Page 46 of Bulletproof

“You look great. Corduroys and a sweater and the leather jacket—you’re good. Let’s just go.”

“Don’t you have a house to renovate?”

“Are you going to help me out or not?”

Of course I was.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, let’s go to your mother’s birthday party.”

Once we were inside the car, he turned to look at me. I smiled at him.

“Spit it out.”

“No one has ever talked to me the way you talked to me that day at my house, Jory. When I was younger, no one was allowed to, and now, no one wants to be parted from my wallet.”

I processed that. “So, what, are we buying your mother a castle?”

His smile made his pale blue eyes glint. “No, she likes special things, not extravagant. She likes it when people really think of her.”

“I see.”

“You have a thought?”

“I do.”

The house in Lake Forest was enormous, with a circular cobblestone drive and manicured grounds. There were tennis courts and stables and, like, a heated ten-car garage. Amazing.

We’d had to take a helicopter there, which was fun. I enjoyed the turbulence that made Hayes green, and once we were clear of the blades, I turned back to wave at Alaric, who was a driver and a helicopter pilot, and then followed Hayes toward the house.

“How cool is it that your driver can drive anything? Can he drive a tank too?”

“Why did your mind go to tank?” he asked me, sounding pained.

“I just figured since you’re rich, you probably have a private army somewhere in the world.”

He shook his head as he led me toward the house. Once inside, I realized the place was a zoo. His mother’s party was easily forty people big. But it was an adult party, so when Hayes stepped away from me, telling me to wait, I went back to where I had spied the kids when we walked by them. They were on the other side of the great room—a boy on one couch, a little girl on the other. It was a huge room, so it felt like they were in a completely different area from where the adults were gathered.

“Hey,” the little boy said to me, all cocky bravado. He was modeling his snarky attitude after someone.

“Hey,” I greeted him, turning to enter their area, drawn by the game they were playing on PlayStation 2, by the milk and cookies, and the newspaper. “What’re you guys doing?”

He rolled his eyes in the way only a little boy could—so bored, unable to suffer fools, even at such an age. “My mom’s late, and my dad couldn’t get a babysitter, so we had to come to Grandma’s stupid party. And now Dad’s gotta talk to everybody and keep checking on us … and the man with my dad blew off Becca, and she’s all sad. But who cares anyway?”

He did, obviously.

“It’s just that Becca’s sad.”

Second time he’d said it, so I understood this was bothering him the most.

I turned and looked at the little girl and saw she had the prettiest olive-green eyes I had ever seen. Her chestnut curls were cut short in a pixie, so all you saw was a tiny face that was now a study in sadness.

“What happened, bunny?” I asked as I knelt down beside her.

Her eyes absorbed me. “The man said he would make a hat, but when Daddy came back, he didn’t want to stay, and he went with him ’cause he likes him better, and I asked Daddy to make the hat, but he has to talk to Grandma and Grandpa and everybody else, and Scotty doesn’t know how.”