I leaned back into the cushions of the couch and groaned. He was right, of course. The police weren’t going to be happy with me for not having reported the death threats, but I was just going to have to suck it up.

“You still convinced you wouldn’t be better off with a bodyguard?” Adam asked me.

For half a second, I wondered if Adam really had sent me that hand, hoping to scare me into letting Saul stay in my spare room. But no, that wasn’t Adam’s style. He’d always been remarkably straightforward.

I guess I was quiet long enough that Adam assumed I hadn’t changed my mind—which I hadn’t.

“Maybe you should consider staying at Brian’s for a while,” he said. “And no, I’m not saying that because I hope you’ll let Saul stay in your apartment while you’re gone. It’s just that whoever’s threatening you is obviously escalating, and I suspect it’s going to get worse.”

Great. Just what I needed.

“I’ll deal with it,” I told Adam. I wasn’t any more likely to ask Brian to let me stay with him than I was to ask him for money at the moment.

Adam shook his head in disgust. “What is it with you? Why do you have to do every fucking thing on your own? Why can’t you accept help when it’s offered?”

I’d usually have bitten his head off for a comment like that, but I guess I was feeling rather vulnerable right then, so I answered him.

“I’ve learned from long, hard experience that the only person I can ever truly count on is myself. I just… don’t dare lean on anyone.”

He regarded me with cocked head and furrowed brow. I think he was genuinely concerned about my well-being, which was kind of a nice change. Usually, I had the feeling he only cared about Lugh and that he despised me.

“Is there some reason you can’t accept help and count on yourself at the same time?” he asked. “Just because you went to stay with Brian for a little while wouldn’t mean you were putting your entire life in his hands. You can still defend yourself even if you’re with him.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, and it was true. Adam couldn’t know the utterly devastating feeling of trusting someone and having them fail you. It was easier just not to trust, to rely only on myself.

I expected Adam to get mad at my obvious brush-off, but he didn’t.

“How do you know I wouldn’t understand?”

“Because you’ve never …” I let my voice trail off, realizing how foolish it was to make any kind of sweeping generalization about Adam. The fact was, I knew almost nothing about him other than what had happened since Lugh had joined me.

“Remember for a moment that there are basically two people in this body,” he said. “I suspect my host has dealt with more betrayals and disillusionment than you can possibly imagine.”

I knew next to nothing about Adam’s host, although I had met him briefly when Adam had— highly illegally—transferred to Dom’s body to heal what would have been a fatal gunshot wound. I’d decided from that brief meeting that Adam and his host were more alike than not, but I had no good way to justify that conclusion.

“What happened to your host?” I asked.

Adam was silent for a moment, perhaps consulting with his host to confirm it was all right for him to share.

“He came out when he was eighteen,” Adam said, “though by that time he’d already experimented with both men and women. He likes women just fine, but he prefers men. His entire family disowned him— mom, dad, two brothers, and a sister. His dad gave him a bunch of money, in exchange for which he was never to call or otherwise contact any member of the family again.”

I’d always wondered how Adam could afford his impressive house on a cop’s salary—even on the salary of a high-ranked cop. I guess this explained it. I swallowed hard, regretting that I’d insinuated he’d always had it easy. Adam and his host were obviously fond of one another, and assuming Adam had as much ability to read and understand his host as Lugh did, then he probably did understand exactly what it was like to be betrayed by the ones you counted on.

“I’m sorry,” I said, even though it was a lame, generic thing to say. Seriously, though, what else can you say to a confession like that?

“I’m sure in the end that my host is better off having no contact with his family. Such a toxic environment would have turned him inside out. But believe me, that doesn’t make it easy.”

I’m not sure if it was because I was so shaken up by the hand, or if it was because Adam and I were suddenly so in sympathy with one another, but I said, “I’ll see what I can do about staying with Brian for a while. And Saul can house-sit while I’m away if it works out.”

“It will.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be too sure.”

“Don’t tell me you two are fighting again.”

I winced. “Not exactly. We just had … an awkward moment, let’s say. We’re going to talk again today, and we’ll probably get it all hashed out and settled.” Wishful thinking, perhaps, but what else could I do? “I’ll let you know what happens.”

Adam nodded his agreement, then proceeded to call in his brothers-in-arms to investigate the hand.

After the men in blue were called in, I no longer had to worry about how to while away the hours of the day. If I’d called them about the death threats, they might have brushed me off, but it seemed like a hand in the mail made a definite impression.

At this point in my life, I had way too much experience being interviewed by the police. I knew that the questions would get repetitive, and that the repetition would irritate the crap out of me. I would then proceed to irritate the crap out of whoever was interviewing me, which would make the whole thing last longer.

Color me shocked, but the process went just about like I expected. As an extra giggle in this already fun-filled afternoon, I was lectured by some pimple-faced rookie with Dumbo ears about how I should have called the police sooner. I managed to refrain from lecturing him about the wonders of Clearasil.

The cops found a bunch of fingerprints on the bubble wrap, but I had a hunch they would all turn out to be mine. Adam was right—whoever was after me wasn’t stupid or careless enough to leave fingerprints. The cops would check the fingerprints they found anyway. Conveniently, my prints were already on file from when I’d been arrested for illegal exorcism. Lucky me.

It was well past my usual dinnertime, and the cops were just packing up to leave, when Brian showed up. This, of course, meant I couldn’t get away with any delay tactics—I had to tell him right away about the lovely gift I’d received. At least the police were gone by the time I finished giving Brian the details, though they had left plenty of fingerprint powder behind. Yay, an excuse to do some more cleaning!

When I’d finished telling Brian about my day, he leaned back into the cushions of the sofa and let out a heartfelt sigh.

“You’re just unbelievable,” he muttered.

“Hey!” I said, punching him in the shoulder. “It’s not my fault some wacko decided to send me a hand in the mail.”

He smiled faintly as he rubbed his shoulder. “I’m just saying that your life is too eventful to believe. I’m not saying it’s your fault.”

I couldn’t disagree with his assessment.

Since my day was already shot to hell anyway, I decided to add a little more stress and misery to my plate and forge ahead with the conversation I usually would have done my best to put off.

“So, are you still pissed at me?”

Another sigh. “I’m not pissed at you. I never was.”

“Your nose is growing, Pinocchio.”

He propped his elbow on the back of the couch and half turned to face me. “I wish you had told me what was going on before last night. I wish you could be a quarter, or even an eighth as open with me as you are with Lugh.”