that needed to be domesticated. “If you want to understand our language, you just have to pay attention. Now go get some rest. Because I pay attention, too. It’s not only ghosts that walk these halls at night.”
I followed the sounds of laughter coming from upstairs. Keely and Connolly were getting Ryan ready for his bath. Keely was helping the little girl hold Ryan.
“That’s it, CeeCee,” she said, helping her steady him on her hip. “He’s heavy, but you can do it, baby girl.”
Connolly stuck her hip out, trying to distribute some of his weight, a big smile on her face. While Keely ran his bath water, the entire bathroom smelling flowery, Keely started to sing. Maybe she could hear. Maybe she couldn’t. But the little girl hummed along with her.
The change in Connolly was shocking.
Life. She had life in her.
Keely turned around to take Ryan from his sister and caught me standing there. “Need something, Kelly?” Her voice was flat, but she kept kissing his fingers while he tried to stick them in her mouth.
“Nothing but a good night’s sleep, darlin’.”
“You know which way the bed is,” she said, turning around, giving me her back. “And it’s not in here.”
There was that touch again. I looked down. Connolly looked up. She had set her hand in mine. She pulled me in the direction of the master bedroom and nodded toward the bed. I took a seat, wondering what she was going to do after she left me alone. A minute later, she came back with a couple of books from the library.
“Are you going to read to me, lil’ darlin’?” I said.
She shook her head and pointed at her chest.
“I’m going to read to you.”
She gave me a sharp nod.
I sighed, staring at her for a minute. Resigned, I took the books from her and nodded to the sitting area in the corner of the room. Keely had set it up with two chairs.
“Pick a seat,” I said.
She took the left one, her legs too short to reach the floor. But she settled in, getting comfortable. I read four short books to her … and then I realized that my eyes had closed, and I had fallen asleep. It was dark outside when I woke up, insomnia hitting me hard in that spot where it usually did. But I had slept, if only for an hour or two.
A blanket covered me that wasn’t there before.
The next day, I checked the clock on my dash. Twelve o’clock—lunch—sharp. I was meeting a retired judge who had been friends with my old man.
The valet came out to meet me, and I threw him my keys as I stepped out of my car.
“Mr. Kelly,” he said, catching them. “Have a nice lunch, sir.”
I nodded to him, walking through the door and breathing in the cool air of the country club. It smelled of old money and whatever was fresh on the menu. Maybe some kind of expensive fish.
I bypassed the people at the front desk. They knew better than to stop me. I had no patience for them, no manners, and I refused to play the power-trip game—they knew I had an appointment, so that was that.
Judge McLean stood as he waved me over to his table. We shook when I was close enough.
“Good to see you,” he said, nodding toward the seat across from him. “I ordered you whiskey.”
I pushed it toward him after I took a seat. “You enjoy,” I said. “I’m driving.”
He grinned at me, knowing better. There were only a few places I’d eat or drink from, and his country club wasn’t one of them. Too many rats in the kitchen wearing suits and ties that wanted a big cat like me dead.
“I suppose you ate already?”
I nodded. “Big breakfast.”
“Ah,” he said, sitting back when his plate of fish was delivered. Right on time. They knew when he wanted his food and how it was supposed to be cooked. “Not that marriage has anything to do with breakfast, but I heard you got married. Congratulations.” He lifted the whiskey I’d pushed toward him and then drank. “It would’ve been nice to get an invite to the wedding of the year, though.”
Same here, I was going to say, but just nodded and told him I appreciated it.
He wasn’t a man to shy away from talking business during lunch, so we went over a couple of things, and then I said something that made him look up from his almost empty