The Mastermind (The Long Con #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,1

with that?” he asked fondly, suppressing the inevitable pang in his chest whenever Felix “the Fox” Salinger was mentioned. He’d damn the man for making Josh a part of his life, but God, Josh had just been such a joy. Seeing his “nephew” once every three months had been one of the driving forces bringing him back to this room four times a year—but Danny was usually the one doing the sneaking. Josh wasn’t even supposed to know where he got his mail.

“No.” Josh sobered. “He’s been… busy.”

Danny swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Yeah. I’ve seen the news.” A blaze of fury—tamped down for the last week since the story had broken—tried to leap from his chest. “Josh, look. Whatever they say in the news, you mustn’t believe it. Felix isn’t capable of any of those things. You know that, right?”

Josh nodded, sober as a judge. “Yeah. That’s why I’m here, actually.” He glanced around the soundproofed room. “I figure this place is safe, and I stopped off at a department store, so the clothes are clean right down to the boots. I changed out my wallet and activated a new credit card. My friend’s brother even swept me for bugs.” He paused. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Danny sank into one of the black leather chairs, puzzled. “Well, if I’d known we were going to get serious, I would have eaten beforehand,” he said, his stomach rumbling.

Josh laughed softly. “I’ll take you out afterward, and you can meet all my friends. We’ll have pizza.”

“Deep dish?” Danny asked, mostly to buy time.

“In Chicago? Is there any other kind?”

Danny shook his head. “He’s… he’s okay, isn’t he? Your father?”

Josh’s expression turned suddenly very adult. “I’ve known for quite some time that he’s not my father—and you’re not my uncle. It’s okay, Uncle Danny. Mom explained it to me when I was twelve. That doesn’t mean I love him any less. Or you.”

Danny’s eyebrows went up. That hadn’t made the letters. “You’ve been keeping that secret since you were twelve? And you never once mentioned it to me?” Josh’s correspondence—and his own furtive visits to see the young man do things like perform in plays and graduate from school—had been his link to the city and the life he’d once known. Josh confided almost everything to his Uncle Danny, but this was one hell of a secret.

“I was dumb,” Josh said frankly. “I thought… I thought if you and Fox knew I knew, you’d come and take him away from me—and Fox is the only dad I’ve ever known. But when Grandpa finally died, and Mom and Fox divorced, Fox stayed in our lives—hell, he and Mom still live in the house in Glencoe. And it suddenly hit me that they’d both been having discreet affairs, probably since I was born.” He met Danny’s eyes squarely. “Or for him, one long hidden affair—with you.”

Danny had thought he was beyond shame, but the heat that swept his neck and cheeks certainly had that flavor, didn’t it?

“Ten years,” Danny said, his throat dry. He wondered if he could get Carina to bring him some water. Some pizza. A time machine. “Ten. I couldn’t… I couldn’t….” He looked away. “I just couldn’t.”

“I know,” Josh said softly. “But you didn’t leave my life either, and eventually that penetrated my thick skull, you know?”

Danny’s mouth twisted, and he tasted bitterness. “You… you’re the best thing he and I ever did together.”

“You can have more time to do better,” Josh said soberly. “But first we need to get him out of the mess he’s in. I’ve got some ideas, but I haven’t been doing this for twenty years like you have.”

“Almost thirty,” Danny corrected grimly. “I started when I was twelve, you know.”

Josh’s eyes lit up. “No, really? How?”

“I told a bully that he’d be cursed with bugs in his pockets if he kept stealing our lunch money. Then I got the kid who liked bugs to bring me a box of them, and me and my friends took turns sneaking them into the pockets of his coat whenever he wasn’t looking.” They’d tripped him in hallways, dropped them in his hair when he was concentrating on classwork—whatever it took. “For a week that kid couldn’t sit down to eat without a worm falling out of his sleeve or a cockroach crawling out of his pocket. He finally broke in math class one day, confessed everything, and started throwing money on the ground to