Page 10 of Bad Blood
Michael offered her his most careless smile. “I’m sure my father will remedy any disappointment. We Townsends pride ourselves on hospitality.”
Your father arranged for transportation. Four SUVs, when two would do. I tried not to read too much into the way Michael had grouped himself in with his father, like Townsend men were Townsends first and anything else was a distant second—no matter how far they’d run.
“We’re not visiting dignitaries,” Briggs said flatly. “We’re not clients Thatcher Townsend needs to woo. This is a federal investigation. The local field office is perfectly capable of supplying us with a car.”
Sloane raised her hand. “Will that car have three rows of air bags, a seven-speed automatic transmission, and a five hundred fifty horsepower engine?”
Lia raised her hand. “Will that car have warm nuts?”
“Enough,” Sterling declared. She turned toward Michael. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I don’t care about your father’shospitality, except insofar as it tells me that he’s grandiose, prone to unnecessary gestures, and seems to have conveniently forgotten the fact that we’ve already seen behind the man behind the curtain. We know exactly what he is.”
“Behind the curtain?” Michael said loftily, striding toward the farthest SUV. “What curtain? My father would be the first to tell you: with Townsends, what you see is what you get.” He pulled the keys out of the ignition and tossed them in the air, catching them lazily in one hand. “Based on the set of Agent Sterling’s mouth, not to mention those impressively deep brow ridges Agent Briggs is working, I have inferred that the FBI won’t be accepting dear old Dad’s gesture of goodwill.” Michael gave the keys another toss. “But I will.”
His tone dared Sterling and Briggs to argue with him.
“I call shotgun.” Judd knew how to pick his battles. My gut said that, on some level, he knew that Michael saw accepting his father’s gifts as akin to taking punches.
You take whatever he dishes out. You take and you take and you take—because you can. Because people would expect you to turn down his gifts out of spite. Because anything you could take from him, you would.
Michael caught my gaze. He always knew when I was profiling him. After a long moment, he spoke. “It appears we’re going to the safe house. Judd’s got shotgun. Lia?” He tossed her the keys. “You’re driving.”
Riding with Lia was a bit like playing Russian roulette. She had a need for speed and a liar’s disregard for limitations. We barely made it to the safe house in one piece.
Michael shuddered. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that I am in dire need of either an adult beverage or a live feed on Sterling and Briggs as they dig into this case.”
Agent Starmans opened his mouth to reply, but Judd gave a quick shake of his head. We were here. We were under armed guard. We were safe. Judd knew as well as I did that, left to his own devices, Michael wouldn’t be any of those things for long.
The last time you went home, you came back covered in bruises and spiraling out of control. I couldn’t keep my mind from going there as Judd set up the video and audio feeds.And now, a girl you know is missing. One of the so-called Masters might have burned her alive.
Within minutes, the view from Briggs’s lapel pin came into focus on Judd’s tablet. We saw what Briggs saw, and all I could think, as Briggs and Sterling climbed out of their FBI-issued SUV, was that if this case was anything other than open-and-shut, none of us would be able to keep Michael from spiraling for long.
The Delacroix house was modern and vast. It was also, we soon learned, unoccupied. Celine’s parents had apparently decided to meet with the FBI on more neutral ground.
“Home, sweet home.” A sardonic edge crept into Michael’s voice a few minutes later as the house next door to the Delacroix’s came into view on the camera.
Large, I thought.Traditional. Ornate.
“Most people call it Townsend House,” Michael said lightly, “but I prefer to think of it as Townsend Manor.”
The more Michael joked, the more my heart thudded in my throat on his behalf.You were supposed to be done with this place. You were supposed to be free.
“Is that a turret?” Lia asked. “I love a man with a turret.”
If Michael was going to crack jokes about his own personal hell, Lia would find a way to one-up him. They’d both had plenty of practice over the years at making the things that mattered most matter least.
On-screen, Briggs and Sterling made their way to the front porch. Briggs rang the bell.One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. The massive mahogany front door opened.
“Agent Briggs.” The man who’d answered the door had thick charcoal-brown hair and a voice that commanded attention: rich and baritone and warm. He reached out and clapped a hand on Agent Briggs’s shoulder. “I know you can’t have appreciated the lengths I went to in order to get you here, but if I didn’t do everything possible to help Remy and Elise at a time like this, I would never forgive myself.” He turned from Briggs to Sterling. “Ma’am,” he said, holding out a hand. “Thatcher Townsend. The pleasure is mine.”
Sterling took the proffered hand, but I knew in my gut that she wouldn’t offer the man even a hint of a smile.
“Please,” Townsend said smoothly, stepping back from the threshold, “come in.”
This was Michael’s father. I tried to wrap my mind around that fact. He had Michael’s air of confidence, Michael’s presence, Michael’s irrepressible charm. I waited for something to ping my inner profiler, for some hint, however small, that the man who’d answered that door was a monster.
“He hasn’t lied yet,” Lia told Michael.
Michael flashed her a sharp-edged smile. “It’s not lying if you believe every word you say.”
