Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee own Dark Angel; no copyright infringement intended.

Title: The Locket
Author: gilenagile
Rating: G
Episode Reference: Art Attack*
Feedback: Very much appreciated: [email protected]
Archiving: Please ask
AN: *Assuming: 1) Logan has not yet experienced return of sensation in his legs; 2) Max didn't swipe the locket at the wedding.

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"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Matthew 6:21

The Locket     

Logan sat in front of the wall of windows, eyes fixed unseeingly on the gray Seattle noon lurking outside the penthouse apartment. The fingers of his right hand played compulsively with the pendant and chain laying on an unfeeling thigh, while his other hand gripped the wheel of his chair, white knuckles shiny as the steel rims beneath them.

His mind dwelt on the journey across town he and Max were about to make, to his aunt's house. Margo had called earlier that week to invite them to Sunday lunch and, given that the occasion was the return of his cousin and new bride from their honeymoon, he had felt obliged to accept. Now that the time for departure was fast approaching, the old familiar tension was starting to build in the pit of his stomach.

The lights from his office space reflected dimly back from the windows as he sat wishing Max would get here, and he could get this over with as soon as possible. Instead, he had time to think about the decision he had made to speak to his aunt about his mother's locket: the locket she had taken that was rightfully his. He clutched the wheel tighter as his mind traveled back across the years to that same house, where he and his mother had lived a lifetime ago, to a room as void as the gray expanse he now looked out on.

He was thirteen years old and standing in front of his mother's dressing table, amid the boxes Margo had packed up with what was left of his mother's life. She had seen to it personally, making sure she went through every item in order to claim those she had coveted over the years, packing up the rest for some socially acceptable and graciously thankful charity of which, no doubt, she was a board member, and leaving a couple of untidy piles of discards for the maids to dispose of. It was only a day since the funeral; she must have gone to work on the bedroom as soon as they'd known that, this time, his mother would not be coming home from the hospital. No hope. No reprieve.

The jewelry box sat on the table next to a litter of items meant for the trash: his old scouting pins; his great grandmother's lace handkerchief; a child's necklace with his mother's name, Catherine, scrolled in delicate gold letters; and a tiny discolored gold plated butterfly pendant. He remembered grabbing the pendant and feeling his stomach tighten as he noticed the delicate drawers of the jewelry box were askew, as if someone had removed and replaced them in haste. He had opened them, one after the other knowing what he would find, picturing Margo upturning each one on the dressing table, greedy fingers acquiring undeserved treasures and leaving the remains to be trashed. The locket he had forced himself into this room to get, the gift his father had given his mother on the day their son was born, which she had wanted him to have to "remember me by": gone--taken.  He felt anger, tangled with the knowledge that he was absolutely and utterly alone in the world, sinking into his bones.

Now he roughly fingered the butterfly pendant, which he had bought for his mother one Christmas over twenty years ago. A trinket that had somehow found its way into his pocket that day and stayed with him--a reminder of what had been taken away: a cheap remembrance of the golden amulet meant for him, an amulet that said I love you, remember me, I will always be with you.

He was going to get it back, whatever it took. Denials, excuses, lies, recriminations--he was ready for them all. Seeing Margo wearing his mother's locket at Bennet and Marianne's wedding had brought the anger and resentment flooding back as, he was sure, she knew it would. He had watched her finger it with studied neglect as she looked down her rhinoplastied nose and played with him, a cat playing nonchalantly with its prey. 

"You owe me big." Logan jumped, as best he could with only half his body cooperating. Speaking of cats, Max had managed to stalk her way into the apartment without him noticing--yet again. He could see her reflection traced in the gloom-backed window as she stood next to him, dark hair tumbling around dark eyes set in a perfect oval of olive skin, her lips set in a delicious pout, her delicate hands resting on curvaceous hips gently defined beneath the fabric of a flowing skirt. Logan did a double take. She was wearing a skirt.

"You're wearing a skirt." He dropped the pendant into his pocket and scooted the chair around to face her, hoping she hadn't paid attention to his display of verbal subtly and originality.

"Well Duh."

 OK, that was too much to hope for.

 "You said 'respectable.' Remember? I look like a bad excuse for Martha Stewart, I'm about to meet your charming family for the second time in three weeks, and I've just discovered why biker chicks always wear pants." Her stance hadn't changed, he could tell this was not a debt she was about to let slide.

"You look nice." Incredible, gorgeous, stunning, sexy. His smile reached the corners of his eyes.

"Yeah? Well . . . so do you." Max smoothed down the silky fabric of her skirt and tossed back her hair. "Very Brook Brothers." She eyed his gray pants, white shirt open at the collar, and dark sports coat, the hint of a smile undoing her pout. "God, I hope we don't see anyone I know on the way over there." She pranced toward the door.

Logan followed, slipping a couple of folded printouts into the inside pocket of his jacket before switching off the office lights. He grabbed his car keys and took a deep breath, trying to steel himself for what was to come. Maybe some of Max's attitude would rub off on him for the afternoon. At their last meeting, Max had left no doubt as to the pecking order in the cat kingdom, and seeing Margo temporarily declawed had almost been worth the embarrassment of the whole encounter. But today the battlefield was his. He pulled the door closed behind him wondering how to ask Max, diplomatically, not to kill his aunt before they had a chance to talk.

***

He had just about cleared the ramp at the service entrance and rolled through the kitchen door when a squeal followed by a flurry of black assaulted him. Max tensed, crouched, and resisted the urge to pounce only when she heard him laugh and saw him return the hug a generously proportioned maid had enveloped him in.

"Master Logan, finally you're in my kitchen again after all these years."

He straightened his glasses and grinned as the portly woman reluctantly released him from her grip and sat back to smile at his old friend. They had bumped into each other over the years at social functions he couldn't manage to avoid, her brilliant smile contrasting with the black maid's uniform Margo invariably had her wear and with the mood setting foot in this house invariably produced in him, but they never had time to visit properly. She was always busy with her duties and he with looking for an opportunity to flee the gatherings.

He studied her now as she smiled back, relaxed and happy, a far cry from the nervous, awkward girl of seventeen, who'd arrived in his family's home clutching a lone suitcase and a tattered letter of recommendation. In her mid-forties, her body had matured into the roundness intended for it and she had bloomed into a woman obviously at ease with the world and with herself. Yet, her dark eyes still sparkled in a soft, kindly face conveying the promise of a friendly ear, the best pickings from cook's baking days, and a clip on the ear if a youngster pushed his luck too far.

"Max this is Mary, the commandant of Cale castle."

The glare she threw in Logan's direction transformed into a smile of welcome, and appraisal, for the girl by his side. "Nice to meet you miss. I saw you at the wedding with Master Logan, when you were . . . discussing anatomy with Mr. Jonas. Very educational it was." For whom, she had the grace not to mention.

The door at the other end of the kitchen burst open spewing in two forms locked in a thunderingly whispered altercation.  "I told you petit fours are for desert and you serve them on the hors d'oeuvre platter. Now the last course is in ruins . . . ruins." The tall toothpick of a woman brandishing a wooden spoon was building toward hysteria, the accompanying short, and rather plump form, trundled toward Mary, red faced and breathless.

"I'm sorry Auntie Mary, I got confused, I didn't mean . . . "

"Not to worry Nora love. We all make mistakes sometime." Logan wondered if the toothpick noticed the strong Irish brogue permeating the words, a sure sign in his day that Mary was on the warpath, or if the icy stare cast in her direction was enough warning. Either way, she wilted noticeably. "I'd better go calm cook down before she has a canary. Mrs. Cale and her guests are in the drawing room. Maybe we'll see you on the way out Master Logan?"

"Just Logan. I'm over eighteen, remember?"

"Right you are, Mister Logan." He winced, and both smiled at strangeness of the concept, recognizing that their lives would forever be inextricably entwined in this kitchen and in Logan's childhood. Here he had catapulted GI Joe action figures, using the best and most aerodynamic silver serving spoons, over Mary's head into the dishwater as she confessed her homesickness to his mother. Over the years Catherine Cale had listened to tales of Mary's romances while Logan had tried constructing satellite receptors, the crash of pots, pans, colanders and a myriad of metal kitchen utensils, frequently drowning out the women's laughter. Wedding, and later baby pictures, were strewn on the kitchen table amid teacups when he and his friends noisily raided the kitchen for milk and homemade cookies in between shooting hoops out back. And then the years when Mary would have to seek him out with the promise of freshly baked chocolate cake and whatever other goodies she could badger the current cook into making, pry him away from his computer, and drag him to the kitchen where they sat together, alone. He had begun instructing her youngest in the art catapulting the year he finished high school and had finally been able to flee to Yale, leaving Margo and the Cale house forever.

"Come along then, Mister Logan sir. Let's get this over with." Max turned toward the far door, with an expression indicating that she would much rather spend the afternoon in the kitchen with the food, and Mary, and all the interesting information she could unearth there.

"Right. Into the lions den." Logan followed her. "And you can call me Logan, or Mr. Cale if you prefer."

"Oh, I can think of a few more appropriate things to call you."

Logan grinned, grabbed at the plate on the tabletop, popped one on the tiny cakes into his mouth, and followed.

***

They could hear Margo holding court as they approached the drawing room. "I knew you'd like that hotel Marianne. Jonas and I found it very charming and select when we stayed there a few years ago, and it's one of the few that still has its own private beach."

"It was very nice. Of course we loved the beaches, so romantic and perfect for a honeymoon, we must have walked miles of them--didn't we Bennett?" Marianne looked to her new husband for support while Margo's single raised eyebrow conveyed extreme disapproval at her kit and kin having set foot on public property and possible making contact with "tourists," not to mention the locals. Bennett attempted to blend into the wallpaper, an art he had perfected over the years. Margo, noting the interaction, smiled indulgently, thin, perfectly painted lips upturning slightly at the corners.

"Ah, the last of our guests have arrived." Margo's eyebrow descended, her brow returning to its normal stretched and lifted smoothness. She came to greet her nephew, bending down to him and making to kiss each cheek, the gold locket dangling from her neck. "And Max so nice of you to come. We hardly had time to talk at the wedding." Gray steely eyes skewered Max.

"You've met everyone, haven't you?" She indicated to her husband, son and daughter in law with a wave of a meticulously manicured hand. "Maybe you haven't met Daphne. She's an old friend of Logan's and of the family's." Suddenly Margo's unexpected suggestion that he bring Max along made sense to Logan. He pictured Margo's seating arrangements for lunch, him next to Daphne, and Max with a good view of them but as far away from the conversation as possible. Max gave his aunt a politely dangerous smile before throwing a knowing glance in his direction. Cha-ching--he could hear the tally for this particular excursion ringing up in Max's head. He'd better get used to being in the kitchen—a lot.

Bennett, noticeable relaxing at Logan's arrival, disengaged from the wallpaper to shake his cousin's hand and sink into the armchair next to him. His movement roused the slumped figure of his father in the corner, wrapped around a bloody mary, judging by the matching color of his eyes not his first of the day. "Logan, glad you could make the time to come see us. Those little articles of yours keeping you that busy? Or maybe you're busy with other things?" Blood shot eyes traveled slowly up and down the length of Max while Logan fumbled for an appropriate response, his usual articulateness seeming to vanish into the growing knot in his stomach.

"What have you been writing about lately Logan?" Max returned Jonas's stare, the slight crinkling of her forehead suggesting she was examining a specimen that was failing to pass inspection—failing miserably. "Protection of our cultural heritage, law and morality, justice in post pulse society—kind of time consuming topics not to mention good for keeping brain cells alive." Dark eyes met cloudy red and Jonas snorted a laugh, dismissing the upstart of a girl with a wave of his hand—or rather of his fingers, his hand being permanently attached to his tumbler.

"Ah brains. One thing Junior has never had problems with. At least he inherited something from his father, otherwise we'd almost believe he was adopted." Another snort as Jonas rose for a refill.

"Well that would be too much to hope for," Daphne whispered in Max's ear, having escaped across the room from the chair next to Jonas'.

"Why don't we all go into the dining room, lunch is ready I believe." Margo gathered herself center stage again and stabbed a glance in the direction of Nora who was lurking in the doorway. The girl bobbed and scooted off to the kitchen, leaving Margo grimacing at the clatter of her feet down the hallway. "Max, I'm not familiar with your family, the Greenwich Guevaras? Tell me all about them."

"Why, I'd love too." Max smiled evilly as she passed by Logan, Margo in tow. Cha-ching—he was pretty sure his debt had exceeded food and she was now adding a list of motor cycle parts to his bill.

"Come on, this I have to hear." Daphne waited impatiently for him to turn around and they trailed the two women across the foyer to the dining room. "And I thought lunch was going to be dull." Right now Logan would settle for dull. Max had sized up the enemy, assessed its strategy, and it was only a matter of time before her counter offensive would kick in.

He saw Mary approaching with a soup tureen, paused, sighed, and tried to put aside visions of his aunt being drowned in the clam chowder. Focus Cale. If they could make it through the meal, he would have his chance with Margo, and he was prepared--wasn't he? He patted the lapel of his jacket, causing the sheets of paper in his breast pocket to rustle reassuringly. All they had to do was make it through lunch. How bad could that be?

***

It wasn't all that bad, Logan tried to convince himself sitting at the huge mahogany table. Jonas had indulged in one too many pre lunch drinks and dozed for most to the meal. Dessert was about to be served, and Margo was still breathing. Thankfully, she had been concentrating her efforts on Marianne's social education and not on him. Max, now acknowledging his nervous grin with an exaggerated wave from the far--very far--end of the table, had concentrated on the food and not on any homicidal intentions. No, it wasn't all that bad; it could be worse. That had been his mantra—well one of them—when he lived in this house, under Margo's rule.

"And we absolutely must have Melinda Baxter over to meet you Marianne. I'm sure you've heard of the Baxters dear. William Baxter, her son, is the top lawyer in the state. Handles the mayor's and the governor's affairs. Of course, he's been very helpful to Jonas and Cale Industries over the years." Margo's voice droned along with the mantra repeating in his head as Logan studied the heavy velvet drapes reeking of old money that framed the windows, dissuading all but the most persistent stray trickle of sunlight from entering the musty room.

"Logan, you remember Melinda I'm sure. Your mother thought a great deal of her." Margo threw an auntly expression his way, her fingers playing with the locket resting on the gray silk of her blouse. His mother had never actually shared her thoughts on Mrs. Baxter, but Logan felt sure her advice of not saying anything if you didn't have anything good to say was implicit in her silence on the matter. Indeed, he remembered her studiously avoiding Baxter drop-in visits to the house, which gave his aunt and her friend all the more opportunity to talk about her behind her back. He grimaced in reply, envying Bennet's ability to stay entirely out of the lunchtime conversation by employing his chameleon talents to disguise himself as a chair. Judging by his expression, he was laying on a beach in Mexico sipping tequila. Logan wished he could join him.

Instead, Melinda Baxter's equine features appeared in his head. He searched for a redeeming thought. Actually, he did have rather fond memories of the Baxters bringing expensive gifts, designed to impress the parents of the birthday child, every year to his party, gifts which he and his mother later delivered to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. His griping at having to write polite thank you notes and entertain the kids of Seattle's social elite was always met with a level argument about getting used to his duties as a Cale now, rather than later. So he had graciously accepted the carefully packaged present Billy tossed at him every year and thought of the trip to the charity store and the pleasure it would give his mother, not to mention the evening at a basketball game and sleepover party with his friends she always seem to have arranged for the following weekend.

"In fact, Logan and William used to be very good friends." His aunt's remark caused Daphne to choke on her Chablis. Her watering eyes caught Logan's, a glint of amusement tinged with old anger swimming to the surface and escorting him back over more than a score of years to the playground of the private school where Billy Baxter had reigned terror on any child unlucky enough to be smaller than himself. Logan, almost at eye level with the older boy, had peacefully diffused more than one shake-down, rescuing panic-stricken students from a pummeling, every second of which Baxter would enjoy.

His pacifism had deserted him, however, during one rainy November recess when the bully had snatched Daphne's best baseball card and pushed her into a murky puddle in the process. Logan had taken one look at the little girl flailing around on the ground and beaten the snot out of Baxter on the spot. The ensuing scandal had landed Logan in the principal's office where the shocked woman--her shock resulting from the fact that it was Logan who had done the dastardly deed or from the prospect of Melinda Baxter on her tail, he couldn't tell--had sentenced him to a month of after school detentions, including one on his birthday.

He remembered ranting in front of his mother and Mary in the kitchen about the injustice of it all. His mother had dissuaded him from calling Billy to propose he do something with himself other than coming to that year's party—something anatomically impossible—and sensibly suggested he should resist punching the kid out in future. But that year, after the party, she drove him and the Baxter gift to the mall and let him return it and pocket the money. It was a small fortune for a boy whose sole source of cash came from doing odd jobs around the house and rewards for getting good report cards, and had paid for half of the gift he had given his mother that Christmas. He slipped his fingers into his pocket and fingered the butterfly pendant Billy Baxter had unwittingly help fund. His mother was right--the Lord worked in mysterious ways.

The unmistakable sound of Nora clomping up the hallway from the kitchen with desert interrupted his reverie. Cook had apparently rescued the final course by whipping up some zabaglione and fresh berries, which the young maid proceeded to serve from Max's end of the table. "Left," Margo hissed under her breath and fixed smile. Nora's eyes flew up, clearly recognizing from the tone that the comment was intended for her, her hand with the glass dish frozen between the serving tray and Max. "Left—you serve from the left, not the right." Margo's voice was a cross between an exasperated English schoolmistress and a Gestapo officer who took way too much pleasure in his work.

Nora's pale face rapidly became bright red as she struggled to maneuver to the other side of the chair. Logan could see the startled look in Max's eyes before he even registered that the girl, in her haste, had stumbled over the chair leg and the tray and its contents were becoming airborne. Nora, the tray, a cloud of custard, and a hail of berries disappeared from view to be replaced by Max who had shot to her feet with soldier like reflexes.

"You stupid, stupid girl." Margo was on her feet also, eyes blazing, while the maid tried to pick herself up off the floor. He could hear Max in the background asking Nora if she was all right, as she stooped to help get her back on her feet. But his attention was riveted on Margo, as she walked purposely over to the girl now spluttering incoherently and desperately trying to pick up the mess. She stood above the maid, pausing in her attack, one hand clenched, the other playing with the locket.

"Margo." His voice must have sounded as strange to the others as it did to him given the stunned silence and the eight pairs of eyes--no nine--Mary was standing in the doorway, the commotion having brought her scurrying up the hallway--now focused entirely in his direction. He watched as Margo wavered, a slight note of uncertainty, hardly perceptible—but he recognized it. He had seen it once before, a long time ago.

They had been in this room, the family—and maybe some guests—the details were lost in the mind of the eleven year old boy who had looked, dumbfounded, as his aunt had begun to humiliate the young maid frantically picking up the tray of dishes she had dropped. He had watched as Margo began to unleash her wrath, towering over the girl, her face smug and cold. He remembered the fear gathering in his belly until his mother had risen from the table, her hand touching his shoulder gently, but her voice cold as ice, as she called her sister-in-law by name.

"We need to talk." He had pushed back from the table and was now beside his aunt who glared down at him, fingers frozen. "Let's go to the library…now." He swiveled around, making sure he was behind Margo as he escorted her from the room. Mary caught his eye as he approached the doorway, her slight smile acknowledging the memory of that night when his mother had stood up for a lonely girl who needed a job and a home and, most of all, a friend. She smoothed down the apron of her maid's uniform, and calmly looked Margo in the eye as the woman stalked from the room.

***

Logan pulled the heavy wooden doors of the library closed behind them, surreptitiously wiping away the beads of perspiration forming on his forehead, and turned to face his aunt. Carefully he locked the brakes of his chair, before taking a deep breath and wiping his, now moist, palm on the fabric of his jacket as he casually slid his hand into his pocket. Margo turned and looked down at him, a slight smile playing on her lips, coolly waiting for him to speak. He knew this game; they had played it many times in the years after his mother's death . . . before he had recognized its futility. He was supposed to reason, argue, eventually loose his cool and splutter in indignation while she observed, the amusement in her eyes tinged with triumph—nursing the power she held over him.

He tried to focus on the past wishing he had been a fly on the wall during that conversation between his mother and his aunt in this room, one Christmas long ago. He remembered now--it had been a couple of days after Christmas. The house still sparkled with the lights and decorations he had helped his mother and Mary put up as they listened to carols and laughed as Mary's told about her latest adventures in her new homeland. He frantically searched his mind for more details, something to explain how his mother had always been untouched by her sister-in-law's pettiness, bitterness, and desire to control, and how she had woven a web of protection over the people she loved. Instead, all he could remember was his mother guiding Margo out of the dining room, one hand firmly on the woman's elbow and the other across the locket she always wore around her neck. Except there were two chains—and her hand rested on the locket her husband had given her and on the butterfly pendant her son had proudly presented to her for Christmas. Two expressions of love she held close to her heart.

The unexpected silence brought Margo's impatience to the fore. "Honestly, you're as bad as your mother. That klutz of a girl is useless at her job and, anyway, what do you care?" Logan's fingers encircled the tarnished pendant is his pocket.

He was eleven years old and was sitting by his mother on the sofa in the library. The family had gathered for the Christmas Eve tradition of opening presents. Excitedly, he had insisted she open his first and watched her face as she carefully undid the ribbon and opened the small shiny box. He wanted to see the light in her eyes, the spark that he had lit, when she saw his gift. She held the tiny gold butterfly in her hand, eyes shining as she embraced her son. "It's beautiful," she had said as she fastened the delicate chain around her neck—and to them it was. A perfect gift, a gift that said I love you, I will always be with you.

"She's just a maid." Margo's voice held the same note of derision he had heard in it that Christmas when she pulled his mother aside before dinner with, "Surely you're not going to wear that cheap trinket? We have guests tonight." Catherine Cale had replied that she would wear it to see the pope himself and he had grinned, overhearing the remark.

He looked up at the woman staring down at him now, haughty, cold, and powerful and wondered what his mother had seen as they faced off in this same room long ago, before she had left him alone in this fortress to deal with his guardians: alone and unprotected. The familiar tightening in his stomach threatened to overwhelm him; an anger, old and cold, paralyzing his body until he could hardly breath.

"You have no right to humiliate her like that." His words sounded weak, even to himself. A ghost of a smile flickered across his aunt's face. What had he been thinking? What possible protection could he hope to afford the girl? What magical words had his mother spoken to break the spell and banish the power Margo held over Mary all those years ago?

And the spell had been broken; the power Margo held over the young woman gone. He pictured Mary, the strength and ease she exuded, and the dignity with which she carried herself in this house, where Margo still ruled with a steely grip: the self-assured woman that lonely seventeen year old girl on his family's doorstep had become. It had never been his aunt who had changed, it had been Mary. There had been no magic, just the gift of his mother's love to give her the strength to believe in herself. It wasn't protection his mother had offered her but power; the power to see who she really was, not just the maid, but a person to be valued and cherished.

The pendant felt solid in his grasp, tarnished from wear, a gift his mother had treasured. He took it from his pocket, holding it as tight as he had held the anger at her leaving him, a suffocating shroud that had paralyzed him in doubt and guilt. In his hand he saw, not a trinket, but a perfect gift, a gift of love: offered and accepted. The same gift she had given him and Mary, unconditionally, a perfect gift that would always be with him.

"I've come for my mother's locket." A familiar look crossed Margo's face—savoring the prospect of another victory at his expense.

"Logan, you know Catherine meant me to have all the family jewelry." Her voice was calm and studied, as if speaking to a slow child.

"Not the locket." His hand gripped the wheel of the chair. Margo, her hand resting on the treasure, continued to look down at him, condescendingly. He met her cold eyes before dropping his gaze to the locket around her neck—the amulet he had wanted all these years, a gift meant for him that she had stolen. He took a deep breath, aware of the butterfly pendant safe and warm in the gentle cocoon of his hand.

He watched his aunt purposely finger her prized piece of jewelry, as he had watched her flaunt it over the last twenty years, resentment building every time he had seen it, until it had become a symbol, not of love, but of her power and his anger and doubt.

The golden oval sparkled in a stray wisp of sunlight stealing in through the heavily draped windows. "I want you to have it . . . " his mother's voice had been firm despite the drugs and weariness creeping up on her, "to remember me by." She had taken it from around her neck and put it in his hand, but he had pulled back before she could close his fingers around it. He had placed it carefully in the top drawer of her jewelry box, where she kept her special treasures, next to a faded lace handkerchief, a child's necklace, and the tiny butterfly pendant, telling her all the time that she could wear it when she got back from the hospital, when she came home again. Her fingers had trembled slightly as she wiped a stray tear escaping his mask of hope and determination. He had to lean into her embrace as she tried to hold him tight, his ragged breathing entwined with her words of comfort, "I love you, I will always be with you."

The light off the locket touched a spark in his eyes, the reflection of a perfect gift he had been offered, but been unable to accept through the wall of anger and guilt with which he had surrounded himself. A gift that was not his aunt's to give or to take away.  A gift that was all the protection he needed if he would only accept it as unconditionally as it was given, and free himself to use its power.

His gaze rose from the locket to his aunt's face, the face his mother had looked at across this room all those years ago, seeing perhaps what his mother had seen. Not a figure of power and authority but a bitter, lonely woman with a husband who found his companionship in a bottle, children who dreaded being around her, and a circle of gossiping friends who hardly waited until she was out of earshot to start gossiping about her. "I've been doing some family research you might be interested in." Margo's gaze shifted to quizzical.

He raised his hand to his lapel feeling the outline of the folded papers in his pocket, weighing his options. If his mother, in her wisdom, had taught him the value of truth and principal, she had also demonstrated the value of being practical. Nothing could make his aunt think differently, but getting her to act differently was another matter. What had she used as leverage to buy his aunt's grudging acceptance of Mary he wondered. He had little doubt that living in the same house as Margo would provide an array of possibilities to help in her mission and –as his mother used to say—the Lord helps those who help themselves.

His cyber research had turned up enough possibilities of his own to choose from, two of which he had documented, the proof rustling quietly in his breast pocket as he unlocked the breaks of his chair and moved toward Margo. Which threatened revelation would be most effective: The offshore accounts that would bring the tax authorities down on her and Jonas? Or maybe the indiscretion Jonas was currently making a monthly withdrawal from his personal checking account to cover? Withdrawals that ended up, eventually, in the hands of an exotic dancer who apparently did some "dancing" of a private nature on the side.  The pictures he had found of her on her club's web site, donned in her working clothes—or what there were of them, just a click away from the perusal of his aunt's sympathetic friends.

He knew the choice Margo would make in his place. Go straight for the jugular with vampire-like efficiency, and manipulate weakness to her advantage. He looked at her before bracing for the offensive, surprised that the old familiar anger and defensiveness she invariable inspired seemed to have drained from his body. He weighed his choices—public humiliation would doubtlessly be the most effective—he could name his price.

Reaching into his pocket, he handed her a folded piece of paper. "Of course the IRS might be interested in it also." Her expression progressed from patronizing to incredulous to outraged as she read the list of account numbers, deposit dates and routing information, the color of her face mirroring her emotional evolution.

"You wouldn't dare," her hiss echoing the boiling point of ice, eyes molten, but a slight note of uncertainty, barely perceptible, in her fury. Logan raised an eyebrow and locked the brakes of his chair.

"Cripple. That's all you are, a crippled rich kid making up a life." Silence rested on them, frost on steel. He waited for the blow to connect, for the familiar tension to take hold, the hitch in his breathing, the raise in his pulse. His hand, reaching for the other folded sheet in his pocket, halted. Nothing, he felt nothing—just a smile reaching the corners of his eyes and releasing the tension from his features as surely as he released her grip over him.

"You should make a copy of Mary's employment contract also—see if Nora would like a similar one. Although, three weeks leave seems kinda stingy--make it four why don't you." He watched as the fire in her eyes turned to doubt and her face coiled into a map of jagged lines. Margo had been a good teacher when it came to attaining one's goals, but his mother a better one, and for that he was infinitely grateful. If she was a bitter shell of a woman it was mostly her own doing, but everyone had their demons and God knew what ones helped shape what she had become. Let her have her pride; she had little else.

His aunt's attempt to reply was disintegrating into an incoherent splutter until she turned tail and made for the door. "Margo . . . " she pulled up, jerking around to where he sat, "the locket." He heard the chain rip as she snatched it from around her neck before throwing it at him, followed by the clink as it connected with the pendant in his upraised hand.

***

Max was standing in the hallway, frozen in mid motion in her attempt to pluck the last blueberry from Nora's hair, her mouth open in uncharacteristic amazement, looking very unsoldier-like, not to mention incredibly cute, as he rolled from the library. Her eyes met his as she rearranged her face into a more normal worldly pose; one eyebrow raised inquiringly, her hands coming to rest on her hips.

"You know something Logan . . . "

"Yeah, I owe you big."

"Actually, consider the debt paid in full—I just saw Margo's face. In fact, I'll treat you to dessert." She started to head off for the kitchen ready to take advantage of the appreciative hospitality, which judging by Nora's shy grin, was awaiting them there. Logan paused, smiling at the two shiny amulets in his hand. "Well come along then, . . . Mister Logan."  She shot him a blinding smile, her dark eyes catching his blue, before she pranced toward the back of the house. He placed the pendant and the locket in his pocket and followed.

The End