“Good woman,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Chapter 6
“Nothing is quite so difficult as losing your mother,” Eva said, with a long sigh. “Especially the way I lost mine.”
“I can only imagine.”
She looked up at him. “Is yours still alive?”
“I never knew mine,” he said with a shrug.
She stared at him in surprise.
“I was raised by my aunt and uncle,” he said. “Story’s a bit sketchy, but it sounds like my mother was a young partier, came home pregnant, had the baby, and walked. They figured it was more because she didn’t want to come home and deal with the fallout of walking away.”
“Were they good to you?”
At that, his face broke into a big smile. “They were the best,” he said. “I can’t imagine what my life would have ended up like without them. They were a very strong guiding force. And, of course, with my biological mother so wild and wooly, they were very much into teaching me responsibility.”
“Particularly personal responsibility, I bet,” she murmured.
He smiled. “As far as they were concerned, that was a huge priority in the world.”
“And it is,” she said, “as long as they were also caring and loving.”
“They were good to me,” he said. “They never had any of their own children, so I filled a gap for them that they never had a chance to experience before.”
“That would have made a difference,” she said. “If they already had a family, then you’d have been the odd man out most likely.”
“Didn’t happen, which is something I’m grateful for,” he said. “It would have been lovely to have had siblings though.”
“Did you ever find your mom and talk to her?”
“No, she never showed up again.”
“So you don’t even know if she’s alive or dead?”
“No, I don’t actually,” he said. “It’s crossed my mind several times that maybe I should check up on her, but then I always figured that, if she’d wanted me in her life, she would have said something about it a long time ago.”
“Or she felt so guilty now that she’s an adult and figured out what she gave up.”
“She did contact my aunt and uncle when I was about eight or nine, wanted an update—which really meant she wanted money.”
“For you?”
“For me or to stay away from them. Something along that line. They were pretty blunt in their response, which was ‘Hell no.’ And, if she tried to extort more money from them, they’d bring in the cops.”
“Well, at least they called a spade a spade,” she murmured.
“After that nobody heard from her again.”
“Sorry. That does make your relationship with your mom really about somebody who’s only looking after herself.”
“That’s how I figured it too,” he said. “I mean, maybe at one point in time, she’ll reach out, but I can’t say anything inside me pushes me to reach out to her.”
“Well, if you ever change your mind,” she said, “you can do so, as long as she’s still alive.”
“Maybe,” he said. “She was also a drug addict and, for all I know, may have passed on from her addiction.”
“I wonder what happens in cases like that? Would they contact anybody?”
“It depends if anybody even knows,” he said. “So many people are out there in this world who don’t have any human connection anymore, and the cops don’t know who the next of kin are. Any number of unnamed, unclaimed bodies have been buried in unmarked graves.”
The trip was calm and peaceful. As Diesel and Eva headed down the boardwalk toward the docks, they heard a sudden loud bang to the side. She gave a slight yelp and jumped toward him. He wrapped her up in his arms and quickly pulled her close. She stood, trembling.
“I think it was nothing,” he said.
“Well, it was definitely something,” she gasped.
His hard gaze studied the area. “I think it’s kids with firecrackers.”
She stared up at him. “Why would anybody let kids have firecrackers?”
He smiled. “It’s different over here.”
She shook her head. “Kids can still get hurt, no matter where they are.”
He nodded and pulled her gently along the boardwalk and said, “Come on. Let’s go.” Only he saw that her calm and peaceful mood was gone. “It’ll be all right,” he murmured.
She nodded but stayed mute.
“Tell me about your work,” he said.
“No,” she said, “I don’t want to.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s something definitely …” Her voice nervous, a tremor snaking through it, told him just how she had been putting up a brave front, yet still living in fear inside. She whispered, “How much farther?”
“Five minutes,” he said, leading her past a large group of people talking animatedly. His gaze never stopped searching. His phone buzzed. He pulled it out to see a message from Jerricho. “They’re there.”
“Seriously? We’re behind?” She picked up the pace, trying to drag him forward.
“Yes, but it’s all right,” he said soothingly. “We’re still waiting for a boat to pick us up.”
She looked at him in surprise, her feet automatically slowing to match his pace. “So getting there early won’t help?”
“Not only will it not help but they also won’t be there when we get there either.”
She shook her head at him. “How come everything’s so cryptic?”
“In case we’re being overheard,” he murmured.
At that, she immediately snapped her lips together and stared at him mutely, and then she stepped in closer and walked, not saying a word.
He appreciated that. Brains were behind that beautiful face. And even though she’d been through a traumatic event, she was holding on to her common sense. He just smiled and said, “It will be okay.”
She shook her head. “Not until I’m home.”
“I get that,” he murmured, as they headed down the boardwalk and away from more of the traffic into one of the farthest back alleys.
She stiffened. “Surely this isn’t a good place to be?”
“It’s where we need to be,” he said.
And just as she thought that the alley was getting darker and darker, he pulled her into
