Page 99 of Inflict

His friend didn’t say goodbye before he slammed the front door shut, but Connor didn’t mind all that much. He had more pressing things to consider, given the state of his life and the life of the woman in his kitchen, currently making him feckin’ tea like nothing was amiss in her world.

Connor took a few minutes to lean against the hallway wall and think about what he was going to do, or rather, what he needed to do and what it all might mean in the end. He scrubbed a hand down his face, letting out a heavy breath that felt like a huge pressure sitting on his chest. Before he could waffle on his choices for any longer, he pushed off the wall and headed toward the kitchen.

He found Evelyn sitting at the table, no tea ready or in hand.

He didn’t mind, frankly.

She was flipping through the stack of her sketches, searching for something in particular and nothing would distract her from the task.

Connor headed to the kettle. Maybe a tea would distract him for their next conversation. “I’m going to head out pretty soon—I’ll put some lotion on your back and wrap it first.”

“Okay.”

More papers flipped over.

Connor waited for the kettle to heat. “I might be a while. A few hours or so.”

She didn’t question him on the whys or whats of his sudden decision to leave the brownstone. “Fine.”

“Tomorrow, we can hit the diner down the road for some breakfast.” With Sean gone, he would have no need to hide Evelyn away, not anymore. “If you would like that, lass.”

“Sure.”

Connor turned to see she had finally found whatever sketch she had been looking for while he had been rambling on like a fool. He couldn’t see exactly what it was, but she grew even more silent, her fingers tracing over the image with a careful slowness that said she was committing it to her memory all over again.

“Something wrong, Evelyn?”

Her back tensed. “I don’t know.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not sure.”

The electric kettle bubbled and clicked when the steam began to pop out the top, but Connor was already moving toward Evelyn, his desire for tea forgotten as she turned to look at him.

“I heard you talking,” she said.

“With Killian, you mean.”

“Yeah. About your … dad.”

Connor did his best not to scoff, and still managed to fail miserably. “Calling him that would lend some credence to the fact he might have acted like it over the years. It’s like saying he deserves the title. He’s just a feckin’ cunt, and not good for very much of anything, least of all being a father.”

Evelyn frowned, glancing back at the sketch. “Oh.”

“What do you have there?”

She picked up the sketch, holding it close as her brow furrowed. “I thought … I was confused, I think. I kept seeing your eyes and the top of your face, whenever I remembered him coming into my bedroom that night and taking me out of the house—how he didn’t even blink when he stepped over my father’s body on the floor. I couldn’t forget what I could see of him, even if it wasn’t very much of him at all.”

Connor didn’t have the first clue what she was rambling on about. “You’re going to have to give me a bit more, love.”

Evelyn tapped the back of the sketch with her fingernails. “I think maybe I confused him with you because I saw the similarities that night when you showed up and took me. You know, from—”

“The Russian.”

Connor wasn’t going to keep giving that fool the dignity of using his name.

“Yeah. All I saw at first was your eyes, just like him, because of that bandana you wore to cover your face. And then you pulled it down, and I saw you, but not at first.”