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As I dragged myself up the stairs to my apartment with all the grace and speed of a ninety-seven-year-old, I wondered just what the hell I’d been thinking. Eight excruciating hours down at the police precinct, and I had nothing to show for it besides a headache that threatened to cleave my skull in two and bags beneath my eyes big enough to carry every last one of Trish’s Jimmy Choo’s in.
The police hadn’t quite laughed in my face, I’ll give them that. But they weren’t exactly helpful, either.
They had looked at me like I was a crazy lady. And trust me, after some of the people I’d seen roll through the ED, I knew the feel of that patronizing, blank smile well enough to recognize it on someone else’s face. Add in the giant bruise across my temple and the stunning lack of evidence in my supposedly fabricated murder scene, and there you have it—eight hours of an increasingly desperate attempt to convince the police that my patient had been murdered, and the Irish mob had something to do with it.
I unlocked the main lock and twin deadbolts on my front door and pushed into my apartment. Never had it looked so small and depressing. Here I was, hopeless, helpless—and, for the time being—jobless. Not to mention boyfriend-less. I glowered at the dying pothos plant hanging out on my windowsill. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d watered it.
It was probably a good thing I didn’t have a cat.
I kicked off my tennis shoes and let my ponytail go, scrubbing my fingers along my scalp in an attempt to ease my pounding headache. Damn concussions. I wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. What I needed was a scalding shower and a good night’s sleep, and then I’d try again in the morning. I knew what I had seen. There was somebody out there that was going to believe me—
“Cassidy.”
I screamed.
The voice, low and gravely and disembodied, called out my name the very same moment I flicked on the overhead lights. Adrenaline surged through my system, still on edge from the attack despite my fatigue. I grabbed a knife from the block on the counter, scattering the rest, and whirled to meet—
My brother. “Jesus Christ, Tommy! What the hell are you doing here?”
Tommy was sitting in the overstuffed Ikea chair by the radiator. He’d flicked on the lamp when I shouted and looked neither concerned nor amused by the knife in my hand. “Good to see you, little sis.”
“How’d you get in my apartment?” I demanded.
“How long have you been back in Boston?”
Touché. I narrowed my eyes and set the knife carefully on the counter. I wasn’t about to use it on my brother, however much I disliked him. That didn’t rule out any of his cronies, though. “Answer my question.”
“Picked the lock. Now answer mine.”
His face was blank, but the vein pulsing away in his temple gave him away. I’d rather have him screaming away at me than the slow chug of anger as he built up steam. “Two years.”
“Hm. You never call…you never write…”
“If this is your idea of a joke,Thomas, you can drop it. I have nothing to say to you.”
“On the contrary,Cassidy, you have a lot to answer for.” He began ticking off points on his fingers. “Starting with how in the hell you got yourself wrapped up in a mafia hit, narrowly avoided getting capped yourself, then went flapping your gums all over South Boston—”
“And maybe you can start by telling me why you broke into my apartment and just sat there, lurking in the dark like a total creep,” I muttered.
“Didn’t figure you’d take my call.”
“You figured correctly.”
Tommy folded his arms across his chest. I folded mine. We just sat there, staring each other down while the tension simmered towards a boiling point. His eyes flitted from my crossed arms to the bandage on my temple, the flecks of dried blood still stuck in my hair. Predictably, Tommy was the first to explode. “What the hell were you thinking, Cass?!”
“I was thinking I was going to get justice for my patient.”
Tommy snorted. “Well, you’re not gonna get it from the cops. Half those cocksuckers are in somebody’s pocket, and the other half don’t have two brain cells to rub together. All you did was paint a big ‘ol target on your back, little sis.”
My own anger crested. “Stop calling me that.”
“Why? That’s what you are. Or have you forgotten?”
“How can I? I see the cost of being in this family every time I look in the mirror!”
Tommy rocked back on his heels. Clenched his jaw. I shouldn’t have said that. We’d both drawn blood over this subject years ago, and dredging it up again was unnecessarily cruel. I reached up and rubbed my aching temple, ironically the same side of my face that bore the scars of the last time I’d gotten too close to a hit.
“You act like I don’t care.” Tommy wouldn’t even look at me.
