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I returned to a standing position, leaning against one of the counters, watching as she finished cleaning the wound. Fortunately, the gash wasn’t deep, but I wouldn’t take any chance of infections. She looked away and folded the cloth neatly, a compulsive reaction to being almost killed and kidnapped.
“You were there, at the gravesite. Weren’t you? You and your thugs.”
“While my men would take offense to the term ‘thugs,’ yes, I was there. I’m curious. What did you toss into your father’s grave?”
She glared at me incredulously, her eyes blazing. Then they softened, her lower lip quivering. “I had one memory of him before he left, although sometimes I think it’s nothing but a dream. I remember when he took me outside, he used to blow bubbles. You know the kind, the little jar in vivid colors, the plastic spoon-like instrument and when you floated it from one side to the other, bubbles floated into the air?”
I looked away, laughing since I remembered my mother doing the same thing when I was a kid.
“No, of course you wouldn’t know anything about something so simple and beautiful. I’m sure you had expensive toys as a child. Either that or you were spawned from the devil.”
“I remember, Whitney. My mother did her best to make certain her kids had a value system.”
“Well, she failed horribly.” Almost immediately, her eyes opened wide. “I’m sorry. That was terrible for me to say.”
The woman personified goodness, which pulled at the ugliness of what I was trying to accomplish.
“I put a bottle of bubbles inside his grave. I don’t know what prompted me to do it. How stupidly silly.”
“That’s touching.”
“Right,” she chortled. “Whatever you say.”
We were getting nowhere.
“Did your father give you any indication he was dying?”
“I honestly didn’t give him the time to say much of anything to me. He called, wanting to talk. I refused. I was notified a couple days later he was dead. There’s nothing more to the situation. I don’t know what you’re hoping to find, but I’m not your girl.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
She lifted her head, shifting her gaze back and forth. “If I had something that belonged to you, I’d gladly give it back.”
“You may not know you have it. Or it’s possible he mailed you a package.”
“He doesn’t know where I live. I was afraid he’d turn up on my doorstep one day so I never gave him the address.”
While I wanted to believe she was telling me the truth, my gut feelings told me she was hiding what little she might know. Tonight and this location wasn’t the place to continue our discussion. “Are you thirsty?”
The way she eyed me warily held a hint of amazement I was bothering to ask. “I won’t steal from this small business. You already cost them money by breaking the lock.”
I wasn’t going to argue with her about the fact I didn’t break it. Instead, I pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, leaving them on the counter. Then I headed to the walk-in refrigerator, retrieving two bottles of water. Even though she’d watched every action, she started to refuse the gesture.
“This is ridiculous, Whitney. Take the water.”
After a few seconds she did, twisting the cap with ferocity. Her angry gaze speared me over the short distance, a reminder that our relationship had become strained. Relationship. That wasn’t possible. Not in my line of work, no matter what my father continued to insist. However, our need for each other, electricity that refused to be squelched was nothing more than a thunderbolt driven between us.
A torrent of rain sounded on the roof, another rumble of thunder somehow rocking the aging building.
“What did my father take from you anyway?” Given the circumstances, she believed she had every right to ask the question.
“Be careful asking questions you don’t want answers to.”
Her laugh turned into a choking sound, and I instantly moved closer. “That almost sounds like you care about me. We seem to have the same desire in life, which doesn’t include sins of the flesh. The truth.”
I thought about how to answer her. “We’ll leave it at various pieces of information that could potentially destroy my family. That can’t happen.”
As she’d done before, she studied me intently. “And you’ll do everything in your power to keep that from happening.”
