The Enlightened (Mind Dimensions #3)(25)

“But Mira’s dad—”

“Wasn’t with the mob,” she cuts in. “I realize that. He was a scientist.”

“Okay. This is what I was talking about. The people who killed Mira’s family are obviously dangerous—”

“Actually, no,” she says. “I mean, yes they were dangerous, but not anymore. Not given what I just found out. Once I started digging, I cracked the case. Most of the players involved turned up dead a few weeks ago. The only reason this is still on my mind is because of that misinformation about Mira’s father...”

Shit. When I do tell her everything, it’ll have to include the truth about what happened to those now-dead players and how I was involved in their deaths.

“You there?” she asks when I don’t say anything for a couple of seconds.

“Yeah, sorry,” I say. “So who’s dead?”

“The Russian assassin who most likely planted the bomb in Mira’s father’s car,” she says. “If it wasn’t for the error about Mira’s father being in the mob, I suspect even my less talented former colleagues in Organized Crime would’ve figured out who’d planted it. That tidbit about this being a mob hit ruined every chance for her parents to get justice. And I can’t help but wonder about that. This misinformation makes it seem as though these people, this Russian crew, had someone on the inside, looking out for their best interests—”

“Mom,” I interrupt, “as crazy as it sounds, I want you to stop working on this case and do nothing until I speak with you in person.”

“Darren.” She lets out a sigh. “Are you on drugs again?”

Damn it. She catches me smelling like weed one time, and for the rest of my life, she’s worried about me being ‘on drugs.’ “Mom, I am not on drugs,” I say patiently. “Have I ever asked you for something like this?”

“Well, no—”

“So now I’m asking you to do this, no matter how strange it sounds. I’m taking a red-eye to New York, and I’ll tell you everything as soon as I get there. Everything will make sense, I promise. I need like six hours or so, if I get lucky with the tickets.”

“This is nuts,” she says, but her voice sounds uncertain. “Then again, it’s not like I could’ve made much progress—”

“Watch the Godfather again,” I suggest. “The whole trilogy.”

I know how much she likes mafia movies, especially the ones set during the early history of the mob, long before Lucy’s career began. They’re more fun for her because she can’t complain as much about how they got all the facts wrong about the ‘real’ underworld.

“Fine,” she says. “You’re lucky I can’t do much with this internal breech theory anyway. It’s a very delicate matter, as you can imagine.”

I look at the phone. It’s 4:00 p.m. The GPS estimates I’ll arrive in Miami in about four hours. Add in a couple of hours to get to the airport and board the next available flight, and I’ll probably arrive in NYC sometime during the middle of the night. “I’ll do my best to be back tonight.”

“Call me as soon as you land.”

“It’s a deal,” I say.

“And Darren,” she says as her goodbye, “you better have a good explanation for all this.”





*





I park Caleb’s car in our hotel’s parking lot and make my way toward the hotel’s entrance. As I approach, I see Mira standing there. As soon as she lays eyes on me, an expression of sheer outrage flits across her face.

“Darren!” she yells. “You f*cking bastard.”

She’s shouting at me from across the main road. The passersby look uncomfortable and try to stay out of her way as she heads toward me. I can sympathize with them. How else would you react to hearing a young, attractive woman dropping the f-bomb this loudly in the middle of the street?

“Mira,” I say once she’s crossed the road, having ignored the loud honks coming from an * inside a red convertible. “I’m happy to see you too. I’m about to tell you the craziest story—”

She runs up to me and, standing up on her tiptoes, gives me a big hug. Her breathing is jerky and uneven. Whatever anger she felt has clearly been replaced by something else.

“You stupid shit,” she says, pulling back after a moment. Her eyes look suspiciously moist. “Do you have any idea how worried we all were? Any f*cking clue?”

“Not my fault,” I say quickly. “I was taken.”

“What?”

“I was kidnapped by my own grandparents. I know,” I say in answer to her perplexed expression. “I told you, I’ve got a crazy story.”

“We had the beachfront searched for your body,” she says grimly.

I sense she didn’t really hear my ‘I was taken’ and ‘kidnapped’ comments.

“Your aunt made them search, and we were about to file a missing person’s report,” she continues, her voice quavering.

“Listen.” I cradle her face between my palms. “It was Caleb. He approached me as I was leaving the bar, and took me at gun point.”

“Caleb?” she asks, my words finally registering. “What did he want with you? Is this about Jacob?”