Released (Caged #3)(63)

I looked at her face, and my first reaction was that she just didn’t look like herself at all. She had on a bunch of makeup, which she never wore, and someone had combed her hair down so it lay flat on her head. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Tria and the social worker talking to the priest. No one was watching me.

I reach in and tousled her hair all over her head so it looked right.

“That’s better,” I muttered, kind of feeling like an idiot. I looked around again quickly, but everyone was still engaged in whatever they were talking about, so I turned back to Krazy Katie’s body.

I felt all cold and tingly as I stared down at her, unable to look away but hating the sight at the same time. It was just so…so wrong-looking. She wasn’t supposed to die like that. Krazy Katie was a constant. She was always there, always in the same place doing the same crazy, f*cked-up shit. She belonged on that fire escape stacking cigarette butts and yelling asinine prophecies at people.

It’s how the world was supposed to be.

“You crazy bitch,” I whispered. “Why’d you go and do this?”

My voice cracked, and my throat clamped shut painfully. I had to make myself swallow just to breathe again.

Memories of freezing cold winter nights and blazing hot summer days, sitting on the fire escape, smoking and watching her do all kinds of weird shit flooded my head. I couldn’t help but smile at some of the images. If nothing else, Krazy Katie had kept me entertained.

“I could have used some of your words of wisdom, you know,” I told her. “I mean—when you were in the hospital. Tria…she was worried, and I didn’t know if the baby…if she’d be okay. She always thought you said shit that was brilliant and insightful. I told her you were just a nut, but…well, she believed you. You were right about the baby, anyway.”

Though she had been conscious in the hospital some of the time, she hadn’t spoken a word. Even when I tried to talk to her about the shit she’d do on the fire escape, she would only look at me like she wasn’t sure who I was and then start coughing up blood.

She actually looked better now than she had the last few days in hospice.

“They said you were forty-eight,” I said. “I had no f*cking idea how old you were.”

I was about to turn twenty-nine, and I realized by the time I was her age, my daughter would be in college.

What if the same thing happened to me? I started smoking when I was seventeen and had smoked pretty constantly for the past ten years. I never really gave much thought to what it might be doing to me. I’d never even tried to quit.

Thinking about smoking made me realize I could be on my way to the same fate. If I died at forty-eight years old, I’d never see my daughter graduate from college, get married, or have her own kids. I wouldn’t even know my grandchildren.

Tria would have to do it all without me.

I gripped the pack of Marlboros in my pocket. I’d had three smokes between Michael’s house and the church—forcing Damon to pull over so I could have one and try to keep my shit together without stinking up the Rolls.

I glanced behind me again, but everyone was still occupied.

Slowly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my pack of cigarettes and my lighter. Checking to see if anyone was watching first, I quickly slid both of them into the casket underneath Krazy Katie’s hand. Just knowing they were there actually made her look more like herself than she had a moment ago.

“I guess health doesn’t really matter for you anymore,” I whispered. “So you just enjoy those wherever you are, okay?”

“Liam?”

I jumped a little.

“Sorry,” Tria whispered. “It’s time to head to the cemetery.”

“Yeah,” I said. I cleared my throat a little. “Let’s go.”

I thought watching her being lowered into the ground would have been the worst part, but once the casket was closed, I felt like everything was already over even though the priest was still talking. Tria cried, and I kept my arm around her and stared stoically at the ground. Erin came up and asked me if I was all right, hugged Tria, and then headed off.

Damon opened the back door of the Rolls as we approached and informed us that he would be driving us to dinner.

“Dinner?” Tria looked at me, and I leaned back in the seat and sighed.

“My family believes that as soon as a funeral is over, everyone has to meet and have dinner together. It’s like Teague family law or something. Damon, I don’t think—”

“Mr. Teague,” Damon said in an uncharacteristically firm voice, “ordinarily I would adhere to your wishes, but in matters of—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered with a wave of my hand. “I give up already.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Where are we going?” Tria asked softly.

“Tamara’s,” I said. “Northside’s premier, hoity-toity restaurant. Right, Damon?”

“Correct, sir.”

“It’s where my family tends to end up for any kind of…special occasion, I guess. They catered Ryan’s wedding, too. Honestly, it’s a steak and seafood place for the most part. There isn’t going to be much on the menu for me.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Tria said.

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I don’t really have much of an appetite anyway.”