Page 148 of Brutal
Delaney is the woman who shows me where my strength fails.
I drop my hand.
Now.
Before I forget why I have to.
“We’re done here,” I say.
“No, we’re not.”
I look at her.
Really look at her.
Hair windblown. Mouth still slightly parted. Eyes too steely. Standing in the middle of danger like she was made to meet it head-on.
God help me, she’s magnificent.
“We are for now,” I say.
Her expression hardens. “You don’t get to dismiss me.”
“This isn’t dismissal.”
“What is it, then?”
I step past her but then stop, turn, and keep my mouth close to her ear as I whisper, “Survival.”
Then I walk.
She follows.
By the time we reach the car, the marina is behind us, but the energy isn’t. It’s in my hands, my chest, the space between us. In the question hanging over everything now.
The lawyer.
I open the passenger door for her. She doesn’t get in right away.
“Tell me one thing,” she says.
I wait.
“If you had to guess,” she says, “who would he mean?”
Nathaniel.
The dock. The open access. The body. The cover-up.
My brother’s steady voice telling me what mattered and what didn’t.
I meet her gaze. “I don’t guess.” Then I lean down, one hand braced on the top of the door, caging her in without touching. “But I know where we go next.”
“Where?”
“To someone who cleans up messes for a living.” I open the car door. “Get in.”
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