Page 44 of Looking Grimm

That was all I would have told him if he’d been here to listen. I would have left out the part about the cops impounding the Porsche, and that I was currently using theBronco to ferry two Hex members to their deaths. Part of me still wanted to protect him, futile as it was. Or maybe I wanted to keep him from seeing the darker part of me—the side forever stained by violence and blood. He looked up to me. Wanted to be like me. I wanted anything else.

Tears blurred my vision, then broke free to run hot down the sides of my face. “I’m sorry, Donnie,” I said, my voice a rasp. “So damn sorry.”

I never got to apologize. Never got to say goodbye. I’d been there when Donovan breathed his last, but I’d been too shocked and scared to say anything worthwhile. I should have told him he was a good brother and that I loved him. But he’d faded too fast, bled out in a parking lot in the dark, more afraid than I was. I led him into danger, then left him when he needed me most.

“I did my best.” I argued with the niggling voice in my head. The one that reminded me it was my fault my brother died. Not Holland’s. Not even Grimm’s.

My eyes squeezed shut in a spiteful blink as I struggled to explain. “It’s just… my best is kinda shit sometimes. Most times.”

The burner phone rested on my chest, brimming with text messages I hadn’t read and calls I hadn’t returned. It had Nash’s number saved, but I needed to call someone else now. I shifted until I could get my wallet out of my back pocket. Opening it, I thumbed through the card slots to find a black embossed business card.

It read simply Holland Lyle with her contact info beneath. There was no need for a title or affiliation. In our corner of the world, she was as famous as I was infamous.

I dialed the number, put the cell to my ear, and waitedthrough three trilling rings.

“Hello?” The edge in Holland’s voice was typically reserved for strangers and unknown callers.

“Hey, Investigator.”

There was a long pause.

“Fitch?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you… What do you want?”

Cold air nipped at my nose as it started to run along with fresh tears. I pressed my hand to my face, rubbing the moisture away.

“I don’t blame you for Donnie,” I said at length.

The silence that answered made me wonder if she was tracing this call, too. At this point, I should have expected it.

“Then why are you doing this?” she asked. “If not to punish me?”

Her pained tone made me wince. “I told you already. I’m not doing it.”

Hurt shifted to anger as she replied hotly, “We caught you on camera, Fitch. Ten people are dead. Maybe more…”

I knew she meant Felix, clinging to life thanks to his lucky stars.

“Grimm can illusion things. Disguise people.” I sat up as a sense of urgency overwhelmed me. I needed to explain, to make clear what she should have seen for herself. Dropping poison bombs and leaving witnesses alive wasn’t even my MO.

“He was in the Capitol building for weeks posing as your dad,” I continued. “You don’t think he could make one of his lackeys look like me?”

It shouldn’t have been this hard to sell the truth. But itmay have been appropriately difficult to make up for a decade’s worth of bad behavior. I was a victim of nothing but the consequences of my actions.

Holland sucked a sharp breath. “Why would Grimm go to the trouble to frame you?”

“Because I’m not working for him anymore.”

And ifhecouldn’t have me, no one could.

“He wants me dead,” I said. “Has Hex members gunning for me, too. He’s willing to hand me over to whoever gets to me first.”

She made a sound I couldn’t place. Not sympathy, not even close. It was almost satisfied, like me falling prey to some nameless thug was a reality she was ready and willing to accept.

Her contempt carried across the line as a scornful expression in my mind’s eye.

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