“Weren’t you worried he’d hurt your feelings if he was still cold to you?”

“My expectations of him are as low as they can be. Nothing he could do or say would surprise me unless he turns out to be a nice guy. He wasn’t there when we needed him. Bat hired a private detective to get his phone number after our parents died, thinking he’d help us. She called him, sure he’d send us money. He didn’t. He offered to send her a plane ticket. Just one. He told her to hand me over to foster care; as if she would ever just abandon me. My sister would never do that. It made her mad but she thought he might be broke or something. But the detective said he was rich. That blew her best excuse.”

“He didn’t come after her?”

“Bat had been accepted to college and had planned to live in a dorm. All that changed when our parents died. The state tried to come in and take me. They didn’t feel Bat was mature enough to be my guardian. She’d just turned eighteen and graduated from high school. We listed the house for a lower price to get it sold within days and moved out of state. She switched colleges so we’d be a little harder to track if social services looked for me. We lived in some really crappy places but they didn’t ask for background checks. Most of the money went to her books, her classes, and I worked part time to help pay our bills.”

“That sounds difficult.”

“It was but we were together. That’s all that mattered.”

“How did your parents die?”

Dusti hated the pain that surfaced when she thought about the evening the police had knocked on their door. “My parents had a date night. They’d go out to dinner and a movie once a week.” She swallowed hard. “A semi-truck ran a red light and slammed into their car on their way home. They were both killed instantly. It had been raining and the cops said the driver had hit the brakes but skidded into the intersection.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him. “Thanks. Bat was my rock. I completely fell apart but she held it together for the both of us. We were terrified when social services showed up after the funeral. As I said, they wanted to take me away but Bat knew what to do. She always does. She told them about our grandfather and lied by saying he was coming to live with us. It bought us enough time to disappear. At least he was useful to us in that way, having a blood relative who was alive.”

“Was she angry that he only offered to take her in?”

“Furious, but she said he was old. Like that excused what he did. She felt he might be afraid to take on a teenager with two years of school left, which means he’d be stuck helping to raise me.”

“She probably wanted to try to make you feel better,” Drantos guessed.

“No. She really wanted to think he was just an old man set in his ways, albeit a selfish one. It pisses me off too. She had the detective run his criminal history but he didn’t have one. That seemed to make him a decent guy to her. She believes we should make peace with him because he’s technically family since we’re related by blood. It helps that he’s rich, and she hopes he might leave us something in his will. Money is important to her.”

“But not to you?”

“It doesn’t buy happiness. My sister should know that. She gets the big bucks for doing her job but she’s miserable. She’ll deny that but she can’t lie to me. I know her too well. It’s as if she thinks if she makes enough money, it will make up for the past. And it represents security to her in case anything tragic ever happens again.”

“Was the loss of your parents what made her that way?”

Dusti sighed. “It was a combination of things. It was really tough after our parents died. Bat would have had to fight social services to get me back if they’d taken me away. It would have eaten up all the money from the sale of the house to take them to court. I know she would have done it though. And then living like we did until I hit eighteen was rough. There were cockroaches and the neighbors were less than stellar. The cops were hauling them off on a daily basis. They were either drug dealers, hookers, or addicts who wouldn’t hesitate to slit your throat if they thought you had money to steal to get their next fix. That’s putting it lightly.

“It made her feel guilty because we had to live that way until she could finish getting her law degree, but that wasn’t the most important reason. It was because those places made it tougher for us to be found. We moved back to California and into a nice place when she got her first job. Then she met someone who ripped her up.”

“She was attacked?” Drantos frowned. “By what?”

“Who. She fell in love with this pretty-boy type who was too charming, if you get my drift. She gave him her heart and he really screwed her over. He stole her credit cards to rack up a shitload of debt. The jerk was buying other women jewelry, taking them out to fancy dinners, and fucking them in hotel rooms she ended up paying for. She really thought he loved her and never realized he was a leach until it was too late. It was how he lived. He’d pretend to love one woman, all the while stealing from her while looking for another with more money. Like she was just a stepping stone to something better. He was gone by the time the collection agencies began calling. He’d stolen her identity, racked up a bunch of credit cards she knew nothing about until the bill collectors began to call. He'd had the statements sent somewhere else.”

Dusti still got pissed, remembering what had happened to her sister. “She felt like a fool and utterly devastated. He’s the man she believed she’d spend the rest of her life with. It took her a year to clear up that financial mess and it deeply embarrassed her. She changed after that.”

“She grew less trusting.”

“It was more than that. It turned her mean. She began going on the offense. She never allowed anyone to get close to her again. She keeps everyone at arm’s length by being a total bitch. It’s pissed some people off enough to want to lash out at her. Her law firm employs bodyguards to protect her.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Bodyguards?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Her bosses wouldn’t pay for protection while she was on vacation or they’d still be with us.”

“She really has bodyguards?”

“She defends bad guys for a living who people love to hate. It makes her a target for a lot of nut jobs. Maybe they think if she dies, whoever she’s defending at the time might end up in prison. It’s not as if she’s some sweetheart of a person who apologizes for what she does, either. She tells them to kiss her ass.”