“Maybe you’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
She bit down, hesitated, then said, “I know you, Charley, and I don’t think you’re really mad at anyone but yourself.”
I straightened. “Why would I be mad at myself?”
She offered me a compassionate smile. “Exactly. Why would you be? And yet here you are. As always. Angry with yourself for … for what? Because Earl Walker broke into your apartment? Because you were attacked? Because you couldn’t fend him off?”
I frowned. “You’re wrong. I’m not mad at myself. I’m great. I’m full of awesome sauce. Have you seen my ass?”
She threw an arm over my shoulders and squeezed. “Sorry, kiddo. You’re not fooling anyone except maybe yourself. So, what do you think about this guy who goes by the title of son of Satan? Any hope for him?”
She slipped me the picture back, facedown. I kept it that way. “There might just be. The jury’s still out.”
“Well, tell it to hurry. That guy needs to come around more often. He’s like a Brazilian supermodel drenched in sin.”
“That’s a good description.”
“I think so. But I have to ask: Why Apple?”
* * *
It was odd. Sleeping with Gemma and having Aunt Lil, even passed out in the belief that she’d gotten stone-faced drunk, in the other room did prove comforting. Not terribly, especially when Gemma started whimpering in her sleep or when she slapped me for being a pirate—that girl had issues—but enough to help me get some rest.
I still woke up pretty early, though. Partly because construction workers started their days earlier than God. But mostly because Gemma was rushing around, trying to find her pants. She was wearing them when I herded her to the bed, so I wasn’t even going there. But she kept running into things. Thank goodness I wasn’t terribly attached to that macaroni statue of Abraham Lincoln. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was still wasted, and I could hardly wait to see what Cookie looked like.
I hopped in the shower again, more as an icebreaker to the day than anything. Disturbing images kept dancing around my head: Garrett in hell. Reyes fighting the demon from yesterday. Cookie trying her hand at pole dancing. It might have worked had there been an actual pole, but I gave her extra points for her ability to mime it.
After dressing in jeans, a chocolate brown cowl-neck sweater, and old, faded boots that gathered at the ankles, I stepped out of my room to face another day outside my humble abode. It was too bad, really. These days, I liked the innards of my humble abode much better that its outtards. But there were cases to solve and people to bug the ever-lovin’ crap out of. I figured I’d start with Harper’s infamous stepbrother, see how bad he wanted her gone. Or to drive her insane. That possibility had been at the back of my mind for a while. He would definitely benefit with Harper out of the way. At the very least, his inheritance would double.
Wondering where Aunt Lil had gotten off to, I grabbed my bag and sunglasses and headed for the door. Unfortunately, someone beat me to it. A tap sounded a heartbeat before I reached the knob. I opened the door and found the last person on the planet I would expect to see gracing my doorstep.
Undeterred, I slipped my sunglasses on. “I was just leaving,” I said to Denise, the stepmother from hell. Then a thought hit me: Maybe Garrett never went to hell. Maybe he ended up in my parents’ house by mistake. That would explain the screams and the moans of agony.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked. “It won’t take long.”
Denise was one of those women that other people thought was sweet. She had a nice smile and a great sense of theatrics. But she was about as sweet as a starving pit viper in a basket of rats. At least to me, the step-fruit of her loins.
We’d never really gotten along. She’d started openly disliking me when I kept bugging her to tell me stories about her childhood, what it was like to run with the dinosaurs. After that, she’d give me these glares made of liquid nitrogen that could instantly freeze the best of intentions. I’d learned my most effective glares from that woman. That was something to be thankful for, I supposed.
With a long, taxed exhalation, I stepped to the side and invited her in with a gesture. She stopped short when she saw the condition of my apartment, and I secretly begged her to say something. Anything. Any excuse to kick her ass out of my apartment. I had to put up with her at family functions, and I did so willingly around Dad and Gemma, but not here. Not in my sacred space. She could bite me if she thought I was going to grin and bear her condescending glances under my own rented roof.
She seemed to recognize this fact. Her survival instincts kicked in. She recovered with a blink and eased farther inside, sidestepping a box and a pair of khakis.
Trying not to wonder how Gemma was faring without her pants, I led Denise to my living area—about five steps from the door—sat down, and offered her my best scowl. “What can I do for you, Denise?”
She sat cattycorner to me and squared her shoulders. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”
“And your phone isn’t working?”
She bristled under my sharp tone. It wasn’t like her to endure my attitude without a fight. Demureness was not in her blood. She must really be desperate. “You aren’t accepting my calls,” she reminded me.
“Oh, right. I forgot. So, what can I do for you?”
She took a tissue from her bag, took off her sunglasses, and made a show of cleaning them.