“Okay. Will you get Megan home soon?”
Now that was an odd question. Why would Boris think he could get Megan back? Megan didn’t trust him. Probably hated him even more than she had at the start. And did Megan even consider Lost Harbor her home?
“She might not want to come back,” he told the man.
“Why not?”
“Well…” He paused. Boris had shared his story. Maybe he should do the same. “I screwed up. She’s very angry with me and she has a good reason.”
Boris nodded wisely. “Get her a basket. She’ll like that.”
Fighting not to laugh, Lucas nodded seriously. “Good tip. Thanks.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“I’m your last stop before court,” warned Eliza Burke. “I know you both know that. You’ve done so well up to now. I’m sure we can work this out.”
“She endangered my child,” Dev said stubbornly.
My child? Megan gritted her teeth to stop herself from losing her cool. Dev always knew how to say things that got under her skin, but she couldn’t fall for that trick. “Ruby is perfectly fine. She had an unauthorized adventure, but we found her before any harm came to her. She understands that she screwed up. This is a normal part of childhood. A normal part of a normal childhood.”
“And that’s exactly where we differ.” That British colonial accent of Dev’s was driving her nuts. It always made him sound more rational than he actually was. “Ruby is not normal. We need to stop treating her as if she is. She needs more advanced educational opportunities. She needs special tutors, foreign travel, all the things I and only I can provide.”
“You’re complaining about a kayak but you want her to have foreign travel?”
“It’s entirely different. I’m talking about raising her level of sophistication. I’m talking about not allowing her so much free rein that she decides an otter is her sister.”
“It was just an expression,” Megan told the mediator, who was looking at her askance. “Ruby felt an emotional connection to the otter.”
“And that sounds ‘normal’ to you?” Dev smirked.
Megan wanted to wipe Dev’s smug smile right off his face, but forced herself to behave like an adult. “It sounds like Ruby to me. Not everything is always logical, you know. Not even with high-IQ kids.”
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and let out a long-suffering sigh. “You see what I’m dealing with here, Eliza. She doesn’t even believe in logic.”
Trying to get the mediator on his side—Megan recognized that trick.
But this wasn’t Eliza’s first time navigating Megan and Dev’s relationship. “Where is Ruby now?”
“With me,” Dev said.
“It’s a previously scheduled visit,” added Megan quickly. “I always abide by the agreements we make. I brought her down a little early so we could make time for this session.”
“So this is…” Eliza checked her notes. “The agreed-upon three weeks of the summer she spends with you, Dev?”
“Yes. I enrolled her in a programming camp. She loves it.” Dev wasn’t lying about that. Every time Megan talked to Ruby, she sounded happy.
But she didn’t know there was a chance they’d never go back to Lost Harbor.
“Good. So the issue before us is how to divide the time starting this fall.”
“I found an excellent school tailor-made for prodigies like Ruby,” Dev said. “It’s here in the Bay Area, where she’s already comfortable and where she won’t wander off into dangerous situations. I believe she should attend this school, and that I’m the proper parent to oversee her education. I should have custody.”
Megan’s jaw ached from clenching and the heels of her hands throbbed from her fingernails digging into her flesh.
“And Megan? What’s your preference?”
Dev started to speak again, but Eliza raised her hand for quiet. “Megan?”
Megan relaxed her jaw so she could speak. All the arguments she’d practiced ran through her mind. Ruby deserves a real childhood. The focus shouldn’t be only on her education. She loves Lost Harbor. The ocean and the wildlife, the freedom, the beauty, it all feeds a part of her that might get buried under formulas and math studies. I’m the proper parent to raise all of her, not just her brain.
But then something else came back to her—the terror of realizing Ruby was missing. And worse—the horrible paralysis that had seized her. The images that had flooded her mind in that moment. How fucking useless she’d been when Ruby had needed her most.
“I— Can I—” Try as she might, nothing else would come out of her mouth. The silence in the room ticked away, second by agonizing second.
Eliza looked at her watch. “Oh goodness, I’m sorry, we’ve run out of time. We’ll pick this up at our next meeting. Megan, I want to hear your ideas for the next school year.”
Megan nodded. Message received: get your act together or lose Ruby.
“Saved by the fifty-minute hour,” Dev said snidely as they left the mediator’s office. It was located on an upper floor of a high-rise near the Transamerica building. Dev stayed back to pay the receptionist, while Megan hurried toward the elevator. She couldn’t bear to endure an entire elevator ride next to Dev’s smug gloating.
She stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut. As the car glided toward the ground, a memory came back to her—the moment she and Ruby had first heard of Lost Harbor. That elevator had been full of men in prosaic business suits, but the mention of Lost Harbor had hovered in the air like a magical beckoning siren.
“There’s no place quite like Lost Harbor. It’s not just the fishing or the scenery. One old geezer told us about some local legends about the wilderness there. Talking animals, lost tribes, that sort of thing. I normally don’t buy that crap, and don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have any conversations with the wildlife. But once you’ve seen Lost Harbor, you start to wonder. It’s more than a fishing port, I can tell you that.”
Had Ruby encountered a local legend? Had some of that Lost Harbor magic fairy dust landed on her daughter?
Maybe, maybe not…it didn’t really matter. One thing Megan knew for sure. Ruby had been obsessed with the otter as a stand-in for Megan herself. Her daughter was worried about her. Megan got that message loud and clear, right down to her soul. That was why she was here in the Bay Area.
And yet she still hadn’t done what she came to do.
The elevator doors whispered open. Time’s up.
The Central Coast University admissions office hadn’t changed much from when Megan worked there, if you didn’t count the memorial plaque mounted on the wall between the windows that looked out over the quad. The atmosphere was still half sleepy, half industrious, as if everyone was one nap away from springing into action.
That was the other thing—she didn’t recognize any of the new staff members. Everyone she’d worked with had either transferred to another department or quit working for the university.
“Can I help you?” asked the wiry young Asian man behind the reception desk. A nameplate said his name was Lee Jin.
She swallowed hard. “I was working here last year, when…well, I was just wondering if I could…”
“Wait. Are you Megan Miller?”
“Yes.”
The young man leaped to his feet. “You saved my friend’s life. Chun. He was wounded in the shooting. I recognize you.”
“I know Chun, of course. But I didn’t save—”
“You did! He told me. He said you dragged him behind those cabinets—” he waved in the direction of the bank of storage cabinets. Even in her peripheral vision, they loomed large—a reminder of the nightmare she’d tried to forget.
“That was nothing.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “Really, I didn’t save him. He shouldn’t be telling people that.”
Lee’s lively dark eyes wouldn’t let her go. “He said he would have kept getting shot by that monster. He was lying there with no way to move. You saved him.”
Well, she supposed that part was true. He couldn’t move by himself, and the gunman might have shot him again. Or he might not have. It was hard to say.
The kid reached for her hand with both of his and shook it vigorously. “I am very grateful. So is Chun. If he knew you were here—”
“Please, I just want to kind of, see where it happened, maybe…” Now she wasn’t sure anymore what she wanted, exactly. Confront the memories instead of running from them? Would coming here help? Or would it make things worse?
“Come on.” Lee Jin beckoned her into the area past the reception desk. “We have metal detectors now and other safety features, but Chun still didn’t want to work here anymore. He referred me to the job and I absolutely love it.”
He kept talking as he led the way toward the filing cabinets. Which was completely unnecessary—she didn’t need a guide. But his company eased the raging butterflies in her stomach, so she didn’t ask him to leave.
But as she got close to where she’d been when the figure in the gas mask appeared, a funny thing happened. The kid’s voice morphed into…Lucas’.
Lucas, who she’d never told about the shooting. Lucas, who had known about it all along.
“So this is where it went down,” she heard Lucas say with that dry humor of his. “Can’t imagine a more mundane setting. What was he mad about? Did you misfile his college essay?”
“He’d gotten expelled. You shouldn’t joke about this.”
“I’m not joking. I’m not even really here. Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“You sound mad.”
“How do you know? You’re not even really here.”
“Which means you’re arguing with an invisible friend.”
“If you’re my friend, why’d you call Dev on me?”
“So that’s what you’re really mad about. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“We’re not getting anywhere. You’re not here. I’m arguing with air.”
“And winning. You’re stronger than you think, Megan. I’ve always seen your strength. Why would I bother feuding with a weakling? Wouldn’t be worth the bother.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Take it or leave it.”
“Chun said this is where you dragged him,” Lee Jin was saying. “When you saved his—”
“I didn’t save…oh forget it. Fine, maybe I did help him a little. I’m so glad he’s okay.” A sudden burst of emotion overwhelmed her for a moment. “He’s okay, right?”
“He is. He’ll be graduating in the fall. A bit behind schedule but his family isn’t too upset about that. He has a good excuse.”
She laughed at that. “That he does.” Her glance lingered on the floor where she and the others had crouched. The possibility of an incoming bullet had given each moment a terrible weight.
But they’d survived. And she’d helped Chun. And then forgotten that she’d helped Chun. How strange that she’d focused on how powerless she’d felt. That was what she’d remembered, not the way she’d taken action.
Why? Why had that part stood out?
“If you ask me, it’s because you’re afraid.”
“Oh, so you’re back again? More wise words from the ghost?”
“Yeah, more wise words from your invisible friend Lucas, the one you should try listening to.”
“Okay, what am I so afraid of then?”
“Yourself.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Sure it does. You’re afraid to claim your own power.”
“You can say that to me after all the times I went against you in the town council?”
“Perfect example right there. It takes a strong person to stand up to all that mockery. You have the strength. You just don’t admit that you do.”
“I can stand up to all that because it’s not about me. It’s not for me. It’s for the ecology of Lost Harbor and the wildlife and all that.”
“So you can stand up for everything else but not for yourself? You’re going to let Dev tell you that you’re a weakling? What about Ruby? Aren’t you going to stand up for her? Don’t you think she needs you?”
“Stop it!”
“Sorry?” Lee Jin blinked at her. “You don’t want to hear about Chun’s new job?”
“No. Sorry. I—” She passed a hand across her forehead. Was she feverish? Hallucinating? “It’s hard to be here, that’s all. Maybe you could give me a moment?”
“Sure, sure. Of course.” He backed away from her; she couldn’t blame him for his suddenly wary expression. She was acting like a lunatic.
In the quiet space behind the filing cabinets, with only the dust motes for company, she sank onto the floor on the spot where she’d hidden from the gunman.
That sound. Bullets into metal, just overhead. That sound never left her, not really.
Those bullets had ricocheted through her life. They’d sent her fleeing to Alaska. They’d ripped apart her already shaky self-confidence. They’d left her with trauma that Dev was now exploiting. So the ricochets continued. If she didn’t stop them now, they’d keep going. They’d leave her with nothing.
But how could she stop a bullet that was no longer flying? How could she stop a ghost bullet?
“Talk to a ghost friend?”
“Jesus. I’ve heard enough from you, Lucas. Leave me alone.”
“You really want that?”
“No. I really don’t. I need you, Lucas. I think I love you. You bastard. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“Then get up. Find your strength and get up.”
The sound of a fly buzzing against the window brought her back to reality. Beads of sweat studded her forehead and her face felt flushed. Wow. Trauma did strange things to the human brain. Hallucinating the voice of Lucas Holt, former and maybe once-again nemesis? It didn’t get much stranger than that.
It also didn’t get much better than that. Even in her imagination, his voice made her happy.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chun’s friend asked her as she left the office. “You look a little flushed.”
“Might have a touch of fever. Or it might be fairy dust.” She sneezed.
“Excuse me?”
“The dust. It’s building up back there.”
“Oh, I thought you said—”
“No. Definitely not. That would be ridiculous.” With Lee Jin still staring at her oddly, she left that place and knew she had no need to ever go back.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Well, you can make it official, Officer Badger.” Lucas lounged against the doorframe of Maya’s office at the police station. “My dad wasn’t murdered. He died of being an idiot.”
“It already was official, but thanks,” she said dryly. She leaned back in her chair and bounced a pen off the palm of one hand. “Did you learn something new?”
“I did. Boris saw the whole thing. Dad was trying to play a prank on Old Crow.”
“So he died as he lived.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“And you’re satisfied. You’ll return to your regular programming and let us law officers do the job we’re paid for.”
He cocked his head. “You’d like that, huh?”
Maya clicked her pen in a way that sounded vaguely like a bullet pop. “I’d like that because that’s how it’s supposed to be around here. You going to keep causing me trouble, Lucas? Don’t you have a life to get back to somewhere in Colorado?”
“Not going back to Colorado.”
Her eyebrows drew together in a way he remembered all too well. The time he’d been late to pick her up for a movie, and then the time she’d stormed away from the homestead after that disaster of a dinner. “Why not?”
“It’s home.” He shrugged. His real reasons were a lot more complicated and involved a big question mark in the form of Megan. “What can I say? There’s just something about the place you grew up…”
“Bull crap. You couldn
’t get out of here fast enough. What are you going to do, take over the Jack Hammer and carry on your dad’s legacy of ridiculous feuds?”
“I—no.” He looked at his feet. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Will I deputize you? No.”
“God no. Not that. Do you think…I mean, you knew my father. And you know me.” This was a lot harder than he’d thought it would be.
“Spit it out, Holt. I got work to do.”
“Do you think I’m like my father? Do you think I’d make a decent…partner?”
At first she looked startled, as if that was the last thing she’d expected him to say—which it probably was. “You had your decent side. And then you had your idiot side.”
“Like when I brought you home and sandbagged you. So fucked up. It was the kind of thing my father would have done. So I guess I want to know…”
“If you’re like your father?”
He winced. It sounded so inane. Why was he dumping this on Maya after so many years? “I’m sorry, I know you have bigger problems on your hands.”
“Well, yeah. I am the only detective in Lost Harbor. All the crimes come to this desk.”
He nodded, getting more embarrassed by the minute. “I’ll get out of your hair.” He turned to go.
“Lucas,” she called to him softly.
He swung back, one hand gripping the doorjamb.
“Give yourself a break, why don’t you? You were a good kid. Now you’re a good man. Maya Badger has good taste in men, always has.”
“Aren’t you single right now?”
“Yes, and you just proved my point about my discriminating taste.”
He smiled slightly. “I get your point.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Lucas. By the way, on the downlow, I heard a position’s opening up that you might want to look at.”
“What position?”
“Head of the Harbor Commission.”
His eyebrows lifted. In Lost Harbor, that role rivaled that of mayor for importance. The harbor powered the local economy, brought tourists, served as the heart of the community.
Mine Until Moonrise (Lost Harbor, Alaska Book 1) Page 21