Murder in the Cake: Cozy Murder Mystery (Harley Hill Mysteries Book 4) (21 page)

The ambulance door burst open and Del climbed back inside. “Sorry, guys, we’ve got another shout in town. I’m afraid I’m going to have to kick you out.”

Alex sighed. “That’s okay, Del,” he said, and stood up and fished something out of his pocket, which he handed to me. It was Cordi’s car keys.
 

“I’m going to be here for a few more hours, but you need to get home and get some sleep, Harley. Now, you can either drive or, more sensibly, I can get you a lift in one of the squad cars.”

I stood up; my legs felt like jelly. “I don’t mind tackling knife-wielding loonies, but I’m not going to drive Cordi’s banger. I’ll take the lift, please.”

Alex escorted me to a waiting police car. “So,” he said, “I guess this is goodbye.”

I wanted to play it cool and casual, but when it came to saying goodbye, I couldn’t speak on account of the huge lump in my throat, so I just nodded.

“Are you okay?” He sounded genuinely concerned, which made it worse.
 

Tears burned behind my eyes. I bit my lip to stop it trembling and tried to keep the tears in check. Harley Hill: daring sleuth and great big crybaby. That would not look good on a resume.

“Yeah, I… I’m just tired,” I mumbled. It was an obvious lie and we both knew it.

“If I were a gentleman, I’d let you get away with that little fib.”

“Yeah, but we both know that you’re not and that’s the problem.

“You’ve got that right,” he said and laughed.

“Take care, Alex, and thank you.”

“Any time, kid.” He opened the car door and I got in. “I really do mean that, Harley. Any time you need help, or anything, give me a call.” He closed the door. I watched him walk back to the warehouse, part of me hoped that he’d look back, but he didn’t.
 

“Where to, Miss Hill?” said the young police officer driving the car.

“Where indeed?” I said, more to myself than to her. I knew in my heart that I’d made the right choice. It just didn’t feel like it.

“Sorry, Miss, what was that?”

“Notting Hill, please.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The cops dropped me at home at really late o’clock. Cordi texted me to say that she was staying at the hospital with Michael and that they were both okay. I managed to grab a quick shower before throwing myself into bed.
 

Unsurprisingly, I had the weirdest dreams. I can’t remember exactly what they were about, but they featured terrifying puppets and me being chased by zombies while I was wearing my PJs and fluffy bunny slippers.

I woke up to the sound of someone ringing the doorbell and Max barking loudly. Groggy and half asleep, I staggered downstairs. I was wearing my pyjamas, like in the dream.

I opened the door and was relieved that instead of zombies there was a middle-aged couple standing there. They were smartly dressed, but not too flashy. They both had greying, dark hair and tanned, healthy complexions.
 

“Can I help you?” I said.

The woman looked pensive. “Samantha, is that you?”
 

“No, sorry,” I said, and closed the door in their faces. My heart was pounding. I put my back to it and slid down to the floor so that they couldn’t see me through the glass. Max sat beside me and tilted his head to one side as if to say, “Really?”

“Okay, you’re right,” I said to him. “I’m being stupid.” I stood up and opened the door. The man and woman,
my parents
, were just about to walk away. “Wait!” I called after them. “You’d better come in,” I said as I was shaking from head to feet. This was all so sudden I couldn’t quite process it.

***

I showed them into the sitting room while I went to make a pot of coffee and calm myself down because at this point I was freaking out.
 

Of all the things I’d expected I’d have to deal with today, my parents turning up on the doorstep wasn’t one of them.
 

Feeling a little calmer, I returned with the coffees and a plate of Maggie’s homemade ginger biscuits. The woman, my mother, was sitting on the couch; my father was standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back.
 

It was really weird to think that these people were my parents.

I put the tray down on the coffee table. “I brought cream and sugar. Please, help yourselves.”

“Thank you, Samantha,” she said with her American accent.
 

“My name’s Harley now, not Samantha.” It sounded sharper than I’d intended.
 

My mother looked hurt. “You changed your name?”

“Yeah. What names do you guys go by?”

My father came over and helped himself to a cookie. “These are good. Did you make them?”

“No. My business partner’s aunt made them.”

“My name is Marianne, and this is Jim. As you probably guessed, we’re your parents.” She sounded nervous, which she was right to be. I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or shout at her. I was a mess of emotions.

“We tried to call ahead, but Michael wasn’t answering his cell.”

“He’s in hospital,” I said. They both looked alarmed at that. “Relax, he’s okay—well, he’s broken his shoulder, but he’s going to be fine. That’s why he couldn’t answer his phone.”

“Oh, poor Michael. We must go see him later,” Marianne said.

“But we’re here now to see you, Sam—Harley.” Jim put his hand on my shoulder. “We missed you, darling.”

“Yes, we missed you so much,” Marianne added.

I had expected I would be either really angry or really happy when I finally met them. After all, I’d fantasized about this day all of my life. The truth was, now that it was actually happening, I didn’t feel much of anything. I was utterly numb, in total shock. “I missed you too,” I said at last just to say anything. But words couldn’t express how I felt having had to grow up through the foster system, always wondering.

How does anyone boil that down to the now, a sentence, and mere words?

Marianne leapt up and hugged me and Jim joined her.
 

“I suppose you must want to know why we left you?” Jim said.
 

“I have wondered about that once or twice,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. I mean, it was more like a thousand times, but I wasn’t ready to open up to them yet. It was far too soon.

“It’s quite a complicated story,” Jim said matter-of-factly, “but I’ll do my best to spare you sentiment and tell you exactly how it all happened. We owe you that much.”

“Thanks,” I said, steeling myself. “Go ahead, give it to me.”

“I was recruited by the KGB at Princeton University, back in 1975,” Jim said. “By your mother.”

“Oh. I see. Was there any particular reason you decided to turn traitor?”

They looked uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to hedge to save their embarrassment. I didn’t feel that I owed them that particular courtesy after they’d ditched me like an unwanted puppy after Christmas.

Marianne smiled sadly and clasped my hand. “It was a highly volatile time politically, Harley honey. I, that is,
we
thought that Russian communism was more ideologically sound than the decadence of the West. I know that must be hard for you to understand, you’ve been raised here, and you only hear one side of the story.”

“Right now the only story I’m interested in is why you left me. We can do politics 101 later, if that’s okay with you?”

She nodded. “Of course, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” She laughed nervously. “I guess I’m still passionate about politics. But yes, this is about you. Your father and I were pretty low-level agents for the KGB until the CIA recruited us to be double agents.”
 

“This was during the Cold War,” Jim added. “It was a dangerous time for agents on all sides. We travelled between Moscow and Washington, mostly intercepting diplomatic pouches, photographing the contents, and sending the information to our handlers while planting false information for the Russians to find.”

“Like your father said, it was very dangerous. Many of our friends were killed or just disappeared without a trace.”

“Go on,” I said, helping myself to a cookie, desperate for something to occupy my nerves.
 

“We had Michael, but decided it was too risky to have any more children, given the line of work we were in.”

“This became apparent when…” Jim paced in front of the fire. He was clearly struggling to talk about what had happened. “Michael was almost killed when someone booby-trapped our car.”

Marianne got out a tissue and wiped her eyes. “It was terrible, Harley. If it hadn’t exploded early, we would have all been killed.”

Jim went over to her and squeezed her shoulder.
 

I could see that they loved each other. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.
 

“We realized then that we were in too deep,” he said. “So we knew we couldn’t risk having any more children. We sent Michael to boarding school in England.”

Marianne nodded. “He was only six, poor kid. We gave him a false name and MI6 kept watch on him round the clock, but I was always afraid for his safety.”

“But you got pregnant again,” I said as I snaffled another cookie, clearly bordering on an overdose of sugar.
 

Jim cleared his throat. “Yes, it… that is,
you
weren’t planned.”

“Not that I wasn’t thrilled when I found out that I was pregnant,” Marianne added quickly.

“But you didn’t keep me.”

“Oh, darling, we couldn’t, could we, Jim?”
 

He shook his head. “It was far too dangerous. We had made a lot of enemies, on both sides. We were caught in a trap and didn’t know how much more time we had.”

“We did what we thought was best for you,” Marianne said.

“I spent my childhood in crappy orphanages and horrible foster homes.”

“We didn’t know,” Jim said defensively.

“You didn’t try to find out either.”

“We lost track of you,” Marianne said. “There was another attack on us in Moscow. We lost everything and had to flee in exile for a couple of years. In that time you were moved and nobody could find out where.”

I had to laugh. “Some spies.”

Dad stiffened. “You’re mistaking spies for detectives. I crunch numbers, analyse data. I’m not Sherlock Holmes.”

“You don’t say.” I folded my arms. So did my father. I recognised the hard set of his mouth and the tight line of his jaw. He had my stubborn face. Or rather, I had his.
 

“Please, hear us out, Harley,” Marianne said.

I unfolded my arms. If I could take pity on an egotistical nightclub owner like Farquar, I could give my own parents a fair hearing. “Sorry. Do go ahead.”

“Like I said, we made some powerful enemies,” she said. “We lived on a knife edge for years, right up until our nemesis, a powerful Russian oligarch, and his gang were put in prison in Russia.”

“And he’s never coming out, thank goodness,” my father added. “This happened recently, which is why we’ve only just made contact with you.”

“I thought it was me who went looking for Michael that instigated all this?”

Marianne shook her head. “It was a happy coincidence. We’ve always wanted to find you, but it wasn’t safe until our enemies were behind bars and we could retire.”

“Yeah, Michael said that you were ex-spies.” My tummy was doing flip-flops. I was giving them a chance to prove themselves to me by not lying.

My father nodded. “That’s correct, Harley, we’re done. Out of the whole ghastly business. We want to start over again, with you.”

“What do you mean?” I hadn’t expected that.

My mother took my hands in hers. “Come with us, Harley, come back to the States with us, it’s where you belong. You were born there, an American. Come home with us.”

“Just like that? You expect me to drop everything and move to a country I hardly know with you guys?”

“We’re your parents, honey. We love you.”

“Are you sure you’ve told me everything?” A part of me really wanted them to come clean and tell me the truth, as I could tell there was something else going on. After the recent case, my intuition was sharper than Grainger’s knife.

Marianne smiled. “Yes, darling. We’ve told you everything. Haven’t we, Jim?”

“We sure have, Mari.” He smiled at her. “What do you say, Harley, will you come and live with a couple of retired old spooks?”

I looked at them and saw myself in the colour of Marianne’s eyes, the set of my father’s jaw. They really were my parents. It was undeniable. I leaned over and hugged Marianne. Tears burned my cheeks.

“Oh, Mom. I really wish I could go with you.”

“Hush, honey, it’s okay. You can come, everything will be fine, and we’ll take Michael too—be a real family at last.”

I buried my face in her hair. I’d dreamed of this moment since I was a little kid, of being held in my mother’s arms. But the dream was now over. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you, Mom.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re lying to me.”

I felt her stiffen. She pulled away and for a second I saw through her mask. I saw her guilt. “I… I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Yes, you do. Look at me, Mom.”
 

She looked at her hands.
 

“Look at me,
comrade
.”

That got her attention. “What did you call me?”

“You heard. I know that you haven’t retired.”

Jim laughed. There was no humour in the sound, but there was fear in his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Samantha,” he snapped as though he had always been my father and was used to reprimanding me, but he didn’t know me at all.
 

“I told you, my name is Harley. And I’m not being ridiculous.”

“No, she isn’t,” a new voice said.

All heads turned to the door, where Maggie was standing with Max beside her, wagging his tail so hard that it looked like he might take off any minute. She threw him a chew stick. “Such a silly boy, he’ll do anything for a meaty chew. Now, where were we? Ah yes. You two were trying to lie to Harley, which is pretty shabby if you ask me.”

“How did you get in? I didn’t hear the door,” I said.