Deadly Lies (Deadly #3)(38)

He squared his shoulders as he faced her once more. “Who was it for you?” He asked.

“My mother. It took a long time, one hell of a long time, for her to drag her way out of the bottle.” Samantha gave a sad shake of her head. “Her friends weren’t any help. She was just partying, right? What was wrong with that?”

Samantha pushed back her hair. “But they didn’t live with her. They didn’t see her drinking at breakfast. Didn’t see her stumbling in after midnight, all but crawling up the stairs, and they weren’t there the day—” She broke off, sucking in a deep breath of air. The smile that covered her lips then was grim. “It’s hard,” she said again. “Very hard.”

He just stared at her. “They weren’t there the day—what?”

Such darkness in her eyes. “They weren’t there the day I fell into the lake, and she didn’t even notice because she was so drunk.”

His hands clenched into fists.

“She’s been clean for years, but it was a long, hard fight. My dad didn’t stay around for it. She lost most of her friends… I guess she wasn’t as fun to them anymore.”

The day I fell into the lake…

“You can’t control other people,” she said after a moment. “You can’t make them do the things you want, even if it’s for their own good.”

She’d been brutally honest with him. He could give her the same benefit. Guess I am going back to hell tonight, for her. “My mother was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. She went through the rounds of surgery and chemo, but nothing worked.”

He’d watched her wither away right in front of him. Every day, she’d just grown paler, weaker. “Quinlan… his own mother abandoned him and I don’t think he could handle watching someone else disappear before his eyes.” I sure couldn’t take it.

Quinlan had always been in his mother’s room. Watching her and talking to her as she slipped away.

“At first, no one even noticed what Quinlan was doing.” They’d all been so busy mourning his mother that it had taken them a while to see the shape Quinlan was in. “I think the drugs must have numbed the pain for him, at first anyway. Then…” Then Quinlan had just gotten to where he liked the rush.

Their gazes held.

“I’m not giving up on him. I won’t.” But he knew that she was right. He could send his brother to every program, but if Quinlan just planned to start using the minute he walked out… Max ran a hand over the back of his neck, trying to push away that knot. “I’ll get him home, and I’ll do anything I can to help him get clean.” What else was there to do?

“It’s all you,” she whispered. “What you’ll do for him. What about Frank? What’s he doing?”

Frank seemed shaken now, like his world had spiraled away from him—and it had. Maybe he’d step up now and finally see his son.

Her head tilted. “How would you say Quinlan feels about his father?”

“He hates the old man.” And that’s what Quinlan always called him. “Frank is screwing his lover, so how do you think he feels?”

“I’d say there is animosity there.”

Yeah, too damn tame a word. But then Max understood. He advanced on her. “No, hell, no. Don’t even think it.” His back teeth clenched. “My brother is the victim here.” Had the woman been playing him just then? Trying to make him feel close to her, trying to get him to let down his guard?

One of her shoulders lifted in what was probably supposed to be a careless shrug. “I never said he wasn’t.” Her stare didn’t waver.

But for a minute, when he’d first gotten the call, he’d doubted. He wondered. Quinlan had wanted that money so badly and then just disappeared…

The doubt hadn’t lasted long, though, not with that prick on the line promising to hurt Quinlan. Then that damn package had arrived.

His brother was the victim. “Get to sleep,” he ordered, tired of the doubt and the worry. “It’s late, and we’re both going to be sharing the bed.”

Her eyes widened as she glanced at the bed.

“Part of our cover, remember?” Screw the cover. The grim truth was that he still wanted her. And the sick truth was that she didn’t want him touching her.

You could run from your past. You could spend a dozen years trying to change, but there would always be people who looked at you and saw the blood and guts of who you were.

A killer. When Samantha looked at him, he knew what she saw.

She exhaled on a breathy little sigh. “I’m not here right now because I need a cover, Max.” Her hair looked soft and silky, and her lips, bare of color, were plump and just inches away. “I’m here because I want to be. I told you about my past because I wanted you to know me.”

What?

“You scare me,” she admitted.

Just great. You scare me, too, baby.

“And I—I’m sorry about what happened to your mother. The cancer… and before. With her attack.”

She might as well have hit him again. He tried to hold on to his anger, but with her, it kept sliding away. “Got the story verified, did you?” She must have called her agents when she was alone. He didn’t buy that she’d taken him at his word.