Detective Appelt's face darkened, a hint of red firing up around his irises. "Not if you're going to be crude. Your mother was a good woman."

I turned my back on him and strode toward the kitchen with Roseff's book, keeping my movements loose, when my body was anything but. I knew full well what my mother was like, but a sudden urge to hurt him, to lash out at him, tipped on the edge of my tongue. He'd proved he wanted nothing to do with me, so listening to him try to defend himself ...