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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

Oh for God’s sake, did he have to define everything? I said, “Do you remember a while ago when I was in a terrible place? You brought me home covered with someone else’s blood, and you put me in the shower and washed me like a child. Then you tucked me into bed. I was afraid that night that you were just responding with your usual kindness. I was afraid that you were getting ready to leave me, because you knew me deep down, what I had felt and thought and done. And that you found me … unlovable.”

He really saw me now, and was listening. Thank God I was a person, too, not just black on black. It was my last hope. I went on despite my terror of where this was going.

“Do you remember that night?” I asked.

Carlo barely nodded. Oh, the times that he had been so strong and I had been able to lean on him. This wasn’t that time.

“Brigid. I’m sorry, but everything is dark right now. I’m having a hard time with clarity.” He was speaking in his old Perfesser way, but when he tried to pick up the glass of Scotch his hand was shaking so badly the glass wobbled like a top at the tail end of its spinning.

I took his other hand and put it on the glass so he could hold it without spilling. Then I drew away. Nobody knows dark better than me. I thought about how much he was capable of loving me, and my not knowing whether it was enough. I said, “I understand. I understand.”

He shook his head and blinked. “What?”

Hold on to the hardness, I thought. I was going to be needing it while he got out the pictures of his saintly wife. “I understand that I can’t become you and you can’t become me. It’s pretty simple.”

He nodded. Oh my God, he nodded. But then he said, “You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re as smart as I think you are. You do realize that this whole thing wasn’t about you? Without you there still would have been Jerry. I was the one who caused Jeremiah Beaufort to come to Tucson. I was the one he was after, or at least that thing of Hickock’s. He would have killed me. You would have been, how would you call it, mere collateral damage. And it’s likely that Gloria still would have died, too.”

“Well, I guess that’s so,” I said, sitting back on my heels, though hardly encouraged.

“And then,” he said, “then you saved my life. So now I have to live with the fact that he’s likely to die and I’m allowed to live. I’ll be alive because he’s dead.”