“Um, lucky I guess. And I, uh, put ice on it.”

He grimaced at my stilted response. “Sorry, I’m doing that ‘insensitive dick’ thing again. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

I shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. Shit happens, y’know?” An awkward silence fell and I flicked off another maggot that had managed to make it up to my forearm.

He chuckled. “I bet you never thought you’d ever be casually flinging maggots around.”

I had to laugh. “Oh my god, no kidding. I used to gag if someone spit on the sidewalk in front of me.”

“You know . . .” Marcus paused, and it looked as if he was getting up the nerve to say something. I waited, and a few seconds later he continued, “I was the Resource Officer at your high school for a short time. I’d only been a cop for a few years and usually those assignments are given to the guys with a lot more experience, but the department went through a phase where they were shuffling everyone around.”

I had an odd feeling I knew where he was going with this, but I went ahead and said, “Oh?”

His smile looked slightly abashed. “It was about five years ago. I, uh, remember you.”

It was tough but I forced myself to not look away. “You remember when I left?”

He gave a slow nod.

I made a face. “Not one of my better moments.” I didn’t mention the time he’d arrested me. So far that incident was unspoken between us. Taboo. I far preferred it that way.

He shrugged. “Maybe so. But, at the risk of sounding like a pompous condescending ass, you’re doing a good job of getting over it.”

“Took me a while.” And dying.

He smiled. “I mean it. It’s like you’re not the same person you used to be.”

God, if he only knew. “I’m not. I mean, I am . . . it’s, well, um, I’m trying to figure out who I am.” I winced. Holy shit, that sounded kooky. “Uh, you know what I mean.”

“I do,” he said with a slow nod. “I think we all have to go through that at some point.”

“Yeah,” I said. And some of us needed a kick in the ass first.

“Look, I know this is the last thing you want to talk about, but I wanted to ask you . . . .” He trailed off, looking strangely uneasy.

“Ask me . . . ?” Ask me to dinner? Ask me out for drinks? Ask me if I wanted to see what he looked like under that uniform? Yow, where’d that last one come from? But no, he’d said it was the last thing I’d want to talk about.

He took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you to please not bail your dad out of jail.”

Somehow I managed to keep my face immobile while my thoughts went crashing into a tangled heap. “Hunh?”

“Don’t bail your dad out,” he repeated, eyes on me. “I know this is tough on you, but you shouldn’t be the one to get him out.”

“ ’Cause I’m the victim,” I managed to force out. Wow, my voice almost sounded normal.

“That’s right.” He scrubbed a hand over the short brush of hair on his head. “Give yourself a few days peace.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but I didn’t need to hear it. I knew what he wanted to say. He didn’t want me to be that victim. He gave a shit. Maybe he was like this for everyone, but it didn’t matter. I still couldn’t help but relish the tiny spark of warm glow that it gave me.

“Okay,” I said quietly.

The smile he gave me in return was tinged with relief and worry.

“Hey,” I said before he could say anything else that would make the mood even weirder or break it entirely. “You wanna grab some coffee or something someday? I mean, some time when I’m not crawling with maggots,” I added with a laugh that sounded nervous to my own ears and probably sounded desperate and pathetic to his. I totally braced myself for him to hem and haw and say that he couldn’t or had a girlfriend or something. I was shocked instead when he gave me a nod.

“That sounds nice. And I’m cool with the no maggots thing too.”

We were saved from any more possible awkwardness by Derrel’s piercing whistle to get my attention. I looked over to see that the homicide detective was exiting the house.

“I’m up,” I said, as I pushed off the front of the Durango. “It was nice talking to you.”

“I’m going to hold you to that coffee,” he said, surprising me by giving me a wink.

I turned away with a silly grin on my face to collect a maggot-covered body.

Chapter 19

Dad called the next morning. I was expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Angel, it’s your dad,” he said after I answered. Not “Dad” but “your dad.” In case I wasn’t sure, y’know? “Baby, I’m real sorry about what happened.”

I sat on the couch and pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “I know. You were drunk.”

“I was wrong, honey. I . . . I dunno why I get so worked up.”

Because you feel like a failure, I thought. I’m a fuckup, which means you failed as a dad. But I wasn’t a fuckup anymore. Or at least not as much of one. He couldn’t see that. Or maybe he didn’t want to see it. Then he’d be the only loser in the house.

“Can you come bail me out, please? I been here a day and a half now. They keep it so goddamned cold in here, and I’m hurting bad.”

Shit shit shit. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Dad. Maybe if you tell them you’re in pain they can take you to the clinic?”

“Why can’t you come bail me out?” He sounded tired. Old. I felt older. Yeah, he’d been a complete piece of shit, but he wasn’t always like that. Not always. Sometimes he came through for me—like the day he took me to the ER with broken ribs and arm when I was twelve. I could still remember the dull pain in his voice as he told the police to go and arrest his wife, because he knew that if they didn’t she’d end up killing me. She’d been mentally ill—I could see that now. But all I’d known then was that Dad was saving me and at the same time betraying my mother. I’d loved him and hated him.

Still did.

The knot in my throat made it tough to talk. “I can’t,” I said, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Dad. I . . . don’t think they’ll let me bail you out,” I lied. “And I don’t have any money left, remember?”

He was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d hung up. It was only the noise of people talking in the background that told me he was still on the line. “Okay, baby,” he finally said. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I choked out.

Then the background noise cut off, and I knew he’d hung up.

I sat there with my head in my hands for several minutes, then called the jail up and asked to have my number blocked from the inmate phone system. He’d get out eventually, but I wasn’t going to help. And I couldn’t take any more calls like this.

Go me, I thought dully. I’m not that victim.

Chapter 20

I was starting to figure out that Derrel had a sixth sense-thing going on, where he knew exactly what to say to make people feel better. Even if sometimes that something was absolutely nothing. Not even an “I’m here if you need someone to talk to”—which is usually even more unhelpful than staying out of it completely. And that old “If you need anything, let me know,” is also a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but then you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, “Hey, remember when you said to let you know if I needed anything? Well, I’m feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, because if I could have a clean kitchen, I’d feel like I had a bit of a head start.” You’ll never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick.

What would be so much better would be for the person who spouted the useless “if you need anything just ask” platitude to fucking go over to the person’s house and clean their goddamn kitchen without being asked. Go over and say, “Hey, you go take care of your kid or your work, or go take a fucking nap. And when you get done, you’ll have a clean kitchen. And, no, you don’t owe me a goddamn thing. Someday the shoe will be on the other foot, okay?”

And that was the sort of shit that Derrel did all the time. He never breathed a word or a hint, but he was too tapped in to the gossip to not know what was going on with my dad. He didn’t ask me why I was so quiet, which was more of a relief that I could have possibly expressed. And no, he didn’t come over and clean my kitchen, but when I met him at a death scene later in the morning, he stopped me before we went inside the condo and handed me an insulated cup full of hot chocolate and a paper bag with an egg and bacon biscuit in it.

“You’re too skinny,” he told me. “And if you don’t eat it willingly, I’ll hold you down and make you eat it.”

I took the bag from him. I had absolutely no doubt that he would do exactly that.

“Besides,” he added with a wicked smile, “you should always be well fed going into a death scene. There’s nothing worse then puking on an empty stomach.”

“I have never and will never puke on a death scene,” I informed him around mouthfuls of bacon and egg biscuit.

He grinned. “I’m beginning to think this is true. You’re getting to be pretty damn hardcore. Amazing the stuff we can survive, isn’t it?”

It was the closest he ever came to saying something meant to be comforting. Yet I was more comforted and reassured and all that than I would have been if he’d given me a big ol’ hug or anything weird and touchy-feely like that. Actually, if he’d given me a hug I’d have probably freaked the hell out, because, well, that would have been seriously weird. But then again, I was about as far from touchy-feely as you could get. Unless you’re fucking me, don’t put your hands on me.