Lost City (An Eoin Miller Mystery Book 3) by Jay Stringer Page B

diners forgot their fears and turned to stare at us.
    I looked up to her and then down at my food, and my stomach called me a traitor as I stood up. I dropped a twenty on the table and half-waved, half-shrugged at the waiter on my way out, following Claire to a black BMW idling at the curb. We both got in the back, and the driver pulled away.
    Daddy wants to see you.
    Those were not words I’d ever wanted to hear Claire say. For most any man, the thought of being summoned to see the father of the woman he was sleeping with was dreadful enough. But this was more.
    Daddy.
    Daddy was Ransford Gaines.
    The boss.

Ransford Gaines lived in a large house in Solihull. I’d seen it in photographs and on television news reports, but I’d never been there. It was a flex of his muscles in more ways than one; not only had he bought a big flashy house, but it was on the other side of Birmingham, on the other side of half a dozen rival gangs. The house was out of his comfort zone, but he’d never had any troubles. He took his comfort zone with him.
    I wanted to sit in silence as we drove but Claire was having none of it.
    “You’re scared, aren’t you?”
    “No.”
    “Liar. Bless, you’re cute when you’re scared.”
    Of all the times to flirt. “Wait, does he know about—”
    She laughed. “I hope not. I’ve spent my whole life learning to keep things from him. I’d hate to slip up on this one.”
    “What would he do?”
    “Has Ronny ever told you about the time Stumpy Smith waved his dick at her when they were at school?”
    “No.”
    “Well, he wasn’t called ‘Stumpy’ before that.”
    She sank back into the seat and watched me, seeing if I’d call her bluff and say she was lying. I didn’t really care for the game, so I sat in silence. There were any number of things Ransford Gaines could want to see me about, and almost none that I could think of ended with me getting a new nickname.
    “Relax.” She squeezed my thigh a little too high up, and I cast a nervous eye at the driver’s reflection in the rearview. “It’s about work.”
    The drive took just over half an hour, mostly on the motorway. The M6 took us past the industrial buildings of Wolverhampton and Walsall to the huge concrete sprawl of Birmingham, the outlines of its tall buildings sharp in the fading light. South of the city, we turned onto the M42, and the scenery began to change. There was far more greenery and less concrete. The houses started to double or triple in size, and the cars seemed in less of a hurry.
    Once you’re into this part of the midlands, you start to see how the other half live. Houses with acres of land, quiet private roads, and more golf courses than shops. The driver was obviously in no hurry since the route he took was along narrow country lanes.
    “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Claire nudged me as the driver turned down a narrow lane and we passed a large house with tacky mock Tudor paneling fronted by an elaborate water fountain. I checked myself and realized there was nothing mock about that Tudor. But despite its authenticity, it still turned my stomach.
    Any number of normal roads can be taken to reach Solihull that border train lines, bus routes, or working class housing estates. We were taking the scenic route for a reason; they wanted to put me in my place.
    We pulled up to a large black gate set into a high brick wall. The driver leaned out and waved an electronic pass against a card reader set onto a pole beside his door, and the gates opened inward. We drove onto a gravel road lined with stately trees. I saw dark shapes moving, guard dogs watching us from the shadows. Ahead was the house. It was also a Tudor, with white paneling between dark old beams. It wasn’t exactly Wayne Manor, but it was too big to be a house. It sat atop a small hill decorated with shrubs and flowering plants, raised up twenty feet from the driveway. The car stopped in front of a stone staircase leading up to the house, and