"So," she said, glancing at him, "who was that on the phone?"
"A client," Conor said, hating himself for how easily the lie came to his lips. "Well, a possible client. He wanted to set up an appointment for next week."
She smiled. "Ah."
"Ah?"
"Ah, as in ah, the man really does work for a living."
Conor laughed and tugged her closer as they reached the corner.
"Give me a break, Beckman. Nobody's ever accused me of being independently wealthy."
"No, but you're pretty independent, nonetheless. Here you are, sashaying around the city with me instead of keeping your nose to the grindstone."
"You complaining?" he said with a mock growl.
"And I heard what you said to that man on the telephone."
Conor's smile faded. "What did you hear?"
"Oh, you know. 'Don't call me 'my boy,'" she said, dropping her chin to her chest and her voice to her shoes. She smiled. "Do you always treat prospective clients that way?"
Conor laughed. "Listen, kid," he said, in his best Humphrey Bogart imitation, "you stick with mugging for the camera and I'll stick with playing gumshoe."
"How does somebody become a detective, anyway?"
"I told you. You buy this Handy Dandy kit..."
Miranda poked him in the ribs. "Come on, be serious. I mean, is that what you wanted to be, when you were growing up? A detective?"
He looked at her, his smile fading. Okay, this could be a start. He could begin the long process of telling her the truth about himself, not all of it, but at least enough so that when the time came, he could make her see that not everything had been a fabrication.
"No," he said, "not exactly. What I wanted to be was a cop, like my old man."
"That's right. You said your father's a policeman."
"Was. Detective-Sergeant John O'Neil, NYPD retired."
"And your mother? What did she do?"
"Whatever the old man told her to do." Conor smiled, trying to take the edge off but doubting he was succeeding. He wasn't very good at this. Talking about himself had never been his thing and his ex had never let him forget it—but then, she'd never studied his face while he spoke, hanging on to his every word as if each was special. "My mother was the quintessential mom, a 1950s leftover, I guess. She cooked, she cleaned, she ironed his shirts and polished his shoes."
"You speak of her in the past tense," Miranda said softly.
"Yeah." Conor cleared his throat. "She died when I was fourteen."
"I'm sorry, Conor, I shouldn't have—"
"No, it's okay. Hey, it was a long time ago." He cleared his throat again. "The thing was, I blamed her, for a while."
"For dying and leaving you?"
"For letting the old man do her in. Oh, not really," he said quickly, when Miranda turned a stunned face up to his. "What I mean is, he wore her down. Hell, he wore everybody down."
"I'll bet he did," she said. There was a sharpness to her words and he knew she was remembering what he'd told her, about the beating the old man had given him after he'd taken the motorcycle for a joyride.
"Anyway, when I said I wanted to become a cop, he almost went crazy. He said he hadn't worked his tail off so I could clean up the garbage in the streets the way he had. Nope, not the son of John O'Neil. I was gonna go to college, get a law degree, hang out my shingle and make him proud."