I don’t know how long I was asleep. I didn’t feel very rested, but someone was pounding on my door. I threw on some clothes (you can’t have a good long cry with clothes on) and opened the door to find my mother standing there.

“Squidgy!” She hurried into the trailer and shut the door. “You look like hell! Are you all right?”

“How did you find me?” I asked as I opened a Diet Coke and offered it to her. I poured myself one.

“Oh, we still have our ways,” she said. “What happened here? Is Sartre all right?”

I nodded. “Nothing, Mum. I just got dumped by a woman I thought I had a real thing with because she found out I killed her idol. How are you?”

Mum reached up and gingerly touched my swollen face. “You’ve been crying! I’ve never known you to do that over a girl!”

“Yeah, well, she was special.”

“Why did you tell her you killed whoever it was you killed?”

It was a fair question. “Because she had to know. Because I’m an idiot.”

I sat there while my mother made me breakfast. She sat and watched as I ate.

“Why did you ask me to bring in Veronica Gale, Mum?”

She looked as though she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“There’s more to this than the council let on. I didn’t bring up my suspicions to the cousins, if that’s what you are worried about.”

Her face softened. “You got the assignment because I thought you were ready for it.”

“What the hell does that mean? How was I ready for it? I kept Dekker alive to listen to my rants on Veronica! Clearly I wasn’t ready for another assignment.”

Mum nodded. “Which is why you were selected. We chose you to test because we knew you would fight us. We didn’t ask you to kill Veronica-just to bring her in for questioning.”

“What the hell?” My head ached as if I had a hangover. I tried to focus. Mum waited patiently.

“You wanted us to quit! You wanted out too!” I slapped the table.

She nodded. “Yes, we did. You got it!”

“You played us!” It wasn’t Ronnie who had manipulated me-it was my mother! “Why?”

Georgia Bombay sighed heavily, and I saw for the first time that she was old. “You know, my generation tried to get out of the business before you were born.”

Suddenly I was wide-awake. “You never told me. What happened?”

“Oh…” She waved her hand dismissively. “We were children of the sixties-very antiestablishment. The council represented the Man. We didn’t want to kill. We wanted peace.”

An image of the council members as hippies invaded my brain. I shuddered.

“Unfortunately, as you know, our parents’ generation was much more hard-core. They came from the generation of the Great War between good and evil. Everything was black-and-white to them. They were convinced that carrying on the tradition was their way of saving the world.”

“Damn. I would’ve liked to see you take on the council.” And I wanted to too. That had to be something to see.

“We have it somewhere on film. I think Pete kept a copy. The council recorded everything back then. They were pretty paranoid.”

I took a moment to wrap my mind around this. It was an incredible shock.

“But our folks wouldn’t hear of disbanding the organization. They didn’t want to kill us either, so they agreed to pretend it never happened if we went back to work. Which we did.”

“I can’t believe this.” I really couldn’t. “So you set us up to bring down the company.”

“Yes! And it worked brilliantly too! I’m quite the actress, wouldn’t you say? York wanted to hold out a little longer-you know, add some more drama to make it fun. But Pete couldn’t hold off anymore.”

Make it fun? Okay. I could understand that.

“And it was fun finally giving it all up once and for all. Well, except for when Missi electrocuted us. That sort of sucked, dear.”

I grinned. “I guess it sort of did.” So it was all a ruse. How about that. Who would have thought my mother was capable of such surprises?

“Well, I really should be going, honey. They are all waiting for me.”

“Who is?”

“The rest of the council. We’re heading to Greenland to tell our parents.”

I frowned. “What if they don’t like the idea?”

She smiled. “Well, I guess they will just have to stay at that nursing home then, won’t they?” With a wink, she was gone.

Chapter Thirty-eight

My cell rang the moment the door closed. The caller ID said, Veronica Gale, 27, grad student at the University of Iowa, a bit anal-retentive about anthropology. I didn’t know how Missi did that.

“Hello.” I didn’t really know what to say. Me! The man who always had something pithy to say.

“Why did you leave?”

“You weren’t speaking.” To me that seemed like a demand to get out of her life forever. But maybe that was just me.

“Where are you now?” She sounded a little frantic. Was she worried I had left the state? That would be nice.

I gave her directions and, to my surprise, she hung up on me. Ten minutes later I was not so surprised when she knocked on my door.

“So this is where you live?” She wandered around, opening cupboards and poking into things. “It’s nice.”

“Thanks.”

“And you look awful. Like you were crying or got punched in the face.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Well, which was it?” she demanded.

“Crying.” I was man enough to admit that. Or was I? I wasn’t really sure what kind of man I was anymore. And that came as a shock.

Veronica plucked Sartre from my bed and sat down holding her. “Why did you say you’d help me?”

“What?” I missed something.

“Why did you say you would help me find Anderson’s killer if you knew it was you?”

That was a fair question. “You were so passionate about it. I wanted to help you.”

“Did you think you would ever tell me the truth?”

“I have no idea.”

“Really?”

“Really. I had no idea where this would lead. I guess I just thought I’d see where the wind took me.”

Veronica thought about that for a moment. “Kind of like your life, huh?”

I nodded. She was right.

“I like your RV. Is this where we will live?”

I sat down out of shock. “What are you saying?”

She shook her head like I was clueless. “It’s either this or my asbestos-infested apartment. That professor is coming back from Paraguay soon.”

“You…you want to live with me?” I actually stuttered. That had to be a first.

“Yes, Coney Bombay. I want to live with you. I want to make an honest man out of you and be a mother to your guinea pig.”

“Wow. That’s a good offer.” I smiled. “Okay. You can live here.”

Ronnie closed the gap between us, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me in a way that made my hair stand on end.

“Okay. I’ll get my stuff. Just one thing.”

I kissed her again. It felt like home. “And what is that?”

She smiled. “I really hate the nickname Ronnie.”