“Oh, I bet they were thrilled to find you staring at them as they slept.” As more synapses crackled in Stephanie’s sleepy brain, she realized she’d asked the wrong question. “Wait. How are you here?”
“Do you actually live in your office now?”
Ugh. Hearing the same question she’d been asking herself said aloud made it seem even more pathetic. Stephanie shuffled into the breakroom serving as her kitchen, the nutty aroma of her coffee already wafting through the office, thanks to the magic of timers.
She sniffed the pot.
Seems normal.
Her mother had already tried to kill her once. Best to stay on her toes for one of her Momster’s adorable, lethal traps.
She poured a cup, confident her mother would find poisoning her coffee too easy. She wouldn’t kill her own daughter with such a humble trick. No, her death would be something more subtle, like stirring the coffee to make the earth tilt just far enough off its axis for a comet to strike her dead.
Stephanie glanced side-eyed as her mother appeared in the breakroom’s doorway. She wasn’t sure how much information about her life she wanted to share. It was always best to keep an upper hand and give Jamie as little information as possible.
Stephanie took a sip of dark blend, stalling to arrange her thoughts and nerves in order. She hated how her mother’s presence made her feel.
Weak.
She felt like a little girl. Which was ironic, since her mother had given her away as a baby. She’d never knew her as a little girl.
She lifted her chin. “Tell you what, you explain why your boney butt isn’t sitting in a cell and I’ll share my living situation.”
“I’ll take a cup,” said Jamie.
“I only make enough for me.”
“Been alone a long time, huh?”
Ouch.
Stephanie pulled another mug from the cabinet and filled it. She hadn’t lied. She really did only make enough for her—the four full mugs a day she required to function.
She handed her mother the coffee. “Cream? Sugar? Arsenic?”
“Black.”
“Oh. Like your soul. Perfect. So tell me about your jailbreak.”
Jamie smiled. “It’s prison, not jail. Big difference. It takes a little longer to get out.”
“Yeah, I know the difference. I’m a lawyer. All my clients go to jail, but I keep most of them out of prison.”
“You can’t be very successful if you’re living in your office.”
“I’m between homes, okay? I own this whole building. My office, the nail salon next door and the dry cleaner next to that. I’ll be getting a house soon. It doesn’t help when word gets out your mother is The Puzzle Killer. Worrying your lawyer’s mother might kill you in your sleep doesn’t help bolster client confidence.”
Jamie tapped her finger to her lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever killed anyone in their sleep before...no, wait. Yes, I have. Long time ago. Death of necessity, not fun. No time for style points.”
“Why do I suspect you actually do assign yourself points for style?”
“Someone has to.” Jamie took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. “Yikes. Even your coffee tastes depressed.”
“I’m not depressed.” Stephanie gritted her teeth until the muscles in her cheeks ached. “Why are you here?”
“They let me out. Of course my flesh and blood was the first person I wanted to see.”
Stephanie snorted a laugh. “They let you out. Right. They just opened the door for the most prolific serial killer of all time.”
“Presumably.”
“Presumably they opened the door?”
“No, presumably I’ve killed more people than anyone else. They don’t really have anyone’s full list.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Last time I checked they didn’t let people out if they killed one person.”
Jamie shrugged.
“And why come here? This is the first place they’ll look for you, people with their antiquated notions of motherly love and all.”
“No one’s coming. I told you. They let me out.”
Stephanie shuffled past her mother to enter her office and take a seat behind her desk. Jamie followed to sit in the chair opposite, the one clients used to occupy before her business fizzled.
She wrapped her hands around her mug to warm them up. She liked it cold when she slept and had forgotten to adjust the air-conditioning. Her mother had her whole routine disturbed.
“So Hell coughed you back up. Now what? What do you want from me?”
Jamie shrugged. “Nothing. I was in town. Thought I’d say hi.”
“Great. Hi. Now leave. I have things to do.”
Her mother set her mug on the desk, leaned forward, and took Stephanie’s hand in her own.
Stephanie didn’t fight to avoid contact. She wasn’t sure why.
“Come with me,” said Jamie, staring into her eyes, mesmerizing her like a cobra.
She looked away. “What are you talking about?”
“Come with me. Together we could do the most amazing things. You don’t want to be here in this squalor.”
“It isn’t squalor, it’s a respectable business.”
Jamie laughed. “Defense attorney isn’t respectable.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You work with thugs and gangsters.”
“Gangsters deserve representation, same as anyone.”
“You’re sleeping in your office. You know who sleeps in their office? Losers.”
“Losers get caught and go to prison.” The room flashed red and Stephanie jerked away her hand, hissing. “Get off of me.”
Jamie grinned. “There’s my girl. You want to kill me, don’t you?”
Yes.
Stephanie leaned back in her chair, fighting for control over her emotions. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Jamie smiled. “You said get caught.”
“So?”
“A normal person would say losers go to prison. It was the fact I was caught you saw as a failing.”
Stephanie opened her mouth to retort, but only a single blip of a noise released, as if hands had wrapped around her throat, choking back her words. She swallowed and took a few deep breaths through her nose, until once again she felt as
