I’m just breaking rules right and left tonight.
“I’m sorry. Oh God. I’m so sorry, he was your father and— “
“Harlow’s mother is a nurse and she’s had extensive training in things of that nature. No schooling, but between her mom and working here, Harlow is quite capable of acting as a makeshift nurse if the need arises,” my dad blurts. “She could be beneficial, and since she works with us so often, it wouldn’t hurt to bring her in on this at some point.” He swallows hard. “Give her the heads upwhen you leave, would you, Sofie? That’ll be all— “
“He was a right bastard.” Mac reaches out and gently curls his fingers around the white cardboard I’m offering to him. “Beat our Ma on da daily most of our lives.”
Gus nods as his eyes drop to it. “Beat us too.”
“And our boys.”
“We tought… as he got older, he’d slow down, right? Wouldna had so much fight in him.”
Mac tightens his grip on the box. “We was wrong about him. Wrong about a lot. But me lad, he made tings right. Made ‘em right when we couldna.” His warm eyes lift to mine and my heart breaks at what I see. So much pain, so much hurt, so much remorse and regret, but now I know it isn’t for the remains of the man he’s holding. It’s because of him. And just when I’m ready to start bawling for all of them, Mac grins. “It shouldna been pretty, lass. Bastard deserved ta go out ugly, and yer right saying the Wulven Kings specialize in doing dat.”
Totally throwing the rule book—and possibly my sanity—out the window, I reach out and grip one of each of their hands and give them a firm squeeze. “Then I’m not sorry at all, not for the way a bastard met the ugly end he deserved.” They both look at me with curious smirks. “I’m sorry that it didn’t happen sooner to prevent all of the hurt he clearly caused before it did.”
Mac and Gus each give me a curt nod of approval as my dad clears his throat. “Right. Well, Sofie, thank you for your help. That’s all for tonight.”
And just like that, I’m excused.
* * *
“So stupid,”I grumble to myself as I stomp down the hall to the embalming room, shoving another cookie into my mouth. “The opposite of what you specialize in.God, that was stupid.”
I mean, I wasn’t wrong, I’m sure most members of that club make things messy and ugly when they need to be, and Mac and Gus didn’t seem to take offense, but God, saying something like that to the sons of a recently crematedguestof Berk Funeral Home is stupid no matter how you look at it.
With a sigh, I stop in front of the door, promptly dropping my forehead to it with a thud.
That could have gone way worse if those two weren’t as laid back as they are, but I’m sure my dad is going to light into me later for this shit anyway. And now Harlow is going to get dragged in… Not that she’ll care, she’d want in anyway, but that’s just double the reason for him to go psycho.
My best friend’s dad walked out on her and her mom when she was little, and after my mom left, my dad basically became her dad too. It’s just always been like that, and we even joke about our parents hooking up. I’m actually pretty sure they really are dating and have been since we graduated, but I’m not going to bring it up until I have proof because Harlow will run with it and make it weird.Weirderanyway.
“Har…” I sigh as I cram another cookie in my mouth and push into the embalming room. “Babe, you got a… and you’re not here.”
The room is void of people and the only light on is the one over the table. Which means Harlow left without locking up. Again.
So, I stroll over to the table, set down my napkin full of Oreos, then hop up on it with a grunt.
What a day.
What a few days, honestly.
Ever since going out to that garage to pick up what was left of Hamish MacAllister, I’ve been all edgy and uptight. Mainly because I knew it was going to turn into a thing with my dad. I was too at ease, too comfortable, too calm and clear-headed in a situation like that for his liking, and the fact that I could handle myself around guys like those bikers is another tick in the con column for Roland Berk’s list of reasons I should help him in the field.
I’m beginning to wonder if he took me to that scene in order to try to scare me out of this kind of work altogether.
Dad was reluctant from the get-go to have me answering calls, which is why he always encouraged undertaking and not my curiosity about the work he did as an M.E. Occasionally, when I was still in high school, he’d pull out an old case, give me certain details, and see if I’d come to the same conclusion he did about the cause of death, but that was the extent of it and he never showed me photos or went into graphic detail. It was something we’d bond over, the drive for knowledge and solving puzzles in the form of medical anomalies, but Dad never really let it go beyond that.
When he started working as an actual M.E. again, he’d sometimes pull me in as a consult on a case, but eventually that slowed to the point of stopping because of the violent nature of them.
I’m assuming it was because of that anyway; most of the cases he took on were illegal and dangerous, probably even cut and dry to some degree, like the one a few nights ago, but I have a feeling it was because my dad really didn’t want me to get involved in the lifestyle any more than I’d have to outside of the postmortem preparations.
At the end of the day, I know it’s because Dad is trying to protect me, but I think I proved that I could handle all aspects of what he does, and if he really wants me to take over the family business at some point, I’m going to need to be a part of whatever he has going with the Wulven Kings. Which is probably something he should have thought about more seriously since my father would definitely rather I be here embalming people and transferring his paper files to the computer than out on any calls, and that’s why it wouldn’t shock me if that scene at the garage was his way of trying to get me to quit on my own.
And since it didn’t work—and introduced me to Snipe, who he is clearly not a fan of—my dad is going to go bananas on me at some point, I’m sure.
I grab another Oreo and twist it apart carefully, leaving the cream filling intact before I peel it off the other side and set it on the napkin.
