Regina went on instant alert. “Leah? What is it, honey?”
“Please go get the kids from school.”
“Are you okay? Are the kids okay?”
“They are.” She hoped. “Please, go get them for me. Something—happened and—I need to know they’re safe. Please.” She choked on the last word and the floodgates opened.
The female firefighter took the phone from her before it slipped out of her hands. Leah heard her talking to Regina but couldn’t track the conversation. Everything shook and she felt cold down to her very soul.
Today had started with so much promise. And now…
This was all so very wrong. This wasn’t her world and certainly wasn’t a world she wanted her children to know. Goddamn Danny. He had brought this…this…insanity into their lives thanks to his flirtation with HORNET, and then he’d died, leaving her to deal with the fallout.
Sometimes she really hated him.
And hated herself for feeling that way. What kind of evil woman was she to have so much anger toward her dead husband?
She pushed that thought away as she always did. She had too much else to deal with to spend time wading through the quagmire of emotions associated with Danny Giancarelli. She had children to care for and she had to make a living. She had to survive. Nothing else mattered.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when the police returned with backup. Apparently, there was a dead body on the property. They showed her a photo, asked if she recognized him.
She held her breath, strangely afraid it would be the British man.
It wasn’t.
She exhaled softly. “I think he was one of the men who attacked me. I can’t be sure. I didn’t really see their faces. Just their guns.”
“How did he end up dead?” one of the women officers asked. She wasn’t ungentle about it, but Leah heard the suspicion in her voice.
“I don’t know.” Which was true. She didn’t know for sure how he died. She’d only gotten a glimpse of him as she was running for her life.
“Were you armed?”
“No. I’ve never even touched a gun in my life.”
The two women stared at her for a long ten seconds. They knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Just like she always knew when her twins were lying. The officers could see right through her, and she resisted the urge to squirm. Squirming always gave the twins away.
They asked more questions. She answered to the best of her ability—except she still didn’t tell them about Alexander Cabot or the drive he had given her. She should. She knew she should. The drive all but burned in her pocket, branding her leg. She should reach in and fish it out and tell them about the British man who sacrificed himself to save her.
Don’t trust the FBI. Don’t trust anyone in uniform.
Dammit.
She kept her mouth shut.
After what felt like an eternity, one of the officers drove her to Regina’s town house. Regina was already there, opening the door as the patrol car pulled up. She must have been keeping watch out the big bay window in her front room. She swept down the front steps and gathered Leah up in a huge hug.
Regina Deangelo didn’t look like she was approaching sixty. She dyed her hair a deep auburn and her olive skin was the smooth, wrinkle-free complexion of a much younger woman. Except for the skin around her dark eyes, which wrinkled every time she laughed or smiled.
Marcus had her smile, her eyes, and those same laugh lines. At least he had until he stopped laughing last summer.
A little eccentric, Regina possessed an endless collection of glasses and ponchos. Today, she wore white plastic frames in a funky cat eye and a gauzy purple poncho over a white tank top. She smelled of lavender as she wrapped Leah up with a strength that belied her small stature.
It took every ounce of self-control Leah had not to fall apart. Her own mother had never held her like this, and Danny’s parents, while wonderful, had died about ten years ago, his mother of cancer and his father of a massive heart attack less than a year later. Regina was really the only family Leah had left.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Oh, amore. No need to thank me. I love you and I love those babies of yours. They’re the closest to grandchildren I’m going to get, since my useless son doesn’t see fit to give me any.”
Despite everything, a smile curved Leah’s lips. Regina called Marcus useless, but the affection in that one word made it sound like an endearment. She could only hope she’d have the same loving relationship with her sons when they reached adulthood. “Have you spoken to him recently?”
As soon as she voiced the question, she wanted to reach out and snatch it back. She didn’t care about Marcus. He’d abandoned her when she most needed a friend. No, not just a friend. She had plenty of those. She had needed him, someone who intimately knew her loss, understood her pain. And he’d left her without so much as a see you later. He’d cared more about getting revenge than her.
Regina scoffed and led her into the house. “Not recently. The little shit has been dodging my calls.”
“Is…he okay?” Dammit. Another question she had no business asking. It didn’t matter.
A frown creased the smooth skin between Regina’s manicured brows. “He says so, but…” She let the thought trail off and then waved the conversational thread away with one swipe of her hand. She pulled Leah down to sit next to her on the sofa in the front room. “Tell me what happened today.”
Leah shook her head. She wasn’t ready to talk just yet. She gazed at the ceiling as a loud thunk sounded from upstairs. “Can I check on the kids first? I need to see them.”
“Of course. And while you’re up there, shower and change out of those clothes. I’ll put some tea on.”
That was Regina for you. In her mind, tea cured everything that ailed you.
Leah smiled to herself as she made her way upstairs, beginning to relax for the first time since the bullets started flying. This was exactly what she’d needed—the comfort and safety of home.
She paused briefly on the landing where Regina had hung all of Marcus’s school photos. He’d been an adorable child, especially when he was her daughter’s age. At nine, his smile was gap-toothed, and wild springs of dark curls stuck up every which way from his head. Of all the photos his mom plastered her home with, he hated that particular picture the most.
She’d never known him like that—young and adorably awkward. She met Marcus and Danny her freshman year of high school, after they had already started growing into their bodies. She and Danny had both been on the track team. For her, it had been love at first sight. For him…well, he’d been his usual cautious self. They’d flirted for nearly a year before he finally asked her out. Back then, you couldn’t love Danny without also loving Marcus. They were more like brothers than friends, a package deal. They’d been the boys every girl in school had swooned over, and they’d been hers.