Second Shot

“From a picture like that?” she said, without hesitation. “Could you recognize your father from a blurry snapshot that’s less than two inches square, taken probably thirty years ago, before he grew a goddamn beard?”

Damn. I hated it when she was right….

Her breath huffed out into a cloud around her head in the frozen air. I glanced back at the entrance to the store, just in case our voices were carrying. Rosalind was standing a little way back behind the glass doors, holding Ella’s hand. Ella was chewing her hair and rocking from one foot to the other. Rosalind was watching the pair of us argue with narrowed eyes but it was difficult to tell if she could hear us or not. Maybe she didn’t need to.

“Simone,” I said, “calm down before you upset your daughter any more than she is already.”

“She-”

“Just listen for a moment! Remember, there’s a lot at stake here. Not just your happiness,” I said, not wanting to mention the money out loud. “You’re already convinced this guy is Greg Lucas, that he is your father, but until we get that DNA test to confirm it, we have to keep checking him out. And even you have to admit that he doesn’t seem in any hurry to get that test done, does he?”

Simone stared at the snow beneath her booted feet and took a deep breath, even though she was still humming with anger. “It’s already done,” she muttered.

I stilled. “It’s what?”

She looked up at me and the defiance was back in all its glory. “We took the swabs and labeled them and sent them off this morning.”

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “You took the swabs-yourself,” I repeated flatly “So-no doctors, no witnesses, no legal standing whatsoever.”

She had the grace to flush. “I don’t give a damn about legal standing! As long as I know he’s my father. Why would he be so keen to have the tests done if he had something to hide?”

Why indeed?This changed things. In fact, it changed them a lot.

“So why the secrecy?” I countered, a little blankly. “Why hide it from me, what you were up to?”

“We weren’t hiding it from you, Charlie,” she said. “It’s just, well, Greg didn’t want Rosalind to find out.”

“Rosalind? Why on earth not?”

She shrugged uncomfortably, shoving her hands into her pockets and kicking her feet through the slush, like a naughty kid. The windchill was making my cheeks numb. “He said it’s always been a bit of a sore point- his first marriage. He said he never told her about me, and finding out- when that private eye, Mr. O’Halloran, came to see him-has been one hell of a shock for her. I guess he didn’t want to upset her more than he had done already, so he suggested we didn’t tell her about the test. But we’ve done it-doesn’t that tell you something about him?”

That he’s sneaky and underhanded-even with his own wife? I didn’t think voicing that opinion would win her over, so I didn’t bother. “When will you know the results?”

“A few days apparently. Greg says the lab he got the testing kit from promised a fast turnaround.”

“When did he get it-the kit, I mean?”

Simone opened her mouth, frowned and closed it again. “I don’t know,” she said. “When we went into the den this morning, he had it in his desk. I didn’t ask. Surely the important thing is that we’ve taken the test, isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. When Simone had first brought the subject up — only yesterday-Lucas had seemed reluctant, or was that just Rosalind’s reaction? Either way, he must have had the kit sitting ready to be used. It spoke of a certain amount of premeditation, of planning. He could be genuine, trying to reassure his daughter. Or he could be just buying time.

For what?

After all, who was to say that the address of the lab wasn’t just that of some crony, waiting to send back a sheaf of official-looking paperwork? I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a genuine result and a clever fake, and I was betting Simone wouldn’t, either.

The door was pushed open and Ella came running out, leaving Rosalind inside. The little girl flew over to Simone, who bent to scoop her up. Ella put both arms round her mother’s neck and held on tight to the collar of her coat.

“What is it, sweetie?”

“Are you being cross with Charlie?”

Simone sighed. “No, sweetie, we just needed to talk about a few things, out here in the quiet.”

Ella turned, fingers clamped into fists, and threw me a curveball. “You’re not angry with Grandpa and Grandma, are you, Charlie?” She pinned me with that clear violet gaze. It lanced straight through my chest and slid into my heart, sly and brutal as a blade. A revelation.

Damn. When did this child manage to climb under my skin so deeply?

I reached out a hand and brushed Ella’s curls back from her face, even managed to dredge up a reasonable facsimile of a smile from somewhere.

“No,” I said, my voice soft. “Of course not.”