Horne only nodded and said in his most formal voice, “Of course, Master Nicholas, of course.”
“Inspector York told me she appreciated your kindness to her.”
Horne bowed his head, then said, his voice austere, “She was a young woman deserving of kindness. I will miss her.”
Mike watched Nicholas speaking to the Drummond butler—butler!—she still couldn’t get over having a butler in the modern world. She’d noticed his accent was deeper, his voice more clipped, when he was at home. It had been a hard day on him—a hard week, really, what with telling his parents he was joining the FBI. She would have loved to be a fly on the wall when he’d made that announcement. He’d told her his parents and his grandfather, even Horne and Cook Crumbe, had taken it well, but she thought he was just trying to make himself feel better about his decision.
And then he’d arranged for Elaine’s funeral, seen to Elaine’s ill mother. Mike was very pleased that Elaine had had time to send her mother the $200,000 before she’d been killed.
She knew this huge rambling house with its hundreds of years of life and all its endless dramas was a deep part of him, and would always be his touchstone. As for her parents, she’d told her dad how his heroine, beautiful Mitzie Drummond, was a gracious, loving woman who solved mysteries in her spare time.
Mike looked at Mitzie across the room. She’d left it all behind, fame and fortune, to marry Nicholas’s dad, a man very unlike his son. Tall, aloof, but when he smiled, it warmed his face and made you smile in return.
Nicholas’s wily old grandfather had asked her if she intended to take care of his grandson. And not five minutes later, Nicholas’s mother had asked her the same thing. And not five minutes after that, Cook Crumbe had stirred from the kitchen and asked if she would take care of Master Nicholas. She told them all the same thing: yes, she would take care of Nicholas Drummond, they could take that to the bank.
She ate one of Cook Crumbe’s delicious shrimp prepared with some sort of curry and watched and listened.
Horne waited until Nicholas had eaten and had a few sips of single malt before handing him a thick package.
“A woman came with this while you were out.”
Nicholas only glanced at it. “Can’t it wait?”
“She said no, sir. She wanted you to open it the moment you came home.”
Something in Horne’s tone made Nicholas look up sharply. “Who was she?”
“I couldn’t say. She was small, though, with dark hair. Bonny blue eyes, so light—”
Nicholas thrust his drink into Horne’s hand and grabbed the package from him, ripped it open. Everyone stopped to watch him. He pulled the thick stack of paper from the envelope; saw the familiar blue backing indicating a legal document.
Mike asked, “Nicholas, what is it?”
He thumbed through the pages, then started to laugh. “It’s a deposition. Almighty God in heaven, it’s a bloody deposition.”
“From who? About what?”
“There are hundreds of pages. I will be damned. This contains information on Mulvaney’s thefts, all the murders, everything she promised.”
He looked up and said simply, “Kitsune. She’s alive, and she kept the bargain.”
London
March
The rooftops were slick with frost, the sun just beginning to break through the gloomy sky. Snow again, she could feel it. She adjusted her position slightly, made herself more comfortable. She stashed the ATN night-vision goggles, pleased she’d chosen the PVS7s. Wouldn’t do to have anything less than military-grade. They’d served her well on her overnight sojourns this week.
She brought her monocle to her eye and checked it once. All was quiet. In their quarters, their tiny apartments, men were waking, beginning their morning routines. Women were showering, preparing breakfast, readying themselves to go out into the world. The men stayed behind; this was their work and their home.
She saw him then. Her pulse quickened, her breath became shallow, and something moved deep inside her.
She set the monocle down and poured the last of the tea from the thermos into her cup. She drank, letting it warm her, then checked the monocle again. The watch was changing, the guards in camouflage bristling with weapons.
The gates would open to the public at 9:00 a.m. The most dynamic and wondrously grim landmark in London would see throngs of people streaming through the gates, despite the weather. Though late March now, the air was still a bone-deep cold and seeped through puffy down jackets.
Today, Kitsune would be among them, bundled in her jacket, as she had every day for the past week.
Today, she would approach him. Ask to speak. Ask for forgiveness.