Second Shot by Zoe Sharp Page A

attempt to distance myself from him still further. It had been only partially successful.
    Sean had never met with my parents’ approval, either. One more thing we had in common. When I’d made the decision to take him up on his job offer and moved down from my home in the north permanently, they’d made a somewhat disappointingly brief bid to talk me out of it, then retreated into a martyred silence that I had not yet felt inclined to break.
    I hadn’t even told them I was going back to the States. Partly because I didn’t want to face another argument when I had enough reservations of my own about the trip. But mainly just in case they made no comment on the subject at all. I’m not sure which would have been worse.
    Simone’s eyes slid back to the TV screen, but I knew she didn’t see the picture. “I only remember odd fragments of my father,” she said abruptly. “A lullaby, a deep voice sitting by my bed reading Beatrix Potter stories. But I can’t see his face at all.” She looked up, her face defiant, as though I would contradict her. “It’s one of the things that’s been bothering me, since we came out here. Will I recognize him when I finally meet him? My mother never kept any pictures. It’s all this huge blank.”
    She shook her head and for a moment I thought she was going to cry, but she swallowed the tears back down again. ‘And now,” she continued in a low voice, “you tell me he might have somehow caused the death of this investigator? What kind of monster would that make him?”
    “That’s Neagley’s theory, not mine,” I said quickly. “She’s worried enough to have hired in some additional security. I think perhaps it might be a good idea if you considered doing the same.”
    “No,” Simone said without pause for thought.
    I took a breath. “I’m not armed, Simone,” I said quietly “I can’t legally carry a gun over here. Maybe, if Neagley’s right, you should think about bringing in someone who can.”
    “No. I won’t have guns around Ella.” Simone met my eyes, determined, stubborn. “Looks like you’ll have to do the best you can, Charlie.”
    W e picked up the trolleybus for our tour of Boston at the stop just outside the Aquarium, retracing our steps along the harbor front to get there. No more snow had fallen since our arrival, but despite the pale sunshine, what was on the ground was showing no signs of melting. Ella still seemed enthralled by it, dragging her mother on a meandering course to inspect the larger piles of the stuff.
    As usual, I walked a pace or so behind Simone and to the side, keeping my eyes open. After her confession of the night before, she didn’t seem much inclined to talk to me, in any case.
    There were around twenty stops on the tour and—with buses running every twenty-five minutes—you could get off and get back on again more or less at will. Simone sat next to Ella in the seats directly in front of mine. It was below freezing outside and the little girl was dressed up warmly against the bitter chill in the air, with fake-fur ear warmers and some new sheepskin mittens that were actually on strings from her coat sleeves. Just because Simone was rolling in it didn’t mean she was going to be happy if her daughter lost a brand-new glove.
    The trolley took us on a set route, the driver giving an informal and joke-laden commentary that mainly seemed to center on how badly the British army had got its arse whupped during the War of Independence. I tried not to take it personally. We passed the house where Paul Revere lived with his fourteen children and the obelisk-like memorial to the battle of Bunker Hill.
    Stop number six on the tour was Boston Common, an open area that presented a startlingly white blanket. The sun had put in an appearance and the reflection off the crystallized surface was almost too bright to look at directly
    Ella jiggled in her seat at the sight of it, tugging on her mother’s sleeve, and when Simone bent