and then strode from the room.
It took him a minute to react because he couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. When he realized she was clear down the hall, he ran after her. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry, Darcy.”
Rage filled her as she turned on him and pushed him with both hands, and it was only because she caught him off guard that he slammed back into the wall.
“Who the fuck do you think you are? I don’t see you for fourteen years and you call me a whore, twice! I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a whore.” She turned from him, but hadn’t gotten far when he grabbed for her and pulled her to him.
“What the fuck does that mean?” he demanded.
“I hurt you, I get it. You want payback, but you hurt me too.”
“How?” he spat.
“You believed that I went with my mother, my fucking mother. You knew what it was like for me there, but you believed without question. I didn’t show up, sure, but you didn’t even try to find out why. You knew how I felt about you. You knew what we had was real, but you never demanded to know why I didn’t come.” Darcy was surprised at the level of her pain. She had been the one in the wrong, but Lucien had been wrong too.
“You loved me, but not enough to fight for me. If it had been you who didn’t show, I would have hunted you down and forced you to tell me why to my face. You gave up without a fight.”
And then she was gone, but all Lucien could do was stand there and watch her go because his mind was still trying to understand what he had just heard.
For two days Lucien tried to make sense of Darcy’s cryptic words before he decided to visit Sister Margaret. Voluntarily, no less. Darcy regretted not meeting him that day, and had been encouraged not to by someone, but who? There was one person at St. Agnes who knew everything and saw everything: Sister Margaret, the evil bitch.
He pulled up in front of the nursing home near the West Side Highway and climbed from his car. He had called ahead as a courtesy and was surprised that visiting turned out to be fairly easy. A volunteer escorted him down the dingy hallway and for a moment he had a pang of sympathy that Sister Margaret was to spend her final days in such a hole. This thought was immediately dismissed when he heard that all too familiar screeching coming from a room clear down the corridor.
“Charming, isn’t she?” Lucien muttered, earning him a smile from the volunteer.
As soon as he saw her, a flood of memories slammed into him, none of which were good. Her beady eyes looked from the orderly she was reprimanding to him, and recognition showed on her face.
“Lucien Black. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too.”
“Don’t back talk me, boy. I may be old, but you’ll show me respect.”
Lucien bit his tongue; he refused to take the bait and instead tried to suffocate her with kindness.
“You’re looking well.” For a soul-sucking demon.
“I look like shit and you damn well know it. What do you want?”
Right to the point. He had to like that about the old bird. “Do you remember Darcy MacBride?”
“The girl that thought you walked on water.”
His anger turned his voice very cold. “I thought she walked on water.”
Sister Margaret waved her hand in dismissal. “Whatever. So what do you want to know?”
“The day I left, someone came to see her. Do you know who?”
An odd look passed over her face before she turned her attention to the volunteer who had escorted Lucien and said, “Fetch us some iced tea, sweetened, and cookies.”
And just as regally, she dismissed both the volunteer and the orderly before looking back at Lucien. He was surprised by her request since the place really wasn’t very nice, but he knew they would bring the tea and cookies because they were afraid not to.
“Well, sit down. I’m going to get a neck cramp.”
He eyed the pillow and thought how very easy it would be to suffocate the old bitch, but then he wouldn’t learn what he had come seeking. He sat.
“A man came to St. Agnes that day, but he was a sneaky bastard. Someone let him in, so he bypassed the check-in. My guess is he didn’t want