“Stay here,” I ordered and opened the van door.
I’d borrowed a cargo van from the security team. It was my turn to send a message.
“Sorry, boss. No can do,” Nolan slipped out the passenger door. He pulled a black wool cap out of his coat pocket and yanked it down over his head.
“I’m about to break half a dozen laws,” I warned before rounding the back of the vehicle.
“And here I thought you’d have minions for that,” Nolan said, opening the cargo doors.
I grabbed the sledgehammer. “Sometimes it’s better to get your own hands dirty. And by that I mean my hands, not yours.”
He picked up the six-foot coil of material off the van floor. “Can’t let you have all the fun. Besides, if we get caught, your scary lawyers will have me out before my ass touches a holding cell bench.”
I was oddly touched.
I gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s go play with fire.” I didn’t wait for an answer and headed into the shadows.
“Never got to have fun like this in my last job,” Nolan whispered gleefully behind me.
“You’re late,” Karen announced, opening the door with feigned motherly disappointment.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. I was late and exhausted, but vengeance had dulled the rage. Now I was almost cheerful. It had been a while since I’d gotten my hands dirty.
“I’m sorry. There was a situation that I needed to deal with,” I explained, slipping off my coat.
“Hmm, you’re late, you smell like gasoline and smoke, and your coat is torn,” she noted as I hung it on the rack inside the door.
“All reasons why I could use a large glass of this mediocre wine you promised.”
The explosion had happened a little earlier than anticipated. Nolan’s giddy “Holy fucking shit!” still rang in my ears.
Knox would have been proud. Nash would have been furious. As for me, I was starting to appreciate Nolan as more than a minion.
“Follow me, my dear,” Karen said, leading the way toward the kitchen.
The condo was nothing like the family home in Knockemout. I’d chosen it for proximity to the hospital, not personality. But in the two years that they’d lived here, Karen had managed to convert the off-white-walled, blank slate into a comfortable home.
The large, framed photo of Simon, Sloane, and me the day Sloane got her driver’s license caught my attention as it always did. Though this time, it delivered a punch to the gut in addition to the twinge of regret I usually felt.
Simon wasn’t waiting for me in the kitchen like he had been for so many years of my life. I didn’t know how Karen managed to stay here surrounded by memories of a life she’d never get back.
She was barefoot and casually dressed in a pair of leggings and an oversize sweater. Her hair was held back from her face with a wide, paisley-patterned headband.
I liked that there was no formality among the Waltons. The women I dated—however briefly—were never seen without a full face of makeup, their hair perfectly coiffed, and their wardrobes ready to be whisked away to the symphony, Paris, or a black-tie fundraiser.
“You sit. I’ll pour,” Karen insisted when we entered the small but efficient kitchen. She’d painted the walls a sunny yellow and swapped out the sedate white quartz countertops for terra-cotta tiles topped with cobalt-blue accessories.
I pulled out an upholstered stool in tangerine corduroy and reached for the appetizer plate. There was always a can of my favorite smoked almonds in Karen Walton’s pantry. She stocked them alongside Maeve’s favorite cereal and Sloane’s root beer as if I too were one of the family.
“How is it being back?” I asked.
She slid a wineglass in my direction and picked up her own. “Terrible. Okay. Haunting. Comforting. A never-ending misery. A relief. You know, the usual.”
“We could have rescheduled,” I said.
Karen managed a small, pitying smile as she moved to the oven. “Sweetie, when will you learn that sometimes being alone is the last thing you need?”
“Never.”
She snorted and opened the oven door, filling the room with the scent of store-bought pizza.
I got off my stool and rounded the island to nudge her out of the way.
“You get the salad, I’ll cut the slices. You always cut them crooked,” I teased. She also never remembered to wash the cheese off the pizza cutter, which resulted in a congealed mess that required serious muscle.
She handed over the utensil. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”