“Lost it,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Again?”

He shrugged, unconcerned with the phone or the lie. He shoved up the sleeves of his jersey, displaying a blue-inked sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. A tat artist’s masterpiece, the work of art ran from shoulder to wrist, depicting an epic battle of good and evil, complete with a horned demon and an avenging angel.

Nikki always wondered which character represented Speed. The conclusion she inevitably came to was both. Working undercover narcotics, Speed Hatcher’s world was gray with the rot of moral ambiguity. He was both the good guy and the bad guy, depending on the scenario, depending on the point of view. He had always been too comfortable with that dichotomy. What made him so very good at his job made him equally bad at being a husband and a father.

“I smell chili,” she said, choosing diplomacy. “Hungry, R.J.? Or have you guys spent the whole afternoon eating junk?”

“Both,” R.J. said, tossing the Nerf ball back to his father.

“Where’s Kyle?” she asked, turning for the kitchen.

“Who cares?” R.J. crabbed. “He’s a jerk.”

“He went to a friend’s house,” Speed said.

Nikki turned back around. “And you let him?”

“Sure. What’s the big deal?”

“R.J., please go wash up for dinner,” she said pointedly.

Her son rolled his eyes. “Are you guys gonna have a fight already? Jeez, Mom. You just got here.”

“We’re not having a fight; we’re having a discussion,” Nikki said. “And not in front of you, so as not to further warp your perception of male-female relationships. Go wash up.”

Father and son exchanged a glance and a shrug that clearly said, Women. What can you do? R.J. bounded up the stairs.

Nikki put her full attention on her ex, giving him a meaningful look as she stepped across the hall into her small home office. He followed, rolling his shoulders back like a fighter getting loose before the bell. She closed the door behind him.

“Did you truly not get my messages?” she asked. “Kyle was in a fight last night. He’s got half a concussion. How could you just let him go?”

“What was I supposed to do? Arrest him?”

She thought her eyes might burst from her head at the sudden rise in her blood pressure. Her jaw hurt from biting back a flood of angry words. “Did you speak to him?”

“About what?”

“Oh my God, I want to hit you in the head with a brick,” she said. “I don’t know what would be worse—believing you’re a flip asshole or believing you really are just that obtuse.”

Speed rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Nikki, he’s a fifteen-year-old boy. He got in a scrape. It’s not the end of the fucking world.”

“He lied to me about it.”

“Did you miss the part where I said he’s a fifteen-year-old boy?”

“Kyle does not lie to me. He didn’t inherit your comfort with it, thank God,” she said. “He lied to me about what happened. I believe he lied to me about where he was when it happened—”

“Have you checked his story out?”

“I’ve been at an autopsy all afternoon.”

“And your vic is going to get more dead while you take the time to make a couple of phone calls?”

Nikki gasped. “Don’t you dare give me a hard time about making a phone call! You can’t even be bothered to answer when I leave you a message that your son is in trouble. And don’t give me that bullshit story about losing your phone. I called every number you have. Why don’t you just say you don’t give a shit?”

“You overreact to everything, Nikki! A kid gets a fucking hangnail and you’re texting me with the 911! So he got in a scrape. So he got popped. So he hit the kid back. So what?”

“Thank you for reminding me yet again why I’m not still married to you. You don’t get this at all, do you?”

“I guess not. Never mind that I was a fifteen-year-old boy once.”

“You’re still a fifteen-year-old boy,” Nikki argued. “That’s half the problem.”

“And what’s the other half?” he asked. “Not you. Not you blowing every fucking thing out of proportion.”

“When am I supposed to bring you into the equation, Speed?” she asked. “When are you available for consultation on this? He’s having problems at school—a kid who has never had problems at school. He’s having problems getting along with other kids—a kid who has never been in a fight in his life. He’s lying to me about where he’s going and what he’s doing—a kid who has never told me a lie. Just when are you willing to get involved here, Dad? When am I supposed to call you? When he’s jacked an automatic weapon and gone into school with guns ablazing?”

Speed slapped his hands to the sides of his head as if to keep it from popping off his neck. “That is so you, Nikki! You jump from A to fucking Armageddon! He’s embarrassed to tell you he got his ass kicked, and you’ve got him planning the next Columbine massacre. Jesus!”

“And you don’t find any of this alarming in the least?” she said. “Mr. Drug Enforcement Officer. A fifteen-year-old boy’s grades are suddenly slipping. He’s having trouble with friends. He’s lying to his parents and exhibiting secretive behavior. This doesn’t send up a red flag with you at all?”

“Kyle’s not using,” he said, and though his attitude was dismissive, Nikki thought she might have caught the briefest flash of alarm in the very backs of his blue eyes. “He’s too smart a kid for that.”

“He’s fifteen,” Nikki said, happy to throw one of his own lines back at him.

Speed physically took a step back from the argument, resting his hands at his waist, and blew out a sigh. “I’ll have a talk with him when he gets home.”

“Thank you.”

They both stood there, breathing hard, as if they had been wrestling physically as well as verbally. The fight was over. All the hard energy had been burned off. Awkwardness descended. So strange, Nikki thought. They’d spent so many years fighting, it didn’t make any sense that they still felt awkward in the aftermath.

“You’d know if he was using,” Speed said quietly. His kind of reassurance.

“Would I? I don’t know, Speed. I don’t know the world these kids live in. It changes every day. Used to be they smoked pot or they did speed. Kids with money could afford cocaine. These days it’s synthetic grass and bath salts—whatever the hell that is. They mainline heroine, and they make their own meth out of cold medicine. They know more about prescription drugs than most doctors. It scares the hell out of me.”

In that moment it was only worse that she was a cop and that she knew things and had seen things other parents only read about in the newspaper, unless they were unlucky enough to have a child mixed up in it.

“I spent the afternoon at the autopsy of a girl Kyle’s age,” she said. “Someone stabbed her seventeen times and poured acid on her face while she was still alive. How did that happen? How did a girl Kyle’s age come to be in a situation like that? What did her mother not know about her life?”

To her horror, tears filled her eyes. She was one tough cookie in every other respect, but not when it came to her boys. In that she was as vulnerable as any mother, fearful of what the world was capable of doing to her children.

“We know how that happens, Nikki,” Speed said softly. He put one hand on her shoulder and stroked the other one over the back of her head. “She was a junkie or a hooker or a runaway. Her life put her in harm’s way, and some predator took advantage. You’ve seen it a hundred times. So have I.”

Too tired to tell herself not to, she slipped her arms around Speed’s waist and pressed her face into his shoulder. He folded his arms around her and held her.

She had seen it. She did know how it happened. Sometimes. Not all the time. And the question still remained. Even if their ninth girl had been a junkie or a hooker or a runaway, the question still remained: What did her mother not know about her life that might have prevented her death?