Portrait In Death

"I'm telling you to stay away from me for a bit."

She planted her hands on his bare chest and shoved him again. "No."

"Don'tpush me!" At her next move, he grabbed her wrists, jerked her forward, back. Fury flooded him, gushing through his blood. "I don't need you crawling up my back. Leave me be. I don't want you around."

"Don't want me around." It was a slice in the gut, fast and bloodless, that she countered by ru

He had more left in him than she'd thought, and in a ten-second sweaty grapple, reversed their positions. She countered, feinting with an elbow toward his chin as she hooked her foot around his and tossed him to the floor.

She saw the hot rage light on his face even as it flamed in her. She sprang.

He saw stars, then lost himself in the red-hazed violence as they rolled and wrestled over the floor. Something crashed, shattered.

He felt the black bloom out of that tiny core inside him. It wanted to spread. Wanted to wound. And as they grappled, breath coming fast and short, the diamond she wore on a long chain around her neck spilled out and struck his cheek.

Appalled, disgusted, he dropped his guard and let her pin him.

"Go ahead." He closed his eyes. Rage had passed, leaving him raw and empty. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Not going to hurt me?" She lifted his head an inch by the hair, then let it thump on the floor. "You're tired of me, don't want me around, want to shake me loose, and you're not going tohurt me?"

"Tired of you?" He opened his eyes, and saw for the first time that hers weren't simply angry. Tears sparkled in them. "Where the hell do you get these things? I never said that. I've a great deal on my mind, that's all. Nothing that has to do with you."

He saw her face, the ripple of hurt that had her flinching as if he'd slapped her. Then she shut it down, so that her eyes went dry, went flat as she sat back on her heels.

"What a stupid thing to say," he murmured. "What a sublimely stupid thing to say." He lifted his hands, scrubbed them over his face. "I'm sorry for it. I'm sorry for last night, sorry for this. I'm bloody sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to tell me what the hell's going on. Are you sick?" Tears were rising in her throat when she cupped his face in her hands. "Please,tell me. Is there something bad wrong with you?"

"No. There's not, no, not the way you mean." Gently, he closed his hands over her wrists, over bruises he'd put there. "I've hurt you."

"Forget it. Just tell me. If you're not going to die, and you haven't fallen out of love with me-"

"I couldn't fall out of love with you if I fell all the way to hell." Emotion was storming back into his eyes, and with it some of the misery she'd seen there before. "You're everything."

"For God's sake, tell me. I can't stand seeing you like this."

"Give me a minute, will you?" He touched her cheek where a tear had spilled over. "I want a drink."

She got up, held out a hand to help him to his feet. "Is it something to do with business? Did you do something illegal?"

The faintest hint of a smile touched his mouth. "Oh, Lieutenant, all ma

"Okay. What, did you lose all your money?"

"No." He nearly laughed. "I'd have handled that better than I've handled this. You. All of it. Christ Jesus, I've mucked this up." He took a drink, took a breath. "It has to do with my mother."

"Oh." Of all the things that had gone through her mind, this hadn't been so much as a blip on the radar screen. "Did she contact you? Does she want something? If she's giving you grief I can help-flash the badge, whatever."

He shook his head, drank. "She didn't contact me. She's dead."

She opened her mouth, shut it again. Shaky ground, she decided. Family deals were always shaky ground. "I'm trying to figure out what to say. I'm sorry if you are. But… you haven't seen her since you were a kid, right? You said she walked, and that was that."

"That's what I said, yes, and that's what I believed. All this time believed. But it happens the woman who walked wasn't my mother. I thought she was and that was that. I've learned differently."

"Okay. How did you learn about it?"

Calm, he thought. Calm and cool, his cop, when she had something to puzzle out. And how foolish he'd been not to tell her right off. He stared into the glass, then walked over to sit on the sofa.

"I met a woman at the shelter, a counselor there. She's from Dublin, and she told me a story I didn't believe at first. Didn't want to believe. About a young girl she'd tried to help. A young girl and her child."

Slowly, Eve walked over to sit beside him. "You?"

"Me. She was very young, this girl, and from the west. A farm in the west. She'd come to Dublin for the adventure, and to work. And she met Patrick Roarke."

He told her the rest.

"You've verified it? The counselor, everything she told you. You're sure it's not some scam."

"Very sure." He wanted another whiskey, but didn't have the energy to get up and pour. "This girl who was my mother tried to give me a family, to do what was right. She loved him, I imagine, and was afraid of him. He had a way of making women love, and fear him. But she loved me, Eve."

Eve's fingers linked with his, and gave him comfort. Steadied by it, he brought their joined hands to his lips. "I could see it in the picture of us. She never left me. He killed her. Another thing he was good at was destroying beauty and i

He laid his head back, looked up at the ceiling. "They were married. I found those records. Married before he met and ruined my mother, but there were no children. Maybe Meg couldn't give him a son, so he cast her out. Or she'd had enough of his whoring and scheming and left him. Hardly matters why."

He gave what passed for a shrug, keeping his eyes closed as fatigue dragged at him. "A girl like Siobhan Brody would have appealed to him. So young and malleable, so ripe for plucking. And when she had me, he'd have little use for a young girl like her, nagging at him to marry her and make a proper family."

"She was with him for, what, under two years. But wouldn't someone have told her about Meg? Wouldn't someone have told her he was already married?"

"If they did, he'd have lied his way around it. He had a quick and clever tongue, and was always ready with the credible be."

"Or, you have a girl, not even twenty, gone over this guy and pregnant by him-maybe already a little afraid of him. Could be she just didn't hear what people said."

"True enough. Though there'd have been those back in that day, back in his prime, who'd have risked speaking of him in a way he'd dislike. But if Meg's name came to her ears, she may have pretended not to hear."

He fell silent for a moment, thinking it through. "Meg was more his match, if you understand me. Hard, with a liking for drink and a fast pound. Siobhan, she'd have irritated him eventually, simply because of what she was. But nobody walked out on Patrick Roarke-and to take his son, the symbol of his virility? No, indeed that wouldn't be permitted. So she had to be punished for trying. I can see how it was, see exactly how it would have been. He'd pull Meg back to deal with me. A man can't spend his time fussing over a baby, after all. Work to do, business to run. Get a woman to handle the dirty work. He was a right bastard, no doubt of it."

"No one ever mentioned her to you? Your mother."

"No one. I'd have found out about it myself, but I never bothered to look. It wasn't closed off in my mind, as yours was, I just never bothered. I dismissed her, you see."