“What the hell is all this?” he asked, staring so hard that he thought his eyeballs might dry out.
“Cover,” Delaney said shortly. She had brought them up to her room and, while Lillith used the bathroom, had gone straight to a safe underneath the coffeepot. She keyed in the combo, checked to make sure something was in there
(passport?)
then rummaged around and closed it again; when she stood, her hands were empty.
“What?”
“Cover,” she replied. “Did you lose your hearing along with your money?”
“No, but the way this day’s been, it wouldn’t surprise me if I spontaneously went deaf from full-body exposure to toxic canal water.”
Delaney snorted, because she was a heartless wench.
Rake looked around her room, which was too big to be a standard and too small to be a suite, at the serviceable desk and chair, a lovely big bed with the de rigueur padded headboard, a small kitchen area, and a great big window overlooking the hotel garden. All of which was eclipsed by the Easter baskets, toys, candy, and school supplies on every surface save the bed. And Peeps. Loads and loads of Peeps, pink Peeps and yellow Peeps and blue and lavender Peeps, Peeps as far as the eye could see, a goddamned rainbow of Peeps. He had drowned in the canal and this was Hell.
“Cover for what, exactly?” Was Delaney some kind of rogue Easter bunny? With a Peep fetish?
“Never mind.”
“Oh, okay. Not too mysterious.”
The toilet flushed and Delaney lowered her voice. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do about Lillith?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he replied, and he was pretty sure he’d never uttered a truer statement. “And why would I? We don’t even know if I’m her dad! Which I’m probably not, since I never knew anyone named Donna. Where’s her mother? Surely she can straighten this out.”
“Ah. That. It’s a long story.”
“And a mysterious one, too, I’m betting. Because that’s the way things are going.”
“It hasn’t been fun and games for Lillith, either,” she snapped. “You could try thinking about someone who isn’t you. Just for a change of pace. Just to see if you like it.”
He made a concerted effort to stomp on his temper. “This is the third time I’ve asked for details about her and/or her mysteriously missing mother and been put off.”
“Third?”
“I asked Lillith while we were walking over here.”
“You—you did?”
“Well. Yeah. It was a three-mile walk. The conversation was lagging.”
Delaney looked and sounded—could it be?—tentative. “What’d she say?”
“That she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. What’d you say?”
“I said okay, and we didn’t talk about it. Then I took a break to dry-heave into a bush, and we continued on until we got here, where we’re still not talking about it.”
“Well.” She leaned against the dresser, knocking packs of Peeps onto the floor as she did so. “You can’t blame her.”
“I have no idea whether or not to blame her, because I don’t know what’s going on! You can’t pop up out of nowhere—twice—and then dump a kid on me you think might be mine and expect me to have her enrolled in Meadows by the end of the day. Especially since, hello, I’m not exactly equipped to do the dad thing, especially today.”
“Enroll in what?”
He waved away the Meadows School. “It’s a pricey private school in Vegas. Although it wouldn’t be my first choice, ’cause I wouldn’t want her to grow up into an entitled rich d— We’re getting off track.”
“That’s a fair point about my word,” she admitted. “But you won’t have to take my word for it much longer—”
“I’m not taking your word for it at all.”
“—because we’ll have the DNA results in a couple of days.”
What
the
fuck?
When he was sure he wouldn’t scream, he said, “It sounded like you said you’re waiting on DNA results. But that can’t be right, since I haven’t submitted DNA for such a test.”
“Now, don’t turn this around on me,” she began, and he groaned.
“Literally every time someone says that, it’s because they want the focus off whatever horrible fucking thing they just did.”
“Hey, it’s my job.”
“It’s your job to hang out in Italy to procure DNA for a test you arranged without the subject’s permission?”
She shrugged. “Kinda.”
He pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed. Squash … urge … to strangle … gorgeous nutjob … “Okay, first? That’s weird. You’re a weird girl, Delaney. Second, how the hell did you manage to get your hands on my precious, precious DNA, annnnnnd now I’m remembering that I barfed on you a couple of times. It’s my own fault,” he admitted. “I was practically giving it away!”
Delaney made a strange noise, like she was trying to turn a laugh into a cough. “The point is—”
“You have a weird job that requires you to do weird things.”
“—you won’t have to take my word about Lillith when the results come in. So.”
“So…”
“So you’ll know she’s yours—or not—and you can arrange your life accordingly.”
He could only stare. “Just like that.”
“Yep.”
“It’s just that easy.”
“I don’t think it’ll be easy at all, but that’s how it is.”
“And if I’m not her father?”
“Then you’re not her father and I go to the next guy on the list. That’s why I’m here. I was hired to track down and test the candidates, and give the lucky winner custody of Lillith.”
“Right, but … if I’m not the proud papa, what happens next?” Not that it was any of his business, but from where he was standing, this looked like a barely contained mess. So once he was out of the picture, where did that leave Lillith?
Not that he cared.
“Then it’s no longer your problem.”
“And I’m one of the names on your list because…” He’d bet the money in his wallet in the canal that the safe held her list, and probably some other goodies, too.
“Because her mother said so. And in nine years, Donna Alvah never lied to me.”
“Ah-ha!” He felt like jumping up and down but was wary of crushing Peeps and chocolate Easter eggs. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Except we aren’t, because you’ve said that name before and weren’t forthcoming either time.” A pause while her words sank in, then: “You’ve known Lillith’s mom for almost a decade?”
“We served together.”
“Like, in the army? You look like you’re in your early twenties. Are you a veteran? And—”
She cut him off with an impatient gesture. “We were friends and then we weren’t. She went for a different life and that was fine. But then she got into trouble and her default kicked in, which was to make a big mess and then disappear. And that’s when everything went tits-up,” Delaney finished with more than a hint of bitterness.
Whoa. “You’re mad at her,” he realized aloud. At least that’s what it sounded like. Christ. Even when he was getting details, he wasn’t really getting details. “Wait, this Donna person, she went into hiding? Like a WITSEC thing?”
“No, Lillith did.”
“Why? And when?”
“That’s where it gets murky—”
“Oh, that’s where?”
“—because the thing is—”
“The thing is, Mama hid me and got run over, so it took a long time to find me,” Lillith said from the bathroom doorway, and then burst into tears.