Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(142)

He didn’t want to die. The realization startled him. It would be all wrong. Broken off, unfinished. So stupid, to die now, after all this effort, all this drama. To never see her again. Never touch her, hear her sweet voice. The fear of that pierced him like a needle of ice.

It took forever to break the spell and creep back from the edge. He rolled onto his face on the jagged rocks, his limbs as weak as water. He fell apart, for the first time since he’d woken out of the coma.

He cried, for all of it. Dad, Kev, Mom. For Liv. For all the pain and fear that Osterman had inflicted on all those poor kids. The loss, the grief, the waste. It thundered through him, on and on until he started to wonder if it would ever stop.

It finally did, leaving him exhausted. Limp as a rag, clinging to the mountaintop under the threatening gray sky.

But when he rolled over, the hissing sound was gone. All he heard was the wind, whistling through the jagged rocks and crags.

He felt light. Clean.

He tried to get up. His legs buckled, dumping him on his ass.

It made him laugh. Ironic, if he died now like a bozo *, just because his worthless legs shook too much to bear his weight.

Liv. He braced himself for the pain, but the pain had changed. It was hotter, softer. It was the pain of longing.

It was the sweet ache of dawning hope.



Liv stepped back from the scene she was painting. The last time she’d painted murals for the kid’s section, she’d considered Bluebeard too scary. She was tougher now. Or maybe she was just warped.

Bluebeard’s curious young wife crouched by the iron door of the secret chamber, clutching the key. Liv hadn’t painted the room’s contents, just a crack of utter darkness. Yeah. It was creepy. It worked.

“It looks real nice, honey.”

She jumped into the air at her father’s voice. Her nerves were still shot, after months. She glanced at the painting. Of all words she might have used to describe it, “nice” was not one of them. But hey. Whatever.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Her father looked around at the dusty chaos of renovation in her bookstore, and turned a manila envelope in his hands.

“Place looks great,” he said, with forced heartiness. “Good job.”

Liv shrugged. “I should be ready for business in a few months.”

A tense silence fell. Her father blinked, shuffled. Cleared his throat. “Have you, ah…have you heard from Sean McCloud?”

Every part of her shrank from the pain that name invoked. She pressed her hand to her aching throat. “No. We’re not together anymore, Dad. Please don’t ever mention his name to me again.”

“Ah. Well. Seems strange, after everything that happened—”

“Yes, but that’s the way things are, so let’s leave it,” she said sharply. “What’s in the envelope?”

He glanced down. “Oh. It’s for you. A courier brought it. I saw him at the door when I was coming in, so I signed for it.”

She held out her hand for it. Waited. “Dad?” she prompted.

He frowned. “I thought I should open it for you. Considering.”

“Oh, stop.” She twitched it out of his hands. “The people who were trying to hurt me are dead. I can open my own damn mail now.”

He shrugged. “Open it, then.”

“In private,” she snapped. “Come on, Daddy. Spit it out. Say whatever she told you to say, but I warn you, I have no intention of—”

“I’m not carrying messages from your mother,” he said abruptly. “I’ve been living in the apartment on Court Street for three weeks now.”

Liv stared at him, dumbfounded. “Oh. Is it—”

“Permanent? Yes.” He could not meet her eyes. “It’s something I guess I should have done long ago. I just didn’t want to wreck anybody’s life. But after what happened, I got to thinking.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I can see how that might have helped.”

Her father’s face was seamed with lines of regret. “I’m real sorry I didn’t back you up more, honey,” he said gruffly. “All along.”

All along? Now he was sorry? After her life had been gutted? She pushed the bitterness aside with some effort. Gave him a brusque nod.

“I was wondering if you might have dinner with me sometime,” he said tentatively. “If you ever come to the city, that is.”

She stood there, hand over her mouth. Throat still locked.

Her father cleared his throat. “Well, then. I’ll be on my way.”

“Of course we can have dinner,” she burst out. “I’ll call you.”

He gave her a sickly smile, patted her shoulder, and fled. Her father never had been able to handle tears. She didn’t blame him.

She was sick to death of them herself, at this point.

She wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her baggy sweater, and examined the envelope. Just her name, on a computer-generated white label. Her insides clutched. She pushed the feeling away, fiercely.

T-Rex was gone, damn it. Food for worms.

She pried open the flap, and pulled out a handful of drawings.

They were pen and ink, ripped out of a spiral sketchbook. A series of female nudes. Simple, minimalistic, and yet charged with eroticism. They had the offhand grace of an ancient Chinese calligraphy master.