Ceremony in Death (In Death #5)(64)

Teeth clenched, Feeney stepped back. “Come in and say what you have to say, then get the hell out.”

“Is your wife at home?” Roarke asked when Feeney slammed the door at his back.

“She’s got a girl’s thing tonight.” Feeney inclined his head, much like a bull, Roarke thought, preparing to charge. “You want to take a shot at me, you go ahead. I wouldn’t mind pounding that pretty face of yours.”

“Christ Jesus, she’s just like you.” Shaking his head, Roarke wandered the living room. Homey, he decided. Not quite tidy. The viewing screen was set on the ball game, the sound muted. The batter swung, the ball flew in total silence. “What’s the score?”

“Yanks are up by one, bottom of the seventh.” He caught himself on the verge of offering Roarke a beer, then stiffened again. “She told you, didn’t she? Filled you in right from the get-go.”

“She wasn’t under orders not to. And she thought I could help.”

He could help, Feeney thought and tasted bitterness. Her rich, fancy husband could help, but not her former trainer, not her former partner. Not the man who had worked side by side with her with pride, and goddamn it, affection, for ten years. “Doesn’t make you less of a civilian.” His tired eyes went broody. “You didn’t even know Frank.”

“No, I didn’t. But Eve did. She cared.”

“We’d been partners, me and Frank. We were friends. Family. She had no business bumping me out of it. That’s how I feel, that’s what I told her.”

“I’m sure you did.” Roarke turned away from the view screen, looked Feeney dead in the eye. “And however you told her, it broke her heart.”

“Dented her feelings some.” Feeney walked away, picked up a half-empty bottle of beer. Even through the murky haze of his fury, he’d seen the devastation in her eyes when he’d come down on her. And had willed himself not to give a damn. “She’ll get over it.” He drank deeply, knowing the taste wouldn’t overpower the bitterness lodged in his throat. “She’ll do her job. She just won’t do it with me anymore.”

“I said you broke her heart. I meant it. How long have you known her, Feeney?” Roarke’s voice hardened, demanding attention. “Ten years, eleven? How many times have you seen her fall apart? I imagine you could count them on the fingers of one hand. Well, I watched her fall apart tonight.” He took a careful breath. Temper wasn’t the answer here, not for any of them. “If you wanted to crush her, you succeeded.”

“I told her how things were, that’s all.” Guilt was already seeping in. He slammed down the bottle, determined to chase it away. “Cops back each other, they trust each other or they’ve got nothing. She was digging on Frank. She should have come to me.”

“Is that what you’d have told her to do?” Roarke countered. “Is that the kind of cop you helped her become? It wasn’t you in Whitney’s office, taking the orders, doing the job,” he went on without giving Feeney time to answer. “And suffering for it.”

“No.” A fresh wave of bitterness passed through him. “It wasn’t me.” He sat, deliberately turned up the sound, and stared at the ancient battle on the screen.

Stubborn, thick-headed Irish bastard, Roarke thought with twin tugs of sympathy and impatience. “You did me a favor once,” Roarke began. “When I was first involved with Eve and I hurt her because I misunderstood a situation. You straightened me out on that, so I’m going to do you a similar favor.”

“I don’t want your favors.”

“You’ll have it, anyway.” Roarke sat in a chair comfortably sprung. He helped himself to Feeney’s nearly empty bottle. “What do you know about her father?”

“What?” Baffled now, Feeney turned his head and stared. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with her. Did you know he beat her, tortured her, raped her repeatedly until she was eight years old?”

A muscle worked in Feeney’s jaw as he turned away again, muted the screen. He’d known that she’d been found in an alley at eight, beaten, broken, sexually abused. That was on record, and he never worked with anyone without knowing their official data. But he hadn’t known it was her father who’d done it. He’d suspected as much, but he hadn’t known. His stomach twisted, his hands clenched.

“I’m sorry for that. She never brought it up.”

“She didn’t always remember. Or, more likely, she did and refused to remember. She still has nightmares, flashbacks.”

“You got no business telling me this.”

“She’d likely say the same, but I’m telling you, anyway. She made herself what she is, and you helped. She’d go to the wall for you; you know that.”

“Cops back up cops. That’s the job.”

“I’m not talking about the job. She loves you, and she doesn’t love easily. It’s difficult for her to feel it, and to show it. Part of her may always be braced for betrayal, for a blow. You’ve been her father for ten years, Feeney. She didn’t deserve to be broken again.”

Roarke stood, and saying nothing more, walked out.

Alone, Feeney raked his hands up over his face, into his wiry red hair, then let them drop on his lap.