wouldn’t back away from it and, having agreed to the deal, Justin knew he was stuck with it. Finally, he gave in and asked me to set up the meeting. Well, ‘asked’ would be a euphemistic way of describing his belligerent demands. He made it abundantly clear that I wouldn’t have been his first or last choice as go-between. And from Salena’s cool gaze levelled in my direction, she wasn’t too big a fan of my involvement either. As for Karen, I was confident she would leap at the chance to meet her daughter.
Me? I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea for either of them — or good for me either, for that matter. Taking charge, Justin instructed me to bring Karen to the Ja Coozy restaurant in the Wynyard Quarter at one o’clock on Saturday afternoon. No doubt he’d chosen a fishbowl-style setting where he could keep a close eye on us from a chosen spot close by. He confirmed my suspicion by assuring me he would be nearby at all times.
No amount of warning from me could dampen Karen’s excitement. She was overjoyed at the prospect of meeting her daughter. Breathless with anticipation, she began planning an early flight up on Saturday morning in time to meet with me beforehand. The more she chattered eagerly about the meeting, the deeper my heart sank. Call me a pessimist but I couldn’t help thinking it would go badly. When she asked for details about Sunny I reminded her of our agreement that everything about her daughter would remain private until Sunny chose to share it with her. Karen agreed immediately, apologised for her transgression and told me I was quite right. Such was her elation and gratitude she would have agreed to anything. Try as I did to remind myself that this woman had attempted to murder her daughter and had succeeding in killing her five-year-old son it wasn’t enough to stop me feeling some compassion for her. I tried one last time to warn her that things might not go all that smoothly.
‘She has a lot of anger towards you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course she does. I understand.’ But it wasn’t enough to extinguish the excitement in her voice. ‘Do you think I could bring her a gift or something?’ Before I could answer, she added, ‘Or do you think that would be wrong?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘I’ve never been in this situation before.’
I didn’t intend this as sarcastic but it must have sounded so. She was quiet for a full minute. I thought of apologising but decided not to. If she couldn’t handle what sounded like a bit of sarcasm from me, she sure as hell wouldn’t be match-fit for the meeting with Sunny.
‘Neither have I,’ she finally offered.
I’d punched the wind out of her. We wound down the conversation with me promising to get in touch if there was a change in plan. I thought there was a high probability either Sunny or her father would chicken out and call the whole thing off or Salena would decide she couldn’t allow the meeting to go ahead. Before ending the call Karen thanked me for everything I’d done.
‘Sunny must trust you to ask you to come with her.’ I couldn’t say anything without giving away more about Sunny’s relationship with her stepmother than I was prepared to. ‘Thank you,’ she added. Despite all my dire warnings, she sounded happy. No doubt passengers on the Titanic were happy before they hit that iceberg, too.
Back at the townhouse, I called Robbie. I thought he’d ask why I hadn’t phoned the day before, but that was just my own guilt talking. He said he was happy to keep Wolf until I returned on Saturday afternoon.
‘He misses you,’ he said. ‘And I do too.’
I heard the grin, pictured it, too, and felt myself grinning back. ‘Yeah, well, don’t you go chewing up the furniture now.’
There was a pause before he spoke. ‘Have you thought about my suggestion?’ I swallowed. ‘About us moving in together?’ In case I was confusing it with some other suggestion he’d made.
‘I’ve been really busy.’
Stupid and evasive. The truth was that I hadn’t thought about it at all. Not because I was too busy or had other things on my mind. I hadn’t thought about Robbie’s suggestion we move in together because I was a big fat squawking chicken in big fat squawking chicken denial.