In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

stay away from me for a bit."
     
     
She planted her hands on his bare chest and shoved him again. "No."
     
     
"Don't push 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 running him back against a wall. "You son of a bitch, you're the one that got me into this in the first place."
     
     
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 to hurt 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 manner of things. But not for quite some time." He walked over to the panel in the wall, pressed, and opened the wide, recessed bar. He chose whiskey and had her stomach churning again.
     
     
"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