Page 36 of Deadly Target
“Oh, yeah?” he teased. “Why not?”
She bit her bottom lip and worried it for a moment. Her eyes stayed on the road as she merged with traffic on the freeway. Her knuckles were nearly white from the grip she had on the steering wheel. “Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
The phone call? Her dad’s situation? “It’s okay. You don’t have to discuss your family with me, especially the situation with your father. I understand it’s private.”
Brows furrowed, she glanced at him then back to the road.
He touched her shoulder, not sure about that look. Maybe he’d misread the whole thing. Did shewantto talk about it? Had they passed an invisible line where she was now comfortable telling him the ugly details? “If youdowant to talk about him, I’m more than happy to listen.”
There. That should cover it both ways. Man, he was rusty with this relationship stuff. All Tracee had ever wanted to do was talk about things. He’d always been a good listener, but eventually he’d started tuning out all the details about her Hollywood peers that she reveled in.
He was used to listening to his agents and hearing the words behind what they actually said. Like a profiler, he could almost read their minds and understand them on a level that was much deeper than the facts they put in their reports.
Olivia eased down in her seat ever so slightly, her grip loosening. “My dad is a subject that is usually off-limits, but I appreciate the offer. Bottom line, the facts are very straightforward. He was a mafia hitman for twenty-some years. I didn’t even realize he wasn’t like a normal dad until I was eight or nine. For a long time, I couldn’t reconcile what he did with the man I knew who came home to us every night, who tucked me in and read bedtime stories to me. But as I got older, I began to understand what a monster he was to the rest of the world. He’s been in federal prison for ten years on securities fraud, not for all of the murders he committed. I’m told he’s been a model prisoner and the parole board is considering releasing him. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
As if to emphasize her words, one hand snaked to her lower belly and rested there.
He knew there was much more to the story, but wanted to give her space. “Totally understandable that you don’t want him out.”
“What about your dad?” she asked, abruptly.
Her need to deflect and change the conversation to something not about her did not escape him. The subject was a touchy one for him too, his dad not exactly an upstanding role model either. “My father suffered from manic-depression and alcoholism. He tried to take his own life when I was ten, my mother tried to stop him, and she ended up with a bullet in her spine that left her paralyzed from the waist down. After he shot her, he ended up murdered—the case is still unsolved. He left me and my four sisters behind. My mother has spent her life in a wheelchair, and if it hadn’t been for some close relatives taking care of us kids, she probably would’ve lost all of us to the foster system. As soon as she was out of the hospital and able to return home, I insisted on going back too. My aunt and uncle, who I was living with at the time, refused to let me, so I ran away and made it home to her. I refused to leave her and eventually got all four of my sisters under the same roof with us again. It was a rough life, but we all ended up okay.”
“Okay? I’d say you’ve done better than that, Director.”
“Still haven’t solved my father’s murder—for years, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I had a lot of hang-ups about the night my mother was shot. But all in all, the important thing was not letting it tear us apart.”
“Your sisters must absolutely adore you for keeping the family together.”
He smiled, thinking about Brenda, Danille, Ruth, and Nikki. Four amazing women who gave him nothing but hell all the time about working too hard, too long, and still being single. His mother usually led the charge. “We are a close-knit family. I think you’ll like all of them. They’re strong women, like you.”
She took an off-ramp. “I’d like to meet them, you know, when and if you want me to.”
He definitely did. “As soon as we’re done with this case, I’ll plan something, okay? Maybe I can finish painting the house and have a picnic.” He’d never planned one in his life, but suddenly, it seemed like the domestic thing to do, right up there with introducing his new girlfriend to his mom and sisters. “How about you? Any siblings?”
She stiffened again and took another right turn, craning her head as if she were looking for the correct street. Maybe she was. “I had a brother. He’s dead.”
No emotion crossed her face, her eyes scanning house numbers. Another touchy subject probably best left for a different time. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Sixty-three thirty-seven. Here we are.” The car slid up to the curb. “I’ll take lead, okay?”
Yep, she definitely didn’t want to talk about her family any longer and he didn’t blame her. “Lead the way, Deputy Marshal Fiorelli. I’m right behind you.”
