DAVID SAT across the table from Mrs. Walker, the woman who ran the elder care program for St. Mary’s. In her fifties, she had short gray hair, bright brown eyes, and a warmth that made David feel at ease.
“From everything you’ve told me, your father seems like a handful. And I agree, you can’t trust him not to leave again. Locking him in is out of the question… it’s just not safe. You could put him in a facility, Mr. Delaney.” She gave him a sympathetic smile.
“He’s not ready for a home. I’m not ready.” David shook his head. Every time he entertained the thought of putting his dad away, guilt rose up like a B-movie monster and took a bite out of his stomach.
“I know. However, you’re going to have to face it in the future. And with this disease, there’s no telling how soon or how long it might be.”
“I understand. And when we get to that point, I’ll make the decision. In the meantime, I was thinking about someone coming into the house.”
“Like a babysitter? We can arrange for someone to watch him.” She nodded.
“Not a babysitter.” David leaned forward. “There’s no way he’ll stand for a babysitter, Mrs. Walker. He’s not that out of it, and he’s got a lot of pride.”
“Well, we just won’t call her that. You can tell him she’ll be your new housekeeper.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with deceiving him.”
At David’s frown, she chuckled. “It may be a necessary deception. For his sake, you understand. Don’t worry. This isn’t the first time we’ve placed a sitter in a home under the pretense of being a housekeeper. It’ll be easier for everyone, trust me.”
He shrugged. “Actually, I could use someone to keep the house clean and prepare his lunch. I’m sort of worried about him dealing with the stove and oven.” He grimaced as she nodded. “My workload is heavier this time of year, and I have to work late several times a week, so having a meal prepared on those days would be great.”
“All right. I have your name and address. When do you want to start the interview process? All the applicants I send you will have experience, and they’ll all know your needs in regard to your father.”
David smiled. Could it be that easy? “As soon as possible, I think.”
“I’ll call you when I have a list of people available. I suggest you do the initial interviews alone to weed out the candidates, but include your father in the final hiring process. Let him know you’re going to be looking for a housekeeper. Have him sit in on the meetings, and that way each of them will get a feel for the other. We want your father to feel comfortable too.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you, Mrs. Walker.” David stood and shook her hand.
Thank God there’d be a way out of this that saved his father’s pride and eased David’s guilt. And a clean house and meals would be a welcome bonus.
As he went down the steps of the church’s offices, he was practically humming. Maybe this was a good thing. It looked like a win-win situation.
He’d get someone to watch his dad.
Someone to keep his house clean and cook the meals.
Someone who just might let him have a life again.
Hope had been a stranger in David’s heart for so long he barely recognized it. Now it lived in the tingling that washed across his skin, the quickening of his heartbeat, and the hummed snatch of a song that slipped from his throat at one small thought.
Travis was going to call tonight.
TRAVIS LOOKED down at the body of a young woman. She lay in the back alley of the supermarket among stacks of plastic soda-bottle holders, her body splayed across two wooden pallets.
The needle was still stuck in her arm.
“Shit.” He hated these. Junkie overdoses. Wasted lives.
The crime scene photographer snapped a few more shots. “Anything else you need me to take?”
“Did you get the purse?” Travis motioned to the junkie’s canvas bag, its contents spilled over the damp cement.
“Yeah.”
“That’s it.”
“Okay.” The photographer nodded and slipped away.
Travis knelt, slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, and went through the purse. Nothing out of the ordinary. Her wallet was empty. No money, no credit cards. Finding them would have shocked him. You don’t wind up dead in a back alley with a full wallet. He pulled out her driver’s license.
Gabriella Ramirez.
She’d been twenty-two when she died. Eighteen when the license was issued. A pretty girl stared back at him, with long dark hair and dark eyes. He looked over at the dead girl’s face, just a fucking ghost of her former self that would join the host of the dead who haunted him.
What had happened to her in four years to bring her to this? Dead, a fucking needle in her arm, her skirt hiked up to show the world she hadn’t worn any panties.
She’d probably been a hooker and had used her last few bucks to buy the drugs and then come back here to shoot up. The lab work would probably confirm an overdose.
He put the purse and its contents in a plastic evidence bag, sealed it, and handed it over to one of the techs; then he stood and snapped off the gloves. What a fucking waste.
“All yours,” Travis told the two techs from the morgue. He turned away as they placed the body bag next to her. He didn’t need to watch. He knew the routine all too well.
Rubbing his eyes, he walked back to his car, opened the door, and dropped down onto the seat, sitting with one leg in and one out. He exhaled, then typed her name and license number into the onboard computer and checked for a last known address. Head back, eyes closed, he counted the seconds off as he waited. The computer came back with an address in southeast Houston.
He dragged his other leg in, started the engine, and pulled out of the alley, driving around the large store and toward the freeway.
This was the shittiest part of his job.
Notifying the deceased’s family.
TRAVIS SAT on the barstool, nursed his beer, and occasionally greeted some of the other cops around him. Why he was sitting in the bar across from the station when he should have been home was a mystery. Around him music pounded, but no one was dancing. Cops didn’t dance, not in cop bars, anyway. They just drank, smoke, and told horror stories.
The detectives Travis worked with knew he was gay. He didn’t make a big deal about it, and they didn’t either. In the Heights and nearby Montrose, gay was the flavor du jour, and the department had rules about harassment. Officially, you could be fired for being gay, but in reality, most of the dees didn’t give a crap who he slept with, as long as he didn’t care who they cheated with on their wives, husbands, and lovers. Let no one throw the first stone was their policy.
Most of the people in tonight that he recognized were detectives, but there were some off-duty uniforms here too. And most of them were probably divorced. Being a cop played hell with relationships; Travis knew that firsthand. Billy hadn’t been the first boyfriend who couldn’t handle his demanding job, his lousy hours, his crappy attitude. Or his nightmares.
He didn’t want to think about the dreams.
He signaled the bartender for another beer. His old beer disappeared and a fresh bottle replaced it, beads of condensation trickling down its amber sides. He didn’t usually drink, but this was his third since getting off-duty.
Just another clue about how depressed Travis was right now. Depressed and lonely.
He’d been lonely for a long time, even when he was fucking Billy. Billy had filled a physical need, but not Travis’s emotional needs, and in the short six months he’d spent with the younger man, Travis had realized there was much more to life than fucking.
Like someone to just talk to, to share your day, to understand you.
Shit, he was on the road to drunk, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d be crying in his beer before long.
It was the body. The overdose. He hated catching a body. He’d much rather work robbery, vice, fraud; anything but homicide. But at their small station, all the dees took whatever came over the phone.
The dead depressed him. Made him question… everything. The point of life. Why didn’t good win? Why did evil win so much of the time? Where had God been when that girl had stuck the needle in her arm for the first time, and where had he been this last time?
The drinking was definitely not helping.
Shit. He needed to get out of here, pronto.
He glanced at his watch. He had a phone call to make. An important call.
He shook himself like a dog coming out of water and pushed his beer, still full, away. Then he threw a twenty on the counter, slid off the stool, and made his way through the crowd, headed out the door and to his car.
Fresh air, loaded with today’s pollen, mold, and spore count, hit him in the face, and he sneezed as he crossed the street. Houston must be the allergy capital of the world, he thought as he hit his remote. The car beeped and unlocked.
After getting in and settling back, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contact list to David’s name. He could wait until he got back to his apartment, but he’d already wasted an hour in the bar, he’d had maybe one beer too many to drive yet, and it was getting late. With a deep inhale and a deeper exhale, he punched the Call button.
On the third ring, David answered. “Hello.”
“Hi. It’s Travis.” Phone tucked under his chin, he rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He hadn’t taken his allergy pill today, and he was paying the price.
“Hey, good to hear your voice.” David sighed, and the sound of it washed over Travis like a blanket of warmth.
“Yours too.”
“What’s up? You sound odd.”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t ‘nothing’ me. Something’s bothering you. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Can you? We’ve talked twice, and now you can tell how I feel by the sound of my voice?” Travis chuckled. Man, if only that were true.
“Yes. Don’t laugh. You sound tired… weary.” David paused. “Work?”
“Yeah.” Travis leaned back and closed his eyes. Pictured David sitting next to him. They’d hold hands, a sweet connection Travis wanted with another man. This man.
“Tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Look. This friendship thing goes both ways or no way. This isn’t all about me. I want to hear about your work, what you do, how it makes you feel.”
“Baby, you don’t know what you’re saying. My job is ugly and brutal. Not really the stuff for romantic pillow talk.” Travis grimaced. David had struck him as a gentle man with refined senses, and Travis wasn’t sure how he’d react to the sordid details of a cop’s daily grind.
“This isn’t about pillow talk. This is about sharing. And if you’re not going to share with me, I’m not sure this friendship can go anywhere.” David exhaled and lowered his voice. “Come on, honey… spill it. Tell your baby what’s got you so out of sorts,” he coaxed.
Travis’s dick went rock hard at David’s sexy-as-hell voice.
“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He sighed. “I caught a body today.” And with those words, his erection deflated.
“Caught? Like in your arms caught?”
“No. That’s cop talk for a case. Young girl, twenty-two. Drug overdose in a back alley of a shopping center.”
“Shit,” David whispered.
“She still had the needle in her arm.” Travis let out a ragged breath.
“Oh God, that’s horrible!” David gasped.
“Hey, you wanted to hear this. I can stop now, ’cause it only gets uglier.”
There was a long silence. Then David said, “No. Tell me. All of it.”
“I had to tell her family.”