Killing Bliss by Sheedy EC

Author:Sheedy, EC [Sheedy, EC]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-06-22T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Damn. Cade coped better with story-telling mode, and it looked as though Addy did as well. The second she made it personal, she'd taken on the air of that lost kid she'd been years before.

He forced himself to a professional stillness he didn't feel, resisted the urge to take her in his arms, tell her everything would be okay. He needed to hear this and, more than that, she needed to get it out. "You mentioned an 'awful night,'" he said. "Tell me about it."

She surprised him by pushing away from the window ledge and coming to sit beside him. "Turn more lights on," she said. "I need to see your face."

"Why?"

"So I can decide if, after I've told you the whole story, I need to hop the next train out of town before you call the men in blue." Gone was her wistful expression, the look of melancholy; she was all business now, sharp-eyed and focused. "I don't usually trust people much. Especially ones who were cops." She stopped, rubbed her palms together. She looked edgy again, afraid. "But this time, I have to. Trust someone, I mean."

"That makes me what? Your only choice?" He turned on the light.

She nodded, looked frustrated.

"Then do it." In order to meet her eyes directly, he altered his position on the sofa, resting one knee on it and leaving one foot on the floor. "Tell me the whole story. Get it out, and we'll see where we go from there. Okay?"

For a time all she did was breathe. The sound of it filled the quiet room. Then she mirrored his position on the sofa, settled in as if to ground herself, prepare for the words she was about to say. "When I was a teenager," she said. "I was... involved in a murder." The last four words came out so fast it was as if they'd burned her tongue.

"Whose murder?" he asked, hating himself for having to ask a lying question, and grateful she didn't register his lack of shock.

"My foster mother's, Belle Bliss."

He kept his face impassive. "Go on."

"We'd been at the Bliss place about a month when Frank raped Beauty in the barn. More of a shed, really. Dirty place, leaky, full of moldy hay. He kept her there for a long time. He had a knife..." She closed her eyes, looked as though she were struggling to sort through the ugliness. "When he let her go, she was a mess, hurting something awful, had a cut here"—she ran a hand over her collarbone area—"but Belle didn't care, wouldn't get a doctor." She stopped, and her forehead crinkled as if she'd remembered something long forgotten. "You know what she did? She hit Frank with a rolled up newspaper, across the back, like he was a dog who'd messed on the carpet. Then she went into the kitchen and got a bottle of whiskey—or something." She shook her head. "She said getting a doctor involved would mean police and police meant trouble.

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