Merrick met her at the door to tell her Jarvis was sitting in her study.
Not ready for a fight, Cain took her time stripping off her coat and gloves. “Don’t tell me. Bracato’s out in the car and wants to talk to me?”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on the old man, and he held his hands up in surrender. “Cain, it hurts me that you would even ask me that.”
“Why not? It’s a fair question after your actions lately. What are you hoping to gain, uncle?” She took a seat next to him and put her hand over the one he had resting on the soft leather of the chair arm.
“I want you to be happy, Derby. You’ve lost so much in your young life, and the one person who’s balanced all that and made you want to live again was Emma.”
She didn’t let go of his hand as she contemplated what he had just said. “But did you forget it was Emma who left and took so much with her when she did? Or is your matchmaking selective memory?” A picture of the beautiful little girl Cain had seen in Wisconsin popped into her head. Yeah, uncle Jarvis. Emma took so much with her when she left.
“Do you remember the first day your father gave you a job to do for the family?”
“I’m not ten anymore, uncle Jarvis. These little life’s lessons won’t work on me.”
“Humor an old man, and just play along for a moment.”
“It’s hard to forget. I screwed up so bad I figured he’d pass me over and hand the job to Billy permanently.”
“But he didn’t. Dalton forgave you and gave you more than one chance to get it right. I grew up at our father’s knee just like your father did, and when the time came he made more mistakes than you did when Papa started to trust him with more responsibility. At night we would sit out on the porch and smoke a cigarette when Mama wasn’t looking, and he would tell me how tomorrow we’d have to try harder so the old man wouldn’t just give up on us.
“The day he had you, he held you up in the hospital and showed you off to the rest of the family. ‘This is my legacy, Jarvis,’ he told me with those big blue eyes full of tears. I thought your mama was going to faint when he put that big finger soaked in Irish whiskey in your mouth.”
Cain laughed and remembered her father telling her that story. In fact, she could remember his exact words. “The Catholics, they got ahold of you soon enough, me pride, but the whiskey—that was a Casey baptism. That spirited drink’s in your blood, Cain. No oil and water a priest pours or rubs on you is going to wash that away. The whiskey’s not only our business, it’s our heritage, our history, and soon it’ll be your turn to keep that tradition alive. Your mother didn’t understand that first taste was a welcome home to a Casey. A bit of a reminder of who you are and what you come from. You’re a Casey, and you’re mine, but only for a time. When I set you out in the world, the one thing that’s for certain is you’ll be a hell of lot better than your old man.”
“He said a lot more that made Mama’s hair curl,” she said, smiling. Suddenly she felt melancholy. “You know, uncle Jarvis, he told me that story for the last time about a week before he died. When Hayden was born, I don’t think Emma understood any better than Mama. ‘A taste to welcome you home. You’re a Casey and you’re mine, but only for a time.’”
She had repeated the line when her son was first placed into her arms. The whiskey she had wet her finger from had been the same bottle her father had used on the day of her birth.
“You’re so much like him in so many ways, lass. Your brother Billy had the brawn to muscle his way in life, but the brains and the tactician your father was, that’s all you, Derby. For as much as you’re like him, though, you’re both very different people. You don’t do business the same way, but that’s how he wanted it. He was so hard on you at first because he wanted you to find your own way and lead your own way. Dalton learned from our father that experience makes the seeds of success grow.”
Cain shook her head and walked over to the windows. “This is different, uncle Jarvis. Pop forgave his family, but he never once had cause to question us.”
“What’s Emma to you, if not family?”
“My father was my family, as is my son, my mother, Billy, and Marie. But even they would have turned their back on me had I helped the snakes crawl so close to our nest.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That our sweet little Emma has changed much in her time away from us Caseys. I’m willing to bet Pop never had a day when Mama went against him or thought of walking out that door because of something he had done. I can’t say the same thing about Emma.”
“Don’t be so sure about that, Cain. Your mother was a great many things, but she was never your father’s lapdog. Your father never wanted her to be. She went against him plenty of times, but he never let it get in the way of how he felt about her. You had to let Emma go, if only so she could find her way back to you. Can I ask you one more question? I promise to leave you to your business once we’re done.”
Cain nodded but didn’t turn around.
“Do you still feel anything for Emma? Look into your heart before you answer.”
She closed her eyes and searched her soul for the most truthful answer she could give him. “A part of my heart will always love her. The sad thing is, it’s the part that shrinks every day we’re apart. But it’ll take an eternity for it to fully die.”
When she turned around to see if Jarvis was satisfied with her answer, she found his chair empty and the door slightly open. So much like her father, she thought. Dalton would ask questions that begged for truthful answers. In the end the answers mattered only to you, since you would be ultimately deciding how to change your life.
Could she forgive the woman who had shared such a large part of her life? Who had made her forget her responsibility to her family? Had her answer affected only her, she could decide more easily, but she wasn’t alone. How would Hayden accept that his mother cared more for his unborn sister than for him? And what of Hannah? How would the little girl adjust to her after knowing only Emma and her parents? Carol had no doubt used the long four years to work on the little girl’s thought process.
When she had time she would find some answers, but now she needed to put Emma aside and think of the upcoming night and any possible complications.
*
“Park out of sight and meet us on the roof of the American Coffee Company,” said Shelby.
“Where in the hell is that?” Anthony asked as they drove through one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city.
“Look to your right. It’s the abandoned building at the foot of the block.”
“What are you, a walking historian of old city architecture?” He had never heard of the business, much less what building it had occupied.
“Yeah, I’m a genius who can read the company name and logo on the side of the building, even though it’s faded. Hurry up and bring the audio booster with you, and be careful on the stairs. They were a little shaky when Lionel and I went up.”
“A little shaky? I’d hate to see what you would consider dangerous.” Lionel looked through his binoculars and laughed, thinking of the four times they had almost fallen through the wooden steps on the five flights up.
“Shut up and tell me everything’s working perfectly, and we’re taping all of this?”
“Chill, Shelby, we’re getting it all, and man oh man.”
Lionel Jones was a mousy-looking little man who was never mistaken, at any time or by anyone, for a law enforcement officer of any kind. Fine brown hair and a milky white complexion, no matter the time of year, made him the focus of more than one bully on the playground that had been his life. He had passed the FBI’s grueling requirements, not with speed on the obstacle course or high scores at the shooting range, but with his brain and computer capability. Kyle had been lucky to get him assigned to the New Orleans office to help with the wiretaps and other surveillance they had set up for Cain’s case.