Page 74 of Intrepid

“Are you saying he deserved to die that way?”

He shrugged and looked off toward the skyline and back. “What if the victim wasn’t a victim, at all? What if the killer was actually doing the world a favor?”

“You sound like my father. Making heroes out of criminals.”

“Some people aren’t what they seem. How do you know the victim didn’t do something equally as horrific? You said it yourself, you believe in killing when there’s purpose behind it. Is it any worse than a woman cutting off a man’s head?”

Touché. “You should really consider a career in criminal defense. I think you’d be far more successful than me.” I smiled, dropping the handful of gravel I’d collected in my palm. “I suppose if the victim had done something horrible, like killed, or molested, a child, then yes, he probably had it coming.”

“You’re going to make a horrible criminal defense attorney.”

Laughing, I pulled my knees into my body, wrapping my arms around my bent legs. “You always have a way of making me see two sides of a story. It’s a gift, you know.”

From his shirt pocket, he pulled a cigarette, shoving it into his mouth as he fished in his pants until he slipped out a lighter. Cupping the end of his smoke, he flipped a Zippo, and his cheeks hollowed as he sucked in a drag.

“You should stop smoking.” Arms still wrapped around my knees, I rocked back and forth.

“Yeah? Why’s ‘at?” He blew the smoke off to the side and thumbed the bridge of his nose.

“It’d be tragic if the world lost you to something so meaningless as cancer.”

“The world? Or you?”

I pushed up from the ground and came to a stand beside him, resting my elbows on the ledge. “So, why do you really come up here?” I asked, ignoring his question. “I know it’s not to sit and think about me all day.”

Tipping away just enough to coil my stomach, he looked down the side of the building and back. “Perspective.” He jutted his chin. “Look at those cars down there, tooling around, always in a hurry to get somewhere. It’s almost funny from up here. What the hell are they so worried about, you know? They have their whole fuckin’ lives to get from here to there, and they get pissed off when they hit a traffic light.”

Looking out over the small bit of traffic, I could see what he was saying, how the cars below took off at one light and came to a slamming stop at the next. I could almost hear my father’s grumbling whenever the clock threatened tardiness to something—mostly his meetings—and we’d get caught at every traffic light.

But then I thought of my mother, and the night we took her into the hospital, and how the drive seemed endless. How I just wanted her to get where she’d be okay again. The moment we’d arrived at the ER, they’d whisked her out of the back of the ambulance so quickly, I didn’t have time to say goodbye, let alone tell her how important she was to me.

“Maybe they don’t have their whole lives, though.” I dropped my gaze from his, focusing on my fingers curled around the edge of the building. “Maybe there’s a cancer they don’t even know about, growing inside their bodies, and one day, it’ll just pluck them right out of that car, as if their whole life, every good thing they’d done, didn’t even matter.”

His brows flickered, and I could see that he understood my grief, that he’d felt it, too. That was what made Ty different from every other guy I’d dated, the ones who had everything and no one ever stole what they loved.

I’d come to trust people by how much pain their eyes held, and his bore the endless depths of sorrow.

“You’re wrong. The good things do matter, Sera.”

“Maybe. What about your father? You never told me how he—”

“Fire. Devil’s Night. There were four of them. They set our house on fire. I wasn’t there.” Every word from his mouth arrived clipped and cold, as if he didn’t want them to touch him.

The visuals of his father having burned alive sent a shudder through my bones. I’d always considered that to be the worst way to die. “Murdered?”

“Yeah.” He shifted, his brows pinching together, and I reached out to stroke his face, but he turned away from me. Not wanting me to touch him, either.

Like a sealed vault.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” I lowered my hand, the slap of rejection stinging my cheek.

For a moment, I thought I’d caught a glimpse of Ty’s heart, but it turned out, I was still scratching at his skin. Within seconds, something had changed, the air had charged with angry electricity, as though I’d hit the wrong button. However long ago it’d happened, the murder of his father still ran hot through his blood, which I’d learned in enough grief counseling sessions was a sign that he hadn’t accepted it and moved on.

“Yeah. I should get you home.”

Another crank of the vault door squealed inside my head. Why he’d go through so much trouble to get me there—to feel something for him, some kindred pain, only to turn me away—was a frustration that ate at my thoughts, as I gathered my bag.

Ty slid from the ledge, his boots hitting the gravel beside me, and I didn’t bother to look at him as I made my way toward the rooftop door.