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I rubbed my mittened hands up and down his parka-ed arms. He was wearing a spare parka from my dad, since I’d reclaimed mine.

“Not really,” Taavi replied, and I could hear how cold he was in his voice. I could also tell that he was trying really hard not tosoundmiserable.

“Well, think warm thoughts,” my mother told him. “And we’ll get you some nice hot cider at the Christmas shop.”

Like every Christmas tree farm under the sun, this one had a little shop where they sold ornaments and wreaths and a bunch of holiday-related kitsch and crafts—and had one of those obligatory brown plastic coffee dispensers full of hot cider next to a plate of cheap grocery-store sugar cookies.

But Elliot had to finish cutting down the tree, and then we had to drag the fucker back to the shop to get it priced out and paid-for.Then, while my father and some kid who worked at the farm argued about how to tie it to the top of the car, we could get cider.

By the tree, my dad laughed at something Elliot said, and I got a warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach. I pulled Taavi a little closer, until his back was pressed against my chest, my arms crossed under his chin. He leaned back into me the way he often did, and I rubbed my chin against the knitted hat on top of his head. In my arms, I felt him let out a sigh.

“What?” I asked softly.

“I like this,” he murmured back, and I squeezed him a little tighter.

It was one of those moments, crystalline and pure, that hangs suspended in between the shit and the chaos that is life and justshines. Everything around us was absolute ass—I had multiple murdered shifters needing justice, including Gregory Crane, and I was about to wade into a strange police department where there was absolutely some bullshittery going on, but before all that hit, I had this one moment, standing in the clear winter air, smelling pine sap and snow and the soap from Taavi’s hair, his body pressed against mine and the soft murmurs of the voices of the people I loved most in the world around me.

“Tav?”

He turned his head to look up at me.

“I love you.”

I watched the smile spread across his face. “Te amo, corazón.”

* * *

After an afternoonof tree-decorating and cookie-baking, Mom stuffed us all practically into a coma and then demanded that we sit through bothA Wonderful Life—which had always put me to sleep, classic film or not—andA Christmas Story, which I’d thought was hilarious as a kid and now recognized as deeply cringey, but still occasionally funny. Dad was in his recliner, Mom under a blanket with her legs up on the couch, and I was sprawled on the floor with both Taavi and Elliot in a nest of oversize pillows and a couple blankets, just like when Elliot and I were kids. Plus Taavi, which, as far as I was concerned, made it so much better.

Mom had bought one of those ridiculous tins of popcorn with cheese, butter, and caramel, all liberally dosed with crack, since there was absolutely no reason that the three of us were continuing to eatanything, given how much we’d already consumed. But here we were.

This whole day felt like a respite—a deep breath before plunging into dark water. I had no idea if it was going to be warm or cold, how deep it went, and whether there were sharks, piranha, or a bloody fucking kraken beneath the surface.

I’d thought I was ready for whatever shitstorm I was about to start, but now, at the end of the day, I realized that I had really needed this. It seemed to me that Taavi and Elliot had, too. We’d all been through the emotional wringer, Elliot more than the rest of us. And now he was lying on the floor, his head on a pillow on my shins, his features relaxed, if not happy.

Taavi’s cheek was resting on my stomach, and I was toying with his hair, propped up on several pillows so that I could see over both of them and my own toes in their thick socks, knitted for me by Ward’s Aunt Pearl. She was a knitting fiend, and I had a scarf and three pairs of socks, all because I happened to work with her nephew. Everybody at BTV had at least two or three Pearl-knitted items.

I was warm, comfortable, and, for once, content.

It wouldn’t last, but I was going to enjoy it while I could.

16

I was almost donewith a nice, family breakfast—including Elliot—when my phone started buzzing. My mother frowned, but I pulled it out of my pocket anyway. Seeing it was Detective Smith, I scooted away from the table and went up to my old room, answering on the stairs.

I answered it the way I always did. “Hart.”

“Mr. Hart—”

“Just plain Hart is fine,” I told him.

“Oh. Um. Okay. Hart. Does everybody call you Hart?”

“No, just the people I don’t want to strangle and the people I’m obligated to let call me anything else.”

He laughed, once, a gravelly sound. “Okay, Hart. Can you come down to the station?”

“Two questions,” I countered.