Page 84 of Fire Fight

The statement is accompanied by a head tilt, his eyes lingering on my features. I can hear the cogs in his head whirring, trying to find a match.

“You’re Maggie Arlington’s boy.”

And I’m suddenly dropped in the gigantic minefield I’ve been tiptoeing around, the truth glaring.

Cadence might be the key to this mess, but she’s not the orchestrater.

My mother had somemileageon her. This man knew her well enough to pick out my ancestry just from our facial similarities, coming up on a year since her death.

And how did he get that familiarity?

I can’t stand to meet his gaze any longer.

My eyes drop, picking out the loosening threads of the old industrial grade carpet, the plastic runners laid along the main paths still not enough to stop the wear and tear of thousands of pairs of feet. There’s a shabbiness to the stock on the crowded shelves, some boxes faded even though barely any sunlight comes through the tiny window on the back, its glass crisscrossed with steel mesh to protect against eager junkies.

My head tries to fill with an image of my mother kneeling on this tatty floor, paying for the pills she swore in her weekly meetings she hadn’t taken for five, ten, fifteen years.

A hard knot tightens behind my breastbone as I calculate the blame. For me. For not noticing. For happily going about my life without ever seeing that she got hooked again.

Because she must have been hooked. Nobody would drop to their knees for this fat fucker without desperation cranking up their nerve endings.

I wonder if the elderly woman without her dentures ever gave this man the same payment. If that’s why she doesn’t fit them before walking along to this store to pick up her prescriptions.

A rush of nausea rises, fat beads of sweat popping out on my forehead.

“Take a seat,” the chemist says, already at my side, moving lightly as he guides me to the aluminium chair behind me, the vinyl of its cushion so old it’s cracked. “Are you asthmatic?”

“No. It’s…” I wave my hand, the words eluding me, face crinkling in pain as the bolt digs into my skull. “Headaches.”

“That have preventatives to keep them under control. Do you know your triggers?”

A soft laugh snorts out of me. I came here to be an avenging angel and my target crouches next to the chair, patting my hand as he stares into my face with mounting concern.

“My mum died.”

Alarm pinches his face, then he relaxes, eyes softening. “Shit, that’s hard. And her so young, too. Was it a car accident?”

“Pills.”

My eyes seek his, wanting him to take this pain away. The same way I’d felt as I tore the house apart in the hours after, trying to find a note. Anything to ease the burden that my mother—the person I loved and trusted andneededmore than anyone else—didn’t want to live.

Not for herself.

Not for me.

“Oh, son.” He heaves a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” My fingers curl as the rage spreads like a wildfire. “She overdosed on the pills you gave her and all you have to say is you’re sorry?”

He frowns, then shakes his head. “The only thing she got from me was birth control and a nasal spray for hay fever.”

“But the unclaimed prescriptions?”

The man chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks ashamed. “Were only ever an arrangement between me and another lovely lady.”

I make the connection immediately. “Raelene Rivers.”

Cadence is covering for her mother. The same urge as when she parents her, their roles out of balance for as long as I can remember.

---