by Rob Thurman
She was right. I had killed Boyd for something he didn’t do … and something he did. But my mother wouldn’t have attacked him if I hadn’t assumed he’d murdered Tess. That one assumption had triggered an avalanche of bloodshed that might not have happened otherwise. Boyd had been an abusive son of a bitch with the potential for murder, but I was the one who’d brought that ugly potential out in the open. Glory had killed Tess—killed our sister—but I’d killed the rest of the family. I had done that. I had brought us all down.
No. Hell, no.
I’d read Hector and told him he judged himself too harshly. Was I going to lay a far worse blame on a fourteen-year-old boy? A kid who’d just seen the body of his sister? Boyd had raised a fist to me more than often enough to know what curled in him, dark and gloating, without needing any psychic assistance. He could’ve taken the knife from my mom. She didn’t weigh a third of what he had. Even in her fury, she wasn’t a match for him. He didn’t have to kill her. And I didn’t have to blame myself for shooting him as he tried to do the same to me as he’d done to her.
I didn’t have to carry that responsibility at all. Anyone who lived with Boyd, knew Boyd, they would’ve thought the same. It went wrong and it went bad, but life can. There isn’t anything anyone can do to change that. I was right. It was like an avalanche—a horrifying act you couldn’t stop or prevent. You could only ride it out and hope to be around when it was done.
Glory … that knowledge didn’t involve notions of blame or responsibility. Boyd or no Boyd, no one could’ve guessed or known about Glory. It was nearly impossible to know it now with the confession still hanging before happily curved lips. The last of my family, as dysfunctional as I’d discovered her to be over the years, and now she was gone. Worse, the sister I’d taken care of until she was five, she hadn’t existed. That sister had been a lie.
Tess was dead and Glory had never been.
This woman was a stranger and her smile was the smile of a beauty queen as she said, “Have fun with that.” With a fingernail painted pearlescent white, she gave a disparaging flick to the blanket. White. The color of purity. Or in some cultures, the color of death. “But don’t think it’s free, big brother. The only reason I didn’t toss it in a Dumpster is knowing what you’d be willing to pay me for it.”
It. She only called the bundle it. I suppose that’s all she could see.
She named a price and I was certain she’d ask for more in the future, over and over, unless she finally met someone worse than she was. If there was such a thing. It didn’t matter. I’d pay the money and I wouldn’t miss a penny.
“Call and leave an address. The money will be there in two days. Don’t come back here again. Call. If I see your face again, I’ll think the river that runs through my front yard is as convenient as any abandoned well.” Would I? I didn’t know. Could I? Yeah, I thought I could. Self-defense I’d done. Defense of the innocent trumped that.
Her smile changed. It was the first uncertain flicker I’d seen on Glory’s face in my life. “Like you have the balls.”
“Ask Boyd about that.”
A liar at the genetic level, she knew the truth when she heard it. I closed the door in the face of a Reaper walking the earth. Seconds later, I heard a car drive away and felt the shadow of death that had hovered overhead pass away to let the light of a sunset shine through again.
A small gurgle drew my attention to better things.
I looked down at the baby in my arms, sweating lightly over how many times I’d almost dropped it already. Blue eyes, skin the deep golden blush of a ripe peach, and a thick head of curly black hair that was destined to test any brush or comb under the sun. I doubted that Glory had known who the father was, but, like with Hector and Charlie, you get something unique when you mix the best of worlds. Not that Glory was the best of anything, but you couldn’t judge a baby by what her mother had done.
I liked babies. Hector would no doubt laugh in disbelief when he heard that, but it was true. People I could often take or leave, but babies, yeah, I liked. They were new, and their feelings all began and ended in wonder. Unless a dirty diaper was involved, but that was easily fixed. I held down a finger to let the small hand wrap around it with a grip of silk. I felt the sheer marvel at everything new and clean in its eyes wash out from it—no, her, definitely a girl—as I always did with babies, and then I felt something else. Something so familiar that my chest ached more than it had when I’d been hit with the shotgun blast. My life was changing yet again. It was a phenomenal change and a terrifying one to prove I was up to it.
Second chances come hardly ever. They were miracles in the truest sense of the word. Was I able to handle a miracle?
Have faith, Jackson.
I would. If I couldn’t find faith for anything else, I’d find faith for this.
Five years is too short a life, no matter how much that person loved and lived that life to the sky and beyond. You should get a do-over. The rules of childhood games didn’t apply to life, but what about after?
Birthday party.
She’d said “birthday party” while pulling Charlie out of thin air: I’m going to be late for my birthday party.
“Well,”—I smiled as the grip tightened on my finger—“Happy birthday, Tess.
“Welcome home.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the incredible woman who birthed me (the world isn’t certain she did it any favors, but what does the world know?); Jeff Thurman—my guy in the FBI for the customary weapons, explosives, and general mass-destruction advice; Linda and Richard, whose generosity of spirit knows no bounds; agent Lucienne and editor Adam, without whom this book wouldn’t exist; Nini for everything under the sun; Wendy Keebler—copy editor extraordinaire; and, finally, to one of my favorite couples and gurus in all things of geek nature, Michael and Sara.
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