“Not Dad,” he said. “Not even a little. It was like she just papered over the gap where he’d been.”
That was…
Davy rubbed the back of his neck and poked dubiously at the Albie-Rosen-shaped hole in his memory. It was stupid. So he didn’t remember one of Fraser’s little lapdogs, who thefuckcared?
And why did it make Davy so mad?
He didn’t know.
“The dead are only what we remember,” he said and absently reached down to rub his fingertips over the wound that carved through his tentacle. “Cut a bit off and whatever memory was there is gone, but even the Company doesn’t know how to carve out one particular memory. Even if they did…why? What was so special about Albie Rosen?”
It was, Davy registered a moment too late, a cruel question to ask a man’s son.
“Nothing,” Hill said bitterly. “Nothing at all. Ask anyone. Even me.”
They stared at each other awkwardly, and then Davy reached out and patted Hill’s shoulder with a tentacle. Hill reached up to cover it with his hand, the brief, grateful squeeze making Davy bite the inside of his lip.
The tentacle-to-cock transfer was still in play.
He cleared his throat, retrieved his tentacle, and tried to redirect the conversation to something hecoulddo something about.
“You said she remembered Fraser?”
Hill shuddered. “In disturbing detail,” he said. “Apparently they…you know…before my dad died.”
OK, Davy did know. He wasn’t going to ask any questions. It was probably less disturbing to think about your little brother fucking than your stepdad doing it. It still wasn’t something Davy wanted to dwell on.
“So the slip from memory has nothing to do with the Invocation,” he said. “Maybe—”
Hill missed that. He snapped his fingers and then slapped his palm against his forehead.
“She gave me a name.”
“What?”
Hill flapped his hand in the air as he looked around. His gaze skimmed over where his computer had been, and then he patted down his pockets.
“I need a phone,” he said. The words tripped over themselves as his voice sped up with excitement. “Or a laptop. Something—”
“Who are you going to call?” Davy asked. “Death? The Hounds?”
Hill took that in and gave him an exasperated look. “Fine.Youneed a phone. Do you still have the burner?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Davy said as he headed into the kitchen. The last place he’d thrown the burner had been into the cutlery drawer. “But polters and tech tend to—”
He fished the lime-green Samsung out and held it up. Or rather whathadbeen a lime-green Samsung; the case was blackened and partially melted, the screen cracked and smoke-glazed.
“Urgh,” Hill said in frustration. “If I’d remembered earlier, but she told me just before the Hounds and I forgot. Fuck.”
Davy dropped the phone back into the drawer, bumped it shut with his hip, and headed over to the couch. He leaned on it, the cushion still sweaty and warm from his ass, and dragged Fraser’s duffel out.
“It’s Christmas,” he said as he pulled the bundle of cash out and flashed it at Hill. “I assume everywhere still stays open late. We can buy a new one. I need to get a costume for tomorrow’s party anyhow.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dec 23, 8pm
“You never did tellme how you pulled the costume party off,” Hill said. He poked the bag at Davy’s feet with his toe. It didn’t crinkle with the contact.
