Page 2 of After All The Wreckage
A wisp of pine from his cologne combined with a hint of smoke from his occasional cigar wafted over me. I was dismayed by the temptation to hold on to him longer, to use his strength to buoy me up. To once again be the little girl he’d beamed at when she’d handed him the proof of a certain congressman sleeping with a prostitute. Proof that had cost the man his reelection and his wife.
I gritted my teeth and stepped farther away. If I allowed myself to drop my shield even briefly, the weight I was carrying might slip off and I’d never be able to pick it up again. I wasn’t even twenty-three yet, but I had both lives and a business resting solely on my shoulders.
As he leaned up against his desk, he scanned my outfit, his look lingering on the fresh cut and red skin visible through the hole in my jeans. I grabbed the cuff of my jacket extra tight, ensuring it stayed firmly in place.
“To what do I really owe the pleasure?” he asked.
I regretted the cold mac and cheese all over again.
Now that I was here, I didn’t really want to make my request. I took a few seconds to run through the numbers in our bank accounts once more. Then, the image of Mom lying in the bed at the long-term care facility settled cruelly in my chest. Her skin was paler than ever before, and her eyes were always shutas a feeding tube, a host of cords, and beeping machines kept her alive. I forced back an unexpected rush of tears. I couldn’t afford them any more than I could afford the damn hug to undo me. Tears never solved anything—the saying should have been monogrammed on our Bishop family crest.
“I need a loan,” I told him.
I knew better than to ask for money straight up. Dad believed in earning what you got. Struggle built character. It was the one and only thing my parents had agreed upon after the divorce.
Dad crossed his arms over his chest. “How much and what’s it for?”
If I said I needed it to cover the added expense of Mom’s new facility in Cherry Bay, he’d object. He’d made it very clear he disagreed with keeping her on life support after the doctors had recommended shutting it off and the insurance had stopped paying because of it. But if I said I needed cash to cover Marlow & Co. bills, he definitely wouldn’t give it to me. He’d be happy if the business Mom had created after divorcing him disappeared. One less competitor.
After my mistake in high school—getting suspended and almost expelled for stunning a drug dealer in the boys’ bathroom—he and Mom had pretty much switched sides. Once he’d seen me as an integral part of their business, now all he saw were my errors.
Because neither of the real reasons I needed the money would sway him, I gave him the fake one I’d come up with on the commute into D.C. “I want to get my master’s.”
I tried to keep my face impassive through the partial lie. I’d once planned on going to grad school before applying to the FBI, but these days those ideas seemed like Neverland dreams, and I was out of pixie dust. After missing the spring semester because of Mom’s accident, I’d transferred from Georgetown to Bonnin University in Cherry Bay where I was weeks awayfrom squeaking out a bachelor’s degree. Even though it was less expensive, I’d still had to take out a loan as every penny from the sale of Mom’s D.C. condo had gone toward keeping her breathing.
Dad’s eyes narrowed as if he was attempting to read me. My face remained stony, but I made the mistake of shifting ever so slightly on one foot, and he caught the small movement.
“You’ve applied and been accepted to grad school? Where?”
He wasn’t buying it. Why had I humiliated myself like this when I’d already known it was a futile effort? Mom’s face flashed in my head again, and those fricking tears I never let out threatened once more. I grabbed my helmet and headed for the door before I further humiliated myself.
“Never mind. Forget I was even here,” I said.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you the money. I just want to know the truth.”
Gripping the chin guard of my helmet with one hand, I waved at him with the other. “Why does it matter? Your daughter needs a loan. I’m not asking for a handout. I’m not asking for anything I won’t pay back. You set the terms, and I’ll meet them.”
The second he strode toward me with anger flashing in his eyes, I realized my mistake.
He grabbed my arm, demanding, “Who hurt you?”
“It isn’t important.” It was embarrassing was what it was. A stupid wardrobe malfunction that had let the cheating bastard lay a hand on me.
“Damn it, Rory-girl! How many times do I have to repeat myself? You aren’t cut out for this business. You’re going to end up dead just like your mother.”
“Mom isn’t dead!” I growled back, pushing him away from me and taking a step into the hall.
He sighed, the sound full of frustration and sadness. “She is, Rory. Even if, by some miracle, she comes out of it, she’ll be a shell of a person. She won’t ever be Hallie again.”
“Just because you’ve given up hope doesn’t mean Nan or I have,” I hissed. “And Mom didn’t die because some asshole cheater came after her. She crashed into the Potomac.”
I stomped toward the stairs.
“Because someone messed with her car’s computer.”
As his words sank in, my feet stalled. My heartbeat sped up, doing triple time, as I whirled around to face him. “What?”
He rubbed his forehead. The regret and exasperation on his face were a clear message he’d let something slip he’d never intended for me to hear. I’d repeatedly asked the detective in charge of Mom’s accident for the cause, and Muloney had told me they’d never know for sure. There hadn’t been another vehicle involved. She’d just gone over the edge and into the river. A submerged tree had pierced the right side of her head, and she’d drowned before the rescue people got to her. They’d resuscitated her, but she’d never woken up. She’d gripped my hand a few times, her lids had fluttered open and closed, but she’d never really been cognizant.
