Bloodfever
Page 21

Inspector Jayne tells me you fell on the stairs.
What else did the inspector tell you? I fished. How much did I have to try to explain?
That the police officer handling Alinas case was murdered. Had his throat cut. And that hed been to see you the day it happened. Mac, whats going on? What are you doing here? What is this place? He craned his head around. Do you work here?
I filled him in without filling him in at all. Id realized I liked it in Dublin, I told him. Id been offered a job that came with lodgings, so Id moved into the bookstore. Staying in Ireland and working gave me the perfect chance to keep the pressure on the new officer handling Alinas case. Yes, I fell on the stairs. Id had a few beers and forgotten how much stronger their Guinness was than ours. No, I had no idea why Inspector Jayne didnt seem to think very highly of me. I gave Dad the same excuse Id given Jayne for ODuffys visit. To make it more convincing, I embellished about how fatherly and kind ODuffy had been and what a favor hed been doing, stopping by. Crime was very high in Dublin, I told Dad, and I felt awful about ODuffys death but really, police officers died on the job all the time and Jayne was just being a jack-petunia about it to me.
And your hair?
You dont like it? It was hard to feign surprise when I hated it myself; I missed the weight of it, the different styles Id been able to wear, the swish of it when I walked. I was just grateful he hadnt seen me when Id still had all my splints on.
He gave me a look. You are kidding, right? Mac, baby, you had beautiful hair, long and blond like your mothers He trailed off.
And there it was. I looked him dead in the eye. Which mother, Dad? Mom? Or the other oneyou know, the one that gave me up for adoption?
You want to go get some dinner, Mac?
Men. Do they all evade as first line of defense?
We ordered delivery. I hadnt had a good pizza in forever, it was starting to rain again, and I was in no mood to go out in it. I ordered, Dad paid, just like old times when life was simple, and Daddy was always there to be my Friday night date whenever my latest boyfriend had been a jerk. I gathered paper plates and napkins from Fionas stash behind the register. Before sitting down with our pizza, I turned on all the exterior lights, and lit a cozy gas fire. For now, we were safe. I just had to keep him safe until morning, when I would somehow get him on a plane and send him home.
I keep a happy thought inside me at all times. I cling to it in my darkest moments: When all this is over, Im going to go back to Ashford and pretend none of this happened. Im going to find myself a man, get married, and have babies. I need both my parents at home, waiting for me because Imgoing to make little Lane girls, and were going to be a family again.
We kept the talk light through dinner. He told me that Mom was still lost in grief and not talking to anyone. Hed hated leaving her, but hed taken her to Gram and Gramps and they were giving her the best of care. Thinking about Mom was too painful, so I turned the conversation to books. Dad loves to read as much as I do, and I knew that in his opinion there were far worse places he could have found me working, like another bar. We talked about new releases. I told him some of my plans for the store.
When dinner was over we pushed our plates back and regarded each other warily.
He began a somber You know your mother and I love you spiel, and I hushed him. I knew. I didnt have any doubts on that score. Id been forced to come to terms with so much in the past few weeks that making peace with my discovery that my parents were not my birth parents hadnt taken as long as Id expected. It had rocked my world, brutally shifted my paradigm, but regardless of whose sperm and egg had resulted in my conception, Jack and Rainey Lane had raised me with more love and unwavering support than most people ever know in a lifetime. If my biological parents were alive out there somewhere, they were my second set.
I know, Dad. Just tell me.
How did you find out, Mac?
I told him an old woman had insisted I was someone else, about brown eyes and blue not making green, about calling the hospital to check on my birth records.
We knew this day might come. He pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. What do you want to know, Mac?
Everything, I said in a low voice. Every last detail.
Its not much.
Alina was my biological sister, wasnt she?
He nodded. She was almost three, and you were nearly a year when the two of you came to us.
Where did we come from, Dad?
They didnt tell us. In fact, they told us virtually nothing while demanding everything.
They were people from a church in Atlanta. Mom and Dad couldnt conceive, and had been on an adoption waiting list for so long theyd nearly given up. But one day they got a call that two children had been left at a downtown church, and a friend of a friend of the churchs pastors sister knew their counselor, whod suggested the Lanes. Not all couples were willing to accept, or had the financial means to take on two young children at once, and among the biological mothers lengthy list of requirements was that the children not be separated. Shed also insisted that if the adoptive couple did not already live in a rural area, they must move to a small town and agree to never live in or near a city again.