"This stuff with you ... it's tied up with him as well." His eyes flashed over to her. "He was in love with my mother. And even so, he sliced her up while she was still breathing and made a heart out of her intestines on the floor beside her. I know, because I was the one who found her body."
As Reilly gasped, her hand went up to her throat, and she instinctively took a step back ... only to find that she was trapped against the rock she'd been leaning against.
"Yeah ..." he said. "So that's my family history."
Way to romance a woman, Veck thought as Reilly went snow white and tried to back away from him.
Taking a hard drag on his cigarette, he exhaled away from her. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
Reilly shook her head - maybe to clear it. "No ... no, I'm glad you did. I'm just a little ..."
"Shocked. Yeah. And that's only one of the reasons I don't talk about this shit."
She brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes. "But I meant what I said. You can talk to me. I want you to talk to me."
He wasn't so sure she'd feel that way when he was through. But for some reason, he found himself opening his piehole.
"My mother was his thirteenth victim." Man, he envied those guys whose "bad history" stories involved beer bongs, the defacement of public property, and maybe pissing in someone's gas tank. "I was on summer vacation from high school, staying in a rental house on Cape Cod with friends. It was the last night we had the place, and I was the last person to go home, so I was alone. He brought her into the living room and did it there. Afterward, he must have come upstairs and checked in on me - when I woke up, there were two bloody prints on the doorjamb to my room. That was the only clue something evil had taken place. He'd put duct tape over her mouth so I never heard a thing."
"Oh ... my God ..."
Taking another deep drag, he talked through the exhale. "And you know, even back then, the first thing I did when I saw what was on the molding was look at my own hands. When there was nothing on them, I raced into my bathroom, checked the towels, checked my clothes - same thing I did after the Kroner thing, ironically. And then I realized ... Shit, the victim. I called nine-one-one and was on the phone with them when I went downstairs."
"You found her."
"Yeah." He rubbed his eyes against images of red blood on a cheap blue rug, a heart made out of human parts. "Yeah, I did, and I knew it was him."
He could go no further than that, with her or himself. The memory had been shut off for so long that he had hoped it had decayed in a thoughtful, arguably healthful way. But no. The scene he had walked into was still drawn in shades of neon, as if the vapors of the panic and terror he'd felt had tempered and distorted everything about the mental photograph except for its clarity.
"I've read about your father - studied him in school," Reilly said softly.
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"But there was nothing about ..."
"I was seventeen, legally a minor, and my mother didn't have my last name, so you wouldn't have known from that. Funny, that was when law enforcement first talked to my father about a victim. Needless to say, they believed him when he said he was grief-stricken - and God knows he was good at faking emotions. Oh, and the prints on the doorjamb? He'd worn latex gloves, naturally, so there was nothing to go by."
"God, I'm so sorry."
Veck grew quiet, but didn't stay that way. "I didn't see him much. And when he did come by, my mom would disappear with him. She could never get enough of him - he was her drug of choice, the only thing that mattered, the only thing she thought about. Looking back on it, I'm pretty damn sure he engineered her desperation, and it used to piss me off - until I realized what he was and saw that she hadn't stood a chance. As for his side of things? I guess the shit amused him, but the game got old after a while, apparently."
At that, he just petered out, like a sprinter who couldn't go the distance.
"Anyway, that's why we're never having dinner at my parents' house."
Lame attempt at a joke. Neither of them laughed.
When he got to the end of his cigarette, he ground the glowing tip out on the sole of his shoe - and noticed for the first time that his loafers were not going to come out of this mud bath alive. Reilly, on the other hand, had somehow managed to supply herself with a pair of hiking boots.
So like her. She was always prepared -
When he looked up, she was right in front of him. Her cheeks were pink from the wind and the exertion, and her eyes shone with the kind of warmth that came from not just a good heart, but an open one. Wisps pulling free of her ponytail gave her a red-tinted halo, and her perfume or shampoo or whatever it was reminded him of summer - the normal kind, not the last one he'd had as a "kid."
And then she stepped into him, put her arms around him, and just held on.
It took him a minute to get with the program, because that was the last thing he expected. But then he embraced her back.
The two of them stood there for God only knew how long.
"I'm not in the habit of dating," he said roughly.
"Coworkers, you mean?" She pulled back and looked up at him.
"Anyone." He smoothed her hair with his palms. "And you're way too good for me."
There was a brief pause and then she smiled a little. "So the couch is the preferred spot, huh."
"Call me Casanova."
"What am I going to do with you," she murmured, like she was talking to herself.
"Dead honest? I don't know. If I were a friend of yours, I'd tell you to run, don't walk, to the exit."
"They are not you, you know," she said. "Your parents don't define you."
"I'm not so sure about that. She was the sycophant of a psychopath. He's a demon in a dapper mask. And along came baby in a baby carriage. Let's face it, up until now, my life has revolved around avoiding the past, wasting the press donand refusing to think about the future - because I'm terrified I don't just share my father's name."
Reilly shook her head. "Listen, I used to be scared that the woman who gave birth to me was going to come back and claim me. For the longest time, I was convinced that whatever my dad did legally wasn't going to be enough if she wanted me back. It used to keep me up at night - and I still have nightmares that it happens. Matter of fact - and you want to talk about crazy - I still sleep with a copy of the court-certified adoption papers next to me in my bedside table. My point? Just because you're afraid of something doesn't give it the power to come true. Fear isn't going to make it nonfiction."
There was another long silence.
He was the one who broke it: "Scratch what I said before. I think I am falling in love with you. Right here. Right now."
Chapter 29
As Jim stood a little ways off from Reilly and Veck, he made like a boulder and tried desperately not to overhear every single word they were saying to each other. And when they stepped in close, he turned his head away.
There were advantages to going invisi, but he was so not into the voyeurism thing.
And he was not pleased with this emo delay. They were looking for his Sissy - the lovey-dovey shit could wait until they found her or figured out that the location was a sham.
Stepping off the rock he'd been perched on, he landed in a puddle, the murky water splashing up on his leathers and his combats, but making no sound thanks to the little force-field he'd thrown up around himself. Man, this quarry was like something out of an old Star Trek episode, just without the red shirts and the transporters -
Abruptly, warmth bloomed on the side of his face, and the sensation brought his head up and to the right. A shaft of sunlight was streaming down on him, hitting him on the temple and the jaw.
What the hell, he thought, realizing it was coming from the wrong direction.
Frowning, he moved back and pivoted around, following the path of the lemon yellow stripe ... which led into the cave behind him.
Something flashed deep inside its dark belly.
"Oh, shit," Jim whispered as a premonition washed over him like cold rain.
Bracing himself, he walked to the ragged opening. No need to step aside; the illumination went right through him as if he weren't there.
The aperture was fairly large, about six feet tall, maybe three feet wide, although there was an internal turn almost immediately, so the question was, what had thrown the reflection ?
Entering, the sunlight followed him, making him think of Dog in its quiet, comforting companionship. And he didn't stop to think about how the illumination managed to wrap around the corner or wonder why it seemed to direct him ...