Kim paused and reined in her emotions. She would not be baited into talking about Mikey.
‘How the hell do you know this anyway?’ she asked, hiding her rage at this woman’s attempts to control her with information.
‘We’re still in touch.’
Kim was stunned and then wondered why she should be surprised. She’d thought this woman could surprise her no more, and yet she still managed to pull something unexpected out of the bag.
Alex had made contact with her mother a few years ago, pretending to be her. She had offered the woman forgiveness in Kim’s name, and then tried to use Kim’s hatred towards her mother as a manipulation tool. Kim had assumed that once the deception had been uncovered, the letters had stopped.
She should have known that Alex wouldn’t stop before she’d wrung every single ounce of twisted potential out of her mother.
‘I apologised for my deceit, and she now knows me as your friend.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s almost as much of a stretch as you pretending to be me. And, much as I’d love to stop and chat, if that’s the best you’ve got…’
‘Oh, it’s not even close, so please sit back down as we don’t have much time.’
Kim remained standing. She was getting a bit fed up being told what to do. This woman was either going to spill her poison or not but, judging from the guard’s repeated glances at the clock, she didn’t have long to do it.
‘We’ve become close, your mother and I. We’ve corresponded about many different things. She’s opened up to me; she trusts me. She’s told me things that she’s never told another living soul.’
Kim felt the nausea rising within her. The two people she hated most in the world forming some kind of sick attachment behind her back was beyond twisted.
‘Okay, enough build up. I can hear the suspenseful music playing. Spit it out.’
‘You may want to sit back down for—’
‘Okay, I’ve had enough,’ Kim said, moving away from the table.
‘It’s big, Kim. It’s something you’ve always wondered about, and I’ll tell you on Thursday when you bring your letter of recommendation for my release.’
Kim turned. ‘There’s no information you could have that would induce me to—’
‘Oh, but you’re wrong there, Kimmy,’ Alex said, using the name her mother had called her.
Alex walked towards Kim until they were inches apart. Her voice was low and menacing. ‘Bring that letter and I’ll tell you something that will change your life forever.’
‘You don’t have that power,’ Kim spat.
‘I don’t, but your father does, and I know who he is.’
Forty-Two
Kim didn’t let the air out of her lungs until she reached the safety of the car. Only then did she take some deep breaths to clear the swimming sensation in her head. Swimming or drowning she wasn’t sure which.
‘Well, that was a blast, eh, boy?’ she said, pulling Barney towards her. Right now, she needed the grounding reassurance of her best friend. He was happy to oblige and jumped onto her lap, forcing himself between her and the steering wheel.
She wrapped her arms around him as she tried to make sense of what she’d just been told.
Her father. The words sounded strange in her head. Mixed in with the emotions rolling around her head was the realisation that she had one.
She had given it great thought as a child. In every children’s home and every foster home, she’d prayed he was going to come and rescue her. That somehow, despite Mikey’s death, he would find a way to make it all okay. It had never happened, and the only father she’d ever known was Keith, the man who had fostered her from the age of ten to thirteen.
From him she had gained her love of motorcycles and restoration. She had learned to start and finish a project and to do it right. She had learned from both Keith and her foster mother, Erica, how to open your heart, just a fraction, to people who cared about you.
Over the years she had thought less and less about the man who had fathered her and her twin. She and Mikey had become the result of a one-person process.
The fact that she had a blood relative out there somewhere was blowing her mind. It was a link to Mikey.
All kinds of questions were running through her head. Had he known about them? Did she have brothers and sisters, cousins? Were any of them like Mikey? Did they have his characteristics – that sparkle in his eye when he laughed, the habit of using his hands when he told her a story?
‘Fuck you, Alex,’ she growled as the emotion started to build in her throat.
And what response had she been expecting in relation to the news about her mother? Kim already knew that was an appetiser, a snippet, a power play to show Alex had the scoop on her mother. It was a minor triumph. She was welcome to it. She had known the day would come that she’d receive this news, and it wasn’t that she didn’t know how to feel. It was the fact that she didn’t feel anything at all.
What narked her was Alex’s continued insistence in trying to force some kind of reaction, an epiphany that she had to act or lose her chance forever. She had no intention of visiting her mother and the barrier of indifference would remain in place. But damn Alex for keeping on pushing.
She pushed the other feelings aside and held on to the anger. That bloody woman always managed to stir something up inside her. She had known any mention of her father would lead right back to thoughts of Mikey, her one vulnerability, her one weakness that Alex was fully aware of. And that was what made her dangerous.
‘I swear, Barney, that woman—’
She stopped speaking as her phone rang.
Barney jumped back onto the passenger seat as she fished in her back pocket to retrieve it.
She frowned as she answered it.
‘Hey, Keats, you forget where you live or something?’
‘Just clearing up after the Macedonian tornado swept through.’
She smiled at the apt description. Both brilliant minds but completely different ways of working. There were times that she needed both, and much as she liked to bait Keats, he’d spent the day surrounded by the bones of a child.
‘I was just checking my emails before I left. I’ve received the dental records for Melody Jones. I haven’t had a good look yet, but I thought I’d let you know they were in.’
‘Keats, have you lost your mind?’
He’d called her to tell her he’d received an email.
‘I can’t forward it to you right now, as I’ve closed down my computer and have an early meeting tomorrow morning, which means I probably won’t get around to sending it until, say, ten o’clock.’
‘Keats, what the hell are you trying to tell…?’
Her words trailed away as she realised exactly what he was trying to say, without actually saying it and getting them both into trouble.
She thanked him and ended the call.
What she’d just learned was not going to help them one little bit.
Forty-Three
‘Okay, guys, look lively, no time to waste,’ Kim said at exactly 7.01 a.m. Her team appeared rested and alert. Good – they needed to be. This morning they were going to have to hit the ground running.