It was a little lowering to realize that, despite all her study on the subject, she hadn’t recognized anything past attraction. Writing about feelings and experiencing them were so . . . there was no comparison, and she held on to that for a second because she’d never been in love before. Maybe she’d had a crush or two, but she’d never felt this overwhelming rush of emotion—which was too pale a word, but it was the only one she had for a feeling that seemed to blossom and grow until her toes curled and her scalp tingled. A feeling that filled her and warmed her, and scared her to death at the same time because it could take her over, make her do things and want things that went beyond rational, that were bad for her or foolish. What kind of stupid was she, Norah asked herself, to fall in love with Trip Jones?
The answer was, the worst kind, the love-is-blind kind of stupid, the kind that wanted to think with her heart, see the world through rose-colored glasses, believe he would change for her. Fortunately, she had a brain, not to mention a hell of a memory and a past that included just the kind of man she’d been foolish enough to fall in love with. She didn’t have to compound one folly with another. Being in love was one thing; making life-altering decisions because of it would be the real mistake.
“You finally awake?”
Letting Trip find out would be an even bigger one. Sex was sex, especially to men. If Trip knew she’d fallen in love with him, he’d feel a need to establish some distance between them. She couldn’t protect her father, let alone herself, unless she was kept in the loop. Then there was the part where she didn’t want to give up one moment with him. He’d leave, and she’d be devastated, but it didn’t have to happen any sooner because of something she couldn’t help and neither of them wanted. Foolish, she knew, but that was love.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, pretending for all she was worth that nothing had changed. “You want me to drive?”
“No,” he said, voice deep and quiet. And cool. “Thanks anyway.”
His gratitude, coming, as it did, as an afterthought, spoke volumes. She’d made the same offer just after Trip had tossed down his verbal gauntlet. He’d turned her down then, too, probably figuring she’d get behind the wheel and point the car anyplace but Chicago. He was wrong. Not that she hadn’t considered it, but she needed to find her father and make sure he was all right.
Trip had already switched back to FBI agent mode. The wall was up, and she would be wise to stay on her side of it.
“We don’t have to be enemies, Trip,” she said. “I want to believe in my father, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand who he is.”
“I get that, and at some point you’re going to have to make a choice. It’s inevitable, Norah.”
“And you think by pulling away you’re going to make that choice easier for me?”
“Aren’t I?”
“You’re seeing it as a choice between you and my father. Isn’t it really a choice between right and wrong?”
“Who’s right and who’s wrong is open to interpretation, to your view of the circumstances and your ability to rationalize. And don’t tell me feelings won’t come into play, Norah. He’s your dad, and I’m . . . not prepared to use our personal relationship to sway you.”
That sounded honorable, but Trip wasn’t only thinking of her. He wasn’t in their “relationship” for the long haul. Using her feelings to gain her cooperation would be the same as setting a trap for himself, because, being an honorable man, he’d feel obligated to her. Obligation was worse, in her opinion, than pity.
They didn’t have far to go, for which Norah was thankful since she spent the miles in a fog of misery and self-castigation. And then they pulled in front of her house. She took one look at the front porch, and a particularly nasty curse word sprang to her lips but remained mercifully unsaid. The hits just kept coming, was her next thought, as she opened the car door and climbed out. “Did you try knocking?”
Lucius jerked upright and spun around, looking guilty just because he was trying so hard to look innocent. Norah had known this moment would come, but on the heels of her emotional upheaval, the last thing she needed was to be faced with her father.
“Norah, darling,” he said expansively, arms wide as he limped his way down the walk to wrap her in a hug.
“Lucius.” She hugged him back, but she kept her eyes on Trip, walking past them to climb the porch steps.
“Not Dad anymore?”
Norah let that be a rhetorical question because she couldn’t explain to her father that calling him Dad felt like taking sides. At least she worried it would sound that way to Trip. Thankfully, Lucius let it go, too, keeping his arms around her shoulders even after he turned to face Trip, returning from the front porch with his hands full.
“Disposable cell phone,” Trip said, holding it up for Norah’s benefit, “and a set of tools suitable for disabling an alarm system and picking a lock. That alarm system is state-of-the-art.”
“I reached out to a friend who was going to talk me through it.”
“Why didn’t you call Norah to meet you here and let you in?”
“Well, now—”
“Because you knew we were on a wild-goose chase,” Trip answered for him. “Which you sent us on.”
Norah felt her father lean on her a little more, and even though she factored in the likelihood he was playing her, she said, “Why don’t we go inside and hash this out where we can all be comfortable?”
Trip’s jaw tightened, and he sent her a long, speaking look before he turned and led the way up the walk. When he punched the code into the keypad by the door, he didn’t bother to hide it from Lucius.
Norah helped her father inside, steering him into the parlor. He lowered into an overstuffed chair, giving Norah a flashback to her childhood, to the memory of him, twenty-five years younger, sitting in that exact same chair.
“You’re a lifesaver, darlin’,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Trip snorted. “You wouldn’t need saving if you’d stayed in the safe house where you were sent to recuperate.”
“Kind of obvious,” Norah said, “and hardly helpful.”
“And you’re already defending him.”
“Because you’re attacking him.”
Trip looked at Lucius, who smiled benignly while Trip’s jaw began to flex. “Where were the agents assigned to you while you were crawling out of your bed?”
“They really should have been more observant,” Lucius said, “considering the onerous responsibilities they carry.”
Trip swore, pulling out his cell phone and dialing a number as he walked away so he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Aye, call your handler,” Lucius called out to him. “Heaven forbid you make any autonomous decisions.”
Trip glared at him. Norah took it as a sign of his self-control that he didn’t pull out his gun.
“Do you have to make everything as difficult as possible?” she said to her father.
“I was merely entertaining myself,” he grumbled. “I spent fifteen years at the beck and call of lazy, pusillanimous federal employees.”
“And you were getting a little payback. I get it. But Trip is neither lazy nor cowardly.”
Lucius sent her a sidelong, measuring look.
Norah popped up an eyebrow and stared back. “If you want to talk about motivations, let’s discuss what you’re doing here.”
“Where else did you expect me to go?” Lucius blustered.
“I expected you to stay in custody,” Trip said as he rejoined them.
“I’ve served my debt to society.”
“You have seventeen more days, by my calculation.”
“’Twas your kind that let me out.”
“Into protective custody,” Trip reminded him. “In effect, you escaped from jail.”
Lucius sat back, and although Norah had decided to stay neutral, it killed her to see the pain on her father’s face.
“I’ll go upstairs and rest, shall I?” he said. “Before you have my old carcass hauled back to prison. You’ll call me for supper, will you, darlin’?” he said to Norah.
“Of course, Dad.” She helped him to his feet, but he waved her off at the foot of the stairs, stopping for a moment before he started up.
“The master bedroom is still the same?”
“Yes, but it’s my room now.” And she wasn’t about to be chased out of her own bed again, not even by familial duty. “You can use the spare room, Lucius. First on the right.”
He put his hand on the newel post and his foot on the first riser, then turned back to give her a slight, wistful smile. “Seeing your mother’s things . . . I miss her.”
“She didn’t change anything after—after the divorce. And I haven’t changed anything since she died, except the bed because, well, you can imagine why.”
“Maybe I could take a look later on.”
“Of course,” Norah said, watching him climb the stairs slowly. Once he’d safely navigated the turn into the spare room she returned to the parlor and dropped into a chair, shaking her head.
“Trying to take it all in?” Trip asked her.
“It’s been a hell of a day.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
She looked over at him, lounging against the mantelpiece.
“It won’t be long until Hollie finds out Lucius is here and broadcasts it to the world.”
“Great, we’ll be right back where we started.”
“Not if we can get Lucius to tell us where the loot is first.”
And he was looking at her like she could pull off that miracle. “What makes you think he’ll tell me the truth?”
“You’re his daughter. If anyone can con him you can.”
chapter 20
“WILL THIS DAY NEVER END?” NORAH SAID,
peering through the leaded glass window in her front door.
Trip looked over her shoulder, then stepped around her and opened the door. “Come on in,” he said to Raymond Kline and Myra Newcastle. “The more the merrier.”
Norah ignored Raymond as he passed her by, then she bumped cheeks with Myra when the taller woman bent to greet her.
“Raymond said he was coming by,” Myra said, “so I decided to tag along with him. I hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s nice to see
you
,” Norah said pointedly.
Raymond refused to get the message. “Hello, Norah,” he said, stepping forward to kiss her cheek like Myra had done.
Norah ducked away. “What are you doing here, Raymond?” she said, then had a brain wave and pulled open the front door again. Sure enough, Hollie’s BMW was parked at the curb across the street.
Norah went to the top of the porch steps, out of the shadow of the house where Hollie would be able to see her, and beckoned. Nothing happened for a second or two, then the driver’s door opened and Hollie stepped out. She stood there a moment, long enough for Norah to imagine her heaving a sigh, then she started across the street.
“Lurch is going to sit in the car?” Norah asked when Hollie was at the foot of the steps.
“Lurch is no longer in my employ.”
“Good for you. Isn’t it a relief to stop pretending?”
Hollie followed Norah inside and traded a look with Raymond Kline. “Can I get back to you on that?” she said when he looked away, clearly not happy to see her.
Norah hooked her by the arm and towed her into the parlor, where Trip, Myra, and Lucius, apparently having come back downstairs when he heard the ruckus, were all arrayed. Raymond and his skunky expression trailed along behind them. “Now, where should we start?” Norah said, beginning to enjoy herself.
Raymond dropped into an armchair. “This isn’t one of your group sessions,” he snarled at her.
Norah looked around the room, crowded with an aging con man, a college dean with fidelity issues, a vindictive ex-morning show hostess, a college administrator turned literary agent, and a G-man with ulterior motives. “If there was ever a group that needed psychoanalysis, this is it.”
“ ‘It takes one to know one,’ ” Trip said, and although his smile meant that he was kidding, Norah said, “I’m as screwed up as the next person.”
Trip was lounging against the mantel, and he looked really good, which Raymond hadn’t missed, especially when Norah went to stand beside him.
“So Raymond,” she said, making no effort to placate his temper, “what brings you to this neighborhood?” He tried to answer, but she cut him off. “I mean, it’s not prestigious, it’s not up-and-coming, it’s just a middle-class Irish neighborhood where families have owned their homes for generations and everyone is living their quiet lives, raising little nuns and altar boys, and
aspiration
is a four-letter word.”
“Now, Norah, I never—”
“I’m sorry, isn’t that what you said when you were trying to convince me I needed to sell this house and move to a better address?”
“Blackguard,” Lucius spat, sitting forward so fast Raymond pressed back in his seat.
“You stay out of this,” Norah said to her father.
“But it’s our family home, darlin’—”
“Zip it,” Norah said, pointing a finger at him. “Unless you’re ready to explain a few things.”
Lucius zipped it.
His interjection, however, had given Raymond time to regain his composure. “I may have said those things, but I’m certain my sentiments didn’t carry the negative spin you placed on them.”
“So you were just kidding?”
“Of course.”
“Bullshit.”
Raymond got to his feet.
Norah stepped forward. “I’m not going to smile and keep the peace while you rewrite history. And speaking of history, let’s talk about your relationship with Hollie.”
“
What
? How—Who—” Raymond sputtered, his eyes shifting between her and Hollie, who was also on her feet, looking every bit as rattled. “It was meaningless,” he said, the fallback position of cheaters everywhere. Except they didn’t usually say it in front of the “other woman.”
“Bastard,” Hollie snapped at him.
“What the hell is this, Norah?” Trip said, shoving away from the mantel.