Page 5 of Torch Songs

“Yeah, I watched it too. You’re right. It’ll be fun, but—” He glanced around as though this was a state secret. “—me and Robin have started waking up early, having coffee together. I mean, it’ll be summer soon, she’ll have her summer job, then school. I’m gonna miss my baby.”

Tad smiled wistfully. He and his sister had been raised by a single mom, a constantlyexhaustedsingle mom, and moments like a cup of coffee with their parent had been really important. “You’re a good dad,” he said, fighting the lump in his throat. “I’ll cover for you.”

“Look at you, fuzzing the line like an old pro.” Chris grinned at him, and Tad thought for the umpteenth time that he was damned cute. He had the eyes that crinkled in the corners and sparkled, and the strands of gray in his black hair only added to the sex appeal. But Chris was too good a mentor to be a crush—being partnered up with him had been one of the best things to happen to Tad in the last year, and he wouldn’t clutter that up with a hopeless infatuation.

“Well, just know I’ll be out of town this weekend. I mean, I can get here, but I’ll be in Bodega Bay, so, you know….”

“Three hours away,” Chris said soberly. “How’s she doing?”

Of all the people in the department, Chris was the one who knew where he’d be.

Tad held out his hand and wobbled it from left to right. “We’re stuck right now,” he said on a sigh. “She… she doesn’t do well in cities. She really does need a smaller town. But she keeps running into her old crowd, and that’s no good either. She won’t leave the halfway house right now, and the thought of coming to Sacramento makes her cry.” Or it had six months earlier. Maybe that had changed?

Chris blew out a breath. “How’s the halfway house?”

Tad cringed. “Gross,” he said. Some of those places were nice, clean, newer, with a staff that was young and idealistic and ready to care. This place was small, the house was old, the staff was apathetic at best. Tad had worked to find a better one in the area, but Bodega Bay was a beachside town, no matter how popular. Much of the population was seasonal, and the seasonal population wasn’t excited about paying for other people’s problems.

Chris nodded. “Well, I don’t have a long-term solution for you, kid, but I can tell you that your weekend is yours. How’s that?”

“Thanks, Chris.” He hoped the gratitude in his voice was crystal clear.

“Good, now thatthat’ssettled, do we have the labs on the Reeves murder?”

Tad grunted. “No. And yes, before you ask, I tried to light a fire under the techs, but you know….”

“Backlog, backlog, backlog.” Castro rolled his eyes. “Any leads at all?”

Tad bit his lip—a tell, but he meant it to be in this instance. “Well…,” he said, “their cousin, the one who wassohelpful in the first interview?”

“Yeah?” Chris held out both hands and made a “gimme-gimme” motion.

“Would you like to know how much gambling debt he has?”

“Ooh.” Chris made a little moue of excitement. “Is it more than my salary? As big as the gross national product? I’m all aflutter!”

Tad chuckled, feeling the excitement of the hunt in his bones. “Yes to the first, no to the second. Think we should pull him in, or do we need to do more digging?”

“Let us dig,” Castro said, waggling his eyebrows. “Could be the young man already has enough dirt for us to make a big ole hole.”

Tad pumped his arm like he’d done in high school when he’d caught a pass in football. “Booyah! Forensic accounting. It’s got me all atingle!”

Castro laughed, and Tad took his seat at the desk across from his partner, and together they moved on to their favorite part of the day.

“SO YOUgot everything you need?” Tad asked, trying not to glance around April’s depressing room for the umpteenth time. He’d done everything he could for it. He’d gone shopping with her for curtains, helped her pick out a bedspread, all in shades of pink and pale yellow—even hit internet sales for crocheted afghans like their mother had made them when they were kids. Most of those blankets had disappeared after their mother had passed on, and April had… well, disappeared herself.

Tad took a deep breath and tried not to think of April’s pink blanket with pink-and-purple butterflies crocheted in the center of pink-and-white granny squares, surrounded with a white border. Their mother had made it for her when she was, what? Seven? Eight? She’d loved it. It had graced every snuggle in front of the television, every blanket fort, every beloved book from that moment on.

April had dragged it with her when her drug addiction had taken her to the streets in search of a john, in search of a fix. By the time Tad had found her, wrapped up in its tatters, the thing had needed a ritual burning, along with her clothes.

And her hair.

He shuddered, hauled back to those terrible weeks and the things he’d done to get her clean. God, all that because of a blanket.

Fucking blanket.

Tad couldn’t findthatone, but he’d found others, in other colors. “Different,” he’d said. “But, you know—Mom’s heart is still here.”

April had clung to them. She’d even learned to crochet, like their mother, in rehab, and, along with the curtains and the new bedding, the new clothes—and the ones sourced from thrift shops—a plentiful supply of super colorful yarn in boxes and bags were scattered around the tiny room with its hand-me-down furniture and scratched hardwood floor.

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