Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
And I again took heart, having someone to talk to about this, because it was clear she found it as alarming as I did.
I couldn’t talk to Matt, who was healing his breach with Dad, but he wasn’t ready to go here. And not our baby sister, Sasha, because she was dealing with her own thing, that thing, frustratingly, something she had yet to share.
Thus, I kept at it with Susie.
“There are times when they’re together that I see him drifting, like he’s replaying a tennis match in his head or arranging his to-do list. He’s not engaged. Not with her. And it’s come to the point sometimes, by extension, not with us when we’re together. And still, she’s there. He hasn’t ended it. In fact, she’s around more than she used to be. And frankly, Susie, it’s beginning to scare me.”
“Mika Stowe,” she blurted.
My head jerked. “Sorry?”
“Mika Stowe. She’s unattached, and your father admires her. A lot.”
“Mika Stowe? The artist, poet, documentarian, novelist, and all-around ridiculously cool renaissance woman?”
She nodded and there was energy behind that nod.
My heart felt lighter than it had in months.
“We were talking about regrets,” she told me. “He was helping me come to terms with mine. And he said one of his was that he’d met Mika, after he’d married Imogen, and they’d clicked. Not that way, but still, as it happens sometimes, it was also kind of in that way. But Mika was single, Tom was not. She couldn’t have him, and she knew that would hurt. So she disallowed a friendship. Tom told me he regretted letting her do that. He felt he’d missed something important in his life, not having her in it. But more, he felt she missed something too, not having him. Especially when her life took such a tragic turn. So yes…” She took a big breath and concluded, “Mika Stowe.”
We looked at each other over her island, but I didn’t see her.
My heart had taken flight.
There was quite a bit of attention swirling around Mika Stowe of late.
In fact, for the last few years, the rediscovery of her in the wake of the latest wave of feminism had her at the forefront in arts, entertainment and the news as people reevaluated who she was in pop culture, and how important of a role she’d played.
Even before this, when I ran across a book of her poetry in high school, and experienced the brutally honest beauty of it, I’d become a fan, then sought and devoured everything she did.
Mom had watched one of her documentaries with me, and now I remembered she said, “I never met her, but your father did, and he really liked her.”
I didn’t know why I’d never asked Dad about it.
But now…
Mika Stowe and Tom Pierce.
A vision of them together formed in my mind.
Okay now…
That worked.
When I came back to myself and saw the look on Susie’s face, it made me smile.
And my smile was wide.
What sealed the deal?
Susie smiled back.
And hers might have been wider than mine.
CHAPTER 2
THE COURIER
Rhys
She lived so rural, he had to use an ATV and high-powered binoculars.
But he caught it.
The courier arriving and walking between the low adobe walls that started wide and curved inward to her front door.
Her opening that door, signing for the large envelope, the courier moving away and the target looking down at the envelope before the door closed behind her.
He watched the courier drive away.
Rhys then turned his attention to his phone.
He pulled up an app he’d already programmed for what he needed it to do.
He watched patiently.
It took her forty-five minutes before she made the call.
That either indicated she was thorough in reading what had been sent to her, or she was indecisive about whether or not to make the call.
With what Rhys had learned about Michelle Jillian “Mika” Stowe, it was the former.
Her call was lasting some time, which was advantageous.
He brought up his own texts and typed one in.
It’s begun.
Chloe Pierce sent a one-word reply.
Excellent.
CHAPTER 3
THE PEDESTAL
Mika
“Oh my God, you’re freaking me out. I’ve never seen you this indecisive. Just call him and stop being weird.”
That was my daughter.
I’d raised her like I wanted to raise her, because I was a single parent, and I could.
I’d also raised her like I thought Rollo would raise her, because I needed to give her that. For me. For her.
For Rollo.
That said, even though Rollo would have been adorably, but ridiculously permissive, and likely spoil her to shit, she’d had structure as a kid. There were rules. Bedtimes. Picking up after herself. Getting her homework done. Things like that.
But there were freedoms too.
Lots of them.
And one thing I worked at particularly was I wanted her to feel open to talk to me about anything. Open and that no matter how busy I might seem, how into one of my projects I was, I wanted her to know she was always my priority, and I’d always have time to listen.