Page 78 of Little Deaths
(So do you enjoy punishing yourself?)
“You’re right,” Donni said aloud. “Anyway, how are you?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. One of the guys couldn’t get it up, so everyone on set was just waiting around. I felt so bad for him—guy looked like he wanted to die. Now I’m just about to get dinner sorted.”
“I should probably do the same,” Donni muttered.
“Yeah, make sure you do that. I know you shut down when you’re upset.” The slight lilt in Angie’s tone kept this from stinging as much as it would have, coming from anyone else, but it still made Donni wince. “Let me know if I can help.”
She ended the call and Donni sat there, staring at her phone cradled in her hands. She wished she had more people in her life like that. People who were supportive, who didn’t ask her to be what she wasn’t. People who would show up at your door with a shovel if you told them you’d killed someone. Maybe if she’d had more people in her life like that back then, she wouldn’t be on the path she was now, isolated and alone: an incubator for her own dark and ugly thoughts.
Sometimes, she just wished she had someone she could tell everything, so the burden wouldn’t be on her alone.
She was tired of sitting on all these fucking secrets.
When she got back to her house, she realized something was wrong. It took her brain a moment to process all the red, gleaming darkly under the sun.Blood, she thought, as a low moan escaped her, and she had to throw on the brakes to keep from driving into her own trash cans.
She stumbled out of the car on shaking legs and breathed in not the coppery reek of fresh blood, but the milky chemical tang of paint.
Paint, she thought wildly.It’s just paint.
There was a note tacked onto her front door by a single pin.
If you ever really loved me, you’d love me the way I want to be loved. That’s all I wanted for us. I’ve heard you fighting with my dad. I also heard what you weren’t saying. He wants you to be his pretty little doll, with a history he can keep locked up in a glass case where anyone can see it but no one can touch it. Not even you.
Right now, your silence says more than words. There’s been lots of silence between us, but never this cold. I didn’t think you could be this cold. The warmth is all gone and you won’t answer my fucking letters and I feel like I’m falling apart.
I know what youtastelike. Does he?
The familiar bite of the words seemed to sink into her flesh and draw blood.
It was one of the emails Rafe had sent her when she had first gotten him kicked out. She’d only read a couple of them before she’d started trashing them, unread.
But she’d read this one. She remembered.
How had it gotten on her front door?
???????
Rafe was disturbed by the photographs, but it disturbed him even more that they were in his father’s safe. He would have bet money that Donni hadn’t given them to him, or even known that they had existed. Which made him wonder how the fuck that his father had gotten them in the first place. Were they wank material? Or had his father been building some kind of case against his wife?
But why would he do that? Because of the wine? Then why not take Donni with him instead of leaving her on the hook for it? This looked personal—like jealousy or resentment. The fucker had literally been getting ready to ditch her and run. But Rafe was pretty sure Donni would never cheat. If it was the sexual assault case that had gotten under his father’s grill, twenty years was a long time to simmer over another man’s crimes.
The fact that he had discovered a potential connection between his father and Donni’s rapist made him feel sick. If the sins of the father really did pass on through the blood, then he had a lot to answer for.
No wonder she can barely fucking look at me.
He might not know what was going on with his father’s papers, but he knew who would.
Rafe drove the Mercedes downtown, parking it in one of the converted bungalows that was now being used for light business. His father’s lawyer worked out of this cushy place. Probably had his fucking lunch from the sandwich shop next door.
Another one of those bells chimed overhead. Robert Lee was at his desk. Even though he hadn’t seen him for close to ten years, he looked exactly the same. Only his hairline had changed.
“Hello.” The man greeted him with a frown. Apparently the recognition didn’t go both ways. “Can I help you?”
Rafe paused a moment before answering, still taking in the room. There was a Turkish rug laid out over the carpet, and the man had his own secretary. One of those plastic jack-o-lantern pails was sitting on her desk, filled with what looked like no-name dollar store candy. Wasn’t that just typical? High-paying job like this and he was giving sugar-free lollipops from China to kids. What an asshole.
“I’m Rafael Nicastro,” he said at last, deliberately stepping onto the expensive-looking rug in his wet shoes. “I’m here to speak to you about my late father.”