Darker Than Desire by Shiloh Walker Page B

looking for money and I’ll call every pawnshop within a day’s drive of here. If you take one of my cameras, I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering, and theft. I’d also like to point out—there’s not a camera in here worth less than three grand. Keep that in mind before you think about trying anything. I’ve got one worth three times that. If I can get you arrested on grand theft? I’ll do it.”
    Layla’s mouth went pinched and tight. “You’ll spend that kind of money on a fucking camera , but you can’t spare a few hundred on your own blood?”
    Any guilt she could have once felt for Layla had long since died. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared the younger woman down. “And what about last year when I asked you if you’d like to go buy your son some Christmas presents? You didn’t have the money. You had the money, though, to haul your worthless ass to the liquor store twenty minutes later. You can’t spend your money on presents for your own blood, but you can buy booze?” As Layla opened her mouth, Sybil stepped forward. “I have expensive equipment because I am the one who has to care for that boy and I need the equipment to do my job. I’m the one who buys him toys and food and clothes. I am the one who pays for his medical bills—I can’t get him insurance because he’s not my son. I can’t get him on Medicaid because you never show up for the appointments. Right now? I’m paying off a thirty-two-hundred dollar hospital visit to the emergency department from the last time his asthma flared up. You want to talk about blood ?” The words came out in a fury of pent-up rage. “Where in the hell have you been every time your son needed you? When he was sick, when he was hurting, when he just needed you?”
    Layla’s face was white, but as the words lingered, then died in the air, blood slowly crept across her face. “Don’t you dare go laying it at my feet when he gets sick. I can’t help that the kid has those breathing problems. He’s healthier around you, at least.”
    â€œThat’s because I don’t smoke around him. I don’t parade a line of boyfriends through the house that chain-smoke around him. I don’t drag him around when he’s sick just because I’m bored and I have to get out and do something,” Sybil said, sneering. She backed away before she gave in to the fury and did something violent, something desperate. She wanted to shake her sister, make her see what she was doing, what she was losing, what she’d already lost.
    Drew looked at his mother with something just a step away from disgust in his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t know her. It was that he didn’t want to know her.
    â€œIt ain’t my fault,” Layla said, her voice shaking. Shaking with the need to believe it. “He was always sick like that. I tried, Syb. I did. I’m just not—”
    A wave of weariness crashed into her and Sybil looked away. “You tried. Yeah, I’ve heard this before. You tried. And when it got hard, you dumped him on Mama. Then she wasn’t there and I was. It’s fine. I love the boy. You know that. But you don’t get to come here, demanding money from me, sneering at the things I do to take care of him and getting pissy with me when I tell you no. I’m not your moneybag, Layla. You’re on your own now. I told you that once. It hasn’t changed.”
    Layla opened her mouth, closed it.
    Then she just slumped against the wall, slid down it. Drawing her knees to her chest, she tucked her face against them. “I don’t know where to go. I got kicked out of my apartment. I’ve been crashing with guys I know, but I’m running out of places to go. Nobody…” She sniffled and when she looked back at Sybil there were real tears in her eyes. “Nobody wants me,