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“Face to face would be better.”
“I need to clean up first, and get this thing off my cheek.”
After a few more minutes Kyle stopped the taxi and paid the driver, helped me out and walked me to the cross street. “Start with hot water and brains,” he said as he hailed a third cab. “Once we get back I’ll find a pharmacy and get the algae and C. And you should take my phone for now.” He deftly slipped it into my purse.
“Thanks,” I said, then looked up and met his eyes. “Thanks.” I didn’t even know how to say how much it mattered that he got why I was so upset. I wasn’t even sure I completely understood it myself, but I really felt that he did.
He gave me a hint of a smile, then opened the door of the cab that pulled up. “No worries.”
This time he gave an address that was actually in the vicinity of our hotel. We rode in comfortable silence, and once we arrived he escorted me to the door, quietly making sure that I was safe and okay before s
triding off down the street, somehow managing to look like an unassuming nobody who didn’t require a second glance.
I wasn’t quite ready to head inside, so instead I crossed the street to the little park across from the hotel. Up close and at night, it wasn’t all that pleasant. Two of the benches had homeless men on them, and a couple of people wearing hoodies and baggy jeans huddled together on the far side of the fountain. Something changed hands, and the two walked off in opposite directions. Common sense told me to return to the hotel, especially since I was still in the battered evening gown and barefoot, but I didn’t give much of a shit about common sense at that moment.
A guy with scraggly hair and a pinched face, with the desperate eyes of a drug addict, began to sidle up to me. I snarled at him and made a mock-lunge, and he scampered off. I swept my gaze around to make sure no one else assumed I was an easy target, but the others seemed to sense the monster beneath and kept their distance. Or maybe I simply looked totally crazy. Either way worked for me. Satisfied, I checked the time. Only nine-thirty back home. I punched in my dad’s cell phone number.
“What?”
The snapped-out question caught me briefly off guard before I remembered my dad didn’t have this number in his contacts. “Um, Dad?”
I heard a quick intake of breath. “Angel? Angel?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” I had to work hard to control the slight tremble in my voice as a wave of homesickness swept through me. “Just calling to check in, y’know? Make sure you’re doing okay.” I saw the scraggly druggie returning, and I bared my teeth at him.
“Yeah, sure. I’m okay,” he replied. “How ’bout you? You still, um . . . You still in Denver?”
“Sure am. Staying in a real nice hotel. Four stars.” I laughed, but it sounded strained. The connection was crappy and cutting in and out, but it was damn good to hear his voice, even with static. “Nicest place I’ve ever been.” His words abruptly registered. Why did he specifically say Denver when he knew it was a cover story? My worry rose. “You okay, Dad? Are you at the house? Is someone there with you?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. Shit! That was a lot of questions, Angel,” he grumbled. “I’m fine. With Rick at his house.”
I grimaced. Rick Belluci. Bad enough my dad went on a double date with him, but Rick’s house was where some of the worst drinking used to happen. “You sure that’s a good idea? He can put down a six pack in about an hour.”
“I ain’t seen him drink yet,” he told me, “and that don’t matter anyway. Not with him taking me in like he did.”
“Wait. Taking you in? Why?” I shook my head as if that would help things make sense. “You’re sleeping there?”
“Well, I spent last night here and prolly gonna stay tonight as well.”
I reached up to grip my hair. “But you hate going to his house!”
“Huh? I ain’t never been here before. You should know that. You sure you’re okay?” He paused. “Uh, maybe you need a . . . snack?”
“What? No! I’m not hungry. Not like that. You’re the one I’m worried about.” I scowled. “Every time you get back from Rick’s house you complain about how it stinks like old cabbage and how he keeps the TV full blast and how the toilet’s always clogged.”
He made an aggravated noise. “Shit, Angel. Why the hell would I be at Rick Belluci’s house? I ain’t been to his house since he got busted for drunk driving his four-wheeler through the Tucker Point High School homecoming game, and his ex-mother in law moved in. I’m at Nick’s house.”
That still didn’t make any sense, and my poor brain refused to help me out. “Nick? Nick who?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered. “Your Nick. From the morgue.”
“Why—” I needed a couple of seconds to completely shift my thinking. Not that it helped. “Why the hell are you at my Nick’s house?”
My dad took a deep breath. “’Cause he came to our place to check on me ’cause of the fake lawyer and your phone, then there was a car out front that left when a cop car drove by, so I came here.”
I fought to understand any of that but finally seized onto the “phone” part. “Oh! My phone! It made it to the coroner’s office? And what fake lawyer?”
“The fake lawyer that came looking for you at work. Supposedly she wanted to give you a bunch of money from a trust fund or some shit like that, but because your phone rang, the other guy, um,” I heard someone speaking in the background, “Huh? Oh, okay. Allen. Yeah, Allen didn’t fall for it and didn’t tell her nothin’.”
