Page 22 of The Wages of Sin

For a long moment, he didn’t say a word. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him studying me as I worked. Finally, he shook his head before resting it back down on the bed.

“Not possible,” he said with absolute certainty. “You’re no murderer.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I know what it takes to kill,” he said. “You just risked your life and livelihood to patch up a man you barely know. You’re worried about my pain. You’re no killer.”

Of course, he was right. I wasn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that there was a warrant out for my arrest.

“I could have used someone like you in my corner back when it happened,” I said, half joking, as I got back to work. “You might be the only person in the whole world who believes I’m innocent.”

“What happened?”

I let out a long breath, realizing I’d never actually talked about it—not to anyone. There wasn’t any point. Every statement, report, and news story had immediately painted me as guilty. I couldn’t defend myself if no one was listening. I could only disappear.

But now, someone was listening.

Still, the words stuck in my throat—until I got back to focusing on the stitches. For some reason, focusing on something else, something familiar, and working with my hands eased the block inside me.

“My sister, Deena, and I were never very close,” I started. “We didn’t hate each other or anything. We were just very different people with different values. All I ever wanted was to help people, while all she wanted was a white picket fence. Still, we never fought until Gran died.”

“What did you fight over?”

“The same thing everyone does—money,” I said. “She wanted to use all of it to build a nursery addition to her house so she and her husband, Hollis, could start a family. I just wanted half to help pay off my med school loans. The day before she died, we got into a screaming match at a backyard barbecue she was throwing. Unfortunately, it was in front of a ton of witnesses—all her friends and neighbors.”

“That’s bad luck.”

“You have no idea. I went over the next day to apologize for losing my temper. The second I walked in, there was a deafening bang. She was already gone by the time I ran into the living room. Hollis was standing over with the gun still in his hand.”

“Her fed husband killed her?”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Damn. Even after all this time, that truth was still hard to hear.

“Turns out he’d been having an affair with some informant from work and wanted out of the marriage.” The memory of Hollis’ unrepentant explanation played in my head as I finished up the last few stitches. With how often the scene replayed in my mind, I thought it would have lost some of its punch, but apparently not. I could feel tears welling up and stinging my eyes. “But my sister thought a baby would save their marriage and threatened to take everything if he tried to divorce her.”

“So he shot her,” the client said with more disgust than I would have expected from someone who was clearly a criminal himself.

“Apparently, our fight the day before gave him the perfect opportunity,” I said. “He could get rid of my sister and pin it on me. After our argument the day before, everyone would believe it. That way, he could keep everything—the house, the money, his girlfriend. There was only one problem.”

“You knew the truth, and you were still alive.”

“Right.” I nodded. Apparently, he really did know how killers thought. “Though Hollis did his best to fix that problem. He took a couple of shots at me as I ran. One bullet passed straight through my shoulder; the other grazed my ear.” I pushed back my hair to show that a chunk of the top lobe was missing. “After that, I knew that if the cops ever found me, Hollis would make sure I was never taken alive.”

“What did you do?”

“The only thing I could do—disappear.” Thank God I was finally at the end of the line of stitches. I could barely see through the tears. They’d built up so high they’d started spilling over and running down my cheeks. “I changed my name, came to New York, and started working for Jane. End of story.”

I tied off the suture, picked up the scissors, and cut the end of the thread with a sharp snip. After adhering a bandage over the cut, I pulled off my gloves and stood up.

The client propped himself up on his elbows and looked me in the eye. His expression bordered on empathetic. “I’m s?—“

No.

Absolutely not.

I didn’t want sympathy. Hell, I didn’t want to tell the story in the first place.

The only way I’d managed to soldier through since my sister’s murder was through sheer determination. I took each day as it came, pushing back troublesome feelings and avoiding any soft emotions that might tempt me to crumble. All it took was the possibility of an “I’m sorry,” and I could already feel the cracks starting to form.

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