Page 245 of Fearless

He said, “Who’s been paying for your treatment?”

She sat back, calming. “A friend of mine.”

“Poor bastard,” Mercy sneered. “Does he know you gave him AIDS?”

She looked insulted. “I make everyone use a condom. I’m not a fucking moron.”

“No, you’re just a fucking whore,” Mercy said, hand tightening on Ava’s hip again. “Alright,Mama. You’re dying, I saw it for myself. Peace.” He tried to steer Ava toward the door.

“Don’t you walk out on me!” Dee shouted. “You little shit. Who do you think you are, that you can talk to me like that?”

Ava saw the muscle twitch in Mercy’s jaw. “Unlike you, pretentious bitch, I know exactly who I am. And I’ll talk to you any way I want to, after what you did.”

“WhatIdid? Are you still blaming that on me?”

“Do you see anyone else here to blame?” His arm slid away from Ava, and he spread it to indicate the room.

Dee scowled at him. “No thanks to you. You never shoulda done that, Felix. I liked Oliver. I liked all those boys.”

“Yeah,” Mercy sneered. “They were loads of fun.” Again, he moved toward the door.

Dee said, “Why’d you even come if you hate me so bad?”

Mercy went very still, and his voice was quiet. “I needed to see it with my own eyes to believe it.”

“What? That I’m dying.” She scowled, her lined face puckering. “So you could celebrate? You wanna dance in the street ‘cause your mother’s going to meet her maker?”

“I want to sleep better at night.” His voice was still low and spooky. “I want to know for sure you won’t be around to sic your men on anyone.”

“I never did that! Why do you always have to bring up Oliver anyway? He was only trying to protect me.”

“Protect you from what?” Mercy snarled. His voice lost some of its calm and quiet. “The poor sad man out in the swamp who still slept with your picture beside his bed? Or the eighty-five-year-old woman who cooked his dinner every night? Explain to me, Dee” – he took an aggressive step toward the bed – “just what sort of threat they were to you.What was Oliver protecting you from?”

She glared at him, refusing to answer. “You look just like him. You always did, but now you act like him too. You think you’re something special. Think you’re better than me.”

Mercy laughed and the sound was awful. “Hewasbetter than you. But he never thought it. He died thinking you were the love of his life.”

Again, she ignored him, choosing to insult him instead. “You poor dumbass, you don’t even know what he was really like, do you? You still think Remy was worth a shit. I bet you think he spent all that time missing me, out there in the swamp. Why don’t you ask Evangeline O’Donnell who the father of her kid is. It ain’t Larry O’Donnell, I can tell you that much.”

Ava watched the shock roll through Mercy. Larry had mentioned that he and Evie had a son last night at dinner, that he was in Mobile, working construction. If Colin O’Donnell wasn’t Larry’s son, Mercy had never suspected it.

Dee grinned with satisfaction. “That’s right. When dumb old Larry went off to fish by himself, dumb old Remy was getting into bed with Evie. How’s that for your saint of a father, huh? Your superhero had a love child with a married woman.”

Mercy swallowed, his strong throat working. His expression became impassive. “You’re a liar. The only thing you’ve ever been any good at is manipulating people. You can’t manipulate me.”

When he turned for the door once more, Ava caught at his shirt, intending to help him, tow him along. The poison in the room was going to eat away at him after they left as it was; she couldn’t stand for him to be here one more second.

Dee said, “He had a taste for little girls, too. Guess it runs in the family.”

Mercy snapped.

He charged to the bed, leaning over it, getting in his mother’s face, all his movements as precise and bristling with threat as those of any panther.

Dee pressed back into her pillows, face going slack with shock.

“If I killed you right now,” he said quietly, “while you’ve already got one foot in the grave, do you think anyone would come looking for a murderer? Or do you think they’d just slide you into the incinerator like so much trash?” He grinned. “Here’s a better question: Do you think I’d even care? I’d go to jail for you. I’d go, and I wouldn’t lose one second of sleep.”

Ava waited, not breathing, his name sitting on her tongue.

---