Blood and Fire Read Free Page A

belonged to the category of things that she could not afford to personally worry about. Like, for instance, the fact that a guy who’d paid another person to study for him, take his exams for him, and write his papers and his graduate thesis for him was about to graduate with a PhD, probably cum laude, thanks to Lily, and then go out to find work in the field of psychology, perhaps diagnosing or even treating people.
    Yep. She, Lily Parr, had made that scenario possible.
    Too bad. She pushed it away. She hadn’t chosen to do this. It just happened, and then it snowballed, and now she had no way out, not with Howard to take care of. The world was a shitty place, and she was sorry, but an ethical dilemma was another luxury she could not afford.
    It was better than robbing banks, or dealing drugs. It really was.
    The last paper she’d been paid to write had been on ethics. Hah. But at least a false ethicist wasn’t likely to hurt anybody once he was unleashed upon the world. There had been some small comfort in that.
    Every month, she pulled together the eleven thousand bucks, plus her own cruelly pared-down living expenses on top of it, and forked the dough over to the professionals who’d promised to watch her father like a hawk twenty-four hours a day to make sure he didn’t kill himself.
    She’d put Howard in less expensive facilities before Aingle Cliff, and every time he’d managed to get his hands on some pills and swallow them. God knew how. But he’d been at Aingle Cliff for four years now. They’d kept him under control. So far, so good.
    Not that one could really describe the situation as “good.” Good in the sense of “not dead.” Everything was relative.
    So here she was for the monthly torture. Checkbook at the ready. Stomach in knots. Locking Howard up was all she could do. She couldn’t help him any other way. She’d almost killed herself trying when she was young and dumb. She knew about addiction, codependency, blah, blah, blah. She’d written papers about it, taken online exams. On behalf of others, of course. She knew the material. She got it already.
    Her presence was not a comfort to Howard. He never asked her to come. In fact, he begged her to stay away. Real egopumper, that one. Her own father, pleading for her not to visit him.
    So why did she feel compelled to visit every month?
    Her best friend, Nina, aocial worker who worked in a battered women’s shelter and knew self-destructive behaviors up and down, told her it was guilt that spurred her, but Lily didn’t buy it. Who had time for guilt? She was a floating cloud, a disembodied entity. Detached and cold, except when it came to Nina and a select handful of other friends, but Nina was the main one. Nina kept her marginally human. Not that she had time for a social life. No more than she had time for feelings.
    Bullshit, Nina said. Your feelings would roll over you like a tank if you let yourself feel them. You’ve driven them underground.
    Lily contemplated that grimly. And so? Denial was the way to go. Climb on the hamster wheel to pay off Aingle Cliff. Not a thought for irony or ethics. Swallow the bitter taste in her mouth. Do the jobs, pay the bills, write the checks. Get the tiger by the tail.
    Scramble to keep it from tearing her to pieces.
    Almost there. Lily snapped the laptop shut and stared at the imposing façade of Aingle Cliff House as they wended up the drive.
    Dumb name for the place. No cliffs to be seen. In fact, the place seemed to be situated in a bowl. Hardly a reassuring name for a facility where one stashed people with suicidal tendencies. The first thing Lily thought of when she heard the word “cliff” was a running jump, a long fall, and a splat at the bottom. But then, she was twisted.
    The cab stopped. She sat there, like a lump.
    “Uh . . . miss?” the cabbie prodded. “Are you, uh . . .”
    Lily dug out her wallet. “Can you come pick me up in an hour?”
    The cabbie agreed. Lily paid him,