Chapter 438 - 438: Background Check.

In Los Angeles, Calista Wave was still standing at her living room window when her phone buzzed.

She almost didn't look. She assumed it was Lorenzo. An apology, maybe. Or an excuse. Or another one of those carefully casual messages that never quite said anything at all.

It wasn't Lorenzo.

[[Kyle: Miss me?]]

Calista stared at the screen.

Two words. Her own words. The exact message she had sent him days ago, lying on her bed in lingerie, knowing exactly what it would do to him.

He had remembered.

Her thumbs moved before her brain could stop them.

[[Calista: You have no idea how]]

She stopped. Deleted it.

[[Calista: Something happened today and]]

Deleted that too.

She thought about Lorenzo's forehead pressed against the steering wheel. About the questions. "Where's Kyle? Who did he take? When is he coming back?" About a boyfriend with a name that didn't fit.

If she told Kyle now, he would want details. Details she didn't have. He would worry, or worse, he would think she was being dramatic. Jealous. Trying to reel him back from London with a story.

"Not yet. Not until I know what I'm dealing with."

Calista locked her phone and set it face down on the windowsill.

For the first time since she had met him, she left Kyle on read.

It felt terrible.

-

In London, Kyle was still standing at his own window, phone face down beside his glass of water.

He waited ten minutes. Then twenty. Nothing.

He finally went to bed, but sleep came in pieces. Every time he drifted off, his mind pulled him back to that typing bubble. Appearing. Disappearing. Appearing again.

When the grey light of Friday morning crept around the edges of the curtains, he gave up and got dressed.

The suite was still quiet when he made coffee. He sat at the kitchen counter, opened his wallet, and took out a yellowed business card.

Harold Pike.

Tony's retired detective. Thirty years with the Metropolitan Police. Bored out of his mind, Tony had said. Crosswords and complaints about the government.

Kyle turned the card over in his fingers.

He had thought he would never need it. He had found Maya without anyone's help. But tonight he was having dinner with a woman who had followed him across London, lied about where she lived, and whose mother sat in rooms full of masked people who didn't want to be known.

"I walked into that first dinner blind. I'm not doing it twice."

He dialed.

The phone rang six times. Kyle was about to hang up when someone answered.

["Pike."] The voice was gravelly, flat, and thoroughly unimpressed with the world.

"Mr Pike. My name is Kyle. Tony Greenberg gave me your number."

A pause. Then a grunt that might have been a laugh.

["The American. Tony said you might ring. Said you were a good lad with too much money and not enough sense."]

"That sounds like Tony."

["It does. What do you want?"]

Kyle appreciated that. No small talk. No pleasantries.

"I need information about a family," he said. "Old money. London. The mother calls herself Eleanor the Second. The daughter is Eleanor the Third."

Silence on the other end of the line.

It went on long enough that Kyle checked whether the call had dropped.

"Mr Pike?"

["I'm here."] The voice had changed. Still flat, but careful now.

["You've had dealings with them?"]

"Dinner. Once, earlier this week. Tonight is the second."

Pike made a sound low in his throat. "Give me until the afternoon."

The line went dead.

Kyle set the phone down slowly.

"That reaction wasn't nothing."

-

Ella found him an hour later, still at the counter, on his third coffee.

"You're up early," she said, padding in barefoot with the shark tucked under one arm. "Again. Are you okay? You've basically stopped sleeping since we got here."

"I'm fine."

"You're lying." She dropped onto the stool next to him and set the shark on the counter between them like a chaperone.

"Is it the lady?"

"Partly."

"You're seeing her again."

It wasn't a question. Kyle looked at her.

"How do you know that?"

"Because you've been staring at your phone like it owes you money, and you only get that look when trouble's involved." Ella shrugged.

"And the lady is the only trouble in London you've told me about."

Kyle smiled despite himself. "Tonight. Eight o'clock."

"Called it."

Ella studied him for a moment. The teasing was still there, but underneath it was something sharper.

"Do you like her?"

"I don't know her."

"That's not what I asked."

Kyle thought about it honestly. Eleanor was sharp. Funny. Beautiful. And she had followed him across a city just because she was curious.

"I don't trust her," he said finally. "That's the only thing I'm sure about."

Ella nodded slowly.

"Good," she said. "Then you're still thinking with the right head."

"Ella."

"What? It's a compliment." She grabbed the shark and stood up. "If she tries anything, the eyebrow threat still stands."

-

Pike called back at half past three.

Kyle was in his room with the door closed. Cassandra had taken Jasmine and Junior to the hotel gardens. Jane was reading. Ella was on the phone with Nate, shouting about something to do with the club's weekend lineup.

"Pike," Kyle said.

["That's my line,"] the gravelly voice replied. ["You alone?"]

"Yes."

["Good."] There was the sound of paper shuffling.

["The family name is Ashworth. Old money doesn't begin to cover it. Shipping, originally. Then property. Then whatever pays best in any given decade. Three generations of women named Eleanor running the whole thing. The first one died about fifteen years ago. The second one runs it now."]

"And the third?"

["Twenty-four. Educated in Switzerland. Very bored. Very clever. Usually seen in the society pages, not the crime pages."] Pike paused. ["Usually."]

Kyle waited.

["Here's the part you'll want to hear,"] Pike went on.

["In thirty years on the job, I saw the Ashworth name come up exactly four times. Never as suspects. Never as witnesses. Just... nearby. A dinner guest at the wrong house on the wrong night. A charity donation to the wrong foundation. A property sold to the wrong buyer two weeks before a raid."]

Paper rustled again.

["Every time we got close, a solicitor turned up and the questions stopped. Every time."]

"So they're clean."

["No, lad."] Pike's voice was tired now. Almost amused.

["They're careful. That's not the same thing."]

Kyle closed his eyes.

"Does the mother attend private events?" he asked. "Masked ones. Invitation only."

The silence on the line was answer enough.

["You've been to one of those,"] Pike said slowly.

"Once."

["Then you already know what kind of people the Ashworths keep company with."]

Pike exhaled.

["I'll tell you what I'd tell my own son. Go to your dinner. Be polite. Eat your food. And don't sign anything, don't owe them anything, and don't let that girl get comfortable thinking you need her."]

"Thank you, Mr Pike."

["Harold,"] Pike said.

["Tony's friends call me Harold. God knows why."]

The line went dead.

\\-

At seven-thirty, Kyle stood in front of the mirror in a dark suit, adjusting his cuffs.

Jane was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him. She didn't say anything for a long time.

"You look nice," she said eventually.

"Thank you."

"Is it the same woman?"

"Yes."

Jane nodded. She was quiet again for a moment. Then she stood up, walked over, and fixed his collar, the same way Cassandra had a few nights ago.

"Come back safe," she said softly.

Kyle looked at her. The girl who had once been too shy to look him in the eye. The woman who had called her own boss yesterday and asked for what she needed without hiding behind him.

"I always come back," he said.

Jane smiled. Small. Real. Then she kissed him on the cheek and left the room.

His phone buzzed on the dresser.

[[Eleanor: Address attached. Don't be late. And Kyle? Wear something you don't mind being photographed in.]]

Kyle frowned.

He opened the attachment.

It wasn't a restaurant.

It was a private residence. A townhouse in Belgravia. And the name on the property listing, in neat black letters beneath the photograph, was Ashworth.

She was taking him home.

To her mother.