Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

is she?" Pete sounded suspicious. As he should be. "Did she go out partying again?"

"Yeah." How did a guy make this hurt less? "Yeah, she went out partying. She's dead, Pete."

"No. No, Eli, she's not really. She just passed out." Tears and desperation were coming into the boy's voice now. "She does that sometimes, passes out and falls down and lies there like she's dead no matter how much you shake her and yell at her. But she's not. She'll wake up. Really. She will."

Eli's chest hurt, hearing what Pete had been going through. Why hadn't he known? Because he sucked at being a dad. Just like he sucked at doing this. "Not this time, Pete. She won't wake up. She didn't pass out. She got--" He couldn't tell the boy his mother had been beaten to death. But he couldn't lie to him either. Maybe he could keep the worst from him. "Somebody killed her, Pete. She went out partying and she got killed."

"I don't believe you! You're lying!" Pete was crying in earnest.

God, he sucked at this. "I wish I was lying, kid. But she's dead."

"Maybe it's not her. Maybe it's somebody else and the police made a mistake."

"I'm sorry, Pete. I really am, but it's your mom. I saw her myself, with my own eyes."

Pete kept crying, saying "No, no, no," between sobs. Each "no" hit Eli like a bare-knuckle fist to the gut. Only worse. He knew what the fist felt like and this hurt more.

"Don't worry about what's going to happen to you, okay? Fitz is looking after you just fine, isn't he? He'll keep on taking care of you till we figure something out."

"My dad?" Pete said through his tears, knocking Eli dizzy.

"What about your dad?"

"Fitz said he knows who my dad is. Is he going to take care of me?"

Oh, God. Pete's dad couldn't even take care of himself. "I don't know, Pete. We'll have to see."

"Do you know who my dad is?"

What did he say to that? "Yeah. Yeah, kid, I do."

"So maybe you could talk to him and see if he wants me. You can tell him about all the stuff I can do and how smart I am. I'm smart, aren't I, Eli?"

Shit. What was this stuff coming out of his eyes? He didn't do tears. Not anybody else's and for sure not his own. Eli scrubbed at his eyes and squeezed, trying to stop the stupidity.

"Yeah, squirt, you're smart. Smart as a whip. But you got to go to school to get smarter."

"If I go to school, will you talk to my dad?"

That was Pete. Fastest kid in the USA with a deal.

"Okay, yeah." Eli gave in. What else could he do? "I'll talk to him. But no promises. I'll call you again when I know something, okay?"

"Okay." Pete paused. "Eli?"

"What, Petey?" He kept his voice gentle.

"Are you really, really sure it was her? She's really, really dead?"

Eli sighed. "Yes, Pete. I'm really, really sure it was her. Your mother really is dead." The sight of her would haunt his dreams the rest of his life.

"Okay."

"Did you get the picture I sent?"

"Yeah."

"So you believe I broke my arm and leg, right?"

"Yeah."

"Have I ever told you anything that wasn't so, or make a promise I didn't keep?"

Pete sighed. "No." The boy had heard this before, but it had never mattered more.

"So when I tell you that I am going to make sure you are taken care of, you believe me, right?"

"Right." He sniffled again. "I believe you."

"You got my number to call if you need me?"

Sounding put upon, Pete rattled off the number in their farewell ritual.

"Okay, then. You make sure Fitz behaves himself and I'll call when I know something. You call any time, okay?"

"Okay." The phone at Fitz's garage rattled and went dead.

"You really do love that boy, don't you?" Marilyn's voice startled him when she spoke.

Eli shrugged, embarrassed. She'd seen him almost crying.

"Will his father take him, do you think?"

That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? Eli had kept a certain distance to avoid tainting Pete with his own darkness. But now, with Teresa gone... "I don't know," he said. "It's complicated."

"What's so complicated about it? That boy needs his father. The man either steps up and takes responsibility, or he doesn't." She got up from the couch and started to pace.

"Yeah, but what if--?"

"What if nothing. Or--" Marilyn frowned. "Will his father keep you from seeing Pete?"

"No. Nothing like that. It's...complicated." Would any father, even one like Eli, be better than the foster system? Because that's where Pete would wind up if Fitz couldn't keep him. He'd have to think of something.

"Please. How complicated can it be?"

"Pretty damn complicated. Can we talk about something else?"

"Can't you take him?"

"Me? I don't know anything about taking care of kids."

"Sounds to me like you know plenty."

"I don't know anything." He was going to lose his temper in a minute, if she didn't stop.

"You know to make sure Pete knows he'll be taken care of. The physical stuff--feeding him, clothing him, making sure he has a place to sleep--that's the easy stuff, Eli. The hard stuff is here." She tapped her forehead, then fisted her hand and dropped it to her heart. "And here.

"You have that. You can figure out the rest. You have to think about what's best for Pete. Tell his father. Make him understand."

"What's best for him sure as hell isn't me."

Marilyn opened her mouth to argue some more and Eli jumped in with a change of subject. He needed to think, not listen to Marilyn browbeat him.

"You need a new car," he said. "We should spend some time today on that."

"What?" She sounded as out of temper as he felt. "I do not need a new car, thank you. The one I have runs just fine. I don't drive it enough to make mileage an issue and I can't afford to go out and buy a new car."

"I didn't mean a new, new car. Just something