Image is all-important to Homer Steele, and I couldn’t begin to imagine how much trouble and expense he’d gone through to make those scabs and bruises disappear. Actually, I spent a very pleasurable moment trying to imagine it, because that was the whole point, right? Katrina’s eyes widened as she got a good glimpse of the house and neighborhood. “Nice little shack,” she murmured. “Yes, it is. But inside that big palace lives a mean, nasty ogre.” “Don’t tell me. You and her father, you got a thing, too?” “We got a thing, too,” I admitted. She leaned against the car door and adopted a wearied look. “Don’t you have any friends?” “That are alive?” She chuckled and asked, “Okay, what’s the father’s story?” This was a fair request, all the more since nobody should have to meet Homer without fair warning. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, nobody should ever have to meet him—period. “Homer’s his name,” I explained, “and the fact he sired Mary is biologically incredible.
