Page 248 of Avenging Angel

That meant, since Homer knew everyone and everything, otherswere.

Damn.

I pointed out the obvious. “I’ve gotta know if he’s all right.”

Homer gazed around the dismal space that looked bad and smelled worse.

I took his point.

If Jeff was here, he wasn’t all right.

Then again, I already knew he wasn’t all right.

Just as I knew, the minute Mom kicked him out seven months ago, and he didn’t do his usual—bunk with one of his buds, then figure his shit out and get back on his meds—I would be doing what I was doing right then.

And there I was, doing what I was doing right then.

We moved through the space, silently handing out waters and protein delivery systems, with me looking closely at faces and trying to peer into tents.

I came up empty.

As usual.

When we were back at Homer’s tent, he took the spent plastic bags from me (something else I’d learned: Homer had a thing for plastic bags), but handed me the clattering sharps container.

“It’d be good you bring syringes next time,” he said.

With that, he ducked into his tent and disappeared.

I stared at it, the feelings I was feeling balling up inside me, the weight so heavy, the urge was almost overwhelming to open my mouth and shriek my fear and frustration to the skies above Phoenix.

I didn’t do that.

I carried that weight with the container and my empty backpack to my car.

Though, I didn’t make it to my car.

I stopped dead twenty feet away when I saw Eric Turner, investigator at Nightingale Investigations & Security. The place of business of Eric, Cap (my friend Raye’s boyfriend) and a number of other badasses who were all ridiculously attractive.

Yep.

Every.

Single.

One.

His ass was resting on the fender of my black convertible Mini, his long legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, his arms also crossed on his chest.

He’d been there a while.

Waiting for me.

Okay, one could say, until I met Eric, I hadn’t been into older guys.

And he wasn’t older,as such.

It was just that he belonged to the first generation of the Hot Bunch guys of NI&S (Raye had dubbed the younger generation the Hottie Squad so we could tell them apart, something that was necessary due to their overall concentrated level of hotness, which was so high, it was immeasurable, so we had to pry them apart somehow).

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