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“What other guy?”
“I don’t know who the hell he is. She broke my heart, Ma. I need some time to get through it.”
“You said she kicked you out because you lost your job.”
“That was part of it, sure. That asshole at Americana had it in for me, from day one. But instead of taking my side, she flips me over because I can’t buy her stuff. Then she tells you all these lies about me, trying to turn my own mother against me.”
“Eat your lunch,” Barbara said, wearily. “Then get cleaned up, get dressed, and go down to the market. If you do that, Jerry, we’ll give you more time.”
“And if I don’t, you’ll kick me out? You’ll just boot me to the street like I’m nobody? My own parents.”
“It hurts us to do it, but it’s for your own good, Jerry. It’s time you learned to do what’s right.”
He stared at her, imagined her and his father plotting and planning against him. “Maybe you’re right.”
“We want you to find your place, Jerry. We want you to be a man.”
He nodded as he crossed to her. “To find my place. To be a man. Okay.” He picked up the knife she’d used to cut his sandwich, shoved it into her belly.
Her eyes popped wide; her mouth fell open.
He hadn’t planned to do it, hadn’t given it more than an instant’s conscious thought. But God! It felt amazing. Better than sex. Better than a good, solid hit of Race. Better than anything he’d ever felt in his life.
He yanked the knife free. She stumbled back, throwing up her hands. She said, “Jerry,” on a kind of gurgle.
And he jammed the blade into her again. He loved the sound it made. Going in, coming out. He loved the look of absolute shock on her face, and the way her hands slapped weakly at him as if something tickled.
So he did it again, then again, into her back when she tried to run. And again when she fell to the kitchen floor and flopped like a landed fish.
He did it long after she stopped moving at all.
“Now that was for my own good.”
He looked at his hands, covered with her blood, at the spreading pool of red on the floor, the wild spatters of it on the walls, the counter that reminded him of some of the crazy paintings at MOMA.
An artist, he mused. Maybe he should be an artist.
He set the knife on the table, then washed his hands, his arms, in the kitchen sink. Watched the red circle and drain.
She’d been right, he thought, about finding his place, about being a man. He’d found his place now, and knew exactly how to claim his manhood.
He’d take what he wanted, and anyone who screwed with him? They had to pay. He had to make them pay, because nothing else in his life had ever made him feel so good, so real, so happy.
He sat down, glanced at where his mother’s body lay sprawled, and thought he couldn’t wait until his father got home.
Then he ate his sandwich.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas strapped on her weapon harness. She’d had a short stack of waffles for breakfast—something that tended to put a smile on her face. Her husband, unquestionably the most gorgeous man ever created, enjoyed another cup of superior coffee in the sitting area of their bedroom. Their cat, who’d just been warned off the attempt to sneak onto the table, sat on the floor washing his fat flank.
It made a nice picture, she thought: Roarke, his mane of black hair loose around his wonderfully carved face, that beautiful mouth in a half smile, and his wild blue eyes on her. The dishes from their meal together on the table, and Galahad pretending he didn’t want his nose in the syrup added to the “at-home and liking it” ambience.
“You look pleased with yourself, Lieutenant.”
“I’m pleased,” she said, and added that musical murmur of Ireland in Roarke’s voice to her list of morning enjoyments. “I’ve had a couple of days without a hot one so I’m nearly caught up on paperwork. The quick scan of the weather for today told me I won’t be freezing my ass off, and I’m heading out with a belly-load of waffles. It’s a good day, so far.”
She hooked a brown vest over her shirt—both Roarke approved—then sat to pull on her boots.
“Generally you’d prefer several hot ones over paperwork,” he pointed out.
