Page 63 of Maximum Dare
“I suppose that’s true.”
“The ghosts from your past influenced your decision.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, when your mum came to live here, you were left to fend for yourself. You had your dad but it wasn’t the same. You leaned on him. He took care of you the best he could. But he was working a lot, I imagine. You felt you owed it to him to join his firm.”
Now I was the one being exposed over a truth I’d managed to suppress.
I shook my head. “Let’s talk about you.”
“There’s not a lot to say.”
“Do you enjoy your job?”
“Kind of. My dream was to design high-end shop windows. The ones in the finest stores in London.”
“And especially the ones for Christmas?”
She nodded. “I wanted to create something unique. Something that stands out and can be seen by many…something artsy, but also for retail. I didn’t just want to work inside the store.”
“How do you get that kind of job?”
“You get a degree in art and design.”
Yet she’d dropped out of university sometime soon after her brother’s death, I gathered. Continuing her education had been too difficult. Daisy had been too grief-stricken to continue.
“You can go back to Uni,” I said.
“Maybe one day.” She shook her head as though clearing her thoughts. “After last Tuesday night I feel like I have some closure.”
“How so?”
“I did what I set out to do. I warned Nick about Morgan. Now it’s over. I’ve done my bit.”
“Right.” I hoped she was really ready to move on.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes. What’s holding you back, Max?”
“It’s a long story.”
She shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I wanted to follow in the footsteps of lawyers like Martin Luther King…”
A pained expression came over her face as she listened to me explain, as if she felt my regret and sensed the yearning of a soul unable to fulfill its purpose.
“Why not become a civil rights attorney now?”
“I run my father’s firm.”
“But he passed away,” she said softly. “Maybe it’s time to fulfill your dream.”
“Life doesn’t work like that.”
