Page 72 of Last Shot

‘Your parents couldn’t help?’

‘They’re dead. Thank god.’ She must have caught the look of horror in his face, and quickly added, ‘I mean that they didn’t have to see this happen to me. They died in a car crash when I was sixteen.’

Was that why she’d been so strange in the car? Her breath catching every time a truck roared past? Wringing her hands when there was someone too close in the rearview? He’d dismissed it as anxiety about going back to prison. He’d dismissed a lot of things about her.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t say that.’ She glanced out the window. ‘I hate that.’

‘Sorry.’

She raised an eyebrow.

He cleared his throat. ‘I know what you mean – people used to say it to me about my mum, then about my dad.’

‘Your parents are dead too?’ Her gaze softened.

‘Dad is, definitely. Mum, who knows? She left when I was too young to remember her. Everyone always acted like I should be mourning her too.’

‘Must have been a total chick magnet though. Lots of girls out there looking for a guy with mummy issues,’ she said, deadpan.

‘Yeah, I like to think dear old Mum was looking out for my sex life when she abandoned us.’ Even trying to sound light-hearted, the pain ripped through in a humiliating rupture he hoped she couldn’t detect.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Don’t say that. I hate that.’

It wasn’t a truce exactly. But it felt like they were lowering their weapons. His invisible rifle sliding from his shaking grip. Why couldn’t he hold onto anything with her? It was like hanging off a slippery cliff; he was destined to fall.

‘So you told your lawyer the truth. Why didn’t he use it in court?’

She blew out, unclasping the button at the back of her top. Everything in Grey tightened, but it didn’t do anything to the structural integrity of the shirt, the silky fabric just loosened slightly around her neck.

Thank God.

She massaged her neck where the fabric hung loose. Had she slept at all last night? ‘Because I told him not to.’

‘You wanted to go to jail?’

‘I’m not a character onOrange is the New Black, Greyson. Of course I didn’t want to go to jail.’

Just tell me,he wanted to scream.Just bloody tell me the truth.

‘Evan Terrace was my best friend’s husband. Jackie and I had been joined at the hip since uni.’

‘You went to university?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I know you don’t get out much, but it’s not the 1800s anymore. Women are allowed to go to university. We can even drive cars!’

‘No. I just ...’I need to know. I need to see you.She was a shadow that kept slipping through his fingers, every time he had almost coaxed her into the light. It was his job to illuminate shadows before they became threats. ‘I didn’t realise you had to go to uni to be a cop.’

‘You don’t. I was going to be a lawyer. Changed my mind midway through third year, because I wanted to help on the front line. Jackie stayed though. We lived together for a while, but then I got posted to the country. I was her maid of honour at her wedding – I didn’t know Evan that well, but he seemed nice enough. They always do.’

‘Men?’

‘Monsters.’

Grey waited, desperately holding himself back.

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