Madly (New York 2)

“I was a teenager,” Allie clarified. “I wouldn’t do that now.”

“You would so.”

“I would not.”

“But you just did, to figure out she’d gone to New York and not Kohler, you told me.”

“Yeah, okay, but I was desperate, and anyway—”

Chasity made a zipping motion with her hand. May and Allie fell silent. “What are you seeing in her charges since she came to the city?”

“She never buys anything in the city. Just her plane ticket.”

“She must stay with Justice,” May said. “He must pay for everything.”

“If you want to find your ma, you should set up alerts on whatever cards she uses, her debit and credit, even her Starbucks app if she’s got one, and when a charge comes in, map it. Meantime, Bea will have to keep hanging around whatever students and art people she knows, keep track of the rumors flying around, let us know if anything seems solid. Winston, tell her when she gets back that’s what she’s doing. I’ve got a line on a guy works for the city who might be able to get me into the hushed-up permit records, which if we’re lucky are going to give us a name and address for Justice or someone very close to him.”

She waved her hand at Nev and Cath. “You two, I don’t know what use you are, or if you understand what it means to lose your mama and not know if you’re going to ever see her again, but if you figure out anything useful, chip in. And you—” She pointed at Winston. “You’re going to have to set up a meeting with Justice.”

“On what pretext?”

“Any pretext you want. The point is, tell him you need to see him day after tomorrow, tell him it’s important, and see if he bites. You run his money. I don’t care how busy the man is, he’s going to make time for the money. And then you girls”—here, Chasity looked from May to Allie—“just have to show up with your dad and see if you can make things turn out right.”

Bea came back and perched on the arm of the sofa beside him. She had her phone in her hand and was breathing too fast.

“What happened?” He glanced at the counter to locate whoever had done this to her so he could rip them limb from limb.

“Nothing. I’m fine. What’d I miss?”

“Chasity has given everyone their marching orders. You’re to keep an ear to the ground among the students and artists, and to let us know what you’re able to learn.”

“Yas.”

“Is that…affirmative?”

She patted his shoulder. “Yas, Daddy.”

Cath looked up from her knitting. “I hate to be the one to say this, but I think I have to. I mean, I’m all for families being families, and staying together, and I don’t really know any of you, so don’t take this the wrong way. But it seems to me like your mom isn’t so much lost as she’s run away.” She glanced at Neville. “And I don’t know a ton about family, but I know running away. People who run away, you know, when you find them again? They aren’t always real happy about it.”

She looked at Allie, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. When she connected with May, though, May nodded. “I think we’re going to have to talk to Dad,” May said quietly. “After Ben gets him here, we have to ask him what he thinks we should even do.”

“Yeah.” Allie’s voice was flat. “I get that.”

For a long and rather horrible moment no one spoke at all. The coffeehouse was still, its lively bustle put on pause as they all considered what Cath had said. Winston knew some part of her story and what she’d run away from. How far her desire to leave her past, her pain, behind had taken her—all the way to London before she ended up entangled with his brother and found the strength to face the past again, and the courage to fall in love.

Chasity slapped closed the cover of her tablet and stowed it in her bag. “I have all of your contact information. I’ll run point on this. You’ll be hearing from me.” She backed up her wheelchair, whipped around, and then turned to say over her shoulder, “If you hear from your ma, I want to know right away. I don’t want to be biting my fingernails for forty-eight hours before someone remembers to give me a call. That would really piss me off.”

She wheeled out the door with one impressive thrust of her biceps. Bea’s phone buzzed. She swiped at it and read the screen, then clicked the button and swiped more, settling gradually against his side until she shared his cushion on the couch.

“You have a customer,” Nev said.

Bea kept staring at her screen. Her breath was rapid and shallow, as though he’d found her in the grip of a nightmare.

“Bea?” He kept his voice low.

“What?” she barked.

“You have a customer.”