Page 110 of ILY
He holds up a hand and takes a breath before asking, “Do you need an interpreter?”
I blink at him. “Uh…?”
“I saw you when we were on Holloway’s property,” he says. He sits back and covers his mouth before quickly dropping his hands. “Shit. I’ve been doing that a lot, haven’t I?”
Carlo does have a very bad habit of touching his mouth and stroking his mustache when he speaks, which makes him hard to follow.
“Sometimes.”
He sighs again and rubs at his eyes before looking back at me. “I think I was fooling myself into thinking it wasn’t as serious as you said it was. I thought maybe you were exaggerating, wanting to retire early.”
I shake my head.
“I figured that out when I realized you can sign.” He lifts his hands and makes a couple of nonsense gestures. “How long have you been learning?”
“A couple years. Since that stalker case. The victim was an ASL teacher, and I ended up sticking around and taking his class after I got moved to cyber.”
Carlo licks his lips, something he does when he’s nervous. “How bad is it?”
“Not as bad as it will be,” I tell him. I don’t need to ask what he’s talking about. “I can still hear you alright now, but that probably won’t last long.”
“And then you’ll just what? Hear nothing?”
I shrug. That’s the prognosis. Profound deafness with probably a little residual hearing, which won’t be usable. But I have options. My ENT says I’m a good candidate for cochlear implants, but that’s not going to save my job. Not that I’m really interested in saving my job at this point.
I enjoyed what I did with Leaf more than I can say, and I want to keep doing something like it, but without the constraints of working for the government. I want freedom to be myself, and to love who I want, and to be Deaf if I end up wanting to be Deaf.
“Look, we’re good right now, so you’re welcome to tear me a new asshole without an interpreter,” I say.
He sighs and shakes his head. “You’ve left me a mountain of fucking paperwork and a lot of goddamn red tape. But we were able to confirm the identities of all the victims in those photos, and we’re working on ID’ing the remains we’ve found so far.”
I take a breath. “How many?”
“Three in the cellar, two buried under the concrete. We have access to a cadaver dog who’s trained to smell older remains, but they won’t be able to bring him in for a few weeks.”
Which means Leaf is here with me for longer than I was hoping. But when it’s done, it’ll be done for good.
“How much of his house is left?”
He rolls his eyes. “We’re not a fucking tornado, Thorne. You know this. They’ve preserved as much as they can.” When I give him a look, he sighs again. “He’s going to need new flooring on both levels, and the attic will need to be redone. The wall to the cellar had to come down entirely because it was sealed with cement.”
Just like I thought it was. Well, it kind of sucks to be right.
“I’ll see what kind of assistance we can find for him,” Carlo adds.
I shake my head. I don’t think he’ll take it. “I’ll talk to him, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Carlo takes another slow breath, then says, “When they ask—and peoplearegoing to ask—say it happened between you twoafteryou discovered the hand.”
I don’t need to ask about what he’s talking about this time either. “I didn’t know I was going to fall in love.”
“Considering you’ve only gone on a couple dates since I’ve known you, and only with women?” He laughs and shakes his head. “It wasn’t what I was expecting either.”
“This isn’t going to be a thing, is it?”
He scoffs. “I have a trans gay son. It’s not going to be a thing.”
Part of me wants to tell him that’s never stopped a homophobic parent before, but I can tell he’s trying, so I go easy on him. I square my shoulders and sit forward. It’s going to be weird when I don’t have to come back here anymore. It’ll hurt. I think my mourning period will be long. But I don’t think I’ll miss it as much as I originally thought I would.
