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Ipull into the long driveway of Malone’s family home and watch in the rearview mirror as the gates close and no one else slides in after us. We run the risk, of course, of having intruders help themselves in by climbing the fences. Or maybe they slipped in while we were away.
But the security systems already in place have to be enough to keep us alive, and the fact no one on the planet knows we’re here except me, Rory, and two cops I don’t entirely like or trust, means that if our safety is blown, I’ll at least know who talked.
Then I’ll kill them just as easily as I killed a man today for aiming a gun at Aurora Swanson.
Bringing the car to a stop and lamenting the broken windshield, I cut the engine and take the keys an officer now fighting for his life in surgery placed in the ignition.
“Let’s go inside,” I murmur, pocketing the keys and pushing out of my door. I hold my gun in one hand and keep my eyes searching. Surveying. Watching, to make sure Vallejo doesn’t have access to sharpshooters, too. Stepping around to the passenger side, I open Rory’s door and remember she lost her stick.
The blood on her hands and face makes my heart quiver. Like a fucking horror film. All my nightmares dressed up in a girl with a limp and a too-short shirt that shows off her navel. Casting one last glance around the massive compound that is Malone real estate, I lean in closer and scoop my free hand around her torso to anchor my palm at her opposite hip. Hitching her up and biting down the guilt I feel when she hisses in pain, I gently pull her from the car and help her to her feet.
“Put your arm over my shoulder,” I mumble, unable to do it myself without letting go of either her or my weapon. I can’t release either, so I hold her close and take most of her weight. When she reaches across to hold on, I start through the second, smaller gate that shields the door. “I’m gonna put you in the shower, okay? I’ll grab you a chair so you can sit down, but then I need you to make sure you’re not hit.”
“Did you like my mom?”
I don’t know if she heard me or not. Or if she’s in shock, or simply that she wants to talk about something else, but I half-carry her through the gate and unlock the front door, then once in the foyer I kick the door shut until the locks snick. Finally, I holster my gun and simply scoop her into my arms. It’s easier to actually carry her than it is to carry her and pretend I’m not. The weight distribution is wrong the other way, and the fact we have to go up a flight of stairs has my patience running thin.
So I hold her tight and hate how she tucks her face into my neck. I hate how she cuddles in close and weeps as we move.
I fucking hate that she trusts me to carry her upstairs, and doesn’t make a single peep at my audacity.
“I like your mom a lot, Little Bird.” I don’t focus on her too-few pounds in my arms. Or the way her hips and backside are boney and not nearly as filled out as they should be. I ignore how she smells of lavender and honey and other sweet scents and focus instead on the tang of blood in her hair. The helplessness in which she clings to me.
She’s a witness. She’s in danger.
She’s twenty-one-fucking-years-old, and I… am not.
I hate most of all that she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known in my entire life. That she’s smart and brave and witty. That she’s her worst critic, and so fucking hard on herself, I can’t stand to let anyone else pile on.
I hate that she’s not for me. Not in this lifetime, and not in the next one either. And I hate that never, in the history of ever, have I not hit on a woman I considered beautiful before.
“Your mom’s eyes are super unique.” Andexactlythe same as yours. “Strong family genes?”
She releases a soft, pathetic whimper as I crest the top of the stairs and head into the bathroom in the hall.
We’ve been gone for hardly more than an hour. It felt like a lifetime, but really, just a speck of time in our day, proven by the warmth still here from her last shower. By the humidity still in the air.
Coming to a stop at the massive glass door and gently releasing her legs, I set her on her feet, but keep hold of her weight as I reach into the shower and flip the water on.
“Can you stand on your own for a sec?” I look down and find the top of her head. Her eyes avoiding mine as I pull back just far enough to see her. “Hey?” I touch her chin and bring her gaze up. “Can you stand while I grab a chair?”
She takes her weight from me, as though to prove what she can’t say out loud, and when I step back, she turns to the shower anyway and hobbles in, fully dressed.
“Shit.” I don’t want to leave her. Don’t want to risk her falling. But I sprint out of the bathroom anyway and into her bedroom to find an antique wooden high-back dining-ish chair settled in the corner by an equally old dresser. Snatching it up and taking perverse pleasure in the knowledge I’m about to destroy a priceless antique, I bring it back to the bathroom and set it under the steaming spray Aurora waits beneath.
The water plasters her dark hair to her face and cheeks, while the stream flows red from her sneakers and into the drain.
Too much blood.
Too close to death.
“Sit down.” I unholster my gun and set it on the vanity opposite the shower, then kicking my boots off, I turn and step in behind her, fully dressed and without a single fuck to give for the clothes I’ll have to launder later. “Let me help you.”
“Why do you call me Little Bird?” Curious, and potentially dancing with shock, she grabs the hem of her shirt and brings it up to expose her belly and chest.
I shoot my gaze to the ceiling, my heart thundering against the walls of my diaphragm and my fingers itching to help her. But my instincts scream,don’t fucking touch.
“I’m wearing underwear, Detective.” She drops her shirt, so it lands with asplat. “People expose more at the beach, so you can relax. Oh,” her voice changes and lifts an octave or two. “Guess I got shot a little bit, huh?”
