Rachel Caine - Firestorm

I was never going to understand him. Nothing he said matched to what his body language said. The slump of his shoulders, the trembling in those long, elegant hands—that all spoke of grief, real and bone-deep grief.

David hadn't said anything. He was watching Eamon with the same intensity, but the incandescent rage had died down a bit.

"You going to kill me now?" Eamon asked. "Give me a colorful end to a bad career?"

"No." David shrugged. "I healed the wound. You'll be fine so long as you don't make any sudden movemerits. Or come after my family again. If you do that again, I will kill you."

My family. That struck me deep.

"You can all go to hell for all I care," Eamon said, and reached across to rest his hand on top of the respirator that breathed for the woman on the bed. "I didn't poison your sister, by the way. She's the one bright thing in my life. I didn't—" He fell silent.

"If you really think that, then let her go," I said. "Just let her go."

"Oh, I already have. I left her a note. I told her I had to go back to England. She'll come crawling back to you any moment now. Now bugger off , all of you!" The last came with a viciousness like a thrown razor.

David looked down at the bloodstained knife he was still holding, and casually broke the blade of it in two with his fingers. He tossed the remains in the trash.

And then the three of us—Imara, David, and I—left the hospital room.

As the door hissed shut behind us, David took me in his arms, and I melted against him. Into him.

I didn't ask, but David knew what I wanted to say. "I really couldn't do anything for her. There are limits."

I kissed the side of his neck. "I know."

"I leave you alone for five minutes—"

"It was more like days."

He growled lightly into my shoulder. "You're impossible. And I have—"

"Responsibilities," I murmured. "I know you do."

He let go.

"What about him? Eamon?" Imara was standing straight and tall, hands folded, watching the two of us. My daughter's face was a mirror of mine, at least in form, and in this instance I suspected she was a mirror of my expression, too. Compassion mixed with wariness. Eamon was a wild animal, and there was no telling what he'd do. Or to whom.

"If that demonstration didn't frighten him off, then the next step is to kill him. Not that I'd mind that."

My thoughts were on other things. "The woman—Liz—was she his victim, or his partner?"

"I don't know," David said. "I only know that Eamon never once told the truth about her."

Imara said, "Yes, he did."

David turned to her, surprised.

"When he called her 'beloved Liz.' He meant that."

At the nurse's station, an alarm began to sound. The nurse jerked to attention, checked a screen, and hit a button, then rushed past us… into the room we'd just exited.

"Let's go," David said.

"Is she—?"

"Go."

"Did Eamon—?"

He held the door to the elevator for me, head down, staring at his shoes.

"Oh God, David, did you— ?"

He didn't answer. Neither did Imara.

On the way to the lobby, I called Sarah's cell phone. She was crying when she answered. "Jo, oh my God—Eamon—Eamon left me a note—I thought—I thought he really loved me—"

So. He wasn't entirely a lying bastard, after all.

"Sarah?" I said gently. "Stay there. I'm coming."

He hadn't exactly stinted her on accommodations. Sarah was registered at a downtown Boston hotel in her own room, a luxurious suite that came with a panoramic view, a fabulous king-size bed, and its own monogrammed robes.

I knew about the bed and the robes because when we arrived, Sarah was curled up on the bed sporting the robe, clutching a tearstained note in one hand and a generous wad of tissues in the other. She looked like hell, but she didn't look sick. I still felt achy in places, but I knew that was a legitimate price to pay for what I'd avoided. Eamon really would have killed me.

And my sister was weeping herself sick over him.

After parsing some of the hitching, half-understood things she was mumbling, I came to the conclusion that she'd consulted the liquor cabinet for some comfort, too. Great. Drunk, maudlin, and irrational. Sarah's best day ever.

I rolled my eyes at David, who had the grace to turn to look out the windows at the rain streaking the glass. Imara grinned. Together, my daughter and I escorted Sarah to the bathroom, where I dumped a cold shower on her to help with the sobering up (and yes, it was more than a little fun, too), and helped her get herself together. Eamon had provided plenty of tools, from high-quality makeup to shopping bags from half the high-end clothiers in Boston.

My sister should have been a model. She had the rack for it, and the elegant bone structure. Where I was round, she was straight, flat, and lean. Her hair still retained the delicate cut and highlights that I'd helped her put in—God, had it only been a week ago? I decided to forgo the mascara. As much as Sarah continued to sniffle about her latest romantic disaster, it was bound to be a wasted effort.

"I was so worried," Sarah suddenly said as I applied blusher to her pale cheeks. I stopped, surprised. "I didn't want to leave you, Jo. Eamon said—he said you'd gone back to get your friend."

I nodded. "I did." He'd basically left me to fend for myself in a hurricane, but he'd cut me loose, at least. Had to give him points for that. "I'm sorry. It took me a while to catch up to you."

She studied me from bloodshot eyes, getting more sober by the minute. "Were you? Catching up to me? Or were you really looking for Eamon?"

I applied myself to the makeup with an effort. "Looking for you, of course."

"Jo." She stopped my hand with hers. "I know he's a bastard. But there was something about him—you understand?"

"I understand that you were married to one jerk, and you just fell for another one," I said. "But in this case, I can't really blame you. He put on a good show. Even I believed it for a while. So I think I'll have to forgive you for this one."

That was what she wanted to hear. I saw the flash of relief in her eyes, and then she hugged me. A warm cloud of Bvlgari Omnia embraced me, too. She'd put too much on. She always did.

I hugged her back fiercely. "Come on," I said. "Let's get packed up."

It didn't take long. Everything she owned, Eamon had bought for her; like me, she'd had to flee Fort Lauderdale with nothing but the clothes on her back. Even her suitcases were new.

And designer.

Some refugees just are born to land on their expensively manicured feet.

"What am I going to do with her?" I sighed to David as we leaned against the wall and watched Sarah fill the third Louis Vuitton bag with toiletries and shoes. I was considering knocking her over the head and stealing the suitcases. Eamon had excellent taste.

"She shouldn't stay here," David said. "If he comes back, I'm not sure she wouldn't—"

"Oh, I'm sure she would . Eagerly. Eamon could talk her into anything, and you know it."

"Then you'd better send her someplace safe."

"And where would safe be, exactly?" I asked. He folded his arms and stared at the carpet; there really wasn't a good answer to that, and he knew it. "I've used up my favors. I have no other family to ship her off to—"

"Actually," Imara interrupted, "you do."

We both stopped to look at her. A flash of lightning outside the windows illuminated the humor in her smile.

"I'll take care of her," she said. "If you're about to jump back into trouble, you can't keep her with you. She'd slow you down." Imara's golden eyes sought David's for a second. "So would I, as a matter of fact."

"Imara—"

"You have to take her," she said to her father. "You have to take her to see the Oracle, and you know you do. I can't go. I'd just be in the way."