What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(39)

She glanced toward the window, a wrenching sadness making her feel as if she weighed a thousand pounds.

“The cops asked me the same question, but I really didn’t know. I’d been gone all day and I went straight to my room when I came home.”

Perhaps sensing she was reaching the edge of collapse, Griff slid his fingers beneath her chin and turned her face back.

“Look at me.” He patiently waited for her to meet his gaze. “There’s nothing you could have done to change what happened that night.” He leaned so close their noses were nearly touching. “Nothing.”

She pulled back. It was the same thing she’d told herself a thousand times.

She still didn’t believe it.

“How can you be so sure?”

There was a long silence, as if Griff was weighing something in his mind.

“Because I was just five feet away from my mother when she was murdered,” he said. “Sometimes fate decides to be a real bitch, but blaming yourself doesn’t help anyone.”

The air was pressed from her lungs as she studied his grim expression.

“I didn’t know,” she murmured, even as she silently wondered if she had somehow sensed that tragedy had struck his life.

It might be why she’d felt so drawn to him from the beginning. A shared sense of loss that few people could understand.

“Like you, it’s not something I talk about.”

She slid her hand across his chest to rest it over the rapid beat of his heart. She sensed how much it cost him to speak about the past. And she knew he was only doing it to ease her own emotional roller coaster.

“What happened?” she asked.

“My mother was a cop in Chicago.”

She blinked. She didn’t know why that surprised her. It certainly explained Griff ’s decision to concentrate his computer expertise on catching criminals. Still, she found herself staring at him in amazement.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” A small, bittersweet smile touched his lips. “She grew up in a small town, and no one, including my grandparents, thought she’d last more than a few weeks in the big city, but she loved it. And she was good at it.”

There was no missing his pride in his mother.

“She was killed in the line of duty?”

His pride was replaced with the same aching grief that haunted her.

“No, she was out of uniform.” There was a short pause before he forced out the words. “I’d just gotten an A on a quiz and she’d promised me I could have anything I wanted for dinner. I told her that I wanted to go to the pizza joint that was just down the street from our apartment building.”

She raised her hand to lightly touch his cheek. “Was it just the two of you?”

“It was.” His eyes grew distant as he became lost in his memories. “My dad had walked out when I was just a baby. He wanted a wife who’d stay home and take care of him and his kids, not a woman who was dedicated to her career.”

She wrinkled her nose. Jerk.

“Did the shooting happen on the street?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, we were in the restaurant waiting for our order when a man came in to rob the place.”

“Oh, Griff.” She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand, her heart twisting with sympathy.

“It might have been just another robbery, but the man was high on crack, and when a waiter came out of the kitchen the movement startled him.” She felt the tremor that shook his body. “He started shooting around the room.”

“And your mother was hit?”

“Everyone screamed and fell to the floor.” His lips twisted. “Everyone except my mother.”

Carmen could visualize the scene. The panic. The cries for help. The frantic attempts to get low to the ground.

And the woman who was trained to react during times of crisis.

“The cop,” she said softly.

“Always the cop.” His jaw tightened. “She charged forward and took the man down. His weapon discharged and caught her in the chest.”

She flinched. “And you watched it happen.”

“Yes.” His voice sounded far away. “I was angry for a long time.”

“No one would blame you,” she assured him. “I hope they put the bastard away for life.”

He gave a shake of his head. “I wasn’t angry with the shooter.”

“You weren’t?”

“He was a pathetic junkie who had no idea what he was doing,” he said. “I was angry with my mother for not saving herself like everyone else in the room. And with myself for not stopping her.”

Her heart melted. Not just with sympathy for a boy who’d watched his mom die. But with gratitude.

His story hadn’t only assured her that she wasn’t alone in her grief, but his words forced her to consider her own anger. And how she’d allowed it to taint the memories of her childhood.

It hadn’t all been bad. In fact, most of her younger years had been filled with happiness.

She should cherish those times. Not try to suppress them.

“Your mother couldn’t have done anything else,” she said. “That’s the reason she became a cop.”

“I’m learning to accept that.” His gaze swept over her face. “Just as you have to accept there was nothing you could have done to protect your mother.”