Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(24)

Greaves looked back from the door he was opening. “Yes?”

“My wife is having a serious operation tomorrow morning, at Good Samaritan, and I was hoping—”

“You want to take personal time now?” Greaves’ voice was soft with disbelief. “At the culmination of your most important assignment ?”

“. . . a tumor removed,” Hu said desperately. “From her esophagus. It’s a delicate operation, and I need to—”

“You need? Hu, is it possible that your wife does not understand the importance of your work? Is she that selfish, that small-minded?”

“I . . . of course she . . . ah . . .” Hu’s mouth worked.

“Because if she doesn’t, maybe you should find a different wife. Maybe one who doesn’t have cancer. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Hu’s voice was impassive. “I’ll be there.”

“Excellent.” Greaves shut the door sharply behind himself.

Lara barely bothered to keep her feet beneath her on the way back down. She had no fight left. Greaves had sucked it all out of her. She let them drag her dead weight, but one thought kept circling in her mind as she stared up at Anabel’s profile. “Did you kill my mother?”

Anabel snorted. “She killed herself, you stupid bitch. Some use rope, some use razors. She used me. She would have died anyway.”

“I’ll kill you for that,” Lara said.

“Yeah? You terrify me, babycakes.” Anabel jerked Lara around and pushed her against the wall. “But I won’t have to look over my shoulder much longer! The boss is taking you away to be his little pet. Lucky girl! Sing pretty for him in your gilded cage! Tra-la-f*cking-la!”

“Anabel, stop bruising her,” Hu fretted. “Looks like the boss will be seeing her naked soon enough. He won’t like the marks.”

Anabel twitched up Lara’s shirt and tweaked her exposed nipple brutally hard. “He’ll kill me one of these days anyhow. What the f*ck.”

“Don’t lay your death wish on me,” Hu grumbled. He pulled out his keys, opened locks. Anabel pushed Lara inside. “Want to know a fun fact?” she asked. “I was his pet, once. For about twenty minutes or so.”

It was clearly a trap, but desperation drove to ask it. “And? So?”

“I needed corrective surgery. For the damage to my vocal folds.”

Lara stared, uncomprehending. “Vocal folds? What damage?”

“From the screaming,” she said, as the door swung shut.





6


Late to the funeral. True to form. It was all part of his race to see how many people he could offend in the shortest possible amount of time. If that were an Olympic event, he’d be a gold medalist.

Not that Matilda would care, and that sad, sick fact had its own leaden heaviness. He didn’t feel the sadness in the same sharp buzzy way that he had before he’d shielded, but he still bore its dumb, brute weight in his body. It shortened his wind, took the spring out of his legs. It was just so sad. So f*cking wrong.

The assembled congregation was singing “Be Thou My Vision,” and the sound of the organ hit him like car alarms going off inside his skull. Funeral lilies took the place of wedding orange flowers, but they packed the same olfactory punch. Matilda’s casket was closed, thank God.

He lurked off to the side while the minister droned on about Matilda’s awesomeness and the mystery of God’s forgiveness. He spotted some of Matilda’s colleagues from the faculty office. In front was a chubby young woman in black who had to be Amy. Beside her was a guy in Army dress uniform. Steve, the husband. The two sat alone. No other family. A final hymn was announced. Miles braced himself for “Amazing Grace” as he chivvied himself into the condolence line, for what insane reason he could not fathom. Why? What point was there? Matilda didn’t care. Amy and Steve didn’t know him from Adam. He didn’t know a soul here, and yet, here he was, using up his tiny margin of crowd endurance to stand in the line and gag on the perfume of a bunch of weeping, shellshocked ladies of a certain age.

He breathed through his mouth and pretended to be normal. As usual, he was being compelled. Some huge entity was playing kick-the-can, he was the luckless can, and he might as well give in before that big boot swung down to connect with his ass once again. He got to the front of the line, clasped the hand of the uniformed guy. He muttered the requisite platitudes, got a red-eyed, tight-lipped nod in response. On to Amy.

She gave him a look that almost f*cked his shield, it was so full of raw grief. He reeled, poised on his mountaintop, fighting for balance. Wind in his hair, eye to eye with the eagles. Please. No seizures. These people did not need to deal with his problems. Today or any day.

“. . . birthday,” Amy’s tear-fogged voice slid back into focus, abruptly loud. “The day that I found her.”

“Ah, excuse me?” he said, stupidly.

“We always did the same thing for our birthday,” Amy quavered. “We had the same birthday. She raised me, see. After my mom bailed.”

“Uh . . . oh.” And she was telling him this exactly why?

She clutched his hand in her ice-cold grip. “She always took me to Rose’s Deli,” Amy said. “I got a chocolate éclair. She got a Napoleon. Every time. I was going to pick her up. She hated driving since the cataract surgery. And I found . . . I found . . .” Her voice wobbled, disintegrated.