Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,91
strong-minded women who spent a couple of hours every so often lamenting about their children. I’d dropped her off at the church once on my way to Bobby’s and spent half an hour being told by these women about how much Claudia adored me and why her advice was so important. For all her schooling, Claudia loved me unconditionally. It was an odd feeling after so many years of my dad and stepmother. Her own sons were grateful for my presence in her life because it took a lot of pressure off of them. It seemed like, in a family of capable men raised by a powerful woman, my de facto adoption into their clan meant my fuckups were front and center and a source of great amusement among the Dubois boys.
“Are you going to remember to eat lunch while you’re out?” Claudia called to me, stopping me in midstride out the front door. “Or do you need me to call you about it?”
“Why? Do you want me to bring you something back?” I felt at my back pocket, making sure I had my wallet.
“No. I brought leftovers from home, but you need to eat. Have O’Byrne take you out for some damn tacos. The least that girl can do is feed you after dragging you all over the place.” She stabbed me with a steely glare sharpened with years of raising eight sons. Ancient sword masters would never be able to rival the sharpness of Claudia’s maternal judgment. I felt thoroughly stabbed through, even checking my belly button to see if my intestines were on the right side of my skin. “Just take care of yourself, okay? I appreciate you bringing in a cleaner for the office. Those hazmat people did a good job. Better than our normal people. Might want to hire them full-time.”
“Honey, I love you, but I’m not paying for a crime-scene cleaner to come take care of the office every other week. You’re just going to have to be happy with the service we have now,” I told her, saluting her with the turnover. “And I promise I’ll get something to eat. Give me a call if you need anything. And if O’Byrne can’t make it, I’ll come right back. We’re just going to take a look around. Nothing to worry about at all.”
“That’s what you always say,” she yelled at me as I closed the screen door behind me.
And that’s what mothers do. Get in the last word right before you do something incredibly stupid.
It was late enough in the morning for traffic not to be like circling a Hellmouth black hole, the suck and push of lines of cars to get to anywhere else in LA but where you were. I thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to go anywhere near the 405. Then I was forced onto the 10 by some idiot in a sports car who decided to play chicken with a fire truck.
“Glad we didn’t decide on a time. I would be late as hell,” I muttered to my phone as I texted O’Byrne about my estimated arrival time at the Brinkerhoffs’ building. Traffic was at a standstill, and while California frowned on anyone looking at their phones while behind the steering wheel, I literally could have busted out an oven and baked a cake while waiting to move forward an inch. Still, I kept my eyes out for any CHiP roaming through the lines. “Shit, at this rate, I’ll get there at about the time it would be for me to turn around and go back home.”
Something unfucked itself ahead of me, and the congestion began to break up just as O’Byrne answered. She was stuck on the other side of the fuckery, and after a quick reassurance that she’d meet me there, the car in front of me began to lurch forward. I followed, glad to be finally moving and not breathing in any more gas fumes.
One of the things Marlena Brinkerhoff gave O’Byrne was the key code for the underground garage. Well, as underground as Los Angeles got. In many parts of the city, digging down was not recommended for a variety of reasons. A lot of people who didn’t live in California tended to fear earthquakes. While there have been a few large ones, for the most part, we pretty much don’t get out of bed unless it’s a five or more on the Richter scale. I cannot count how many teeth-rattling quakes I’ve slept