Page 45 of Deader than Dead
While Bellamy snorted and the target of my snark simply raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow, Cade’s expression remained neutral. “I asked Asher to join us. He has pertinent information to share.” Sitting back in his chair in a deliberately casual stance, fingers interlocked together over his chest, he held my gaze. “The first thing that needs saying is how truly sorry I am for everything that happened, and I mean that.” He shook his head in the perfect example of earnestness. “I was backed into a corner, and you were the one who got caught up in it through no fault of your own.”
I sat back and regarded him silently, doing my best to keep a lid on the simmering antagonism threatening to bubble over in my chest. I was grateful when Bellamy’s hand crossed the divide between our chairs to settle on my knee and give it a squeeze. I placed my hand over his and derived strength from our togetherness. “I think there’s a whole host of other things you could have done.”
“Such as?”
Was he for real? “Such as being open about what the situation was. If you had, at least I could have gone into it with my eyes open.”
“You wouldn’t have gone in there at all,” Cade said evenly.
I laughed. “Wow! Thanks for the vote of confidence that I would have just abandoned a child to their fate. Nice to know what you really think of me.”
“How is he?” Bellamy asked, either because he genuinely wanted to know or because he wanted to defuse the situation. Probably both.
As if on cue, the side door to Cade’s office burst open and the boy from the graveyard ran out with a harried looking woman in pursuit, her red hair escaping from her ponytail in several places. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Everleigh,” she said, stress bleeding from her voice. “I tried to tell him you were in an important meeting and couldn’t be disturbed, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Cade hooked one arm around the child’s waist when he got close enough and pulled him onto his lap, the boy giggling. “He’s been needy,” he said in answer to Bellamy’s question, “but otherwise, okay. So far, anyway. It appears they treated him well, but there’s no guarantee he won’t start having nightmares about the ordeal at a later date. I don’t think there’s a seven-year-old alive who wouldn’t suffer ill effects from being abducted from their child minder and kept by people they didn’t know.”
It was strange to see Cade interact with the son I hadn’t even known he’d had. It made me wonder if I knew him at all, or if I’d just seen what I wanted to see. Perhaps he wasn’t wholly to blame for us not having had the best working relationship. One thing was for sure, though. Seeing the way his entire demeanor softened with his son in his arms wasn’t conducive to maintaining my feelings of antagonism toward him.
As if reading my mind, Cade’s lips curled slightly as he dropped a kiss on the top of his son’s head. In other circumstances, I might have asked what had happened to the boy’s mother, but it was hardly the priority, and even I was circumspect enough not to do it in front of Mika in case the answer was that she’d died.
“How about,” Cade said, the tone of his voice evidence that he was speaking to his son rather than to us, “we go and get ice cream once I’ve finished my meeting?”
“Can we?” The boy’s face lit up. “More than one flavor?”
“More than one flavor,” Cade confirmed. “But I have to finish my meeting first. Which means you need to go and play with Roberta for a bit. See if you can finish that new Lego set I got for you?”
The boy slid down from his father’s knee with obvious reluctance. Roberta, who’d hovered at Cade’s side apologetically since he’d slipped from her grasp, immediately took the boy’s hand and steered him back the way they’d come. The door closed behind them and silence descended on the room. A glance at Asher revealed no outward signs of him struggling with the same warm feelings as me. You could probably put the biggest, fluffiest bunny rabbit on his knee and he wouldn’t even crack a smile.
“I trust,” Cade went on as if the brief interlude had never happened, his attention once more directed at Bellamy, “that you’re not suffering any ill effects from your experience?”
“You mean his death?” I said, keen to cut through the bullshit.
Cade inclined his head in recognition of the point. “There are many parts of what happened that I will gladly take the blame for, but… that’s not one of them. He was dead long before I ever became involved. In fact, I only became involved because he was dead.”
Bellamy sat forward, his hand slipping off my knee. “You’re right. My part in this was nothing to do with you. Apart from having a gap in my memories, which may be for the best, I’ve been fine. No”—he smiled wryly—“side effects at all.”
“Good,” Cade said. “And I owe you an apology too for the things I said to you over the phone, and the derision I treated you with because of your chosen occupation. I wasn’t in my right mind at the time.” He cast a quick glance at the door his son was behind. “I’m sure you can appreciate why.” He sat up straighter. “Now the apologies are out of the way, we should get down to business.”
“Business?” I queried.
Asher leaned out of his chair to pass a piece of paper to Cade. Cade nodded as he took it. “Yes, business. There are a few items on the agenda.”
Bellamy and I shared a look at the abrupt segue into formality. This was the reason I hadn’t wanted to come. “Was number one on the agenda to apologize?”
“It was not,” Cade said smoothly. “Number one is a discussion of O’Reilly and the threat she might provide to our continued wellbeing. I would assume”—he encompassed both Bellamy and me in his stare—“that you have given some thought to her knowing where you both live?”
I bit down on the urge to remind him of why that was with my address. There had to be a certain degree of what’s done was done or we’d go round in circles forever. “We’ll move,” I said, heat creeping into my cheeks at the cavalier assumption that we’d move in together when we hadn’t discussed it yet.
“And she would find you,” Asher provided, “should she want to. Which… lucky for you, she seems to have no inclination to do at the present time.”
“No?” Bellamy asked, a measure of relief creeping into his voice. Just like me, he’d been sleeping with one eye open, both of us fully expecting to wake up one morning to find her standing at the end of the bed, smiling that benign smile of hers and telling us we’d been very naughty boys.
Asher opened up a folder and extracted its contents, most of which appeared to be glossy photographs enlarged to A4. He held up the first of them so we could see. It showed a woman clearly recognizable as O’Reilly getting out of a car with a suitcase. “This was taken at four o’clock yesterday,” Asher explained. He held up another photo, this one showing her heading through the doors of Heathrow Airport.
The next few photos showed a simple progression of O’Reilly at the check-in desk, sipping wine in the departure lounge, and the last, her heading through the boarding gate. “She took the flight,” Asher announced as he lay the photos back down.
Bellamy shifted in his seat. “Where to?”