Torture to Her Soul(94)

"Not a problem," Karissa says right away. "Anything you need, you just let me know. I'm here."

"I'll remember that." Melody gives her a watery smile before turning to me. "Thanks for letting me cry on your couch, Ignazio."

"Thank Karissa for that," I say. "She extended the invitation, not me."

Karissa groans. "What he means to say is 'you're welcome' and 'come over anytime'."

Karissa walks her friend out as my gaze settles back on the laptop, the afternoon streaming away on the screen. After Melody is gone, Karissa strolls back in, pausing in the doorway. I can sense her gaze burning through me.

"You skipped school," I say without looking up, "on the first day."

"She needed me."

"For what? It's not as if you could do anything."

She says nothing.

I can still feel her gaze.

Glancing up, I meet her eyes. She's staring at me hard.

"Could you?" she asks. "Could you do something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know… whatever it is you do. Dealing with people and finding things are your specialties, right? That's what you told me. So you can find people, too, right? I mean, you found me."

"Actually, you found me," I say, hitting pause on the feeds to look at her. "You stumbled right into my path."

"But you would've found me, eventually," she says. "You were looking for my mother… maybe you still are looking for my mother. I don't know."

She pauses, staring at me. She formed it as a statement, but I see the questions in her eyes. I'm not going to answer, though, and I don't think she expects me to, because she moves on quickly.

"I'm just saying, you do things… those kinds of things… so I thought maybe you could find him. For Melody. For me."

"For you."

"Yes," she says. "As a favor."

I lean back in my chair, eyeing her warily. She's opening a door I'm not sure she's ready to walk through. "Tell me something, Karissa."

She hesitates at my serious tone. "What?"

"When you poisoned my food, where did you get the drugs from?"

Her cheeks grow red, a hint of alarm in her eyes as she averts her gaze. "I didn't poison your food. I didn't want to hurt you."

"You're avoiding the question."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does," I say, "to me."

Shaking her head, she stares at the floor near my desk. "What does this have to do with anything? I'm sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I'm sorry I drugged your food. I'm sorry I ran off in the middle of the night. I'm sorry I led you to my parents. I'm sorry I got my father killed."

"I thought you didn't have a father."

"I don't." Her voice has a hard edge to it. "I'm just saying…"

"You're saying you're sorry," I chime in when she doesn't finish. "But what you're not saying… what you're avoiding saying… is that Paul gave you the drugs that sparked all of it."

She has no argument for that.

She just glares at me.

"Bad things happen to bad people, Karissa."

"Paul wasn't bad."

"He endangered you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, well, you were going to kill me!"

"I was," I admit, "but I never pretended to be good."

"What are you trying to say, Naz? Huh?"

"Exactly what I'm saying: if you want me to look for him, I will, but I'm not going to find him. Nobody will."

"How do you know?"

"Because if he was meant to be found, he would've been found already."

Karissa leans against the doorframe, mulling over my words. Shutting the laptop, I stand up and smooth my suit coat.

"Look," I say, "why don't we go out and grab some dinner, celebrate the first day of classes."

"I skipped them, remember? There's not much to celebrate."

"Nonsense. Regardless of if you were there or not, the day happened. There's a lesson to be learned there, you know. Life goes on without you."

"I hear you, Plato."

I smile at her sarcasm as I stroll across the room, pausing in front of her. "I prefer the words of Plautus." I cup her cheek, stroking her warm skin with my thumb. "Let us celebrate with wine and sweet words."

"I don't know Plautus."

"Huh." Leaning down, I kiss the corner of her mouth. "He also said the chap that endures hard knocks like a man enjoys a soft time later on."

She smiles softly when I kiss her again. "What does that mean?"

"Whatever you want it to mean."

"What do you want it to mean?"

I kiss her a third time, nipping at her bottom lip as I pull away. "Maybe I'll show you when we get home."