I lower the umbrella slightly. Rain hits my hair, cold and immediate. “You are not buying your way out of guilt.”
“I am paying a debt.”
“No. You are trying to make this simple because simple hurts less.”
His eyes narrow. “Do not tell me what I am doing.”
“Then stop doing it so loudly.”
The rain drums against the sidewalk. A couple leaving the precinct glances at us and hurries away, wisely deciding not to linger near a bruised baker arguing with an enormous alien in torn clothing.
Kauss’s voice drops. “I cost you money you did not have.”
“Yes.”
“I brought police attention to your name.”
“Yes.”
“I made your connection to me official.”
“Yes.”
His throat moves. “That was selfish.”
“That was scared.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I step closer, and he goes still. “You gave them my name because somewhere in that giant stubborn head of yours, you knew I would come. That means you trusted me. I’m mad about the circumstances, not the trust.”
His expression shifts, startled and guarded. “You should be mad.”
“I am mad. I am wildly, fantastically, creatively mad. I am so mad I could frost cupcakes with spite and sell out by noon.”
“That is not a standard measure of anger.”
“It is in my industry.”
“I should not have gone.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You asked me not to kill them.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I brutalized them.”
“I figured.”
“I tore Ron’s nose ring out.”
I wince before I can stop myself. “That sounds unpleasant.”
“It was.”
“For you or him?”
