horrible as a dead body was, as soul-shattering and terrible as it was for a loved one to see that or hear about that from an officer of the law, the only thing that was worse was nothing. No answer to the “where.” No clue as to the “how” or the “why.” No opportunity to begin the mourning process and therefore no way of ever working through their grief to some kind of peace.
He hated the fact that undoubtedly José would have showed up at that shitty apartment Butch had been living in—just like the guy had always done when Butch had been too hungover to get out of bed—and found absolutely nothing. No partner smelling like scotch, passed out on the bed. No cranky bastard in the shower who was cutting himself while shaving because of the DTs. No off-balance asshat trying to put his pants on one leg at a time.
Nothing.
No body. No note. No answers.
And the thing was, José had been the kind of guy who would have been eaten alive by that. God knew, Butch had seen the man’s commitment to strangers. For his own partner? Who he had, for some unknown reason, cared about for years?
José would have searched for answers.
Seriously. For quite a while.
On occasion, even though it was a bad idea, Butch went out at night and put himself in the position of almost running into the guy. There was even one evening when he and Marissa had gone to a fancy restaurant and José had been there, across the way.
Butch had gone over. And spoken to the man.
Then reworked some of José’s memories.
But it didn’t feel like enough. And it wasn’t enough when it came to moments like this, when he wished he could call the guy and work through an issue or . . . in this case, a murder. Or two—assuming the first hadn’t been part of it all.
See? Exactly what he wanted to talk over with José.
Thinking back to his former partner, Butch tried to imagine what the man would say—and he could almost hear José’s voice: When you can’t connect the dots, get more dots.
Maybe what Butch needed to do was reach out to the race and appeal for help through social media. He could just open up the phone lines and the confidential email box and see what came back to him. He’d have to give Mai’s family a heads-up about it at nightfall, but then he could drop a post in the closed Facebook group for the race and send out an email blast to everyone who’d been by the Audience House.
And then what, he wondered—
When his cell phone went off, he nearly fell backward. And as he hung in the balance between landing on four legs and falling on his head, he had a crazy thought that José had psychically picked up on the vibe that he was needed and had mysteriously dialed the seven numbers that were connected with Butch’s new phone.
The chair hit the stone floor properly and Butch snapped up the Samsung. Turning the screen over, he—
Oh.
Accepting the call, he said, “Hey, Boone, what’s doing—” The barrage of words coming at him was so jumbled and frantic, all he could think of was, Fuck. For the most part, Boone was sensible, a measured and balanced kind of guy. Like, in that alley tonight: When Syn had been going nuts on some human, Boone had had the presence of mind to take care of an injured woman.
It took a couple of tries—but then the message got through, and all Butch could do was close his eyes and curse. This was bad. Really fucking bad. And P.S., what the fuck was that kid doing at Helania’s apartment overday—
Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He knew exactly why Boone had gone over there. And now the worst complication that could happen between members of the opposite sex had come home to roost.
’Urprise!
Popping his lids, he checked his watch. And of course it was one in the afternoon.
“Okay, Boone, here’s what I want you do—no, I’m going to take care of everything. But unless you want her to get pregnant, you need to lock yourself in a room—what? Yes, I know she’s suffering, but if you get in there with her, you’re going to end up with a young in about eighteen months. You need to lock yourself away