The mansion was quiet with the faint smell of mulled wine wafting around from the kitchen. While I was gone, Christmas decorating had happened. The florist and maids had come and gone, leaving the library dust-free and filled with pots of poinsettias and a beautifully decorated blue spruce covered in literary-type ornaments. I found my Thooft contract on Millicent’s desk next to her Christmas cactus, just brought out into the light so it could start blooming.
Fats set her still-lit candle on the fireplace mantel and started doing squat thrusts combined with Judo or maybe it was Jiu-Jitsu. There was rolling on the rug. That’s all I know.
“What does it say?” she asked between grunts.
I leafed through the contract. I’d seen a billion of Dad’s contracts and it seemed standard. “They can shut me down.”
Fats snorted.
“They just have to pay for the time we’ve already spent,” I said.
She did a high-flying kick, barely missing the brand-new Christmas tree in the corner, and sending Pickpocket running for cover when she scurried to the fireplace in a crouch.
“You’re not going to be able to do that for much longer.”
“Wanna bet?” She went into a full split on one foot.
I spun around on the ancient desk chair and said, “Yes, I do.”
“You do?” she asked. “You realize that candle worked.”
“You realize that baby’s going to get a heck of a lot bigger?”
She assumed a fighting position and punched the air. “I better get while the getting is good.”
“You should eat,” I said, looking at the contract again and nothing jumped out, but I felt like something should have.
“I ate.”
“A protein shake that you threw up?”
Silence.
I took out my phone. “I’m going to call Claire. She’ll know if anything’s weird.”
The super organized Claire answered on the first ring. “Watts Premier Investigations. Claire speaking.”
“It’s Mercy. Do you have a minute?” I asked. “I’m looking at the Thooft contract.”
“Is there a problem?”
“You can’t tell my dad.”
She groaned. “Why? What did you do now? He’s so happy.”
Wait. What?
“Dad’s happy? Why?” I winced while waiting for both shoes to drop.
“You haven’t seen the news?” Claire asked.
“No. Oh, is it the air conditioner? That wasn’t my fault. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Air conditioner?”
“There was an air conditioner. Never mind. Did something else happen?” I asked.
“We are getting flooded with calls about St. Seb and it’s a great picture, too. Pickpocket really makes you seem normal,” said Claire.
“I am normal,” I said.
Fats snorted again.
“I am. What picture are you talking about?” I asked.
“You outside the St. Seb police station with Pickpocket. It’s all over the news.”
“There’s a story about me walking a poodle?”
“The story’s about you investigating Anton Thooft,” said Claire.
“Ah, crap.”
“Want the headline?”
Brace yourself.
“Let me have it,” I said.
“‘Bombshell beauty joins forces with perps’ parents to find the truth.’”
“That’s not too bad.” I leaned back and breathed deep the smell of mulled wine and…chocolate. Aaron appeared in the door with a pot.
“How’d you get in?” I asked him.
“I’m in the office at the house,” said Claire with a touch of worry. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Aaron just walked in.”
“Oh, he has the codes now. Anything else?”
“Yeah, the Thooft contract. Is there anything different about it?”
“Let me pull it and see,” said Claire.
Aaron gave me a mug and then stared over Fats’ head until she accepted hers.
“Did you put alcohol in this?” she asked after giving it a good sniff.
“Candy cane,” he said. “The baby likes it.”
“No, thanks. I’m trying to be sugar free.”
He didn’t move and it was a standoff. A very quiet one.
“Mercy?” Claire came back on the line.
“Got something?”
“No, it’s standard. None of the language was changed for this particular job. Boiler plate, basically, but I didn’t realize that that headline in the paper was wrong.”
“Wrong?” I wasn’t crazy about being called a bombshell, but it wasn’t up to me.
“You’re not working with the parents,” said Claire.
“I am. I met with them yesterday.”
“Okay. Fine.” Her eyes were rolling. I could tell. “You’re not working for the parents.”
I flipped to the first page and it said rather enigmatically that my contract was with the Thooft family. When I turned to the signature page, I found who I was actually working for Kimberly, Gregory, and Kevin, not their parents, Ann and Anthony.
“So it’s just the kids who really wanted an investigation,” I said, “but Anthony said they’d given their word. He was okay with it. Ann not so much.”
“Is that what you’re looking for?” she asked.
“I think so. Thanks.” I hung up and looked at the standoff still in progress. “Just drink it. The baby wants it.”
“My baby is going to be sugar free and low carb,” said Fats.
“Did your OB tell you to do that?”
She growled. “She told me to eat as much as I can because I have no fat layer. I need a new OB recommendation.”
“Every doctor will be the same. You don’t have a fat layer and the baby needs fat,” I said. “Aaron, tell her.”
“Drink it,” he said. “The baby likes it.”
“One sip,” she said and she did it. “Oh, no. That’s a lot of fat. What did you make this with?”
“Double cream.”
“My baby will have diabetes.”
“Drink it.”
The world’s most boring argument commenced and I decided to call Kimberly. Unless I missed my guess, she was firing me at the behest of her mother. Not gonna happen. Not this time, Ann.
“Hello. This is Mercy Watts,” I said, very businesslike and I was pretty proud of me.
“Oh, Mercy.” Kimberly sounded dismayed. Maybe she hoped I’d never call back and just, ya know, wander off or something.
“So you’re calling to fire me because your mother saw the news and we’re all over it.”
A whoosh of breath went out of her and I heard a sofa creak in distress. “How…how did you know?”
“I’m a speedboat, Kimberly, not a pontoon.”
“Of course not. I just…I’m so sorry. Mom decided to fire you and that’s how it is.”
I took a big drink of my hot chocolate that, thankfully, wasn’t made with double cream—I was now educated enough to know—and said, “She can’t.”
“What?” Kimberly asked.
“Fire me.”
“But I think you’re fired.”
“By your mother?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The chocolate hit me and my whole body relaxed. That candy cane was hitting the spot.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” said Kimberly.
“I’m saying your mother isn’t in charge,” I said.
She hesitated and I could tell she was absorbing that. It was a slow process. “Who is?”
“You, Gregory, and Kevin.”
“Well, then we fire you. I’m so sorry. So so sorry.”
I took another drink. “Put ‘em on the phone then.”
“Oh, they’re not here,” she said nervously.
“And they don’t know a thing about this. Am I right?” I asked.
“Please don’t make this difficult.”
“It’s about time somebody did.”
“What do you mean?” Kimberly asked.
I’m fired. What can it hurt?
“Answer a few questions and I might let you fire me,” I said.
“I don’t think it works like that,” she said.
“Let’s call your brothers and see how they think it works.”
She swallowed hard and I had to wait a long minute before she said, “Go ahead.”
“Why did your mother make you drop out of the school musical when you were in high school?” I asked.
I’m going out on a limb, but I think the only time Kimberly Thooft Stackhouse was more astonished was when she found out her brother kidnapped me. She sputtered and stuttered, hemmed and hawed.
I waited and listened to Aaron and Fats discussing good fats and bad fats. He thought they were all good and she thought they were all bad. It was like listening to congress. They were that opposed and intractable.
“I’m waiting,” I said at long last.
“She didn’t,” Kimberly said finally.
I made an annoying game show buzzer sound.
“I wasn’t any good.”
Another buzzer.
“I didn’t want to be in the show.”
Buzzer.
“It was just a crappy part.”
I can’t let that go.
“Oh, come on. You got the lead and you were flipping fantastic,” I said.
“How…how do you know?”
“‘Cause I know. Now why did your mother do the opposite of what every other mother I know would do?”
Fats gave me a funny look and then shockingly drank the hot chocolate. I gaped at her while trying to focus on what Kimberly was saying. “My mother is a wonderful mother. The best mother.”
“Who made you sob and quit the lead for no good reason.”
“She had a reason. I wasn’t that good. She didn’t want me to be disappointed when I didn’t get anywhere.”
Your mom sucks.
“So she didn’t let you try for fear of failure?” I asked.
“Um…yes, that’s it.”
“So why couldn’t you be in the Queen contest for the fair?” I gambled on that one, but I felt good about it and it payed off.
“I might not have won,” she said.
She did stop you.
“And what about the fair board? She made you give up that seat. Were you going to fail at that, too?”
Fats stood up. “I want more hot chocolate. The baby does like it.”
Aaron ran out of the room as fast as his little legs could carry him. I think I heard him chortling as he went.
“I wasn’t going to fail.” Kimberly’s voice broke. “I would’ve been good at it.”
It was my turn to take a breath. “That’s what I heard.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” I said. “Kimberly, why did you have to give it up? Why?”
“My mother said…oh, I don’t know what she said. She just kept talking and talking and then I was agreeing. I don’t know how it happened.”
I knew the feeling. All those jobs I did for Dad, for free no less. I always said no and then I was sitting in a car at two in the morning with a full bladder and a camera, waiting for some jerk to leave his mistress’ house.
“I get it,” I said.
“You’re still fired,” she said with more composure.
“No. I’m not. You started this, Kimberly, because you wanted to know why.”
“I did, but it’s got nothing to do with me,” she said.
I said nothing. I let it sit and this time it didn’t take long. I think she already knew.
“You think it does have something to do with me.”
“I do. Don’t you?”
“I don’t see how,” she said and then blew her nose. “Anton and I were so different.”
“Were you?” I asked. “He gave up a lot. A career in politics, public speaking. No interviews. No Jamie. Couldn’t be on the fair website.”
That woke her up. “Jamie? Who’s Jamie?”
I was starting to think Anton lived his life like a big shell game, hiding his truths and switching them around so people couldn’t see them.
“Jamie was his boyfriend for seven years. They were very much in love and Anton dumped him because of you.” I wasn’t harsh about it, but I was tired of being gentle. I needed more hot chocolate and I was close to getting fired from my first official PI job, like a loser.
Kimberly stammered something about Anton never being serious about anyone and playing the field. Maybe Anton was some kind of congenital liar. In any case, I was pretty sick of him and his crap.
“Do you want to hear what happened or do you want to keep living your life behind the curtain your mother and Anton kept putting in front of you?”
“I don’t think they did that,” she said angrily. “How dare you say—”
“You had a part on Broadway,” I said.
Kimberly went silent and there was a shuffling of the phone.
“Who is this?” Kimberly’s husband hadn’t said much when I was at the farm, but I knew an angry husband when I heard one.
“Mercy Watts. You don’t want me to be fired.”
“Who’s firing you?” Holt went from angry to what-the-hell in a blink of an eye.
“Your mother-in-law,” I said. “But whether the family pays me or not, this is happening. Anton came after me and I’m just about to find out why.”
“Are you?” Holt turned to Kimberly and started pelting her with questions that she cried through. “What’s this about Broadway?”
I gave him a quick rundown, ending with Jamie and the Broadway breakup. Holt was quiet throughout, a good listener and I suspected he was thinking hard about what I was saying.
“You believe that?” he asked when I was done.
“I do. Jamie lost the love of his life over it. I can’t imagine why he’d lie. He still loves Anton and, for the most part, he only had good things to say.”
“It’s always been like that,” said Holt quietly.
“What has?” I asked.
“Ann and Anton, keeping control of my wife.” He said something to Kimberly, who was trying to shush him.
“Would you be willing to talk to me about it?”
Holt cleared his throat and I pictured him thinking about his family, his wife and how much trouble this was going to cause him. “What do you want to know?”
I didn’t know what I wanted to know. That was the problem.
“I wish I could tell you, but I’m coming back out to St. Seb. Can you meet me?”
“Hold on.”
I heard him go out a door and then he said, “She can’t hear me now. What do you need? I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Really?” I expected a lot more resistance, if not an outright no.
“Look. I love this family, but if Ann’s trying to shut you down, there’s something we have to know. She’s been weird with Kim forever. She loves her but she…throttles her is the best way to put it and now she’s doing it with my kids. I’m not having it.”
“What’s Ann doing?” I asked.
“Our son Chase has an unbelievable voice. He wants to be a country music star and, believe me, he has the chops to do it. But Ann’s telling him he can’t. He isn’t good enough. It’s a pipe dream.” Holt’s voice got louder. “You know what? I don’t care if it is. A kid should dream and every time she says that crap to him it’s a cut on his soul, so whatever you want I’m going to give it to you. I want to know what is wrong with this family.”
“Meet me at the Sentinel in a couple of hours?”
“I’ll be there. What else?”
“Bring every family album you can lay your hands on,” I said.
“Consider it done,” said Holt.
“Good luck.”
“I won’t need it. This is happening.”
Now that’s a parent.