Michael shrugged as he descended the stairs to stand on the runway. “What are the chances that I’ll do something stupid if you don’t let me come, Agent Tightpants?”
Briggs didn’t reply, which told me that Michael’s threat had landed. Agent Sterling stepped in front of Michael before he could say anything else. “Briggs understands more than you think,” she told him softly. She didn’t provide any context for that statement, but I found myself wondering how Briggs had grown up, if he had firsthand experience with Thatcher Townsend’s brand of parenting.
There was a long silence as Michael tried to ignore whatever emotions he saw on Sterling’s face.
Agent Starmans, who’d been on our protection detail more than once in the last ten weeks, cleared his throat. “I’d really prefer you didn’t make me spend my afternoon forcing you to stay put,” he told Michael.
Michael offered him a dazzling smile. “And I’d prefer if you didn’t peruse online dating profiles on your work phone.” He winked at the mortified agent. “Dilated pupils, slight smile, followed by visible agonizing about how to compose just the right message? It’s a dead giveaway every time.”
Starmans clamped his mouth shut and strode to stand next to Agent Vance.
“Now that was just mean,” Lia commented.
“Who?” Michael countered. “Me?”
I knew him well enough to know that if he decided to do something stupid, Starmans wouldn’t be able to stop him. When you’re hurting, you hurt yourself. I wanted to stop there but couldn’t, because I knew exactly where Michael’s love affair with self-destruction came from. If you can’t keep someone from hitting you, you make them hit you, because at least then you know it’s coming. At least then you know what to expect.
Turning away from Michael before he could read the expression on my face, I saw a row of gleaming black Mercedes SUVs parked at the edge of the private airstrip. Four of them. A closer inspection revealed that the keys were in the ignitions and that each of the four had been stocked with sparkling soda and fresh fruit.
“No warm nuts?” Lia commented, her voice dry. “And they call this hospitality.”
Michael offered her his most careless smile. “I’m sure my father will remedy any disappointment. We Townsends pride ourselves on hospitality.”
Your father arranged for transportation. Four SUVs, when two would do. I tried not to read too much into the way Michael had grouped himself in with his father, like Townsend men were Townsends first and anything else was a distant second—no matter how far they’d run.
“We’re not visiting dignitaries,” Briggs said flatly. “We’re not clients Thatcher Townsend needs to woo. This is a federal investigation. The local field office is perfectly capable of supplying us with a car.”
Sloane raised her hand. “Will that car have three rows of air bags, a seven-speed automatic transmission, and a five hundred fifty horsepower engine?”
Lia raised her hand. “Will that car have warm nuts?”
“Enough,” Sterling declared. She turned toward Michael. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I don’t care about your father’s hospitality, except insofar as it tells me that he’s grandiose, prone to unnecessary gestures, and seems to have conveniently forgotten the fact that we’ve already seen behind the man behind the curtain. We know exactly what he is.”
“Behind the curtain?” Michael said loftily, striding toward the farthest SUV. “What curtain? My father would be the first to tell you: with Townsends, what you see is what you get.” He pulled the keys out of the ignition and tossed them in the air, catching them lazily in one hand. “Based on the set of Agent Sterling’s mouth, not to mention those impressively deep brow ridges Agent Briggs is working, I have inferred that the FBI won’t be accepting dear old Dad’s gesture of goodwill.” Michael gave the keys another toss. “But I will.”
His tone dared Sterling and Briggs to argue with him.
“I call shotgun.” Judd knew how to pick his battles. My gut said that, on some level, he knew that Michael saw accepting his father’s gifts as akin to taking punches.
You take whatever he dishes out. You take and you take and you take—because you can. Because people would expect you to turn down his gifts out of spite. Because anything you could take from him, you would.
Michael caught my gaze. He always knew when I was profiling him. After a long moment, he spoke. “It appears we’re going to the safe house. Judd’s got shotgun. Lia?” He tossed her the keys. “You’re driving.”
Riding with Lia was a bit like playing Russian roulette. She had a need for speed and a liar’s disregard for limitations. We barely made it to the safe house in one piece.
Michael shuddered. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that I am in dire need of either an adult beverage or a live feed on Sterling and Briggs as they dig into this case.”
Agent Starmans opened his mouth to reply, but Judd gave a quick shake of his head. We were here. We were under armed guard. We were safe. Judd knew as well as I did that, left to his own devices, Michael wouldn’t be any of those things for long.
The last time you went home, you came back covered in bruises and spiraling out of control. I couldn’t keep my mind from going there as Judd set up the video and audio feeds. And now, a girl you know is missing. One of the so-called Masters might have burned her alive.
Within minutes, the view from Briggs’s lapel pin came into focus on Judd’s tablet. We saw what Briggs saw, and all I could think, as Briggs and Sterling climbed out of their FBI-issued SUV, was that if this case was anything other than open-and-shut, none of us would be able to keep Michael from spiraling for long.
The Delacroix house was modern and vast. It was also, we soon learned, unoccupied. Celine’s parents had apparently decided to meet with the FBI on more neutral ground.
“Home, sweet home.” A sardonic edge crept into Michael’s voice a few minutes later as the house next door to the Delacroix’s came into view on the camera.
Large, I thought. Traditional. Ornate.
“Most people call it Townsend House,” Michael said lightly, “but I prefer to think of it as Townsend Manor.”
The more Michael joked, the more my heart thudded in my throat on his behalf. You were supposed to be done with this place. You were supposed to be free.