Inherit the Dead

parents.
    He didn’t answer her. He didn’t sense that she was interested in whatever tale he had to tell.
    “I need to make this one wrong right before I die.” She was staring at him, searching his face, and he felt a creeping discomfort. She wanted something from him that he wasn’t sure he could give. But he wanted to give it to her. He needed to find Angel, to be the one to bring her home to her mother. He wanted that for a million reasons, none of them pure or right or having anything to do with Angel.
    “What will it take?” She reached for him again, got his hand in her cold, hard grip. “There’s nothing that’s wrong in your life that I can’t fix, provided it can be fixed with money.”
    What would money solve in his life? He’d already lost everything: his job, his wife, his only child. Sure, he lived in a tiny apartment. But even if he lived in a palace, he’d live there alone, without the only people who meant anything to him. He couldn’t buy his way out of failure like Mrs. Drusilla seemed to think she could. The rich were different.
    “I don’t want your money,” he said.
    “Then what?” she said. She looked flustered, confused, but suddenly rejuvenated. She had the creamy skin of a much younger woman, a pretty blush to her cheeks. And her eyes glittered. Right now he wouldn’t have known she was ill if she hadn’t told him so. Even in her terrible thinness, there was something intense and vital about her. “What do you want?”
    He wanted not to be the man he was, a disgraced cop, an ex-husband, a part-time father. Maybe finding Angel wouldn’t change all of that. But maybe it was a start. His dad used to say, Every morning, you gotta face the guy in the mirror. Make sure you like him. He couldn’t remember the last time he truly liked himself. What did that even feel like?
    He pulled his hand from hers and walked over to the fireplace, his eyes scanning the room. Nothing had changed. There was not a photograph or a personal item in sight, not a book, an open magazine. Everything in here was for show, even the lovely, wasted woman on the couch.
    “Your ex-husband—”
    “Yes,” she said flatly, as if the conversation about Loki already bored her.
    “I just saw him, and he was—”
    “Drunk?”
    “More than drunk. He was completely out of control, belligerent, barely making sense, and—”
    “Were you expecting me to be surprised? When Norman drinks, he becomes a totally different person. I told you that. Alcohol is poison to him. It’s one of the reasons we—” She sighed. “You have to excuse him, Detective. If he was drunk, I’m certain he had no idea what he was doing or saying. He is upset by Angel’s disappearance: that’s why he’s drinking. It’s no excuse, but . . . ”
    “And do you know that your ex-husband is . . . ” Perry stopped. Did it really matter?
    “That he’s gay?” She offered a mirthless smile. “Of course. Norman and I led quite separate lives.”
    “And Angel?”
    “I have no idea what Angel knows or doesn’t know about her father.”
    Once again Perry found himself wondering what it was like to be Angel with these two people as parents.
    “Where would Angel go?” he asked, half thinking aloud. “If she was afraid, in trouble, if she just needed a break, where was her haven?”
    Julia shook her head, then sank it again into her hand. “I have no idea. Isn’t that awful? A mother who knows nothing about her daughter.”
    She released that strangled sobbing sound. But when she looked up at him, her eyes were still dry as dust.
    “A childhood friend, a boyfriend, a godparent?” he asked. He found himself watching her, for what he didn’t know. “Anyplace she felt safe, not judged.”
    “I hardly speak to my daughter,” said Julia. “She judges me, thinks everything is my fault. That’s the way it is with young people—everything’s black and white, no shades of gray.”
    He found himself agreeing, a way to keep her talking. “They’re so sure of themselves, aren’t they?” he asked. “So harsh in their judgments.”
    “Age brings wisdom, at least,” said Julia. “At least we’re smart enough to know that we don’t know anything—especially about each other.”
    “You had a visitor tonight,” he said. Just thought he’d toss it out there, see what kind of a reaction he’d get.
    She was too cool to startle, but he saw a micro-expression dance across her face. Anger, fear—he couldn’t tell. It