Count to Ten (42 page)

He should go home. Give her privacy. But he remembered her eyes as she’d bared her secrets in the night. And how she’d rolled away from him. Alone.

They were two people, wandering through life alone. And he wondered why two intelligent people would insist on making that choice.

Mia led Olivia to the kitchen and took the pizza. “It’s stone cold.”

“I waited awhile.”

Mia sighed. “I’m sorry. This case...”

“I know.” Olivia unzipped her jacket and slipped the scarf from her head, looking a little like an old-time movie actress. -Elegant and a little unsure. And so young.

And unspoiled. A shaft of resentment poked her heart and Mia was ashamed. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault she’d escaped Bobby Mitchell. She slid the pizza onto a pan and into the oven. “So... Minneapolis PD. You’re a detective, too.”

“I earned my shield last year,” she said. “You’ve been doing this longer.”

Mia sat down and nudged the other chair with her foot. “I’m considerably older.”

Olivia sat down, her movements graceful. “You’re not even thirty-five.”

“I feel like seventy today.”

“It’s a bad case, then.”

Ten faces flashed through her mind. “Yeah. But if you don’t mind, I don’t want to think about it for a while.” She looked at Olivia’s hand. “You’re not married.”

“Not yet.” She smiled. “Trying to build my career first.”

“Hmm. Don’t wait too long, okay?”

“Sisterly advice?”

Mia blew out a breath. “Hardly. I did a pretty lousy job of it the first time around.”

“You mean Kelsey.”

Something in Olivia’s eyes made Mia’s hackles go up. “You know about her.”

“I know she’s in prison. Armed robbery.” Her tone was mildly judgmental.

Mia clenched her teeth. “She’s paying her debt.”

“All right.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right today.

“You, on the other hand,” Olivia continued, “are a decorated cop and were engaged to a hunky hockey player.”

Mia blinked “You’ve been watching me?”

“Not until recently. I didn’t even know about you until recently.”

“But you said you hated me all your life.”

“I did. But I didn’t have a name or face to go with you until he died.”

“What did your mother tell you?”

“For years, nothing. We didn’t talk about my father and I kept dreaming he was out there, that he’d come for me. When I was eight, Mama told me the truth, or most of it.”

There was pain there. Mia wondered just how the truth had come out. “Which was?”

“My mother was nineteen when I was born. She met my father in the bar where she waited tables in Chicago. She said that my father was a good man, a policeman. They started talking and one thing led to another. She thought she was in love, then found out she was pregnant. When she told him, he told her he was married. She hadn’t known.”

“I believe that,” Mia said quietly and watched Olivia’s shoulders sag. “You didn’t.”

“I wanted to. I didn’t want to believe my mother would play around with a married man. But knowingly or not, that’s what she did. He said he’d leave his wife, marry her.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. She said after I was born, he came to her and said he couldn’t leave his wife and daughters. That he was sorry.”

Bobby was sorry she’d been born Olivia and not Oliver,
Mia thought, but nodded. “And that’s when your mother took you to Minnesota.”

“Shortly thereafter. She’d burned some bridges with her own parents. They’d wanted her to give me up for adoption, but she kept me. It was a while before I had a relationship with my grandparents, but eventually things smoothed over. I’d come to Chicago on my summer vacations and look at every cop and wonder, was that him?”

“You didn’t know his name?”

“No, not until he died. Mama wouldn’t tell me and nobody else seemed to know.”

“Is your mother still living?”

Pain flashed in Olivia’s blue eyes. “No. She died last year. I thought my father’s identity had died with her, but my mother had told her sister. Aunt Didi called me the day his obituary appeared in the paper. I drove straight from the airport to the cemetery.”

She sighed. “And then I saw you, standing next to your mother, in your dress uniform. Your mother gave you his flag, then you saw me. You didn’t know about me.”

“No. It was... quite a shock.”

Olivia looked down. “I imagine it was. The first time I saw your name was in the obituary. It didn’t mention Kelsey.”

“That was my request. The official department obituary had her listed, but I asked them to remove her name. I didn’t want anybody to make the connection.”

“That makes sense. It can’t be good for your career, -having a sister in prison.”

Mia stiffened. “It’s not good for her health having a sister who’s a cop. Don’t judge Kelsey, Olivia. Not until you know her.”
Not until you know everything.

“All right. When I saw you, I was shocked. There’s some... family resemblance.”

“I noticed that,” Mia said dryly. “Why didn’t you come and talk to me?”

“I was so shocked at first, I didn’t know what to do. You were the one I’d hated my whole life. You were the one who got a father. Who got a home. A family. Mama and I, we had nothing. No one. And then to see you, dressed as a cop, looking at me. Looking
like
me. Afterward, I went to Aunt Didi’s house and got on the Internet and found out everything I could about you.” She stood up and checked the pizza. “You forgot to turn on the oven.” She hit the knob impatiently.

“I’m not a culinary kind of person.”

Olivia turned, her eyes now flat. “What kind of person are you?”

“You did the research, kid. You tell me.”

She considered it. “I’ve checked you out thoroughly this week. You’re a cop first.”

“Last and always,” Mia finished, her voice now as flat as Olivia’s eyes.

“But you have compassion. Dedication. The reporters hate you, so you must be doing something right.” Mia huffed a chuckle at that and Olivia’s lips curved. “You have a few close friends, you’re intensely loyal. You’ve had a few boyfriends, and one fiancé. He was hot by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ve just started a relationship with Lieutenant -Solliday and you don’t want anyone to know. But I think most people do.”

Mia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to miss. Big flashing neon sign over your head. ‘I like him. Stay back. He’s mine.’ Oh, I’ve finally hit a chord. You’re blushing. He’s hot, too, by the way.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

Olivia sobered. “You’re welcome.” She turned to the fridge, opened it and stared inside, closed it again. “I’m impressed and resentful and jealous, all at once.” She turned back around and met Mia’s eyes. “Honest enough for you, big sister?”

Mia nodded. “Yeah. But I’m not sure you’re going to like it when I return the favor.”

Olivia drew a breath calmly. “All right.”

“Your father is not the man you wish he was.”

Her eyes flickered. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“No, but Bobby Mitchell swung to the far left of the bell curve. He drank too much and he hit his kids.”

Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Yes. You know what I thought when I saw you tonight? That I was impressed and resentful and jealous all at once. You may have had nothing, but nothing was better than what we endured in that house.”

“How can nothing be better than something?” Olivia asked bitterly.

“I’m a fast healer, which is a good thing, because Bobby had big fists and he used them often. Not so much on me. Mostly on Kelsey. Stitches and broken bones and lies to doctors all over town.” Olivia’s eyes were horrified. “And that’s the truth.”

“That’s...”

“Horrible? Unbelievable? Irreconcilable?”

“Yes. He can’t have...”

“Been that bad? I’m
lying
?”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. Kelsey was a wild kid. Maybe...”

Mia lurched to her feet. “Maybe she
deserved
it?”

Olivia’s chin lifted. “She is in prison, Mia. On a plea.”

“Yeah, she is. She ran away from home when she was -sixteen. Got mixed up with some bad people. She wasn’t lily white, but she wasn’t like them.”

“But she did it. Look, she’s your sister. Of course you’d feel compassion for her.”

Mia’s throat closed and her eyes filled. “You don’t know what I feel.”

“You’ve been a cop long enough to know that people make choices. She chose to run away. And having a father beat her wasn’t justification for pulling a gun on a store clerk while her boyfriend killed two people. A father and a little boy are dead and Kelsey is responsible. Surely you can’t excuse that.”

The blood was pounding in Mia’s head. Yep, little sister did read the papers, even the really old ones. “No, I don’t, and neither does Kelsey. You might be surprised to learn she hasn’t actively petitioned for her parole. She’ll serve her time until she’s done. And when she’s done she’ll have spent more than half her life behind bars.”

Olivia looked surprised, but her jaw was still hard. “It’s what she deserves.”

Mia’s lips curled. “You have no idea what she
deserves.
You know
nothing.
”

Olivia’s eyes flashed fire. “I know she had a family. A house to live in. Food to eat. A sister who loved her. Which was more than I had and
I
didn’t turn out that way.”

Something snapped. “Yeah, and
you
didn’t have a father who traded sex for protection, either.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Mia wished them back. “Goddammit,” she hissed.

Olivia stood there, every ounce of color drained from her face. “What?”

“Hell.” Mia grabbed the edge of the sink and hung her head but Olivia yanked her arm until she looked up.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I said nothing. We’re done. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Is that what Kelsey
told
you?”

Everything went still, the implied accusation of Kelsey’s lie hovering between them. “Yeah, that’s what she told me.” She swallowed. “And it’s what I know.”

Olivia’s eyes were dark against her pale face. “That can’t be true.”

“It’s true. Believe what you want about
your
father, but it’s true about mine.”

Olivia took a step back, trembling. “Then why did you become a cop? Like him?”

Like Olivia had, Mia realized and felt the pain of her loss as keenly as if it had been her own. “Not like him,” she said wearily. “I was raised around cops. Good, decent men. They had a sense of family I didn’t have. I wanted that. And, I -suppose I wanted to save kids like Kelsey since I couldn’t save her. There are so many out there like Kelsey. You’re a cop. You’ve seen them. I started helping kids like her, runaways. Then I got good at catching the bad guys who hurt them. Now, it’s what I am. It’s all I am.”

“I’m sorry.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t have known and I didn’t want you to. I thought I could make you understand what kind of man he was without knowing. But I didn’t want you to grieve a man who wasn’t worth spit on his grave. Or feel inferior because he didn’t choose you.”

“I need to go.” She backed up, grabbed her coat and scarf. “I need to go.”

Mia watched her run out the front door. Flinched at the slam. Then pulled the pizza from the oven. She wanted to throw it. But it wasn’t her kitchen. It was Lauren’s kitchen with the pretty framed cross-stitched teapots and flowers with the “CS” in the corner. Made by Reed’s wife. Whom he’d never found anyone good enough to replace.

Including me.
Trembling, she carefully placed the pan on the stovetop and turned on the water, then the garbage disposal. Then under the cover of noise, let herself cry.

Reed stood at the window, his heart thundering in his chest.
Dear God.
His life before the Sollidays had been dark and dank and dismal. He’d been hungry and afraid. His mother had used her fists. But
this.
He’d been afraid of
this
last night. She’d denied it too forcefully. Her father had molested his daughters. Rage bubbled with hate and Reed would have liked nothing more than to resurrect Bobby Mitchell so he could kill him again. But that wasn’t what Mia needed. He watched her shoulders heave as she cried and his own eyes stung. She’d do this. Cry so that nobody would hear. Nobody would come. Nobody would help.

She’d accept his help tonight. He opened the door, set the glass bowl on the stove, turned off the disposal and the water, then turned her into his arms. She stiffened, tried to pull away, but he held her firmly until her fingers curled into his shirt, hanging on.

Gently he pulled her across the kitchen, sat down and pulled her into his lap where her arms came around his neck and she clung, weeping so pitifully he thought his own heart would break. He held her tight, rocked her, kissed her hair until her tears were spent. She sagged against him, her forehead pressed against his chest so her face was hidden. It was her last defense and this he’d leave her.