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“My name’s Ford Arc, ma’am. I just want to talk.”
There’s a pause. More silence. I think she’s gone away and I’m fucked, but suddenly the door unlocks with a loud thunk and it opens a crack, the chain still in place.
A woman stares out at me with narrowed eyes. She’s frowning, looking bleary and weathered, but that’s the same woman from the photograph.
Katherine’s mother. I finally fucking found her.
“Ford?” she asks and tilts her head. “Kat told me you two split up. What are you doing here?” Her eyes widen a touch. “Did she ask you about the money?”
“She mentioned the money,” I lie and lean in. “We’ve got to talk.”
She clears her throat. The door closes, the chain pulls back, and it opens up a second later. “I’ve got beer and cigarettes. Don’t mind the mess.”
The room smells like musty socks. I shut the door behind me and yank open the drapes to get some light. She’s right, the mess is ugly: fast food wrappers, drug paraphernalia, pill bottles, a crack pipe, needles and heroin gear, magazines strewn all over the floor, clothes thrown in piles. Jackie trudges over it all to the minifridge, takes out a beer, cracks it open, and chugs half. It’s barely eleven in the morning.
“That’s better,” she grunts and sits down on the edge of the bed. She’s thin, nearly emaciated, with dark leathery skin and old, faded tattoos. She looks more like a woman used to bikerbars than the daughter of an aristocratic rich man, but Jackie Stockton has had a very hard life.
I take a seat on a chair that looks relatively clean and try to ignore the cocaine on the mirror in front of me.
“Have you talked to Kat lately?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “I called a couple times but she hasn’t been much help. Her grandfather hates me.”
“I heard.”
“Did you come with the money? I don’t need all that much, just a couple thousand and then—”
“No, I don’t have any money.”
Her expression narrows. “I thought you said—”
“I lied.”
She slowly stands up. “I think you should go then.”
I don’t move. I lean back and cross my legs and tilt my head, studying her. This is the woman that has caused Kat so much trouble, and there’s a dark part of me that wants to push her down onto the bed, cover her with a pillow, and snuff her out. Kat’s life would be so much simpler without her mother in this world acting as the tether that keeps her chained to that awful family.
But I’m not in the business of doing things that cause Kat pain anymore.
“Did you know that your daughter is going to marry Matthew Keyne in a few weeks?”
Her mother hesitates. “I heard something about him before.”
“She despises Matthew Keyne. He’s an old money asshole who thinks he’s the greatest thing on the planet, and he’s going to make her life miserable.”
She wavers and slowly sinks back down. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because she’s going to do it for you?”
Jackie rears back. “For me? The hell?”
“She cut a deal with your father. Kat marries Matthew, your father continues to keep you alive. But until then, you get nothing, which is why Kat hasn’t come through with any money yet.”
“How the hell do you know all this?”
“Because I know Kat and I know exactly what your father would demand of her. He’s exactly like my grandpop, and if I were in her position, my grandpop would use everything he can against me. Also, I asked her cousin.”
Jackie cackles softly and tugs at her hair. “So what if she marries a rich guy? Life could be worse.”
