Page 118 of The Dearly Departed

I already knew this, of course. But it was that shock that helped me to understand her reaction when I asked, "How about Benjamin?"

She turned away, practically curling in on herself. "Please stop asking."

I knew Benjamin wasn’t a good guy, but I never thought before that he physically hurt her. With a low sound teetering toward a growl, I narrowed my eyes. "And Gerald?"

She looked toward me again, her glare fiery. This time, she looked less afraid and more annoyed. "Stop. I mean it."

She didn’t love Gerald. She likely thought he was an asshole, probably didn’t care for his methods and the things he did. But she wasn’t scared of him.

"So, Benjamin," I muttered, nodding to myself. "Noted."

Her face contorted with genuine amusement, and there was that little glimmer of hope sparkling in her deep eyes. "Will you stop? Oh my God, I didn't say he did anything."

"But you didn't say he didn't," I countered.

"You are insufferable," she replied as the smile dropped from her lips to pave the way for a terrible gloom. "And I'm really, really going to miss you."

"You'll see me again," I promised, even as I worried about why she believed she wouldn’t. "You're getting married and moving out. You're not … going across the country."

She offered a fragile smile, one that couldn’t stay for long, and her lips began to quiver, giving way to a sadness that couldn’t seem to lift from the room.

"Thank you for caring about me," she whispered. “Even if you can’t do anything to help, it means more to me than you can imagine, knowing you care.”

I nodded, then turned to head toward the door, forcing a distance that seemed to stretch miles with every inch.

Then, before I could leave altogether, I replied in a low, gravelly tone, "All the time, Princess.”

I care about you all the time, I thought as I exited the room and abandoned what was left of my heart within its walls. If only that could be enough.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tim Murphy had been the perfect example of health and lived a life even the richest of men could envy.

He had married his high school sweetheart, a woman who couldn't speak of his time on this earth without choking on her tears. Just two weeks ago, they had welcomed their first child—a fat and healthy baby boy with the roundest, cutest face Shawn had ever seen.

They were supposed to have a long, happy life together. They were supposed to have more babies, raise them in their home, and watch their grandkids play in the yard. They were supposed to grow old and watch each other wrinkle and wither away until they could be joined again in the kingdom of Heaven.

But fate had had other plans for Tim.

He was never going to witness his son growing up on this side of the soil. He would never hold, kiss, make love to his wife again.

All because a random stranger, a terrible man—a man just like me—had decided to put a bullet through his heart during a gang shoot-out.

It hadn't been intentional. Tim hadn't been a target, and that was what I told myself to make it sting a little less as I pumped his empty shell full of embalming fluid. Saying I would never kill an innocent man with a young wife and infant son because I was careful, unlike the careless man who had fired several rounds at his rival in the middle of the day on a sidewalk just outside a grocery store.

But what was to say that man hadn't been careful all the other times too? Humans made mistakes by design. We could try our best not to, but even the most calculated killers fucked up sometimes.

They got caught.

I looked down at Tim and the peace that had shrouded his face.

I wondered if he had felt peace when he lay dying on that grocery store floor, or had he been angry that his life was ending at twenty-six before he could see his son take his first steps?

"Life was never meant to be kind," I muttered with apology. "Leonard always used to say we are born to sin and for sins to be committed against us. Because people are incapable of perfection, and to be perfect would be the same as being without sin … or something like that. We're only just people, bound to screw up. But how unfair is it that someone like you had to fall victim to one of those mistakes while that asshole gets to, what, spend fifteen years in prison, only to get out on good behavior and do it again to some other unsuspecting guy? When does he get to succumb to someone else's mistake?"

I let out a forlorn sigh and shook my head. "I don't make mistakes," I said to myself more than him. "I have my target, and I make sure I get the job done in such a way that there are no innocent casualties. And I think, for the first time ever, I might be proud of that, knowing that nobody like you is lying on someone else's table because of me."

Then I laughed. "What the fuck though, right? God, I shouldn't be proud of anything. I never used to be, but listen to me now."