chapter forty-five

A lone tear tracked down her cheek.

“Why, Michaela,” I said, surprised. “What is it?”

“I’ve failed you. I’ve been a vain, stupid woman and I’ve screwed up your lives.”

Cadence had not fled. Had not even stepped back. She’d pushed me forward, gently but firmly. She knew something, had guessed something. She knew what Michaela was about to say, and she wanted me to be front and center for it.

And I was afraid, I was very afraid.

“What do you mean?” I asked, so softly it was more a whisper.

“The royalties from Paul’s other software have kept BOFFO in the black for a long time. But the economy is shit. And you’re expensive. You’re all expensive, but—”

“But?”

“Worth it. Always worth it. You’re all so—so gifted and so troubled and you just needed a safe place and people who wouldn’t judge or be afraid and I wanted that for you, for all of you, and at first there was money in the trust and then Paul’s software royalties, and I’ve known the well was drying for months but I also knew HOAP was humming along but now—now—” She dropped the knife from trembling fingers. “A woman is dead! And she is dead only because I got complacent, because I thought brilliance equated understanding. She’s dead because I forgot that BOFFO’s primary function was to keep you safe from the world, but also to keep the world safe from you. I got caught up in the fantasy, the law enforcement, and two dead pros are three dead pros.”

“And the killer was—”

“I do not give two shits for the killer,” she corrected me sharply, and I reminded myself whom I was talking to.

I saw him, I knew him … I stuck a screwdriver in Mr. Lavik’s ear.… I could barely choke down that four-course meal later.

“BOFFO did not lose funding. There … there never was a BOFFO, was there?”

“No, of course not.”

“Wow, I’m right yet again.” George was lifting his head and gently knocking it against the countertop. “And yet it’s never felt shittier.”

“Must you always marinate in the plastic bowl of your ignorance?” I snapped.

“I don’t know what else to marinate in.”

I turned back to Michaela. “Please continue.”

“Continue what? I just told you everything. You, the one person I promised myself I’d—” She shook her head angrily, but I did not know if she was angry with me or with herself. “You’re not FBI agents. BOFFO isn’t a government agency.”

I could hardly hear her over the roaring in my ears. I did not know how to feel. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to seize George’s head and really smack it on the counter. “Why?”

“How else to keep the lot of you in line, unless you thought you worked for the government, for the side of law and order? How else to protect you except to impress on all of you that there are rules at ‘BOFFO’? If you knew you could do as you liked with few consequences, that we have—had—an absurd amount of funding and several high-ups bribed to look the other way, you would be even more unmanageable than you are!”

“So it was—ow—all about—ow—managing us?”

“Only the ones like you, Pinkman, and stop smacking your filthy head on my clean counter. For the others, it was about protecting them, helping them, and then showing them how to use what they are and what they have to help others. We aren’t FBI, but most of our ‘busts’ have been good. The killers we’ve caught are in jail or dead.” Michaela brightened a little at the thought of the dead ones. “We are licensed private investigators, among other things, and thus our investigations are admissible in court.”

“I have testified in court,” I said, horrified. “I have perjured myself! I am a perjurer!”

“Don’t be silly.” Michaela’s brisk tone was like a dash of cold water in my eyes. Or acid. “Perjury is when you knowingly lie. You wouldn’t knowingly lie if someone stuck a gun in your ear.”

It was absurd, but that mollified me. “The training?”

“You needed training. Those of you who wanted to carry needed to learn, needed to get permits. Even those who didn’t needed the discipline. The training was so you would keep to the law—PI’s have to stay within the scope of the law as best they can. You’ve investigated. You’ve made arrests. You’ve testified in court.”

“The warrants?”

Michaela smiled, a thin, humorless smile. “Friendly judges. And some of us are cops. Or were cops. And we have friends.”

We work for different people, but we all share info. She had told me that in this very room, and I had thought nothing of it. Because I was a fool, and she was a liar.

“And you would be amazed at how liberal the laws for such things are in the great state of Minnesota. And some of you…” She hesitated, and I braced myself. What fresh hell was coming? “Your psychological quirks helped you keep the truth from yourself. Yourselves.”

“Do not put your deception on us!” I snapped.

“If you wanted to know the truth, you would have allowed yourself to see. He did.”

“Leave me—ow—out of this.”

“Your biggest lie yet.” I was so angry I could hardly see. “You tricked us, you lied, but it was on us because we were fool enough to believe you?” We were fool enough to believe her, Cadence whispered from deep inside our brain. “You sound like some of the people we have arrested … except we were not arresting them, not really!”

“What to say?” Michaela held up her hands, eerily reminding me again of our first meeting, when she made the same gesture with cuffed wrists. “I did trick you. I did lie.” I glared into her calm green eyes. What did I want to see? Remorse? Fear? Despair?

“So you— This entire time, you’ve been—” I turned to George. “Who did you say she was?”

“Ow! Arvin Sloane. Really, you guys? I’m banging my head on the counter and there’s just no concern?”

“I certainly am not Arvin Sloane! I’m Jack Bristow. I protect my children at all costs, in whatever way I must. Where do you think someone like Paul would have ended up if not for me and, later, BOFFO? What mischief do you think George would attempt if I were not watching over him? He’s unscrupulous, charming, conventionally handsome, and utterly amoral. Do you want him at large on the planet or in here with us?”

“Wow.” George seemed genuinely touched. “Ow.”

“Or you, Shiro? Any of the three of you? Adrienne has brought about millions in property damage. Millions, plural, long before we met. You have killed, and when I met you, you were creeping your way through the system as a freelance writer with no real income, no home of your own, and all the time terribly frightened you would be noticed, exposed. And Paul, my Paul … the real world devours people like him, and everyone in this room knows it.”

“But you use his software. He is your cash cow; he funds your big lie.”

“Of course. He asked me to. He’s signed over the management of all his financial affairs to me.” Her gaze softened as she looked over my shoulder to the doorway Paul had walked out of. “He’s my son, my own boy.”

“Ow!” George stood straight, rubbing his bright-red forehead. “Oh, come on! Give me a fucking break! What, this wasn’t soap opera-ey enough with Shiro shacking up with Aunt Jane and wanting to bone Max Gallo?”

“Sorry, what?”

“George, shut up.” I turned back to her. “Paul is your son? You adopted him?”

“Decades ago. He was alone, and I was alone, and never mind my husband. At first I pitied him, like you would a stray dog. Then I grew to respect him. Even as a small child, he had a formidable intellect, an exceptional way of seeing the world. And then when I saw the goodness behind the brilliance, I loved him as my very own boy, and so he is. And I needed a safe place where he could work and be himself, surrounded by people like him who would keep him safe, and his inventions would keep them safe, and around and around it was supposed to go except it’s done now. It’s all done now.”

And Michaela Nelson burst into furious tears.