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Back We Were Killers Once Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

Because we hadn’t experienced so much life together, Carlo and I tried to catch up by telling each other stories, like the one I told him about being six years old and learning about the Clutter/Walker family murders. There was still much neither of us knew, but it was about making the time to know it, not necessarily about keeping it secret.

Except for my feelings when I had killed a few people during my career. I had told him some of the facts surrounding those times, but I had never confessed how deeply satisfying it felt, knowing the terror and pain they had caused others, to watch those bad boys die. I had to carry those demons alone.

The father in the story I had told Carlo about in bed that night was Fergus Quinn. We all managed to survive childhood and followed in his law enforcement footsteps. My sister Ariel joined the CIA. Todd, the baby in the family, went with Dad’s outfit, but eventually did become a homicide detective.

I was career FBI until I got into some trouble and was discreetly transferred to Tucson, Arizona, where I hated the boss and opted for early retirement. Shortly thereafter I met Carlo DiForenza, a Catholic priest turned philosophy professor. Hoping to find some serenity, I took his class on Buddhism at the local university. The serenity still eludes me, but I did find love when I married my, as I called him, Perfesser. To him I was always “O’Hari,” a blend of my Irish roots and the sultry spy Mata Hari, not the first woman to use her sex as a weapon. Such were Carlo’s fantasies about me and the kind of life I had once led.

Carlo knew how to retire with style. While I busied myself with private investigations that sometimes paid more in trouble than in money, Carlo spent his time dabbling in all those pursuits he had put aside first for the priesthood, then for philosophy, then for taking care of a first wife who had been ill a long time. Jane was her name. While I had redecorated the house in my own taste, her ghost sometimes still appeared, in the form of the pugs she had given Carlo before her death, or the smells that struck me whenever I opened the kitchen cabinet where spices like coriander sat waiting to be used. When I thought of her, I imagined her being a really good woman, one worthy of Carlo. And at those times the pugs, the spices, they judged me.

At times like that I had to shake off the suspicion that I didn’t measure up to her. There was no evidence for this, as I had resisted asking Carlo to tell stories about their life together.