Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(107)

“I don’t know where to start with the apologies, " she said finally.

Dan shook his head. "Maybe I should start. I should tell you—the D.A. visited me this morning. I plan on cooperating. "

Lillian’s expression stayed tightly controlled while she readjusted her interior rhythm to that new knife in the air. "That’s all right."

“I have to try to salvage something of the company," Dan explained. “If I can do that by striking a deal—"

"It’s really all right, Dan."

Lillian said it with conviction, like she was almost glad. She’d spoken with equal conviction this morning when she’d told me she wouldn’t press her own charges for the abduction, wouldn’t volunteer any information for the case against her patents. She had even helped her mother find a good lawyer.

Dan was probably wondering the same thing I was. Lillian looked at both of us briefly, seemed to hear the questions we weren’t asking, then tightened her lips into a perfectly straight line. When she spoke she addressed Dan’s IV bottle.

"I’ve had ten years," she said. "The first two or three of those, I almost tore myself apart with mood swings, private screaming fits—I didn’t know whether to be resentful that my parents had put me in this position, or angry that they weren’t the good people I’d thought, or guilty because I still loved them, or scared because my father was a monster. Beau—" She stopped, took a few heartbeats to regain her balance. "Beau actually helped me with that a lot. After a few more years I learned to build partitions. To stay sane I had to learn how to love my parents and resent them at the same time." She looked at me, reticently. "Do you understand that, Tres? I’ve been defending and prosecuting them simultaneously in my head for years. It’s stopped being a contradiction for me. I know they’re guilty; I’m glad they’ll be tried for what they did. But it’s a relief to be able to give up that side to someone else. Now I can just be the defense, just concentrate on the side of me that forgave them a long time ago."

Dan’s eyes were drooping. The morphine had kicked in.

"I can’t even think about forgiveness." His tone was oddly pleasant, like the Vivaldi soundtrack that was still playing merrily along in the background.

"You’ll be testifying against your mother as much as the Cambridges," I said. "Have you told her?"

"I won’t see her," he said. “I know I can stand up to her now. It’s just . . ."

"You’re not sure you want to test it, yet."

Dan looked uneasy. "I’ve had the same relationship with my mother for twenty-eight years, Tres. It’s going I to be hard not to fall into an old pattern. If that happened . . . I think part of me would feel like this was for nothing." He looked down at his bandaged hand affectionately, like it was a pet curled up at his side. "It’s funny. I should’ve gotten myself shot a long time ago."

Dan smiled. He’d spoken with a kind of brave, self-deprecating humor, but there were undercurrents in his tone that I’m not even sure Dan was aware of—fear, bitterness, uncertainty, loathing. I knew it was only a matter of time before those things became more than just undercurrents.

“We should probably let you get some sleep," I said. Dan nodded. "All right."

Lillian put her hand on Dan’s shoulder. She hesitated, then leaned down to kiss his forehead. She straightened up again so quickly her pearl necklace almost hooked itself on Dan’s chin.

"I’m sorry, Dan," she said. "I’m sorry that you got involved the way you did. Until you told me about the pictures being sent to your family, I didn’t know. I didn’t see the connection, why our parents were so insistent on us dating. I blew up at you."

Dan had closed his eyes as if he were trying to identify a particular instrument in the classical music playing. It apparently wasn’t an unpleasant task,. but it did take his full attention.

"Nothing to apologize for," he said.

Lillian pushed a stray lock of coppery hair behind her ear. Her fingernails were painted red. I tried to think whether I'd ever seen her fingernails painted before.

"Your mother must’ve been pushing you toward marriage as hard as my parents were pushing me," Lillian said, almost hopefully.

“That’s true." The way Dan said it, he knew it wasn’t true and so did I. If Lillian believed it, it was only because she was trying so hard.

“Get better," she said.

Dan nodded. "Do you mind going ahead? I’d like to say something to Tres."

I thought about the first time Dan and I had tried to say something to each other without Lillian, on the front of her lawn. Lillian’s reaction this time was perhaps not as angry, but every bit as uneasy.

"Of course," she said, then to me: “Meet you at the elevator."

She turned and walked away as if she were conscious that our eyes might be on her. They were.

When she was gone, Dan sighed and let his head sink into his pillow. His hair made a spiky blond aura against the white linen.

"I wanted to ask about that night," he said. “What you told me about coming up against a brick wall."

"Yes."

Dan looked half-asleep, like one more bedtime story would do it.