“This is no good,” Tucker lamented quietly. “Our being apart, that is. And it’s not as if I’m married. Allison and I are legally divorced.”

“Go home, Tucker. Go catch a bad guy. I’ve got nothing to offer you but grilled cheese.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

Tucker brought me the water. He hesitated, then said, “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, Tucker.”

I set the water bottle aside on the end table, stood, and sort of steered him to the door. There, he laid his hands on my shoulders and brushed a kiss across my forehead, beneath my bangs.

I hoped he didn’t feel the tremor that went through me.

“Call me if you need anything,” he said.

“‘Call me if you need anything,’” Nick mimicked, from about a foot behind me. “Gag me with a kickstand.” If he’d been breathing, I probably would have felt it on my nape.

Tucker left. Reluctantly.

I closed the door and turned on Nick, ready to rip a strip off him.

But he was gone.

I looked around. “Chester?”

My cat was gone, too.

For a long time, I just stood there, trying to make sense of it all. Then, disconsolately, I went into the kitchen, picked up the plate I’d put out for Chester and dumped the tuna down the disposal.

I didn’t miss Nick. If he never came back, it would be too soon.

But I sure as hell missed the cat.

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

I SLEPT IN the living room, on the couch, figuring I’d be less likely to wake up and find Nick lying beside me, since he wouldn’t fit. I guess it worked, because he wasn’t there when I opened my eyes, but Chester was.

He sat on the coffee table next to Lillian’s three Tarot cards, which were standing in an ominous little row, propped against the big Mexican fruit bowl I’d bought at the flea market a couple of years before.

I swung my feet over the side of the couch, sat upright and rubbed my face with both hands. When I looked again, Chester was still there.

“Meow,” he said.

Okay, this was a major sign of my mental instability, but I was glad to see him just the same—sans the arrow from Geoff’s bow. I had mostly visceral memories of the cat, nothing very specific, but his bloody end was vivid in my mind. I knew I’d found him in the backyard of our place in Cactus Bend, behind the storage shed where my dad kept all the stuff he was constantly swapping. He’d called it “horse-trading.” I recalled that, too, all of a sudden, but there were never any horses.

That was Dad for you. All dreams and wishes, no substance.