Deadly Obsession (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 4) by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

stage and get your diploma. I’m so proud of you. Maybe they’ll let me out, just for that day. They do that sort of thing, don’t they? Even with hopeless cases like me? Ask your Uncle Mason. If anyone can get them to give me a day pass, it would be him. I love you always, Mom.’”
    The wet pads had soaked through the ones on his arm, so I tried again to peel them away. This time it worked with minimal pulling. Oh, but the arm just looked mean. I think meaner now that it was healing. The edges of the worst burns were covered now in a thin layer of bright pink newborn skin, but the centers were still raw and sore-looking. I dropped the old pads faceup on the coffee table and looked at his arm, turning it slightly to one side and then the other. “It looks good, I think.” Then I wondered how the hell I would know.
    “It’s gonna scar,” he said. “Badly. I’ll look like I’ve been in a gang fight.”
    “You’ll look like you’ve been in a fire.”
    He smiled at me. “Okay, you’re right.”
    “If you were a woman I’d feel sorry for you. But scars are sexy on men.”
    “Yeah?” He lifted his brows, then wiggled them suggestively. Reminding me that it had been a while since we’d rolled around in the sheets together. I was aching to play catch-up.
    “Yeah. Especially scars you got saving babies. They’re the sexiest kind. Go on, read the next letter.”
    He nodded, and moved on to Letter Three. “‘They won’t let me out for your graduation, son. I’ve asked everyone in this place. I even wrote to the Governor. I said they could send guards with me. I said they could stand on either side of me, holding my arms. Anything. Anything, I told them. Did you ask Mason? Why isn’t he helping me? Jeremy, I can’t miss your graduation. I’m your mother. I have a right to be there. What happened wasn’t my fault. I’m sick. But why I should be punished like this just for being sick?’
    “‘They’re probably reading these letters before you get them. They’re probably not even sending them to you. I’m probably writing you for nothing. They’re probably laughing at me. They hate me here. Everyone does. Maybe you hate me, too. Do you, Jeremy? Do you hate me, too?’” I’d been squeezing ointment out of a tube onto a fresh set of gauze pads—we were clearly going to need more of them—but I stopped about halfway through that letter, because it sent chills down my spine. “Sounds like she was losing it again when she wrote that one.”
    He nodded. “Yeah. It’s definitely getting weirder as we go along.” He frowned. “Do you think she’s been writing to Josh, too?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Who’s been picking up the mail since you’ve been sick? I mean, the boys have been with me.”
    “Mother picked it up and left it on the counter for us while I was away, but she must not have looked at it closely or she’d have told me about this.”
    I nodded, remembering. “A couple of times when I brought the boys home to get more of their things, Jeremy sorted through the stack. He must have been taking these out of the pile and stashing them.”
    Mason unfolded the next letter. “Remind me to ask him if there were any addressed to Josh. I can’t believe he wouldn’t have said so if there were, though.” Then he skimmed the page and sighed. “It gets worse. Listen to this. ‘Jeremy, you’re in danger. She’s been asking me questions about you, about Mason, mostly, but about you, too. I didn’t realize at first. She’s crazier than I am.’”
    “Who?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s it—that’s the entire thing.” He set it down and reached for another one as I settled the pads into place and started unrolling new gauze around his forearm to hold them there. Not too tight. I didn’t want to hurt him.
    “‘I have to protect my family. No one believes you’re in danger. No one believes me about her. But I know. When I looked into her eyes, I saw it.