You and I, Me and You (18 page)

“What does this mean for BOFFO's lost funding?” I asked.

Michaela's short, sharp bark of laughter was answer enough. George rested his forehead on a section of the counter not covered in eggplant and drumstick pods.

“You had a plan for HOAP.2, didn't you?” I didn't even realize it until I was watching Shiro try to bring home to Paul what he'd done. “That's why you were so careful to tell us to be careful what we told him. You didn't want him freaking out.”

“And now you see what good that did.”

“Will you cut the shit and look at me, please?”

I wasn't sure if it was my tone, or “shit,” but at last she did. And what I saw shocked me.

 

chapter forty-five

A lone tear
tracked down her cheek.

“Why, Michaela,” I said, surprised. “What is it?”

“I've failed you. I've been a vain, stupid woman and I've screwed up your lives.”

Cadence had not fled. Had not even stepped back. She'd pushed me forward, gently but firmly. She knew something, had guessed something. She knew what Michaela was about to say, and she wanted me to be front and center for it.

And I was afraid, I was very afraid.

“What do you mean?” I asked, so softly it was more a whisper.

“The royalties from Paul's other software have kept BOFFO in the black for a long time. But the economy is shit. And you're expensive. You're all expensive, but—”

“But?”

“Worth it. Always worth it. You're all so—so
gifted
and so
troubled
and you just needed a safe place and people who wouldn't judge or be afraid and I wanted that for you, for all of you, and at first there was money in the trust and then Paul's software royalties, and I've known the well was drying for months but I also knew HOAP was humming along but now—now—” She dropped the knife from trembling fingers. “A woman is dead! And she is dead only because I got complacent, because I thought brilliance equated understanding. She's dead because I forgot that BOFFO's primary function was to keep you safe from the world, but also to keep the world safe from you. I got caught up in the fantasy, the law enforcement, and two dead pros are three dead pros.”

“And the killer was—”

“I do not give two shits for the killer,” she corrected me sharply, and I reminded myself whom I was talking to.

I saw him, I knew him … I stuck a screwdriver in Mr. Lavik's ear.… I could barely choke down that four-course meal later.

“BOFFO did not lose funding. There … there never was a BOFFO, was there?”

“No, of course not.”

“Wow, I'm right yet again.” George was lifting his head and gently knocking it against the countertop. “And yet it's never felt shittier.”

“Must you always marinate in the plastic bowl of your ignorance?” I snapped.

“I don't know what else to marinate in.”

I turned back to Michaela. “Please continue.”

“Continue what? I just told you everything. You, the one person I promised myself I'd—” She shook her head angrily, but I did not know if she was angry with me or with herself. “You're not FBI agents. BOFFO isn't a government agency.”

I could hardly hear her over the roaring in my ears. I did not know how to feel. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to seize George's head and
really
smack it on the counter. “Why?”

“How else to keep the lot of you in line, unless you thought you worked for the government, for the side of law and order? How else to protect you except to impress on all of you that there are rules at ‘BOFFO'? If you knew you could do as you liked with few consequences, that we have—had—an absurd amount of funding and several high-ups bribed to look the other way, you would be even more unmanageable than you are!”

“So it was—ow—all about—ow—managing us?”

“Only the ones like you, Pinkman, and stop smacking your filthy head on my clean counter. For the others, it was about protecting them, helping them, and then showing them how to use what they are and what they have to help others. We aren't FBI, but most of our ‘busts' have been good. The killers we've caught are in jail or dead.” Michaela brightened a little at the thought of the dead ones. “We are licensed private investigators, among other things, and thus our investigations are admissible in court.”

“I have testified in court,” I said, horrified. “I have perjured myself! I am a perjurer!”

“Don't be silly.” Michaela's brisk tone was like a dash of cold water in my eyes. Or acid. “Perjury is when you knowingly lie. You wouldn't knowingly lie if someone stuck a gun in your ear.”

It was absurd, but that mollified me. “The training?”

“You needed training. Those of you who wanted to carry needed to learn, needed to get permits. Even those who didn't needed the discipline. The training was so you would keep to the law—PI's have to stay within the scope of the law as best they can. You've investigated. You've made arrests. You've testified in court.”

“The warrants?”

Michaela smiled, a thin, humorless smile. “Friendly judges. And some of us are cops. Or were cops. And we have friends.”

We work for different people, but we all share info.
She had told me that in this very room, and I had thought nothing of it. Because I was a fool, and she was a liar.

“And you would be amazed at how liberal the laws for such things are in the great state of Minnesota. And some of
you
…” She hesitated, and I braced myself. What fresh hell was coming? “Your psychological quirks helped you keep the truth from yourself. Yourselves.”

“Do
not
put your deception on us!” I snapped.

“If you wanted to know the truth, you would have allowed yourself to see.
He
did.”

“Leave me—ow—out of this.”

“Your biggest lie yet.” I was so angry I could hardly see. “You tricked us, you lied, but it was on
us
because we were fool enough to believe you?”
We
were
fool enough to believe her,
Cadence whispered from deep inside our brain. “You sound like some of the people we have arrested … except we were not arresting them, not really!”

“What to say?” Michaela held up her hands, eerily reminding me again of our first meeting, when she made the same gesture with cuffed wrists. “I did trick you. I did lie.” I glared into her calm green eyes. What did I want to see? Remorse? Fear? Despair?

“So you— This entire time, you've been—” I turned to George. “Who did you say she was?”

“Ow! Arvin Sloane. Really, you guys? I'm banging my head on the counter and there's just no concern?”

“I certainly am not Arvin Sloane! I'm Jack Bristow. I protect my children at all costs, in whatever way I must. Where do you think someone like Paul would have ended up if not for me and, later, BOFFO? What mischief do you think George would attempt if I were not watching over him? He's unscrupulous, charming, conventionally handsome, and utterly amoral. Do you want him at large on the planet or in here with us?”

“Wow.” George seemed genuinely touched. “Ow.”

“Or you, Shiro? Any of the three of you? Adrienne has brought about millions in property damage.
Millions,
plural, long before we met. You have killed, and when I met you, you were creeping your way through the system as a freelance writer with no real income, no home of your own, and all the time terribly frightened you would be noticed, exposed. And Paul, my Paul … the real world
devours
people like him, and everyone in this room knows it.”

“But you use his software. He is your cash cow; he funds your big lie.”

“Of course. He asked me to. He's signed over the management of all his financial affairs to me.” Her gaze softened as she looked over my shoulder to the doorway Paul had walked out of. “He's my son, my own boy.”

“Ow!” George stood straight, rubbing his bright-red forehead. “Oh, come on! Give me a fucking break! What, this wasn't soap opera-ey enough with Shiro shacking up with Aunt Jane and wanting to bone Max Gallo?”

“Sorry, what?”

“George,
shut up.
” I turned back to her. “Paul is your son? You adopted him?”

“Decades ago. He was alone, and I was alone, and never mind my husband. At first I pitied him, like you would a stray dog. Then I grew to respect him. Even as a small child, he had a formidable intellect, an exceptional way of seeing the world. And then when I saw the goodness behind the brilliance, I loved him as my very own boy, and so he is. And I needed a safe place where he could work and be himself, surrounded by people like him who would keep him safe, and his inventions would keep them safe, and around and around it was supposed to go except it's done now. It's all done now.”

And Michaela Nelson burst into furious tears.

 

chapter forty-six

“These switches are
making me dizzy,” I muttered after Shiro again stepped back. I leaned forward and patted Michaela between the shoulder blades like she was a gassy baby. “There now, Michaela. Maybe it can be fixed. It's not like you to give up. And to … um…” I realized that the real Michaela was a vastly more complex creature than the person I thought I knew. I had no idea what it was and wasn't like her to do.

“I just wanted to help.” She cried on my shoulder, clutching me with startling strength. I could feel the fabric of my turtleneck twisting in her grip. “I should never have gone out into the world to try and find you. And when I did find you, I should have left you to your lives.”

Hmm. Yeah. Our lives. Shiro taking whatever newspaper assignment she could for shit money. Adrienne coming out to steal food more often than not, whether it was for us or to give to someone even hungrier. Nowhere to live, and too scared and ashamed to go back to the hospital. Knowing we were smart but not sure what we were supposed to
do
with being smart.

Being afraid all the time.

Yeah, what a deceitful bitch Michaela was to help us find a way out of that, to find that there were places we were welcome and skills we could use. I hoped Shiro would eventually be able to see it like that. To remember what it had been like, pre-fake BOFFO.

Because George was right; she collected mother figures. She had always looked at Michaela as more than a boss. But she hid that from herself with the same skill we used to turn away from BOFFO's obvious absurdities.

“So what now?” George had finally stopped whapping his head against the counter. I wasn't sure whether I was glad or sad. “We all pack up and leave? Can you give your fake employees fake letters of reference?”

“You're not fake employees and I wasn't a fake boss. I'm not a fake boss,” she said, jerking her face away from my shoulder. I noticed her switch from past tense to present. “We're still here and there's still work to do. HOAP won't save us; I see that now. We'll have to come up with something else.” She lunged for the fridge and yanked out a bag of carrots, then selected a new knife. “Right away.”

“Wait a minute. Those knives…” How had I never put this together before? This was something Shiro would also have noticed right away if she had allowed herself to. Was that long-ago medical research even real? Or was it all just a sieve for her to catch freaks in? “Those are Cutco knives!” I whirled on George. “Did you sell her these knives?”

“Sure. That's how I met her. I was earning money for school and she was a customer. Bought the Ultimate set
and
the Signature set.” He paused. “Oh. Huh.”

“Yeah, ‘huh.'” Any more clues pointing to our ignorance and willful blindness would have given me a blinding migraine.

“Like I said,” Michaela said in a brisk
Remember me?
tone. “We'll have to come up with something else.”

“We will?” George was giving me his
Help me out!
look, but I had no idea how to do that. “Right this second, or by the end of the week, or…”

She blew out her breath in a disgusted sigh. “A lot of this has been about how smart you all are and how you needed a proper channel for that intelligence. Well, think! You know what the situation is. We need at least five million to keep going through next year. If we can get some significant funds back into the system, we can work off the interest and buy ourselves some time. HOAP won't work, but something else should. Something else
will.
”

Wow! My powers of comforting are even more impressive than Shiro hoped!

I wasn't sure how to feel. Betrayed? Hopeful? Pissed? Worried? A combo? Worry with a dash of betrayal and a side of hope?

“You two can stop judging me right this second,” Michaela snapped, misinterpreting our
Nope, still no idea how to feel
expressions. “Yes, I am an unscrupulous, disingenuous killer … and for years, all that stood between some of you and darkness or death or worse: institutionalization.” She had her priorities right, that was for sure … institutionalization
was
worse than darkness or death.

“Look, you can't just—”

She picked up her carving knife and thwacked it into the cutting board, cutting George off as effectively as a slap. “I'm not done apologizing. Or fighting for you. Or asking for forgiveness or finding funds. I've got my work to do, and you have yours. You two, follow up with Emma Jan. And double-check the Sussudio files … make sure HOAP.2 didn't plant anything in front of
that
killer. I don't think those files have been contaminated, due to your admittedly brilliant leaps earlier. Figuring out his motivation was really quite clever. Paul gave you the nudge and you ran with it—the way it's
supposed
to work. Still, you'd better double- and triple-check those files.”