Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“Dinner parties. Right.” I try to picture it—this formal dining room filled with the people Blue considers friends. “What kind of people exactly?”
“The kind who need somewhere safe to eat a meal,” he says, his tone taking on an almost wistful quality. “Grimlock attracts a certain type of individual.” He pauses, swirling his wine. “They’re all a little broken, a little strange, a little too much for the regular world. So we gather here, at my table, and for a few hours we’re not the misfits. We’re just . . . family.” Something dark moves across his face. “For those of us who’ve lost ours, or never had one to begin with.”
There is a sudden shift in his tone. For a moment, he sounds almost . . . sad.
“Like my father,” I say quietly.
“Like your father.” Blue nods. “Peter was one of the few people who could make me laugh. Did you know he once convinced an entire wedding party that he was the groom’s long-lost twin brother?”
I nearly choke on my beef. “What?”
“Your father was working a case—needed to get close to the father of the bride who was being threatened by some very dangerous people. Peter was trying to help the man’s family disappear before his enemies found them. But he showed up at the wrong church, different wedding entirely.” Blue’s face lit up with the memory. “Instead of leaving, he claimed he was the groom’s twin who’d been raised separately after their parents’ messy divorce. Spent the entire reception giving a heartfelt speech about how he’d searched the world to find his ‘brother’ on his special day.”
I can picture it perfectly. Dad had this way of rolling with any situation, turning disasters into adventures. “Please tell me someone figured it out.”
“The actual groom was six inches shorter and had red hair.” Blue’s smile is genuine this time, softer around the edges. “But your father was so convincing, so charming, that half the wedding party was in tears by the end of his speech.” He takes a deep breath and smiles. “That was Peter. He could charm his way out of anything.”
“Except whatever got him killed.”
The lightness in Blue’s eyes vanishes. “The Crow aren’t a problem you can charm your way out of.” He clears his throat and shifts in his seat. There’s an awkward pause and then Blue finally adds, “I want you to know that I had no idea you were Peter’s daughter when we . . . I didn’t realize it the other night.”
Wren refills our wine glasses—when did I start drinking wine?—and disappears again like a well-dressed ghost. The beef is perfect, practically melting on my tongue, but my appetite is fading.
“Tell me about them,” I say, wanting to change the conversation away from our hook up. “The Crow.”
Blue’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth. He sets it down carefully, but doesn’t lean back. Instead, he reaches for his wine glass, taking a slow sip while studying my face.
“Why ruin a perfectly good dinner?”
“You said if I stayed for dinner, you’d answer my questions.” I lean forward slightly. “Well, here I am. And I have questions.”
Blue is quiet for a long moment, swirling the wine in his glass. “Not all answers are ones you want to hear.”
“Try me.”
He sighs, a sound that seems to come from somewhere deep and tired. “What exactly do you want to know?”
“Everything. Who they are, what they want, why they killed my father.” I set down my fork. “And don’t give me some vague explanation about business. I want the truth.”
Blue leans back in his chair. In the candlelight, his beard catches hints of that impossible blue color. “They’re a crime syndicate. Started in Seattle about twenty years ago, spread down the coast like cancer. They specialize in making problems disappear.”
“What kind of problems?”
“They kill people.” His words are matter-of-fact, like he’s discussing the weather. “They’re very good at what they do. Very thorough. And they don’t leave loose ends.”
“Which is what I am. A loose end.”
I stare at him across the table, trying to process this information. “I didn’t even know what my father really did for a living. I thought he was an accountant. Some ordinary guy who helped people with their taxes and retirement plans.” My voice gets smaller. “I thought my father was the most boring man on the planet. What exactly did he do? Who was he? What got him killed?”
“Peter was a pain in the Crow’s ass and to the uppers that hired them.” Blue picks up his wine glass. “He ran his own witness protection program for people who couldn’t get help through official channels. When someone was marked for death by people like the Crow, Peter gave them new identities, new lives, safe places to hide. He saved dozens of people over the years.”