orleans?”

  “Yesterday. Landed around one and got to your place a little before two.”

  Nic made a notation on a notepad. “Okay, then what?”

  “I followed you until that hot rod picked you up. I didn’t have anything to do then, but since you were so interested in that tattoo place, I figured I’d check it out. Are you thinking about getting a tattoo? Or a piercing?” She absently prodded the ring on her nose with a fingertip.

  “Neither. Doesn’t fit with the uniform,” he admitted. “So you went inside Insane, Ink, after I left?”

  “Mmm-hmm. I’ve wanted a piercing forever, and I did have a permission form.”

  The deputy chief was openly smiling now as Nic fished through the folder, then pulled out the form that had disappeared from Megan’s fireproof box.

  “For the record,” Nic informed her. “Your mother would have needed to accompany this form in person for that piercing to be legal in Louisiana. You took this from home?”

  Violet looked crestfallen. One thing to rebel against her mother. Another to admit stealing to a police chief father. If Nic didn’t already think his runaway daughter was a problem, he was probably becoming fast convinced she was a full-fledged delinquent. Megan didn’t even want to speculate about the impression the deputy chief was formulating about Violet.

  “Let’s talk about what happened while you were there.” Nic rearranged some papers inside the folder. “I’ve got statements from the owner and a massage therapist. But nothing from you.”

  “Got my nose pierced. Looks cool, don’t you think?” She didn’t give him a chance to reply. “Then I was hanging out, you know, killing time looking at the jewelry and stuff. That’s when people started yelling on the other side of the shop.”

  “Could you see them from where you were?”

  Violet shook her head. “No. But in the mirrors I could see a lady haul butt from behind the counter. There was more yelling and she came back to the counter to use the phone. That’s when the pervert showed up. He was still running his mouth. Then he saw the guy who’d come into the tattoo parlor and shut up fast.”

  “This was the guy you mentioned earlier?”

  “Yep. The really cute one.” She gave a breathy little sigh that made Nic scowl.

  “What did this really cute guy do?”

  “Gave the pervert an env
elope.”

  The deputy chief visibly perked up at this revelation, and he exchanged a glance with Nic, who made another notation on his notepad before glancing inside the folder again.

  “Where was the guy who gave you that ring during all this?”

  “Keeping his eyes on me, but pretending like he wasn’t.” She smiled. “Probably thought I was going to rip him off.”

  “Is it possible he didn’t see the guy with the envelope?”

  Tilting her head to the side, she considered that. “I don’t think so. He kept moving around. In and out of the chairs. Behind the counter. But he never really took his eyes off me. And he stayed up front once the door opened and the cute guy came in. He couldn’t have missed it because the door had those chime-y bells.”

  “So he was still up front when the guy gave the envelope to the pervert?”

  She nodded. “He was pretty manic. Pacing and swearing under his breath about cops and how he never should have rented space to a bunch of…foreigners.”

  Violet scowled, and Megan suspected that wasn’t exactly what the guy had said, but her daughter was too polite to repeat what she’d heard. Megan wanted to understand what Nic was looking for. He was gathering information, but sharing nothing. She knew from the glances he exchanged with the deputy chief that he was looking for something specific.

  “Describe the guy who gave the pervert the envelope.”

  “Curly black hair. Big brown eyes. Gauges.”

  Dark hair and eyes were nondescript, Megan knew, but oversize holes in a kid’s earlobes should help narrow the suspects, shouldn’t it?

  “Anything else, Violet?” Nic asked. “That description could match half the males in New Orleans. What was he wearing?”

  She hesitated, thinking. “T-shirt with Buddha on it. Jeans. Gray Converse high-tops.”

  Not much to work with there.

  “How old?”

  “Not too much older than me. A junior or senior maybe.”

  “Okay. Now I want you to close your eyes and try to picture him.” Nic paused, let a few quiet moments pass. “Anything standing out in your memory? Any piercings?”

  “No, but he had a tattoo. I didn’t notice it at first because it was in a weird spot.”

  “Where?”

  Lifting her left arm, Violet motioned to the underside of her bicep. “I didn’t see it until he handed the pervert the envelope. His sleeve sort of covered it.”

  “Any idea what it was?”

  “The Great Eye.”

  “You’re sure? Even with the sleeve?”

  “It was the Great Eye,” she repeated.

  Another beat of silence. “And what’s that exactly?”

  Violet’s eyes popped open, and she looked at her father as if he’d sprouted a second head. “Sauron, you know. Mordor.”

  Megan bit back a smile. She knew without a doubt Nic hated admitting he still didn’t have a clue what his daughter was talking about.

  “Come on, Chief,” Deputy Chief Jurado said. “Even I know this one.”

  Violet shot the man an approving grin and saved Nic the trouble of asking. Cupping her hands in the shape of an O, she held it up and said dramatically, “The lord of Mordor sees all. His gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth and flesh. A great eye, lidless, wreathed in flame.”

  “A movie?”

  Deputy Chief Jurado gave a snort of laughter.

  “OMG. Tell me you’ve heard of the Lord of the Rings.”

  Nic looked relieved. “I have.”

  Violet looked relieved, too, as if she’d been considering heading back to South America with her big bad mother rather than admit to being the spawn of someone who hadn’t heard of her favorite movie in the world.

  “Okay, so Great Eye guy gave the pervert an envelope. Then what did he do?”

  “Left with the pervert. Only they didn’t go in the same direction. Great Eye guy took off the same way you went.”

  “Okay, good,” Nic said, making a few more notations. “That’ll do it for now. But if you remember anything else, anything at all, I want you to tell me, okay? It’s important.”

  Violet nodded. “Okay.”

  Nic closed the folder, and Megan couldn’t keep her mouth closed another second. “What happens now?”

  He met her gaze levelly. “I write up a report then we start looking for Great Eye guy so Violet can ID him.”

  Megan didn’t say another word. She didn’t have to. She saw everything she needed to in his brown gaze, his stoic expression. She suddenly knew why Nic insisted they stay with his mother rather than in a hotel. He was worried.

  About Violet’s safety.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NIC FINALLY LEFT THE precinct and headed to his mother’s house, relieved the sun hadn’t set yet. He didn’t want to look like he was avoiding the situation, but he had to work. Violet’s sudden appearance had derailed him from a normal busy day—and yes, he’d had appointments. After standing up the mayor, Nic’s assistant had cancelled the rest of them.

  Now he had to get moving with the investigation into Judge Dubos. That took precedence right now. He needed to find the runner—Great Eye guy—Violet had seen passing an envelope to Dubos and find out who the kid worked for. That would start with a personal visit to Big Mike.

  Nic had detectives who could do the deed, and he should probably let them. It wasn’t that Nic didn’t have men he trusted in his department. He did. But just because he’d stepped up a rung on the ladder didn’t mean he wasn’t still paying close attention to what was happening on the streets—especially in his former district. That was the message he’d been conveying to this town.

  And precisely why he’d taken a stroll last night.

  Big Mike wasn’t going to get off talking to two beat cops, not this time, not when the trouble had to do with Violet. Both she and Megan had returned to his mother’s house to get settled hours ago. He hadn’t heard a word since and had no clue what his mother had cooked up for her guests. He supposed his first official act as father and intimate partner should be getting his daughter’s and her mother’s cell phone numbers.

  He half expected a repeat performance of the impromptu family reunion his mother had hosted earlier, but the house was quiet when Nic let himself in. He slid out of his jacket and tossed it on the bench in the foyer. He could hear the low hum of the TV and headed toward the family room. Sure enough, the TV was on, but no one appeared to be watching it. Both Megan and Violet were curled up on the couch fast asleep. And the unexpected sight rooted him to the spot.

  Megan had nestled into the corner of the big leather couch, legs drawn up beneath her, her arm around Violet, who was propped against her, head on a hip, legs stretched out across the couch, an afghan covering her.

  They were curled up together in a position that looked as if they’d had years to perfect. A lifetime, in fact. Violet’s. A lifetime of settling in to watch movies. Kid movies at first, he guessed. Like those Anthony’s goddaughter loved. Nic tried to imagine Violet as a child, nestling against Megan with a bowl of popcorn. Or maybe a slumber party with a bunch of girlfriends all spread out on blankets in front of the TV.

  He couldn’t. All he knew about his daughter was that she liked Lord of the Rings. And piercings.

  Nic realized the sound from the TV was looping, and a glance at the screen revealed the menu from the movie they’d been watching. Star Trek. The new one with the guy from Heroes.

  He knew this movie, liked it even, having grown up on the various versions of the franchise. Not that he had much time to watch movies. He didn’t, but some crazy part of him was relieved that he had something to share, some common ground. If Violet had been watching the movie, she must like it. Right? And what about Megan?

  He stomped that thought fast. He wasn’t interested in what Megan thought.

  “They fell asleep about halfway through,” his mother whispered. “I left it playing. I was afraid to wake them. They were both exhausted.”

  He gl
anced at her, saw the worry in her expression. For him. But there was something else, too. When she glanced at Megan and Violet, her features went all soft, thoughtful.

  He could practically hear what she was thinking and took evasive maneuvers.

  “Don’t even look at me like that,” he said. “I don’t have the energy tonight.”

  “You never do.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I haven’t said one word.”

  He retreated into the hall so as not to disturb their guests. His family. “You don’t have to.”

  She shrugged. “Forgive me if I find the situation a little ironic, and very amusing.”

  Amusing? He didn’t consider missing his daughter’s entire life remotely entertaining. But he was not having this conversation. Spinning on his heels, he headed into the kitchen to raid the fridge.

  “Sausage and peppers?” She arrived in his wake. “Corinne brought bread from Mauricio’s. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

  “Thanks.”

  She motioned him away from the refrigerator, fiercely protective of what she considered her turf.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Stop living everyone else’s lives and start living your own,” she replied without missing a beat.

  “Damn it, Mom.” He sank into a chair. “Not tonight. I mean it.”

  “Okay. But know that’ll be a big help. For you and the rest of us.”

  Dropping his face into his hands, he massaged his temples. He had a life—or as much of one as he’d been able to squeeze in through the years around work and school and this family. He had buddies. He dated. Maybe not since he’d taken on this appointment, but Nic would settle into a rhythm in time, and when he did, he’d pay attention to that part of his life again.

  Who knew? He might actually meet someone he was interested in. It had been known to happen on occasion.

  “Would you like your sandwich hot or cold?”

  “Cold.”

  “You’re sure?” She surfaced from the refrigerator with two plastic storage containers. “That’ll only save you the time it will take me to heat everything, and it’s not as if you can leave. Unless you’re planning to abandon your family.”