Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(51)

He placed his big, warm hands gently over her knees. The soothing warmth felt good, over the stings and scrapes and booboos.

So, at last. Here it was. The question that had been burning in her mind for six weeks. The one she’d almost given up hope of asking.

“Do you have any information?” she asked. “Any insights?”

He met her eyes. Her heart tumbled, thudded, three stories down.

“Babe, I haven’t got a f*cking clue,” he said.

She shivered and tugged the robe tighter. “But I . . . didn’t you—”

“It was exactly like I told you,” he said. “I didn’t misrepresent what happened at all. My mamma was killed. It was a banal incident of domestic violence. She had really bad taste in men. She didn’t give me instructions to lock anything. She didn’t give me anything, or tell me anything. She put me on a bus to Portland one night to keep me from getting killed. That’s all there is to that story.”

Lily nodded. Her throat was too tight to speak.

Bruno went on. “The only big question is why she didn’t climb on that bus with me. That’s what I will never understand.”

She brightened. “Well, maybe that’s it. Maybe this is the answer to that question. If we could figure out what she was—”

“No.” His voice cut her off. “Don’t do it, Lily.”

“Do what? I’m just speculating—”

“Don’t speculate,” he said. “Don’t try and lay your crazy agenda over what happened to my mamma. It won’t hold the weight.”

Oh, shit. She’d hit a nerve. She backpedaled, nervously. “Bruno, I’m only trying to—”

“There is no mystery to solve. I faced that, a long time ago. It was bad enough the first time. I’m not going back to do it again.”

She twisted her hands in the damp terrycloth and tried to face it.

“So, looks like you tracked me down and lured me into your honeyed trap for nothing,” he said, after a while. “I’m sorry I don’t have any better recompense to offer you for all that effort.”

She bristled. “What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged, without meeting her eyes. “Just wondering if you regret having gone through with it.”

“With what?” she asked, apprehensively.

“Fucking me,” he said. “You know, now that you’ve discovered that the cupboard is bare. Does that kill the buzz?”

Oh, ouch. She got up and backed away from him. “Is it necessary to make me feel like a whore?”

“You said the word, not me.”

She tried to marshal her argument, but it kept slipping apart in her head like a wet paper bag. To her own ears, her story now sounded preposterous, ridiculous. A pack of overheated, disconnected lies.

“But what about what Howard said?” she asked. “Why would he mention you and your mother if there wasn’t a connection?”

“I’ve never heard of a guy named Howard Parr,” Bruno said.

“But why would they kill him, right after telling me if he—”

“Because they didn’t,” Bruno said. “By your own account, your father had severe mental health problems. Don’t ask me to rip my life apart based on the ramblings of a suicidal heroin junkie who’d been confined to a locked ward for, what, how many years now?”

“Almost six, when I add them all up,” she said. “But you don’t understand. I know he was murdered.”

He shook his head. She wanted to scream at him. To slap that sad, sad look off his face. “Face it, Lily,” he said quietly. “Get real.”

“Goddamnit, it is real! I knew him! He was terrified of blood! He would never have cut himself, not in a million years!”

“Depends on how much pain he was in,” Bruno said. “Maybe you can’t even imagine how bad it was. It might have been worth it to him to face his fear. He saw his opportunity, gritted his teeth, and took it.”

“No, it’s not possible. Not him.” She hid her face. It hurt, so bad, that he didn’t believe her. Even though she’d never really hoped that he would. She still felt so betrayed. Hurt to the depths of her being.

“Nobody knows better than me how much it hurts to swallow this down,” he said. “But sometimes stupid, random, bad things just happen. They have no meaning. There’s no mystery, no explanation. Just shit luck. I’ve accepted mine. I’m not going to redo the work I did.”

Lily kept shaking her head. She couldn’t stop shaking it.

“I’m very sorry about what happened to you,” he said. “It’s awful. Terrible. But it’s not connected to my mamma. Or to me.”

“Then how did they find me? They found me because they were watching you. Why would they if there’s no connection?”

“They found you because they found you.” His voice was harsher now. “You slipped up. It’s that shit luck again. You’ve had a stinking big dose of it. I understand your desire for company, but don’t pin your shit luck on me. I’ve already had my share.”

“Then why?” she yelled. “What the hell do they want with me?”

He just gazed at her, looking miserable and uncomfortable.