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even tell you what page he’d read it on. Probably because he saw the world from such a different viewpoint, he had a penchant for noticing things everyone else missed. He’d come up with telling pieces of information all the crime tech and forensic experts had missed. I couldn’t begin to measure his mathematical abilities, since I personally can’t even balance my checkbook. He could solve puzzles, cryptograms, codes, almost instantaneously. His brain was an overcrowded hodgepodge of information that made it difficult for him to focus, but I tried to teach him to sift through all the concurrent and conflicting thoughts and stay on task. Every day he took another baby step out of his obsessive autistic prison. It may not seem like getting him to try a different flavor of custard on the wrong day was a major triumph. But it was.
    “So tell me—how are you and your father getting along?”
    His face always changed whenever we talked about his father, or whenever his father was around. It wasn’t that Darcy didn’t like him. I knew perfectly well they both loved each other. But Darcy was his only child and…well, obviously not what O’Bannon had expected. His wife died when Darcy was seven, and raising him alone had been an incredible burden.
    “My dad is fine. He walks much better now. With his cane, he gets around almost as well as he did before the Bad—you know.”
    I did know. Before the Bad Man shot him. Which Darcy didn’t like to talk about.
    “You’re not answering my question, Darcy. How are you and your father getting along?”
    He shrugged lopsidedly, then flapped his hands together. “My dad never lets me do anything, not unless you are with me. He thinks I cannot do anything.”
    “He just wants to make sure you’re safe, Darcy. That’s what parents do. It’s like their job description.”
    “But I am not a baby anymore. I can do lots of stuff.”
    “He knows that.”
    “He does not know that! He will never let me do anything. I—I—” Darcy looked up at me, as if wondering if I could be trusted. “I am thinking about running away from home.”
    It took some effort, but I managed to suppress my smile. It’s not often you hear a twenty-six-year-old talk about running away from home. “But Darcy—how could you support yourself? You don’t make enough working part-time at the day care center to even afford a crummy apartment, much less food and transportation and—”
    “I know. I know.” He finished the custard, then licked the spoon. “I—I was—was w-wondering…Do you think maybe…you and me…would it be possible?…”
    “Spit it out, Darcy.”
    “Would you adopt me?”
    I bit down on my lip, hard. “What?”
    “I would be good. I promise I would. And I would help you with your police work, just like I do sometimes now. You said I was helpful, right?”
    “You’re always helpful. But I can’t—”
    “And then maybe we could share money. And we would share your apartment, since you adopted me.”
    “Darcy.” I laid my hand gently on his shoulder. He flinched, but let it stay. “You are very dear to me, and I love being with you. But I can’t adopt you. And frankly, half what I make wouldn’t be enough to get you a bus ticket to Caesar’s Palace. I can barely pay my own rent.”
    His head fell. “You don’t want to live with me.”
    “Darcy, it’s not—” I stopped short. What exactly were we talking about here?
    Fortunately, my cell phone vibrated, saving me from having to do any deeper thinking. “Pulaski.”
    “This is Chief O’Bannon. I’ve got a case for you. Are you available?”
    “You know I am. What is it?”
    “It’s…I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
    “Homicide?”
    “Definitely. Looks like it’s right up your alley.”
    Meaning not just your average, everyday run-of-the-mill murders. Something weird. Something that called for a consultant in aberrant psychology.
    “Just come out to the Burger Bliss on Fremont and