He shakes his head.
“Good boy. It wouldn’t do for anyone to hear what really goes on in here.”
“And what do you think goes on in here, Mackenzie?” He says it with a laugh in his voice. It’s weird, hearing my father laugh about something very, very grim. I can’t remember the last time I heard him laugh in my presence. Dad and I are the serious ones. Mom and Felix were the ones who loved to laugh and joke with each other.
She shrugs. “You know, shady dealings, backroom deals, that sort of thing. For someone who’s taken a hard stance against organized crime in this city, it’s interesting how your name keeps coming up in Tartarus Oaks.”
It’s a bluff, but he can’t see that. His shields are up. He knows he gave her too much last time, but he doesn’t yet know what she’s capable of. He stares Claudia down with a gaze every bit as cold as her own, but I notice him touching the spot where Tiberius pressed the barrel of his gun.
“I’m calling in my favor.”
“So soon?”
She thrusts her hands onto her hips and tilts her head to the side so her hair spills over her shoulder in a golden wave. “What really happened with Felix?”
“That’s what you want to know?”
“You pissed yourself instead of giving us an answer, and your son would appreciate the closure.”
My father leans back in his chair. “As I told you, Howard Malloy allowed me to bring the case to trial. My wife needed it. She was a resourceful woman. I knew if she couldn’t get answers from the court, she might look for them elsewhere, and I couldn’t allow her to…” his voice trails off, and his gaze flicks over to me. I’m surprised by the calm way his words wash over me. I see him for what he is, and I realize I feel nothing. All my life I’ve been afraid of this man. I’ve done everything I can to make him like me, to hear him say he’s proud of me. And he’snothing. He’s not worth it.
I know the answer, Dad. You couldn’t allow her to discover what you’d done.
He put us through the hell of that public trial. He drove Mom to end her life in our swimming pool, all because he refused to admit what he did to Felix.
Dad clears his voice and continues. “Malloy promised me he’d got rid of all the evidence. We went through the plan numerous times, searching for a hole either of our lawyers could use to incriminate us. We were satisfied what we’d done would die with us. Malloy knew he’d never be found guilty. In exchange for the farce of the trial, I would push through legislative reforms that would allow his newest products onto the market, right when the trial made Malloy Supplements a household name.”
“That was his price?” Claudia says. “Interesting. My father usually drives a hard bargain.”
The senator sighs. “It’s not all. Malloy wanted to move a large shipment into Emerald Beach. He said that the usual methods were closed to him for the time being. He assured me the shipment wasn’t drugs or anything that would go against my moral stand in the community. I did as he asked. I pulled back my teams from the docks on the night I knew his shipment was heading out. I thought we had everything square, then Malloy shows up here late that night, fuming that his shipment has been stolen. He’s convinced I swiped it from under his nose, but why would I do a thing like that? I told him to get the fuck off my property, that our business was over. The next day I found Harriet…” he swallows. “My wife.”
That’s not entirely true.Ifound her. I came home from swim practice. The house was empty, her breakfast dishes still sitting at the table, her muesli untouched. The patio door was open and I walked outside and there she was, face-up in the water, a cinder-block looped around her ankle. Her fingers bobbing on the surface, clutching a sodden note with words I could barely make out.
I CAN’T GO ON WITHOUT HIM.
I don’t remember what happened after that. I don’t remember calling Dad, but I must’ve because at some point he was there too, at the house, holding me, crying on my shoulder, stroking my hair as he held me against his chest. I can’t remember him doing that before or since.
“You think Malloy had something to do with Mom’s death?” I need to sit down. My head swims. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me affected by this.
“Your mother was a fighter. She had to be. She was married to me. I don’t believe she killed herself.” Dad swallows. “I have contacts with a dangerous man named Constantine Dio. He’s connected with one of the crime families my task force has been hunting. I told them I’d look the other way in Emerald Beach if they put the hit out on Malloy and his family. I would take from him what he took from me.”
My knees buckle. I grip the doorframe to hold myself upright.
My mother didn’t kill herself.
Howard Malloy took her from me, all because of this shipment. Howard Malloy destroyed my life, my family, and got clean away with it.
“What was this shipment?” Claudia demands. She keeps her body facing my father, but her eyes flick to me. I draw strength from her defiance. It takes everything I have to keep standing, keep breathing, keep my fingers from sliding around my father’s neck and squeezing the life from his cowardly body.
“I told you, I have no idea.” The senator shifts some papers on his desk. “Now, if that’s all, I have some work to get on with.”
She laughs. “That wasn’t my favor, Senator. We were just talking.”
He rises in his seat, his face murderous. Claudia twirls the tip of her blade on the corner of his desk. He sits back down again.
“I have fifty-three women and girls, brought here from various countries to be sold into sexual slavery. I want you to help them.”
He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. Of all the favors he imagined owing Mackenzie Malloy, this never made the list.
