Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(83)

I showed Paul the photo of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail. He took my phone and stared at the photo without a single flicker of recognition.

“Uh, sure, honey,” he said. “Whatever you say.”

It was obvious from his expression that he’d not only never seen a photo of the triplets before in his life, but that he was hurt—hurt that the only reason we were in the studio was to con Delgado, not for me to take off my clothes and give Paul a professional eight-by-ten glossy print of myself in my naked glory, perhaps posing with a tastefully positioned feathered fan.

If Paul was reading CeeCee’s newsletter, he was skipping any entries about Debbie, because they always included a photo of the triplets.

But seeing their likeness so close to him, I was more convinced than ever that they were related. They could have been clones, except for the fact that the girls all had braids and freckles.

Passing my phone back to me, Paul whispered, “Is this about some goddamned ghost?”

“You’re just figuring that out now?” I whispered back.

“I swear to God, Simon, if this makes us late to dinner—”

“No one said anything about being late to dinner.”

His jaw hardened. The blue-eyed gaze narrowed at me. “The deal was that we were going to—”

“—have dinner at eight o’clock. With dessert afterward. Don’t worry, we won’t be late.” I pressed a button on my phone and said in a much louder voice, “Victor says tomorrow will work fine, Mr. Delgado.”

“Wonderful, wonderful!” Delgado was clapping his hands, circling back toward his desk. “I hope you won’t find this presumptuous, but if you wouldn’t mind, I printed out a brief contract, and it would be lovely if you could sign it so we can get everything squared away for tomorrow, and be ready to go when you drop off the girls. It’s really nothing too complicated, I think you’ll agree, just a cancellation agreement, instructions about reproduction rights, that sort of thing. Boilerplate, really.”

“Oh, Victor will be happy to sign,” I said, patting Paul on the shoulder. “Won’t you, Victor?”

I couldn’t believe there were parents in the world who’d be stupid enough to fall for this guy’s spiel. Would anyone actually leave their kids, unaccompanied, with this creep?

“Sure,” Paul said with a sigh, moving toward the desk. “I’ll sign it.”

Well, that answered my question.

While Delgado went over the “brief contract” with Paul, I walked around the studio, pretending to admire his hideous photos. Some of them weren’t portraits of kids, but landscapes or extreme close-ups of the weathered faces of homeless people that Delgado had blown up to five times life-size. I suppose he thought this made him extremely sensitive and artistic.

A lot of the criminals I’d mediated had thought of themselves this way: outsiders who no one in this world could understand. Society simply wasn’t sensitive enough to comprehend their suffering. This is why—in their opinions—they hadn’t really been breaking the law: the law did not apply to them, because they were so special.

I kid you not. I’d heard it a thousand times.

There was another room off the main gallery. This appeared to be Delgado’s office. In keeping with the black-and-white theme, everything in it was white. It contained another desk, this one with a laptop computer on it. No one was sitting at the desk. There was another door from this office. When I tried it, I found that it led to a very spare, very tidy windowless bathroom, also in white.

There were no other doors.

“So your assistant isn’t here right now, Mr. Delgado?” I asked as I came back into the main gallery.

“No,” he said with a rueful smile. “I let him go home early today. It’s Friday, and with the beautiful weather we’ve been having lately, he wanted to go to the beach. How could I say no?”

“How could you?” I looked out the display window, past the gigantic portraits hanging there, at the few people walking by. It was dinnertime, and getting cold. Everyone sane had headed indoors. “We were your last appointment?”

“Yes, but well worth the wait. I’m glad I met with Mr. Maitland’s approval.” He beamed at Paul. “It’s not every day I get to photograph triplets.”

I reached out and grabbed the cord to the blinds in the display window. I snapped it so that the metal blinds closed with a loud crash.

“Oops,” I said. “How clumsy of me.”

“Oh.” Delgado was seated at his desk. His smile disappeared, but he didn’t look alarmed. “That’s all right, Mrs. Maitland. That happens, er, all the time.”

“Does it?” I asked. “How about this?” I stepped to the front door and locked it.

Now he began to look alarmed. He glanced at Paul, as if for reassurance. Paul’s expression seemed to make him feel better, since Paul was staring at me. Paul didn’t look alarmed, however. He looked exasperated.

“Suze,” he said. “Come on. I thought we were here for—”

“For what, Paul?” I reached down and unzipped the sports bag. “To get kinky? Oh, don’t worry. We are. Just not in the way you thought.”

“I thought your name was Victor.” Delgado glanced at Paul in confusion.