Read Online Blood and Bone by Tara Brown - Free Book Online Page B

questions I might understand.”
    He reaches for me slowly, stopping at the file to flip pages. He comes to a shot of a man who could be Derek, maybe, and thumps his finger down hard. “Dash, Benjamin Dash. Is he dead or alive?”
    I swallow hard, worried about exactly what kind of trouble Derek is in. My instinct is to protect him. “I don’t know this man.”
    He winces, wrinkling his nose. “Of course ya do. He’s a skeezy fucker.” He says it like
focker
and snorts. I have never seen a human being react that way to Derek. He’s a god among men. “What were your injuries in the accident?”
    “I have scars on my ribs, back, and my arm. My head has a small one under my hair.”
    “You’ve always had those scars. They’re old as sin. I don’t think you were in a car accident. I think he did something to your mind. Fucked with it. Feel like protecting him now? The old you was hard as nails and woulda killed him in a heartbeat. He’s made you soft.” He snorts and grabs a picture from the bunch of the blonde girl who is identical to me, in a bikini. The scars are the same. I had them before. They’re not from the accident. His words cut through me, making new scars.
    No accident
is ringing in my head like Quasimodo is in there himself, pulling on the rope. After a second I nod. “His name is Derek, not Dash. He’s a good man.”
    “A good liar, ya mean.” He sighs, licks his lips, and slaps the picture. “What can you tell us? What have you gotten on him in the last six years?”
    Every time he mentions how long it’s been, he looks like he might hug me. I move my chair a little, backing away from him. I don’t know what to say about the scars so I focus on Derek. “Nothing. He’s a surgeon and a humanitarian and a good cook.”
    He bites his lip, furrowing his dark brow. “Right, and he’s got a magic cock. How about the assassinations with their serial-killertactics used? He doesn’t assassinate like a normal cleaner would. Who does he work for? Why always political and royalty with him? Why not the average random, like normal serial killers?”
    “He works at the hospital. I don’t know.” Tears build back up in my eyes again.
    He slumps back in the chair, groaning. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the bleeding hell did he do to you? Ya baking cakes now for him, or what?”
    “Who are you?”
    He cocks an eyebrow, pausing as if he doesn’t understand the question, before bursting into a fit of laughter. His dark-blue eyes narrow with the laugh, squinting with tears of joy. He’s tall and broad, just like Angie said he was. He’s handsome and chiseled—that’s the word I would use for him:
chiseled
. His dark hair and tanned skin make him a perfect tall, dark, and handsome. It’s too bad he cusses so much, just like Angie said he would. I almost want to record him so I can show her she was right. If I wasn’t on the verge of losing my mind and committing myself into a center, I would actually do it.
    He slaps the desk once more, wiping his face. “Rory Guthrie. I can’t believe I never introduced myself.” He reaches over, flipping to the section in the file about him and me. There are dozens of photos of us together. I blush when I see us kissing.
    “Well, we had to be a couple, but we kept it professional.”
    There is a photo of us young and in Berkeley sweaters. Mine is gray and his, black. We look like typical college nerds. His hair is longer and fluffy and he has glasses, but it’s like Superman and Clark; you can’t hide his type of beautiful with some nerdy shit.
    Seeing the pictures makes my heart flutter in the wrong sort of way. He instantly makes me uncomfortable. The smell of his cologne or aftershave fills the air.
    “What do you want?” I ask.
    “For you to finish the job you started.”
    I glance up at him, completely lost. “What job?”
    “Bring in Dash.” My eyes clearly answer the request, because Rory laughs. “You have to, or they’re going to