Public Secrets

eyes open again. His vision wavered and pain ice-picked into his head. “You a cop?”
“That’s right.”
“Fuck off. I’m in pain.”
“I’ll bring you a get-well card. You took a bad ride, pal. It’s touch and go.”
“I want a doctor.”
“I’m Dr. West, Mr. Blackpool. You’re—”
“Get this bastard out of my face.”
Ignoring him, Michael leaned closer. “It’s a good time to clean out your conscience.”
“I haven’t got one.” He tried to laugh and ended up gasping.
“Then maybe you’d like to stick it to someone else. We know about you, how you screwed up the boy’s kidnapping.”
“She remembered.” When Michael didn’t respond, he shut his eyes. Even through the pain, he could feel hate and fury. “It figures the bitch would remember me and not him. Supposed to be a nice smooth job, he told me. Take the kid, pick up the ransom. He didn’t even want the money. Then when it was all fucked, he just walked away. Told me to clean it up. Like that guy in the kitchen who was ordering pizzas. All I had to do was whack him and keep cool and I’d have everything I wanted.”
“Who?” Michael demanded. “Who was with you?”

“Gave me ten thousand pounds anyway. Nowhere close to the million we were going to ask for the kid, but a nice tidy sum. Just had to keep cool and let him handle it. The kid was dead, and the girl didn’t remember. Traumatized, he called it. Little Emma was too traumatized to remember. Nobody would ever know and he was going to see I made it to the top. On McAvoy’s coattails.”
He laughed again and fought for breath.
“You’ll have to leave now, Detective.”
Michael shook the doctor off. “A name, goddammit. Give me a name. Who set it up?”
Blackpool opened his eyes again. They were red and watery and still malicious. “Go to hell.”
“You’re going to die for this,” Michael said between his teeth. “Either here in this bed, or breathing in a lungful of poison gas, nice and legal. But you’re going to die. You can go alone, or you can’ take him with you.”
“You’ll take him down?”
“Personally.”
With a smile, Blackpool closed his eyes again. “It was Page. Pete Page. Tell him I’ll see him in hell.”

E MMA WATCHED GRIPS raise and lower the sliding doors at the rear of the stage. In a few hours, she realized, she would walk through the one on the right and go to the microphone. “I’m nervous,” she told Bev. “It’s silly. All I have to do is stand there and read the cue cards and hand out the awards.”
“Hopefully to your father and Johnno. Let’s go into the dressing room. They’re too busy to use it.”
“Don’t you want to go out front?” Emma glanced at her watch. “They’ll be starting in ten minutes.”
“Not yet. Whoops, sorry, Annabelle.”
Emma cursed herself for not having brought her camera. It was quite a sight, Lady Annabelle tucked into hot pink silk that dripped with sequins, changing a diaper.
“Don’t worry. He’s nearly decent.” She picked young Samuel Ferguson up to cuddle. “We just nipped in here for a quick feed and change. I couldn’t leave him with the nanny. It didn’t seem fair that he should miss his papa’s big night.”
Emma looked at the baby’s sleepy eyes. “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“Just needs a little nap.” She nuzzled again, then laid him on the sofa. “Would you mind standing guard for a few minutes? I need to find P.M.”

“You could twist our arms,” Bev murmured, bending down to stroke the baby’s head.
“I won’t be more than ten minutes.” Annabelle hesitated at the door. “Are you sure? If he wakes up—”
“We’ll entertain him,” Bev promised.
After one last look, Annabelle shut the door quietly behind her.
“Who would have imagined the ditsy Lady Annabelle as a devoted mother?” Emma mused.
“Babies change you.” Bev sat on the arm of the sofa watching Samuel sleep. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you alone.”
Automatically Emma lifted a hand to the bruise on her temple. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Noting the gesture, Bev nodded. “I wanted to touch on that as well, but there’s something else. I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it.” One deep breath, and she plunged. “Brian and I are going to have another baby.”
Emma stared, lips parted in surprise. “A baby?”
“I know. It surprised us too, though we have been trying.” She lifted a hand to her hair. “After all this time—I suppose