The threadbare carpets showed hints of once being gray, but they were so stained with dirt and other things she didn’t care to examine, they were mostly brown and red now. At the end of the hall, they climbed a set of stairs to the second floor. Urine and other multicolored things marked the walls; when her boot squelched in a puddle, she vowed to throw them out when they left this place.
At the top of the stairs, Dante led her past some trash bags and to the apartment at the end. He was lifting his hand to knock when the door opened and a cloud of smoke wafted out. A woman who was probably only in her late forties opened the door. However, the deep lines carved around her pinched mouth and etching her face made her look sixty—averyrough sixty.
Chunks of gray streaked her lank, brown hair. Her watery blue eyes widened on him before running over his body in a ravenous way that made his dick turtle up inside him. The scent of booze and the happy tones of some game show came from the apartment.
“You’re Dan Vares?” Lindsay Parks asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “And this is my friend Cassidy.”
When the woman glanced at Cassidy, her upper lip curled in disgust and hatred shimmered to life in her eyes. Dante sneered at her as he stepped between them and rested his hand on the doorframe.
He didn’t care if they needed this woman’s help; he wouldnottolerate anyone looking at her in such a way. He suspected Lindsay Parks was once a beautiful woman, but cigarettes, booze, and probably drugs had ravaged that beauty. However, she didn’t like being
reminded that, while she let herself go to shit, there were still beautiful women in the world.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” Lindsay said.
“Like we discussed yesterday, I have some questions about your son,” he said.
When her eyebrows knit together over her nose, he suspected she didn’t remember much of their conversation. She’d probably buzzed him in so she could have someone to talk to and because he was a guy.
Lindsay walked back into her apartment. Dante remained in the doorway. “Mrs. Parks, can we come in?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on in.”
She stopped beside a battered old couch and lifted a pack of cigarettes from the table next to it. She used the cigarette still burning in the ashtray to light the one in her mouth.
Feeling like he’d rather walk into a wall of flames, Dante crept into the apartment. He almost took Cassidy’s hand, but he suspected it would only irritate this woman, and she wouldn’t talk if annoyed. He could use his powers on her, but he preferred to get his answers without bending her mind to his.
After Cassidy entered the apartment, Dante closed the door, and as Lindsay settled onto the couch, her slight weight caused chunks of yellow stuffing to poke through the holes in the cushion. She lifted a drink from beside the ashtray. Ice clinked against the glass as she swirled the amber liquid, puffed her cigarette, and took a sip.
On TV, a rerun ofWheel of Fortuneplayed, and the wheel clicked as one of the contestants spun it. In the kitchen, trash spilled out of the garbage can and onto the floor. Containers of takeout food littered the countertops. He didn’t have to open the cabinet to know mouse droppings littered the shelves; he could smell the rodents and hear their claws scratching the wood.
He once worked the case of a man accused of killing his mother and chopping her into pieces. He spent a week searching a landfill for her body parts; he felt almost as dirty now as then.
He glanced over at Cassidy, and though she was a little more tense than usual, she kept her face impassive as she stared at the woman on the couch. “Stay here,”he mouthed to her.
Cassidy wasn’t getting any closer to the repulsive woman, and she didn’t want to touch anything here. Once she was free of this place, not only was she throwing out her boots, but also everything else she was wearing.
Unwilling to look at the woman anymore, Cassidy studied the pictures on the walls. Through the haze of smoky grime covering the glass were photos of a pretty woman with a cute young boy. In many of the pictures, a handsome man also stood with them.
In the earlier photos, they were smiling and happy together. As their ages progressed, the man disappeared, the boy became a teen who stopped smiling, and the woman deteriorated from happy to slouched and broken.
She didn’t know what happened to turn that vibrant woman into the one sitting on the couch, but she felt sorry for the family in those photos.
When Dante stepped in front of the TV, Lindsay scowled at him. “Is it okay if I ask you some questions?” Dante asked.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Lindsay retorted.
Dante perched on the edge of the threadbare, yellow chair next to the metal TV stand, and pulled out his pad and pen. “When was the last time you saw your son?”
Lindsay took a drag on her cigarette before answering. “It’s been a couple of months.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“It’s been a couple of months.”
“Do you often go so long without speaking?”
