“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’.”
With anyone other than my dad I’d have thought they were fucking with me. Once again I dug through the nonsense. “Someone was looking for me? And what was the deal with the car and the cop?”
He made an exasperated noise. “You’re makin’ this hard, Angel,” he said, and in that moment it was a damn good thing he was over a thousand miles away. “Your phone rang in the box and they figured something was wrong, ’cause phones don’t usually show up in the mail there. When the fake lawyer turned up, Allen saw right through it and didn’t tell her shit. Then Allen and Nick figured someone should check on me, so Nick came out. That’s when the car stopped out front being all suspicious and mysterious-like, and Nick called the cops. With the, er, trouble going on and everything,” he cleared his throat, “y’know, I figured I needed to get outta there. I was gonna go into town, but Nick brought me here instead.”
“Oh.” Holy shit, I actually understood him. “You’re staying with Nick?” And I still sounded like an idiot. “That’s really cool. Can I talk to him?”
“Sure. He’s right here.”
I heard some rustling and then, “Angel?”
“Nick!” The homesickness ratcheted up a notch. “What’s the deal with my dad?”
“I went to check on him, and a suspicious car stopped out front,” he said, automatically slipping into the cadence of giving a report or testifying. “He told me there’d been trouble before, and with you mailing the phone to yourself, and the woman looking for you at work, I thought it best to bring him here.”
“You’re so fucking awesome,” I said with a smile. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this. What did the woman look like?”
He cleared his throat. “Athletic-looking black woman with braids that reached to mid back. She had a business card, but there’s no firm by that name.”
Rachel Delancey, Tribe security second-in-command. Not a Saberton person. “Okay. I know who that is. I can’t imagine you’ll have any more trouble from her.” I doubted Rachel would do anything to hurt my dad. She was after Kyle, not me. “Are you sure you’re okay with my dad staying with you?”
“It’s no trouble. I have plenty of room.” Nick paused. “Are you okay? Your dad won’t tell me anything.”
Relief and regret coiled together. Nick was a good guy and would watch over my dad like his own, but there was no way I could let him know what was really going on. “I’m okay,” I told him. “I promise. I’m here with some other people. And, well, I can’t talk about it. Sort of a nondisclosure thing, y’know?”
“As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters,” he replied, voice upbeat but with a layer of stress and worry he couldn’t completely hide. “And you’re going to stay okay, right?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I will, I promise.”
“Good. Dr. Leblanc misses you, so come back soon.”
“As soon as I possibly can.” The homesickness swelled up again, and I had to quickly scrub at my eyes. “I miss you guys too.”
I caught a whiff of the scraggly druggie even as I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and only my zombie reflexes made it possible for me to twist away before he could snatch my phone. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, YOU GODDAMN LOSER!” Growling, I slammed the palm of my other hand into his chest to send him staggering back to fall on his ass. “And take a fucking bath!”
I heard someone frantically calling my name then realized it was Nick. I yanked the phone back up. “Hey, sorry about that, Nick.” I raised a fist and took a threatening step toward the druggie as he scrambled up. He backpedaled, then finally had a smart idea and hurried off. “Some dickwad here, uh,” I quickly shifted what I was going to say since telling him that someone had tried to steal my phone probably wouldn’t go over well, “he, um, keeps wanting a handout.”
“Angel, where are you?” he asked, worry thick in his voice.
“Across the street from my hotel,” I said glibly, avoiding a direct answer. “It’s all cool. Can I speak to my dad again, please?”
“But . . .” He sighed. “Sure.”
My dad took the phone. “What happened?”
I scowled. “Some fucking druggie tried to take my phone, so I knocked him the hell down. Stupid jerk.”
“Kick his fuckin’ ass!” He gave a quick cough, and I easily pictured his guilty glance at Nick. “I mean, that’s what he deserves, y’know.”
I laughed. “I got it covered. Don’t worry.” I wanted to tell him how messed up everything was, but I knew it would only worry him more. “It’s really good to hear from you. I love you and miss you.”