Page 54 of Wired Ghost

Sophie clenched her fists. Connor had told her his house on Phi Ni was his refuge, that he had done his best to hide its existence from the Master. She had felt safe here; she’d thought he did too. Clearly, all of that had been an illusion. The Master had probably known about it for years.

Sophie redirected her gaze to her mother. “You stole my child from me when she was twelve hours old. You then beheaded six good men, including Thom, a man Connor and I cared for greatly. You tried to strangle your own sister right in front of me. And we won’t even get into the kind of mother you were when I was growing up, something that hurts even more now that I’m a mother myself. Those are only the beginning of your crimes.”

“I expected you would want to have your say.”

“This will achieve nothing,” Sophie said. “I hate the very sight of you.”

Pim Wat turned and walked down the drive, entering the grounds surrounding the house. The mansion was built in a beautiful combination of eastern and western styles, cantilevered out over a hundred-foot limestone cliff. Sophie trailed after her mother—she didn’t want to speak to Connor or the Master, either. She hoped like hell Armita had the sense to hide away with Momi.

Pim Wat paused next to one of the neatly trimmed coconut trees. Its fronds waved overhead in the soft, gentle breeze. They had reached the edge of the property. Decorative ornamental plants and shrubs marked the edges of the lawn along the sides, but the sheer cliff that overlooked the half-moon of beach below was bordered only by a wire fence erected as a precaution against Momi’s wanderings.

Nam had placed a wooden bench there, and Pim Wat walked over and seated herself on one end of it. “I want us to work things out. I want to see my granddaughter.”

“When hell freezes over. You may not see my daughter, nor Armita. You cannot be trusted with either of them.” Sophie made an effort to calm her racing heart, to lower her voice; visible anger only showed Pim Wat that she still had emotional power over Sophie.

Armita had served Pim Wat for more than twenty years, suffering abuse as her handmaiden. Armita was the one who had taken Momi back to Sophie. If the nanny had not done that, Sophie might never have seen her daughter again, and Pim Wat had sworn to kill Armita for it.

Pim Wat turned her ravaged face toward Sophie, facing her unflinchingly. “If it’s an apology you want, then I’m sorry. I’ve had ample time to reflect on my choices while in Guantánamo. Thanks to you.” Her gaze pierced Sophie. “Let’s not forget who put me there for years, to be tortured for information about the Yam Khûmk?n.”

“No more than you deserved.”

“And the push down the stairs that ruined my face?”

“You threw yourself down those steps, and you know it.” Sophie turned away to look out at the view. It was breathtaking to gaze over that cliff. “You can’t make me feel guilty about what happened at our old house. I won’t let you.”

“I acknowledge that. I wanted you to feel guilty. I’m sorry for that, too.” Pim Wat’s voice was small. “I was wrong. About so many things.”

Sheer limestone in soft shades of buff and pale yellow fell away below them. Gentle, translucent turquoise waves lapped against the white beach far below. Atolls crowned in tropical plants studded the bay like chess pieces. Far out on the horizon, cumulus clouds floated by in the shape of fantastical creatures, riding the light breezes like something out of a reverie.

Time went by.

They didn’t speak. What was there to say?

The gulf between Sophie and her mother seemed unbridgeable and beyond repairing.

And yet . . .

Pim Wat was here. Alive, and apologizing. Anyone could die, even the strongest among them, at any time. Sophie had never known that truth in such a deep way as she had since Jake’s passing. All of this was a choice. She could make peace with her mother, or she could live with a sword of rage stabbed through her own heart.

She turned to her mother. “I don’t trust you, and I never will. You don’t deserve forgiveness, and you never will. But because you’re my mother, and because I want to live in harmony, for my own health and for the sake of my daughter, I accept your apology.”

Sophie extended an open hand, resting it on the bench between them. Pim Wat set hers in Sophie’s, a light and brittle bundle of twigs. “Thank you.”

Sophie held her mother’s hand on the bench. They gazed down at the view together, in silence.

“I’m so sad for you about Jake,” Pim Wat said. “I know you loved him.”

Sophie shut her eyes against a memory of the near-drowning Jake had endured at her mother’s hands.She had to keep letting go; she wanted no part of bitterness.“I did love him. So much.”

Gentle swishing in the lush grass announced the arrival of Connor and the Master. “It’s time to go, my Beautiful One.”

The Master’s hypnotic voice brought Pim Wat to her feet. She touched Sophie on the shoulder with a skeletal hand as she passed by, heading for the helicopter. “Be well, my daughter. I love you.”

For the first time in her life, Sophie felt those words penetrate. Her mother had said them before, but Sophie had never believed it.

What had shifted?

Why, in this moment and during this strange encounter, did she finally, really feel her mother’s love?

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