Page 22 of No Knight (My Kind of Hero #3)

“Maybe you should get Uncle Matty a swear jar,” Mila suggests.

“For him to whisper the bad words into?” Her tone sounds full of doubt.

“It’s more about teaching Uncle Matty not to swear, because with a swear jar, every time he says a naughty word, he has to put money into it.”

“Who gets to keep the money?” Clo asks suspiciously.

“If it’s your swear jar, you do.”

“I need a jar!” the kid says, pivoting to face me, and I’m sure I see dollar signs light up in her eyes. “And then you can say all the bad words you need.”

“I’ll end up broke,” I protest with a chuckle.

“That is a distinct possibility.” Mila has been to enough dinners to know this to be true.

“Jar later. Let’s hit the bar for now. While I can still afford to.”

“I wanna stay with Mila. I need to hear more about the jar.”

“We can do that,” she says, taking Clo’s hand.

“Fine, but no scheming,” I say, waggling a finger between the two.

At the bar, I ask a bewildered server if soda is illegal for five-year-olds. Apparently, it’s not, though a nearby group of mothering types eyes me with such distaste, I almost ask the server to stick a vodka in it for the five-year-old.

Anyway, I order enough soda and snacks to fuel an army.

I also get a few cans of alcohol-free mojitos for Mila and her companions, plus a beer for myself.

As I turn from the counter, arms full of contraband, I wonder if Letty might have reservations about me taking Clodagh out again.

That is, if I take her home buzzed to fuck on sugar.

Hmm. Come to think of it, I’ll be the one dealing with her for the next couple of hours .

Maybe I should’ve gotten her water, I think as I belatedly come to realize my footsteps are slowing.

It’s not because I’m reluctant to return to Clodagh with all this junk, but more like my brain is trying to make sense of something.

Of what I’m seeing as, through the crowds, I spot my niece talking to a woman.

Short and slight in stature, especially hunkered low in front of Clodagh, she seems familiar somehow.

Maybe it’s the coat she’s wearing. Emerald green.

Or maybe it’s the way she flicks her dark hair over her shoulder.

Mila still has hold of Clo’s hand, seemingly part of the conversation.

But it’s the woman who has my attention, everything around me seeming to shift into slow motion.

Objects and people around me blur, my vision tunneled and focused.

Though I see her as clear as day, and my anticipation dials high as I wait for her to turn.

“Watch it, mister!”

I come back to my surroundings as a group of kids is herded across my path. I momentarily lose sight of Clo and ... I pick up the pace.

“Maltesers!” Clodagh reaches for the packet balanced in the crook of my arm.

“Who was that?” I ask as my gaze sweeps the space for her. “The woman you were just talking to?”

“The one in the green coat?” Mila asks. “No idea. She stopped to talk to Clodagh when she heard her accent.”

“She picked up my wothe when I dropped it.” Clodagh pulls a bottle of Sprite from my hand. “She’s ’merican too.”

“Did she say where she was from?”

Clo shakes her head. Then shakes the bottle.

“She was perfectly nice,” Mila puts in. “And I didn’t take my eyes off—”

“Course you didn’t.” I don’t mean to be curt, but I can’t throw off this prickling sensation. It’s like fire ants are crawling all over me, like if I don’t find the answer, they’ll start to bite. “I just thought I recognized her.” Or I hoped. “It’s fine,” I add, plastering a smile across my face.

“The lady was buying tickets to another show,” Clo says, passing her soda back, impatient for it to be opened.

“Was she?” I loop my fingers around the top.

Clodagh nods. “She just moved to London and said hearing me talk reminded her of ’merica.”

“That’s nice, darlin’.” I begin to twist the bottle top, though the violent-sounding hiss makes me tighten it again.

“I told her we were going to see Aladdin and that you had gone to buy me a thoda.”

“That I had?” I ask quickly.

“Her uncle,” Mila answers, looking at me strangely. Can’t say I blame her.

“Are you gonna open that?” Clo taps the bottom of the plastic bottle.

“This?” I hold it up as though I’m not even sure what it is, and Clo nods.

“Not just yet.” I make to slot it into my pocket before realizing this stupid frock coat doesn’t have any pockets.

“Maybe when we get to our seats. Speaking of”—I glance Mila’s way—“they’re going to deliver the rest to us in there. ”

“Thank you, Matt. That’s so kind of you.”

“I told the lady they don’t have a popcorn machine here.”

“Popcorn?”

“Yes.” Clodagh frowns. “Are you not listening to me?”

“Of course I am. You said they don’t have popcorn here.”

“Yeah. I told her I love popcorn, but the lady’s favorite thnack is thomething else they don’t got here.”

“Too bad,” I answer, careful not to repeat my mistake.

“She likes zeppole, and I said I like it too. That my daddy sometimes buys me it from a truck when we visit him at work. That’s a good memory I have,” Clodagh says a little sadly.

“She said she likes it because of good memories too. Zeppole reminds her of country fairs, that’s what the lady said.

She has a boy’s name. But she was a lady, not a man. ”

“What kind of boy’s name, Clo?”

“Same as a kid in my class. I don’t like him. He picks his nose.”

“Ah, that’s rotten. But what was the lady’s name, again?”

“Ryan. Her name is Ryan.”

“Ryan?” My heart lifts a good couple of inches.

“Uncle Matty, you keep saying the same things as me!”

“I know, pet. And I’m sorry.” The apology shoots from my mouth as my heart begins to beat frantically. “But you’re sure the woman in the green coat was called Ryan?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“You did,” I say, glancing around distractedly. It can’t be her. Can it? “Did she say where she was going? Next, I mean?”

“To catch her tube, whatever that means.”

The Tube—the nearest station is just minutes away! My heart pounds against my chest as though it will break through my ribs. “Mila.” My head jerks her way. “Could you keep an eye on Clo for a bit?” Without waiting for an answer, I thrust the concession stand treats into her arms.

“Yeah, but—” A bag of crisps falls. I swipe it up.

“You help Mila, Clo?” The little girl nods. “You’ll be okay for a few minutes, right? That’s a good girl,” I say as she nods. “I promise I won’t be long.”

Clo says something in response, but I’m already turning away.

A fool’s errand. The words whisper in my head as, outside, frigid air hits me in the face.

“The Tube,” I mutter to myself as I dodge a family crowding the steps, then take the remaining three in a long-legged leap. Oxford Circus is the nearest station.

I turn right out of the theater into the pedestrian thoroughfare full of shoppers, theatergoers, tourists, and teenagers deciding between burgers and noodles.

Hope is a thing with wings, so they say, and it’s hope that carries me to the end of the street like a man fucking possessed.

I don’t feel bad about leaving Clodagh with Mila, though I’m sure it’ll come.

And I’ll probably cop it from Letty thanks to her current hypervigilant parenting.

But I don’t have the headspace for any of that right now.

“Scuse me! Sorry!” Turning shoulder first, I squeeze through a large group of dawdling tourists, almost slipping on the damp pavers as I swing a right at the end of Argyll Street. I leave them gesticulating and yelling in something that might be Mandarin.

“Oi! Do you need glasses, mate?” Not so difficult to understand is the cabby after I dodge into the road, narrowly missing his black cab. Or maybe it misses me.

I hold up my hand in apology. No time to stop.

I know it’s her. It’s got to be, I think as I pelt to the other side. Then, impersonating an Olympian, I sprint away, all powering legs and robot hands.

Ryan, wait for me. I’m coming for you. Because how many women called Ryan in the world can there be—women who like green and eat zeppole? The thought that she might be here, in the same city—well, the feeling is indescribable. The wings of hope themselves.

Oxford Street, and the circular red-white-and-blue signage is my bull’s-eye. The sight calls for a spurt as my lungs work like bellows and my legs like pistons.

“Excuse me—excuse me!” I shout, descending into the station. Taking the steps three at a time, I dodge between commuters, the correct side of the stairwell be damned.

In the bowels of the station, my breathing echoes in my ears as I turn one-eighty, scanning the barriers and the escalators beyond, hoping to see a hint of green coat or dark hair.

“Fuck,” I mutter, turning back, ignoring the way the tails of my velvet frock coat flap like dodo wings.

“Cool coat, bro.”

“Lost your horse and cart?”

“Fucking carriage,” I say, mostly ignoring the hoodie-wearing brigade in favor of stalking over to a London transport worker.

“Have you—” Heavy breathing. I need to get back to the gym. “Have you seen a woman in a green coat? Dark hair.” I ruffle my hand through my own hair as though the fella needs a hint.

The man straightens and leans his elbow on the top of his sweeping brush. “Green coat,” he ponders. “Green coat ... I think I see one fine lady taking the escalator southbound,” he says with a vague sort of wave.

“Great. Thanks.” I swing away.

“Wait!”

I swing back again.

“It was northbound, I think. Maybe the Central Line.”

“Thanks. Again.” I make for the ticket barrier as I reach for my wallet. “Fuck. Shit!” I pat my chest and my back pockets, my skin turning clammy in that instant. It was in my hand when I shoved the snacks into Mila’s arms. I must’ve left it with her.

I become aware of a terse tsk . A sigh. Then a huff. I’m holding up a line of commuters. I know it’s no good appealing to them. London commuters are intolerant at the best of times.

“There are other barriers,” I mutter, moving to the side.

I consider hopping over the thing once this lot is through, but then I remember the videos of a man with his nut sack caught in the barrier after trying to jump it not so long ago.

“Fuck it.” I slip in behind a bloke tapping his card, hustling him through the barrier faster than he’d planned on.

He huffs, all aggravated bluster.

“It’s for a good cause,” I call over my shoulder as I dodge past, heading for the northbound escalator.

“What a fuckin’ liberty,” the man shouts. “That’s theft, that is!”

“From Transport for London, not you,” I mutter, taking the escalator two steps at a time.

A fool’s errand.

This time, the words take up more space in my head as I remember how this place resembles a rabbit warren. She could be anywhere.

Off the escalator, I turn right onto the first platform.

Empty. Which means the train just left. Fuck!

Undeterred—because what choice do I have?

I know she’s here somewhere. She has to be—I race along the platform.

Back out again into the tiled warren of corridors, the stupid satin sash flapping in my face.

Another escalator, the treads two at a time again.

I dodge left, then right, sweeping the corridors to check the platforms as I pass them.

“Watch it, numpty!”

I murmur an apology, my thoughts on the southbound platforms next. Up the stairs, my thighs screaming now. Along the corridor and down again.

“What’s your hurry?” someone shouts.

“I’m looking for a woman in green,” I call back.

“Aren’t we all!”

A laugh. One I don’t stop for.

“Green coat? I saw someone.”

I stop and pivot on the sole of my shoe to find a pair of girls a little way in front of me. They’re probably in their early twenties. Puffer jackets and Ugg boots, hairstyles from the 1970s—the flipped-bangs one that seems all the rage now. “You saw ... what?” Who.

“Lo.” One girl clutches the other one’s arm. “He might be a stalker,” she whispers.

“I wouldn’t be much of a stalker dressed like this,” I say, plucking at the lapels of this stupid jacket. Sliding my hands through my sweaty hair.

“Not much of a Prince Charming either,” she says with a disdainful look.

“Farther along. Heading for platform 3,” the other girl says.

And I’m off again, another burst of energy, another burst of scuse me s and sorry s. Left onto the platform, one that’s pretty packed.

. . . the train approaching is . . .

I slow my pace at the announcement, working myself amid the mass of commuters, peering over their heads. Would I even see her here, that little teacup, among all these people?

... please stand back from the platform edge.

The train pulls in with a cacophony of squealing brakes as the warm updraft moves my coattails.

. . . Oxford Circus. Change here for . . .

People pile off as people pile on, the crowd beginning to thin.

My heart beginning to sink.

Until someone moves left, and I spy the back of a green coat!

“Ryan!” I bellow, my feet propelling me forward again. “Ryan!” Louder this time.

She disappears onto the train.

The alarm sounds.

The doors begin to close. I pivot left, making for the nearest.

She’s so close—she’s fucking here! So close until ...

The doors meet before I can reach them.

“Ryan!” I bang on the thing with my fists, drawing lots of looks, but no recognition. She’s in a different carriage.

My heart drops to my boots as the train begins to move, then disappears from my view.

Despondent, I collapse to a nearby bench, panting and out of breath.

I press my elbows to my spread knees, all kinds of curses and mutterings flowing through my head.

Until something kindles in my chest. A realization.

She’s here. In London. Somewhere.

It’s just a question of finding her.

Hope is a fire that burns bright.

“Excuse me, sir.”

I tilt my head to find one of London’s finest—the transport police version—towering over me. “Do you realize fare evasion is a criminal offense?”

I break into a smile. “Fucking worth it, though.”