Free The Hidden Family by Charles Stross

young, about not jumping to conclusions?”
    “Um. You know better? Is there something you haven’t been telling me?”
    Iris nodded sharply. “Can you permit your mother to keep one or two things to herself?”
    “Guess so.” Miriam shrugged uncomfortably. “Can you give your daughter any hints?”
    “Only this.” Iris met her gaze unflinchingly. “Firstly, do you really think you’d have been hidden from the families for all these years without someone over there covering your trail?”
    “Ma—”
    “I can’t tell you for sure,” she added, “but I think someone may have been watching over you. Someone who didn’t want you dragged into all this—at least not until you were good and ready to look out for yourself.”
    Miriam shook her head. “Is that all? You think I’ve got a fairy godmother?”
    “Not exactly.” Iris finished her coffee. “But here’s a ‘secondly’ for you to think about. Shortly after you surfaced, the strangers, these assassins, started hunting for you. To say nothing of the second bunch who tried to wipe out this Olga person. Doesn’t that suggest something? What about that civil war among the families that you told me about?”
    “Are you trying to suggest it’s part of some sixty-year-old feud?” Miriam demanded. “Or that it isn’t over?”
    “Not exactly. I’m wondering if the sixty-year-old feud wasn’t part of this business, if you follow my drift. Like, started by outsiders meddling for their own purposes.”
    “That’s—” Miriam paused for thought—“Paranoid! I mean, why— ”
    “What better way to weaken a powerful enemy than to get it fighting itself?” Iris asked.
    “Oh.” Miriam was silent for a while. “You’re saying that because of who I am—nothing more, just because of who my parents were—I’m the focus of a civil war?”
    “Possibly. And you may just have reignited it by crawling out of the woodwork.” Iris looked thoughtful. “Do you have any better suggestions? Are you involved in anyming else that might explain what’s going on?”
    “Roland—” Miriam stopped. Iris stared at her. “You said not to trust any of them,” Miriam continued slowly, “but I think I can trust him. Up to a point.”
    Iris met her eyes. “People do the strangest things for money and love,” she said, a curious expression on her face. “I should know.” She chuckled humorlessly. “Watch your back, dear. And… call me if you need me. I don’t promise I’ll be there to help—with my health that would be rash—but I’ll do my best.”
    * * *
    The next morning Paulette arrived back at the house around noon, whistling jauntily. “I did it!” she declared, startling Miriam out of the history book she was working up a headache over. “We move in tomorrow!”
    “We do?” Miriam shook her head as Brill came in behind Paulie and closed the door, carefully wiping the snow off her boots on the mat just inside.
    “We do!” Paulette threw something at her; reaching out instinctively, Miriam grabbed a bunch of keys.
    “Whereto?”
    “The office of your dreams, madam chief high corporate executive!”
    “You found somewhere?” Miriam stood up.
    “Not only have I found somewhere, I’ve rented it for six months up front.” Paulette threw down a bundle of papers on the living room table. “Look. A thousand square feet of not-entirely-brilliant office space not far from Cambridgeport. The main thing in its favor is a downstairs entrance and a backyard with a high wall around it, and access. On-street parking, which is a minus. But it was cheap—about as cheap as you can get anything near the waterfront for these days, anyway.” Paulie pulled a face. “Used to belong to a small and not very successful architect’s practice, then they moved out or retired or something and I grabbed a three-year lease.”
    “Okay.” Miriam sighed. “What’s the damage?”
    “Ten thousand bucks deposit up front, another ten thousand in rent. About