She tisked. “You know I can’t do that, sweetheart.”
I grimaced at the nickname. “Mother, please. I’ve never asked you for anything. Just this once, please help me.”
My mother looked at me with those cold, stone eyes that I had gotten so accustomed to seeing during my childhood. Even when my father was murdered, she never showed any emotion.
In fact, I’d never seen her show any emotion.
“You may not have asked for me to do all of the things I’ve done for you over the years, but I’ve done more for you Michael, than you will ever know. That’s what mothers do. Do you think it was a coincidence that you were the one to kill Lisette’s mother?”
I blinked. “What?”
I didn’t understand what this possibly had to do with the hunt for Lisette currently taking place. “Pauline reached out to me,” I said. “I killed her because she asked me to be the one to do it, and she asked me to do it to keep Lisette safe from him.”
My mother laughed, as if I were making some sort of joke.
“You’re foolish,” she said condescendingly, her laughter stopping as quickly as it appeared. “There were always so many more things in play than you ever had the ability to see.” She reached across the desk and ruffled her fingers in my hair. “Cute, but foolish.”
I swatted her hand away as she continued.
“It wasn’t just Pauline’s choice that you would be the one to kill her. That whole thing was orchestrated to perfection by faces you didn’t even know were there. You were the one chosen to do it so that you and Lisette would hate each other. How could she ever have feelings for someone that killed her own mother? And how could you ever fall for a girl that would be a constant reminder of the murder you committed?”
I felt all the blood rush to my face, and my heartbeat started to echo painfully loud in my eardrums. “What?”
She sighed. “You see, son? I did it to protect you; to keep you away from that girl once I started to see that you were attracted to her. But in all my endeavors, this was the one time I failed. I’m not sure how it happened, but you ended up falling for her anyway. Ridiculous! Underestimating your foolishness is not a mistake I will make again. The kill-order on Lisette will stand, and hopefully, they’ll find her and extinguish this loose end before the day is up.”
I sat across the desk, staring at my mother and feeling as if everything I had ever known about my life, about her, about myself, had all just melted meaninglessly away.
“Now,” she continued as I sat there speechless. “I’m going to give you one more chance to set this all straight and fall into line. At the charity event, he will be there, leadership will exchange hands, and then you will have one last opportunity to fulfill the role you were meant to have.”
“What role?” I asked.
I felt as if I were still in a delusional state from the solid beating that I had taken back at the apartment. My mother’s thin lips pulled into the hideous grin that I had unfortunately inherited from her as a bad trait that appeared when I got mad. But, the words that fell forth from her lips stunned me so greatly that I almost puked on my shoes.
“You’re going to be the new Dean of Goldshire,” she said.
19
The private rooftop party at the aquarium was going to be an office party for some marketing firm that apparently had an impressive financial quarter. I had been sitting inside the greenhouse, imagining how angry and upset the guys were that I had left without telling them where I was going when I heard the wait staff talking about the party.
One of the servers had mentioned needing to ask for time off during the “big charity event” that was coming up on Friday, and I assumed that was the Lineage event that they were talking about. That meant I had two more days to hide out here before the event. So far, it was the perfect plan.
No one would think that I would be brazen enough to hide within the aquarium, the actual venue for Lineage’s big plan, not even Michael. I’m sure by now all three guys had scoured the Goldshire campus and probably the Lineage grounds too. The only thing I needed to do now was lay low, not get caught, and figure out how to get food, clothes, and maybe a bit of sleep before Friday.
I spent most of the morning up there on the rooftop until I started to feel a gnawing pain in my stomach. I waited until the coast was clear and then slid back down the stairwell into the aquarium. Fortunately, since they were making so many preparations on the roof, which required lots of back and forth, the stairwell door remained unlocked for now. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I ended up getting locked up there for two days without food or even a bathroom to use. At least the greenhouse was warm enough that I wouldn’t freeze to death.
I slunk around and bought some food at the self-serve food court. I tried to get enough snacks and things to last me just in case my fear of getting trapped on the roof became a reality.
“Hungry today?” the cashier teased as she rang up my purchases.
“Yeah,” I said. “I figure that the admission ticket is pricey enough to warrant spending the whole day here and getting my money’s worth.”
“I agree,” the girl said. She looked like she was maybe eighteen, and this was probably her part-time job during her senior year of high school. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“The seahorse exhibit is my absolute favorite,” she smiled. “It’s right next to the coat check on the first floor.”
The coat check. Of course.
With as many fancy events that they hosted here at the aquarium, I wondered if there was any shot at there being more than coats in there.
“Cool, thanks, I’ll check it out,” I said casually. “Hey, I was thinking of having my engagement party here in the spring and was wondering if there was a place to store my cocktail dress until the end of the evening. I just don’t want to keep it on the whole night once the dancing starts, but it’s kind of pricey, so I don’t really feel comfortable leaving it in the car either.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” she smiled. “They can hold that for you right there in the coat check too. People do it all the time. It actually never ceases to amaze me how many people forget to pick up their stuff after an event ends. You’d be surprised how many people never come back to get their fancy dresses and coats. If only I could be rich enough someday to not care if I left a thousand dollar dress behind.” She laughed, and I pretended to laugh with her. I gathered up my snacks and thanked her.
“Oh, and congratulations,” she said.
“For what?”
“On your engagement.”
Ugh, I’m horrible at all this sneaking around.
“Thanks,” I said as I walked away.
Bingo. That was the answer to my wardrobe problem for the charity event. When the aquarium closed tonight, I would go down to the coat check and find a dress to wear.
