“Look. So your mother had a one-nighter, and the guy couldn’t deal. I know it dredges up old crap, but you need to stop projecting your own issues—”
“I’m not projecting anything. I just want to know where he is, and why he isn’t manning the fuck up and taking care of his business.” I set the bowl of chips down on the floor before I give into the slow froth of my temper and launch the stupid thing across the room. “It’s not my fault that grown men go missing every day and the police don’t give a shit.”
She clicks the compact shut with annoying finality. “You know what they say about guys who’re gone for this long. He’s probably dead.”
He probably is. And I have to know if my mother was behind it; have to know if she did it again.
I always thought what happened to my father was an accident. She got mad one night, got carried away, he pushed her too far with…something…she didn’t plan to kill him. Sure, heat of the moment murders are hardly unicorns and candy floss, but there’s something a lot more genuine about them than the pre-meditated kind. Something easier to forget, if not forgive.
“You know how it would look if we were caught trying to access the database,” Tuija says quietly. She prods at my knee; I warn her off with a glare. “In our line of work, we’d be hauled into court so fast we wouldn’t have time to grab our own asses.”
“How ignorant do you think I am?”
“You’re lying on your couch on a Friday night, zooming in on some strange girl’s boob.”
I’m treating a symptom. “I’m bored.”
“So we’ll play Scrabble.” She arches an over-plucked eyebrow.
“Unless you have delectable 34Bs, I’m good.” I wave her off the couch and reach for my beer again. “Now get out of my apartment, and don’t come back until you have a DNA match for Ash’s father.”
Tuija splays her fingers across her tits; they sit high in her tight dress, just a little too round and full to be real. “You said D cups were the ideal.” Her tone hitches in suspicion.
“Ideal on your frame. She’s thinner.”
When Tuij and I sat down with Dr. Price and designed her new body, I went for Jessica Rabbit. I wanted cartoon tits and ass, and boy, did she get them. Miss Michigan here is quite the opposite; shy, subtle beauty, the kind of girl who knows she’s attractive enough to give a guy a boner, but will never have a supermodel’s confidence. In other words, perfect for this particular purpose—a sordid game of cat and mouse—and Tuij, bloated with silicon as she is, is perfect for hers.
Of course I can’t say this kind of shit out loud. But I’d like to.
Wouldn’t you?
“We’re not gonna get the match,” Tuija says eventually. “We’re just not. All you have on this guy is a freaking freeze frame from a CCTV camera—I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
“I need a bigger fucking forensics department, evidently. You can start hiring.”
She gathers herself up, gets to her feet, and spits air right through her teeth. “Sometimes, I wish I’d just stayed on the drugs.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aeron
Family (collective noun): people who’ve been drinking your Kool-Aid for so long, they’d be dead lost without it.
If you listen to the media, sports fans, they’ll tell you the human brain is complicated. They’ll say you need a shrink and at least six self-help books to make any sense of it, and that all your dreams mean you’re afraid of failure and you want to fuck your uncle.
They’re wrong. The human mind is the simplest thing going. Although yes, on some level, you probably do want to fuck your uncle. Stop trying to scrub your skin off in the shower and move the hell on.