“Femurs?”
“Leg bones.”
“You mean Nicholas Parrish had the nerve to use my own garage—”
“You won’t be able to bluster your way out of this,” I said. “They found your toolbox.”
“What toolbox?”
“The one the dogs refused to bother with when commanded to search for Nicholas Parrish’s scent. You were at the SAR training sessions, so you know how this works. Two bloodhounds were given one of Nicky’s dirty socks, then asked to find him. They alerted all over your garage, even up in your apartment. But they weren’t interested in the toolbox. The one that has the helicopter drain plugs in it — the plugs with your fingerprints all over them.”
She started crying.
“If I thought those tears were for anyone other than yourself, I might be moved by them. Your own mother, Gillian!”
“You don’t understand!” she said.
“God knows I want to!” I said. “You’ve got a reason? Just let me know it.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“My own father never believed me, why should you?”
I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.
“Your father,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “doesn’t like unpleasantness, does he?”
“Unpleasantness?” she mocked. “No, he doesn’t like to know about anything that’s
“How did she try?”
“How do you think?” she sneered.
I didn’t answer.
“You think this is the first time I’ve been in this place?” she asked. “You should ask my dad about how ‘accident prone’ I was before Jason was born.”
“But I thought hospitals—”
She gave me a pitying look. “Maybe it was all the time my mother spent chairing the Las Piernas General Hospital Auxiliary — you think? We didn’t come to St. Anne’s very often, but I knew what a nun was before I was five, and we sure as shit weren’t Catholics.”
“So you weren’t always treated by the same doctor?”
Her lips curved into a cold smile. “You’d be surprised how far we had to drive sometimes to get to a hospital.”
“Jason didn’t know about it?”
“I’m not really close to my little brother, you know? I mean, we didn’t have the same childhood — get it? He wasn’t around for the scaldings, the fall down the stairs, things like that. I don’t remember all of it. I was little. After Jason came along, she learned to work it so that I didn’t have to see doctors — didn’t leave marks. He just heard what she said — ‘Gillian’s bad. Gillian disobeys. Gillian’s out of control.’ Out of her control, all right.”
“If you were—”
“If. You see? Why believe me, right?”
“I was going to say, if you were a friend of David’s—”
“I wasn’t, all right? I just wanted to learn about the dogs. What has that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, I’m sorry to say. So your father never saw her mistreat you?” I asked.
“Oh no. She was careful about that.”
“And he wouldn’t believe you?”
“No.” She smiled again. “He said he didn’t.”
“Mmmmaah,” came a sound from the bed.
“Nick Parrish believed you, didn’t he?” I asked.
She nodded, looking over at him again. “Same thing happened in his house when he was a kid. Except his old lady went after him, left his little sister alone.”
“So you went down to Mr. Parrish’s house and told him what was happening?”
She shook her head.
“No?”
“No. I really didn’t know him then. It wasn’t until later, when I saw him watching the house. He remembered my mother, because she looked like his mom, but she was too young. He came back to see her when she was a little older.”
“Mmmmaah!” he said.
