Blood and Fire (16 page)

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Authors: Shannon Mckenna

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Suspense, #Action & Adventure, #Contemporary

BOOK: Blood and Fire
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“I don’t give a shit about the money,” he said.
“I don’t really care what you give a shit about. How much did you spend on gas? You’ll have to let me know whatever Aaro bills you, too.”
“How about my legal bills, when somebody gets around to charging me with murder two?”
That was way too big a bite to chomp down on right then. “Let’s stick with simple stuff for now.” She pulled out the T-shirt, the sweater. She couldn’t put them on without getting naked, and she hesitated to do that in front of a guy who thought she was a lying opportunist. But he’d seen it all, so what the hell. Off with the robe.
She wrenched on the tee. The sweater was huge, sleeves flopping sadly off her shoulders. She sat on the bed and got to work on socks, shoes. She felt so stupid. Embarrassed to exist. She shrugged on the coat. The clothes were comforting in their stiff bulk. Like armor.
“I’ll just hike down to civilization now,” she said. “This stuff should keep me plenty warm. Thanks for everything.”
“It would take a day to walk down from here, even if you knew the terrain and could take shortcuts, which you don’t. Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s crazy, not stupid, buddy. Crazy has a better ring to it. And like I said, no longer your problem. Please forget I ever bothered you.”
“No,” he said. “You’re in danger.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Let me out of here before I die of embarrassment.” At the moment, death by exposure or being eaten by a cougar was preferable to having Bruno look so sorry for her.
She wasn’t even to the door before he grabbed her from behind. He pulled her against his body, which reminded her of a lot of things she would rather forget right now.
“Sunset is two hours away,” he said roughly. “Please, Lily. Don’t be both crazy and stupid. Just don’t.”
“You can’t stop me.” She immediately wished she hadn’t said it. Because of course, he could. Easily.
To his credit, he didn’t say it. She was very glad she was facing away from him. He didn’t have to watch the crazy girl start to snivel.
So damn stupid. After all those dire warnings to herself, all her stern pep talks, she’d suckered herself into the fantasy of Lily and Bruno, the intrepid team. Lily and Bruno together, pitted against ultimate evil, had been a way different vibe than Loser Lily, pitted against it all by herself.
Bruno released her cautiously, like he was afraid she was going to bolt. “Let’s hike up to the bluff, since you’ve got your coat on already,” he said brusquely. “I have to make those calls.”
She shook her head. “You’ve established my status as a lunatic. So cut me loose! Focus on your own problems!”
“I still have to figure out what to do with you. Just because your bad guys aren’t connected to me doesn’t mean they’re not deadly.”
“Oh, no!” She shook a frantic finger. “No, you don’t have to ‘do’ anything with me. I can take care of myself.”
He pulled his jacket on, ignoring her. It pissed her off to the point of screaming. “Look, I’m mentally ill, right? Cut me loose! Simplify your life! If I get killed, it’s not your fault! You don’t even have to feel guilty! I release you from all responsibility! I’ll sign a fucking waiver!”
“I need you as a witness, for what happened outside the diner.”
It was a good try, and a convincing argument, but she didn’t buy it for one second. “It’s because you had sex with me, isn’t it?”
Hah. She’d nailed it. She could see it, all over his face.
“Shut up, Lily,” he muttered.
“Ah, yes! I get it! You feel guilty, right? So sorry for the stressed-out crazy girl who can’t keep straight why people are trying to kill her? You feel bad, for taking advantage of a vulnerable, deeply disturbed person in her hour of need? You feel like bottom-feeding slime for abusing the handicapped? Well, fuck you, Bruno Ranieri. Fuck you.”
He shoved her grimly toward the door. “Shut up and walk.”
12
 
U
nfair,
Miles reflected glumly as he tailed Zia Rosa through the baby supplies store. The crapola errands always fell to him. Got scut work? Something mind numbing, time consuming? Call good old Miles.
He stared at the rectangular block of Zia Rosa’s back draped in a leopard-print tent of a blouse, gold chain link necklaces jingling cheerfully over it all, a tiger-striped plastic purse. Cruising down the aisle with her broad, stumpy gait like she owned the place.
He’d asked her four times if she’d gotten everything on her list, and if not, could he please, please just run and fetch it for her, but she had to run her eye over every last damn product in the aisles to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. He felt like a yipping Chihuahua, dragged behind her on a leash. She gave about that much attention to anything he said. Zia Rosa had very selective comprehension.
Had to be today that she had to get the bouncy seat for little Eamon and the foam wedgies for the crib of tiny Helena, Davy and Margot’s newest addition. Today, when Cindy’s band’s recording session had been canceled due to tech problems in the studio. Which would have led to her being home all afternoon. With him. Naked, going at it like a couple of crazed bunnies. But not today, because of a mysterious phone call from Aaro. It seemed Kev’s prickly, problematic adopted brother Bruno had gotten himself into some sort of bizarre trouble. And whiz-bang, the McCloud clan went to red alert. That meant everybody was grounded until the situation was clarified. But explain that to Zia Rosa. Even the McClouds, with their combined testosterone, could not intimidate that woman out of doing whatever the fuck she wanted. The McClouds had met their match. It would’ve been funny, if they hadn’t been using Miles to solve their problem.
Nothing had been the same since Zia had showed up, a package deal along with Kev McCloud’s triumphal return. She’d proceeded to camp out all over the McCloud clan’s lives, or at least, those that were reproducing, which was most of them, at this point. She’d earned Liv’s and Margot’s and Erin’s undying devotion for her help with the babies. The kids adored her. Tam was terrified of her. That said it all.
And there was the food. God-kissed, orgasmic Italian food in industrial quantities. Everybody got themselves invited to dinner when Aunt Rosa was cooking, and then went around surreptitiously pinching their gut afterward, resolving to put in a few more hours in the gym to burn off the baked ziti or the cream cutard pinoli tart, or whatever.
Miles had been bitching about the latest Zia Rosa lecture, something along the lines of “have those babies while you’re young or you’ll be sorry,” while Davy changed the oil in his truck. He’d wondered out loud to Davy why they didn’t just tell her to get gone, so everyone could breathe easy again. Davy stood up, frowning up into the sky, wiping oil off his hands, and explained things with his usual brevity.
“You have a mom,” he said. “You can afford to be fussy. When you have kids, they’ll have a grandma. We don’t. Here’s a turbocharged super-grandma, readymade and available for use. So what the hell. We’ll take her. In a heartbeat. We’d be stupid not to.”
That had reduced him to an abashed silence. It was true. Not many grandparents in the McCloud milieu, besides Erin’s mom. Liv’s scary mother definitely did not count, and Raine’s mom gave everyone hives, particularly Raine’s husband, Seth, so just as well she spent most of her time in London. No benevolent, diaper-changing, ziti-baking grandma energy from that direction. So since then, he’d held his tongue, kept his Zia Rosa bitching between himself and himself.
He was jerked out of his reverie when he almost ran into Zia Rosa’s back. She’d braked to coo over twin toddlers in a tandem stroller and was gurgling Italian endearments.
“Dio mio,”
she murmured.
“Uguali. Ugualissimi. Incredibile.”
She looked up at Miles, eyes spilling over, clearly expecting some sort of a comment, but he didn’t speak Italian, except for food names. They were all learning food names now.
“What?” he asked. “Huh?”
She sniffed, her jowls quivering. “The
bimbi,
” she said. “
Pazzesco.
The girl is just like my niece Magdalena when she was little,
angeletto mio,
may she rest in
santa pace
. And the little boy, he’s Bruno. Exactly like my Bruno.
Mi fa brividi.
” She crossed herself and then dug into her purse, fishing a couple battered photos out of her wallet.
The mom of the toddlers was a good sport about it. She was young and pretty, and she got all gooey and did the requisite
oh, my God, you’re right, that’s, like, incredible, they really do look just alike, that’s so totally wild
when she looked at Aunt Rosa’s photos. Her eyes got misty, her voice got froggy, and then, oh horrors, she said the words Miles had been dreading. “Would you like to hold them?”
Oh, fuck him. He tried not to clap his brow and curse the day.
Of course, Zia Rosa’s reply was along the lines of
is a bean green, does the pope shit in the woods,
yada yada. She cooed and tickled and pinched, and told the mom her convoluted story of why she’d concluded that Eamon needed the bouncy chair and Helena needed the foam wedgies, which sparked off the mom’s story of how she needed mesh crib covers to keep the twins in their cribs at night. That sparked tales of Bruno’s adventuresome babyhood, which was a well with no bottom.
The young mom’s husband exchanged can-you-believe-thisshit glances with Miles as the minutes ticked by, and then wandered off, clearly bored out of his mind, leaving Miles to his solitary fate. Thanks, dude. He appreciated the solidarity. Zia Rosa and the mom ranged over a broad array of baby-themed topics and had settled enthusiastically into the benefits of pure lanolin for cracked nipples, ooh, tasty, when the little girl started to squawk. Which necessitated pulling out yogurt, Goldfish crackers, a binkie, in their efforts to comfort her. Meanwhile, the other twin, released from his bonds, wandered off to wreak mayhem in the baby food aisle. After some ominous crashing, Zia Rosa fluttered her hand at him. “Miles, go watch over that
bimbo,
” she commanded.
So off he went, chasing the little monster through the formula aisle. Trying to explain that the lactose-free baby formula was not meant to be used for a soccer ball. The kid laughed in his face. A store employee came along just as the box burst open and released its cloud of white dust. The woman started shrilly lecturing Miles, like he was the dad, and where the fuck had the kid’s real dad disappeared to? Hello? Anyone? In the meantime, Zia Rosa and the mom discovered that the little girl’s problem was a poopy diaper. Evidently a two-woman job.
Jesus, he was glad Cindy was in no rush to procreate. He loved the little McCloud hellions, every last one of them, but he also loved getting into his truck and driving away, stereo blasting. Free at last.
Finally the mom came to rescue her son. She turned to Zia Rosa to start the “great to chat with you” part of the conversation, and “thanks for the tip about the amazing flushable swippie wippie soggy-wipes for poopy butts,” or whatever they were gabbing on about. At last, they broke free and headed for the checkout line.
Yes.
Heavenly choruses swelled. Light broke through the cloud-choked sky.
Miles shoved the loaded cart doggedly through the parking lot. Zia Rosa was fiercely supervising the loading of her baby booty into the back when a shout rang out. “Hey! Excuse me!”
It was the dad of the twins, loping toward them, holding up a phone. “We found this in Hayden’s stroller,” the guy explained. “Must have rolled out when you were helping Kate change Hayden’s pants.”
Zia Rosa took her phone, smiling mistily as the man sprinted away. “Lovely family,” she said wistfully.
Miles opened her door, bracing for what he knew was next.
She was ready for him as soon as he got into the driver’s seat. “So when are you and Cindy having a little
bambino?
”
“Never.” Miles punctuated that statement by slamming his door.
“Never say never,
giovanotto,
” she intoned. “What’s written is written. You will have
bambini.
Soon. Very soon.”
Oh, man, she was hexing him. He made the sign with his hand against the evil eye, the one that she’d taught him herself, learned from her old grandma back in Brancaleone, in the old country.
She opened up her purse and fished out her wallet as he fired up the engine. She pulled out the photos she’d showed to the mom. “It gave me
brividi,
” she said. “Cold shivers. Just look. Exactly like my little Magda and my little Bruno. Look at them.”
What else could he do? He braked. Looked. And looked again.
Holy . . . fucking . . .
shit.
They really did look like those kids.
And not just like.
Exactly
like. Weird. He was getting
brividi
himself. He’d had plenty of opportunities to observe the kids, especially the boy. He peered more closely. One was a black-andwhite, taken in the late fifties or early sixties, maybe. A formal portrait. The little girl was solemn, unsmiling. The boy was in an informal color photo, taken in the eighties by the looks of it, and exactly, in every detail, identical to the hellion from the pit, right down to the dimples in the fat cheeks and the fuck-you-youpathetic-pencil-dick-chump gleam in the kid’s eyes.
It was completely creepy.
Miles glanced into the old lady’s triumphant face. She’d caught the shock-and-awe vibe and was very satisfied with herself.
He put the truck in gear. Babies, for the love of God. They all looked alike, right? Round heavy cheeks, bright sparkling eyes, pouty rosy lips, soft silky curls, cute button noses? The kids couldn’t have been that similar. Power of suggestion. He was spending too much time defending his childless state while shopping for swippie wippies soggy wipes. The constant, grating stress had softened his brain.
Into the approximate consistency of baby shit.
 
Petrie glanced at his watch as he got himself logged into the medical examiner’s office. Trish was waiting for him, tapping her foot. As if she were the one who’d dragged her ass all the way to Clackamas because of someone’s inexplicable whim.
“I’ll be late for lunch with my grandmother because of this,” he groused, with ill grace. “I was supposed to meet her at the London Grill at the Benson, and I’m not going to make it in time. Not even close. She’s going to make me pay for it. In blood.”
Trish clipped the visitor’s badge onto the lapel of his jacket and gazed at him, her big blue eyes limpid and absolutely pitiless. “Trust me,” she said. “It’s worth it. You have to see this, Sam.”
“Why not just tell me about it on the phone? Why the mysterious build up? Why make me schlep all the way over here from downtown?”
“It’s a visual thing,” she said, without turning. “You’ll see.”
Trish led him through the office and into the rear area where the autopsies were done. She stopped at one of the examining tables and drew the cover off the cadaver, with an almost imperceptible flourish.
Petrie took a look. And froze. Mouth hanging open.
“They called me in to take pictures,” Trish said. “That suicide on Wygant this morning, remember? He’d put the gun in his mouth. It took out the back of his skull, but left his face intact.”
Petrie looked up. Trish’s face was somber, but her eyes had a glint of excitement. “It’s him, isn’t it?” she prompted.
He just stared down at the dead man’s face. It was Bruno Ranieri. Feature for feature. His hair was an inch or so longer than it had been in the photo, but it was him, right down to the dimples. Trish indicated them with a blue fingernail. “Check out those bifid zigomaticus, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Who caught this one?”
“Barlow,” she said.
“You tell him?”
“Not yet. Wasn’t quite sure. Wanted you to see it first.”
He looked into her eyes. “OK,” he said. “I’ll tell Barlow. I guess I have to call Rosa Ranieri to come ID him for us.”
He stood outside, in the chilly October rain for a long time afterward. Immobile, even with Grandmam waiting at the restaurant. Staring at the slip of paper that held Rosa Ranieri’s contact info.
This was the part he hated. Telling a person that someone they loved had died, badly. He never got used to that. It never got easier.
He punched in one of the McCloud numbers and waited. A young woman’s voice answered. “Hello, McCloud residence.”
div width="1em">
“Hello, this is Detective Samuel Petrie, of the Portland Police Bureau,” he said. “I’d like to speak to Rosa Ranieri, please.”

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