Part 22 (1/2)

”Screw you, Justice. I have plenty of imagination. Now this is a toy.”

Ash reached into his box, pulled something out, and threw it at Dex. The pink-and-blue Nerf football hit Dex in the head and bounced off.

”A toy that causes physical pain. How could it not be your favorite?”

Sloane, Tony, and Cael laughed while Dex and Ash continued to debate the plausibility of several cartoon characters. Five hours and twenty-nine boxes later, all they'd come across were toys, books, games, videos, and trading cards. Everything was in top condition but well loved. His more collectable stuff, sealed in its original packing, was stored upstairs in his attic. Maybe now that Sloane had moved in they could fix it up. Dex had always wanted to do more with that s.p.a.ce than stuff it with more boxes.

”Hey, check this out. I haven't seen one of these in years.”

Sloane pulled out an old-school tape recorder. It was big and clunky, but Dex remembered when it had been state-of-the-art.

”My dad loved that thing. He was a total tech geek. He was always bringing back the latest gadget. He'd tinker with it, take it apart.” Dex laughed at one particular memory. ”One day my dad brought home this super fancy answering machine that cost G.o.d knows how much at the time, only to take it apart. Then, when he tried to put it back together, it caught fire. Don't know how he did it. It used to drive my mom nuts.”

Ash snickered. ”Guess we know where you get your talent for causing property damage.”

”Don't get me started,” Tony muttered before his lips curled into a smile. ”Chief used to say a prayer every time he sent us out on a call. Chances were if Daley was a.s.signed a case, something was gonna blow up.”

Tony laughed, a warm, rich sound that sadly Dex didn't hear often enough.

”We were on stakeout for this homicide case we were working, and John got hungry. So he popped into this convenience store down the block to grab some chips and a sandwich. I don't know what he did, but one minute he's inside, next thing I know he's running straight for me like the devil himself was chasing him, yelling 'Start the car! Start the car!' And I have no idea what's going on, but I start the car. Next thing I see is some big guy chasing John down the sidewalk waving a hefty slab of salami. John jumps in the car as I take off. We're burning rubber, and I ask him what the h.e.l.l happened. Turns out they had one of those old-school food automat things where you pop in a dollar's worth of quarters and it gives you a sandwich.

”So John decides he wants some pie too, and he puts in the money, and that thing just blows a fuse or who the h.e.l.l knows. The doors fling open, trays go flying, food's. .h.i.tting the ceiling, the walls, the floor. It's like the thing short-circuited or something, and the more John tried to fix it, the worse it got. When the owner came around and saw the thing going berserk and John trying to stop the food from catapulting out, he lost it.”

Dex was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He could picture his dad trying to stuff all the food back where it was supposed to go, panicking, and then taking off, waving his arms as he yelled at his partner to start the car.

”So what happened next?” Cael asked with a giggle, Ash and Sloane still laughing.

”I stop the car about five blocks down, ready to punch him in the face, and he holds up a bag of my favorite chips and a can of Diet c.o.ke, and he says, 's.h.i.+t, I forgot to get you a napkin.' I took one look at him, whip cream in his hair, a slice of swiss cheese hanging off his shoulder, and various other foods covering his person, and I all but peed myself laughing.”

Dex wiped the tears from his eyes, hoping no one would notice that they were as much for how much he missed his dad as they were for the hilarity of the story. He appreciated how Sloane, Ash, and Cael asked Tony to tell them more about his and John's shenanigans on the job. Every so often Sloane would meet Dex's gaze and smile warmly at him, letting him know he was there for him if Dex needed anything.

An hour later they took a break for some pizza and listened to Tony tell a few more stories of Dex's parents before they got back to work. They'd checked roughly half the boxes in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

”Aw, looks like there was a mini tech geek too,” Sloane said, grinning broadly as he held up a red Walkman with cartoon stickers on it and matching red headphones. Tears welled in Dex's eyes, but he kept them at bay.

Tony chuckled. ”You used to love that thing. Never went anywhere without it.”

”My parents bought it for me on my second birthday.” Dex gently took the cherry-red Walkman. It looked just as it did when he was five years old. The last time he'd played it. He hadn't wanted to listen to it much after his parents died. ”You never let me give up the music,” Dex said softly, turning to Tony. ”I was so lost and angry. I didn't want to do anything that reminded me of them, and music was such a huge part of their lives, of our lives. I didn't even want to look at it.”

”But Dad would play music in the house and take us to the movies,” Cael said, wrapping his arms around Dex and squeezing him tight. ”He didn't want you to lose that part of them. It meant too much.”

Dex was too choked up to reply. He didn't know what he would have done without Tony. His adoptive dad had seen him through the dark times. He'd only been a small boy, but he'd begun to retreat into himself, shy away from everything and everyone. Tony had been there with him every step of the way to make sure he didn't lose himself or the memories of the parents who'd loved him.

”What's this?” Sloane asked, holding up what looked like a s...o...b..x.

Dex walked over to Sloane and smiled. ”s.h.i.+t, I forgot about those.” He gently took the s...o...b..x covered in stickers and childhood scribbles.

”Why is that lion wearing a lab coat?” Sloane asked with a chuckle.

Dex arched an eyebrow at him. ”That's not a lion. It's Doc Brown.”

”Oh. Well, it looks like he has a mane.”

”Honestly.” Dex shook his head in shame at Sloane. He looked around the room. ”Where's that tape recorder you found?”

Ash glanced in the boxes around them before reaching into one. ”Here it is.” He pa.s.sed it to Cael, who turned it over to Dex.

Propping the player on one of the sealed boxes, Dex pulled the shoelaces securing the box loose and opened it, a big dopey smile on his face. ”They're mixtapes. My dad used to make them for me.” He looked through the tapes of cla.s.sic rock and old eighties tunes. Man, he'd played the h.e.l.l out of these things. Every day he'd listen to them. His mom set rules, allowing him to listen for a certain amount of time. Otherwise he would have just sat there in his own little world of pop tunes playing pretend as the world went on around him.

”My birthday mixes are all here.” He went through the tapes, each one written in his dad's barely legible handwriting. He'd drawn little stickmen with guitars or mullets on some of them. He came across a few he couldn't remember. ”Hm. That's weird.”

”What is it?” Tony asked, walking over to him.

Dex showed him the ca.s.sette. ”Bee Gees. 'Smoke and Mirrors.'”

”Why is that weird?” Ash asked.

”I don't remember this tape.”

”That's not hard to believe,” Sloane said gently. ”You were five, Dex.”

Dex held up one of the black ca.s.sette tapes labeled ”Dex's Birthday 1984.”

”There are forty-eight songs on this tape, and I can list them all. I can tell you every song that's on each one of these tapes, except for these five here.” He slotted the ca.s.sette back into the s...o...b..x before holding up the first in the lineup. The Bee Gees tape. ”I have no idea what songs are on here, or the other four. Not to mention all these other tapes are sixty minutes in length while these five are one hundred eighty.”

”Let me see that for a second.” Tony took the tape from him and inspected it. ”This is Gina's handwriting.”

Dex stared at him. ”Mom?”

Cael studied one of the unfamiliar tapes. The other four also had his mom's handwriting.

”Why do you sound so surprised?”

”Dad was the one who made the mixtapes. Mom did video. She wasn't a fan of the recorder.” He pressed the Eject b.u.t.ton, then slipped the tape into the recorder before pressing Play. It was weird of his mom to have made a tape. Had she just forgotten to give it to him? The gentle melody and soft lyrics of the Bee Gees song hit a little too close to home, and Dex couldn't help the tears that filled his eyes. He smiled and went to turn it off when the song faded and a voice he never thought he'd hear again had his heart in his throat.

”Hi, baby. It's Mom.”

”Oh G.o.d.” Dex covered his mouth with his hand as the tears rolled free. His hands shook, and he closed his eyes as he felt Tony's hand on his shoulder. Her voice was just as he remembered. Over the years it had started to fade, no matter how hard he'd clung to his memories of her, of the times she'd read to him, of her beautiful voice as she sang to him, little by little they became harder to recall. It was so good to hear her voice.

”I know how much you love your dad's mixtapes, so I'm confident you'll hang on to them. You're such a good boy, Dex. I know you've grown up to be a good man, and handsome, just like your daddy. I'm sorry we couldn't be there to see it. There's so much I want to say to you. The truth might be hard to hear, but no matter what happens, what you feel, please never doubt that your father and I loved you with all our hearts. What we did-”

Dex threw a hand out and stopped the tape. ”I don't think I can do this.”

”You don't have to,” Tony offered gently. Dex turned to him and tried his hardest to keep his emotions under control, but it was so d.a.m.ned hard. It hurt. It hurt so f.u.c.king much. Dex caught movement from the corner of his eye and was aware of Sloane ushering everyone upstairs. Dex was grateful. He was having trouble breathing as it was.

”She knew. When she made this, she knew something was going to happen. That means she had to have recorded this before that night at the movies. She knew she was in danger, and she still went through with it.” Dex couldn't help his anger. ”Why? In the end what did it get them? Nothing. They didn't save Sloane, Ash, or any of the others, and I grew up without them. They left me behind, and for what?” He paced the floor, getting angrier by the moment. How could his parents have left him like that? How could they be so careless? His dad had been an HPF detective, for f.u.c.k's sake. Why hadn't he talked her out of it? Why hadn't they found someone to help, someone who could protect them?

”Son.”

The word cut through Dex's growing ire, and he felt like such an a.s.shole. ”I'm sorry. I don't mean to belittle what you mean to me or what an amazing dad you've been. It's selfish. I know it is. I just don't understand how she could go through with it knowing what it would cost.”