Reach For Me

by Elizabeth Cole

  Once again, Mal moved out of the way too fast to be believed, and then rushed the guy, delivering a brutal kick in his chest. The guy gasped for air and dropped the crowbar as he stumbled backward.

  He braced himself, preparing to attack Mal. But then he turned and ran.

  She didn’t miss it that time. Mal covered the twenty feet like it was two and rushed the other man before he could get out the door. Mal slammed him against the new plywood walls, pinning the guy there.

  “Copper piping wasn’t enough?” he asked. “Too bad you chose tonight.”

  “You can’t prove anything,” the other one replied in a rough tone.

  “I installed a camera,” Cara said as she moved toward the pair, shining her heavy-duty flashlight around the hall.

  Mal gave her a single glance that warned her to stay back. She saw that the other guy was struggling hard, and Mal didn’t want her to get hurt if he lost his grip.

  She angled her beam of light on the guy’s face. A very familiar face. “Holy crap, it’s Barry!”

  Mal grinned when he recognized the man. “Oh, good. I’ve been wanting to kick his ass for personal reasons anyway.”

  “Fuck you and your fat girlfriend,” Barry snarled. “You’re not a cop. Let me go.”

  Cara didn’t quite see Mal punch Barry, but she saw Barry drop to the ground, moaning in pain with his hands over his face. Blood trickled between his fingers. Mal might have broken the guy’s nose.

  “Want to kick him in the balls?” Mal asked conversationally, hauling Barry up. “Great opportunity.”

  Cara took a step back. “Don’t want to get my boots anywhere near there, thanks all the same.”

  “Then I’ll do it, just to make sure he suffers. Go outside and call 911, ok?”

  She nodded, reaching for her phone while Mal dragged Barry outside to the driveway, pushing him down face-first on the crumbly asphalt, with his arms pinned behind his back.

  Barry struggled, or tried to, but Mal simply bent Barry’s right arm an inch further and told him to shut up when he whimpered.

  Minutes later, the bright red-and-blue flashes of a cop car emerged from the darkness, and an ambulance was not far behind. Thankfully, neither vehicle used its sirens.

  Two cops got out of the car, hands on weapons. The driver was a blonde who looked like a poorly disguised superhero, all sleek muscles and a great-fitting uniform. The guy who emerged from the passenger seat was older and bit grayer, but still in shape. The donut stereotype did not apply to these small-town cops.

  The female cop looked to Cara first. “I’m Officer Hallihan. You placed the call?”

  “Yeah. We found this guy, Barry Field, trying to steal some of my most expensive equipment. I’ve already reported a previous theft from this site. Copper piping.”

  Hallihan nodded, and Cara figured that in a town this size, information like that would be known by the whole force. She then looked down to where Mal was keeping Barry immobile. “Mal. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “How’s it goin, Hal?” Mal’s voice was casual, but Cara didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that these two had a past. It was in the way Hallihan tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and the way Mal didn’t quite look at Cara as he stood up. Hal and Mal? She almost wanted to vomit at the cuteness of it. Perfect couple.

  Barry protested his innocence as the cops hauled him up and cuffed him. However, Cara’s account was damning, and the male cop dryly noted that if a lot of copper piping and wire was found where Barry lived, he was going to have a hard time explaining it.

  He shut up then, lapsing into a sullen silence. Hallihan and her partner radioed in that everything was under control. Cara answered a slew of questions, mostly about who she was and why she was there at night and why Mal was with her.

  That was a little awkward, but Mal stepped up and took over. “She heard a noise and was smart enough not to investigate it on her own. She asked me to come with, and you know I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”

  Hallihan snorted at that. “If you both are so smart, why didn’t you call 911 right away instead of going all Scooby Gang?”

  “I figured I could handle it.”

  “What if this guy had a gun? No matter how good at jujitsu or krav maga or whatever else you do, you’re not bulletproof, Malachy Salem. Next time, call the authorities, ok?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t ever ma’am me.”

  “Yes, Hal.”

  The cops drove off, leaving Cara and Mal standing alone in front of the house.

  “Well, that was a weird time. I need a drink. Want one?” Mal started walking down the hill.

  “You know her,” Cara said, following him. She could tell when someone was trying to change the subject.

  “Hallihan? Yeah. We were in an unarmed defense class last year. I mean, I taught it. She took it.”

  “A teacher-student thing, huh.”

  “Well, not till after the class was done. We might have gone on a few dates.” He rubbed the back of his neck, not looking Cara in the eyes.

  “Might have, as in you don’t remember?”

  “As in, I’m not sure they could be called dates.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “This conversation isn’t going well.”

  “Maybe not for you,” she said. “I think it’s very informative.”

  They reached the road, and Cara saw the name on the mailbox. “Oh, that reminds me. She called you Malachy Salem. Why are you listed on all my paperwork as Malachy East?”

  “East is my middle name,” Mal said, ushering her into the house again. “One of them anyway. And yeah, I fudged a couple details on my application. I didn’t think I’d get the job under my name.”

  “You have a record?”

  “A few misdemeanors. I sometimes get into situations where things get physical. Fortunately I have a cousin with a particular set of skills.”

  “Hacker skills?”

  “The less we talk about that, the better.”

  She pursed her lips. “I don’t like it.”

  “My record?”

  “I don’t like that you lied about your name.” For many reasons, she didn’t like it. A flush of guilt rushed up from her stomach.

  “I didn’t like it either, and if I could have told you earlier, I would have. And I’m good at my job, right?”

  “Yeah. For a liar with no background in construction, you’re all right.” She sighed.

  “Want a drink?”

  Cara wanted all kinds of drinks, but she shook her head. “I gotta go. It’s late and I’m tired.”

  “Hold up, Cara. Go where? Was that a sleeping bag in the office? Tell me you’re not sleeping on site.”

  “Hey, I had to make up the cost of the lost copper somehow. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine at all,” he countered. “No way is it your responsibility to give up your housing just to make the budget, and Egan House doesn’t even have a working bathroom.”

  “Not right now. But we’ll get the plumbing sorted in about a week,” she said, looking on the bright side.

  Mal leaned forward. “A week in an office trailer with no plumbing? You can stay with me. In this house, I mean.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What? It’s right across the street. And you can sleep in a bed. And use a shower.”

  Cara shook her head. “I’m really fine. Now that Barry is out of the way, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “What about the ghost?” The way Mal said it—totally reasonable, as if he were talking about a water main break—made Cara remember all the creepy feelings she got while she was there. Trust your gut, Mal had said. But Cara’s whole digestive system was against her, so how could she trust it now?

  “There’s no ghost,” she said, willing it to be the truth. “Maybe Barry somehow made me see something. Like a hallucination induced by a chemical.”

  “And you still want to go back there all a
lone in the middle of the night?”

  “Um…”

  “We have a perfectly good spare bedroom. And plumbing. And coffee.”

  She hesitated, wavering at last.

  “Just for a night or two,” he promised. “Let’s make sure Barry doesn’t have partners, ok?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yeah, how did he move all that stuff on his own? It would have taken him all night.”

  Mal sighed, evidently in relief at winning the argument. “Right. Let’s grab your things from the trailer and come back here.”

  Cara nodded, wondering if she was making a gigantic mistake. Not that she thought Mal would take advantage of her. She knew he wasn’t interested, not when he regularly hooked up with women as buff as Officer Hallihan.

  But if any of the crew found out Cara was sleeping in the same place as one of her workers, her authority would be totally shot.

  “I’ll stay here,” she said, “but no one on site can know.”

  Mal gave her a long, considering look that she couldn’t read, but then nodded. “You got it, boss.”

  Chapter 9

  Cara had a ton of questions for Mal, but by the time they’d retrieved all her things from the trailer, and he showed her to the spare bedroom, she was dead tired.

  “There’s a lock on the door,” he said. “Use it if you want.”

  What exactly would she be keeping out? A sex-crazed Mal? Unlikely. But she did appreciate that he was trying to make her feel safe. Still, she didn’t bother to lock it.

  He pointed out his own room and told her to knock if she needed anything. Cara had no intention of doing that. She closed the door and undressed, pulling on the leggings and loose T-shirt she used as pajamas.

  When she pulled the covers up, she sighed, fully realizing how wiped out she was.

  Then she heard a click. The door handle was one of those lever style ones. It lowered, and the door pushed open a few inches.

  “Hello?” she asked. Maybe she should have locked the door after all.

  But it was Behemoth who slinked in, then leaned against the door to close it again.

  “Wow. You are a smart cookie,” she said.

  The big cat plopped onto the bed with an oof, and then padded over to her. Cara reached out to pet him, scratching gently behind his ears.

  She let the cat curl right next to her. “Cat. I have had a day. Caught a thief, found out ghosts are real, and I’m sleeping in the same house as my employee. Mostly, though, ghosts are real. I’m not crazy, right? I realize that talking to a cat and asking for non-crazy validation might be all the info I need.”

  Behemoth began to purr.

  “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter if I’m crazy or not. Still gotta keep on doing whatever I do.”

  That earned her a meow. Cara smiled at him. Behemoth. It was really a very fitting name for the massive, inky-dark feline. He continued to purr at her, and within seconds she was asleep.

  She woke up feeling great. Against all odds, she had zero nightmares. The cat was now curled into a ball near the foot of the bed. When Cara sat up, the cat stretched and yawned.

  “Me too, Mr. B,” she said. “Shall we get some food? I think I skipped dinner.”

  Cara dressed in her usual work uniform of jeans and a plaid shirt. After a moment’s consideration, she added a layer. The days were definitely cooling down, and Egan House didn’t have working central heat.

  Behemoth pawed at her, so Cara scooped him up and brought him downstairs with her.

  Mal was in the kitchen, standing over a skillet on the stove. The scent of coffee pervaded the room.

  “Mr. B wants breakfast,” Cara announced.

  He turned around at her entrance. “Mr. Who? Oh no, you’re holding Behemoth,” he said, sounding as if she were holding a bomb.

  “Yeah.” He was not a light load, but she liked the weight of the cat in her arms, the softness of the midnight-black fur.

  “Put him down. Now. You’ll get clawed in the face.”

  Cara looked down at the cat, into his gleaming green eyes. “You’re not going to claw me in the face after I brought you all the way downstairs, are you? That would be rude, and you’re far too civilized to be rude like that.”

  The cat meowed, and Cara knelt down, gently letting the cat pour out of her arms to the floor, where he sauntered over to a bowl filled with fishy-smelling food.

  “What did you do?” Mal asked. “Behemoth doesn’t like anyone or anything.”

  “That is not true,” she protested. “He may look big and mean, but he’s really a lovebug.”

  Mal’s eyes widened. “A what?”

  “Watch your breakfast,” she warned.

  He whirled around and prodded at the contents of the skillet with a spatula. “Hope eggs are ok. And there’s sausage. I should have asked if you’re veggie.”

  “I’m agnostic. And I don’t expect breakfast to be made for me. I’m just crashing here for a couple nights.”

  “Hey, I’m making breakfast anyway. It’s not any extra work. Coffee’s ready, by the way.”

  Cara definitely wasn’t turning that down. She poured a cup and inhaled the smell with a sense of bliss.

  Her good mood notched down when she saw Mal piling scrambled eggs and sausage links onto a plate. The familiar tension of anything food-related hit her all at once. People tended to assume she either ate ALL the things, or deserved NONE of the things, and there was no middle ground. It didn’t help that Mal obviously had no food issues himself, not with the shape he was in.

  He put down two plates, exactly equal in terms of quantity. “Eat,” he said, gesturing to the seat closest to her.

  She sat down. “Thanks, but don’t do this again. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” In the sense that calling a bag of chips dinner was “capable.”

  “Ok, here’s the thing. You stay here, you’re a guest, and if you’re a guest, you get fed. Tia Aida would murder me in my sleep if she ever heard that I didn’t treat a guest right. Worse, she’d tell my abuela.”

  “And what would she do?”

  “She wouldn’t wait for me to be asleep to murder me, that’s for sure.”

  Cara ate some of the eggs, which were tasty. She thought of the word tia. And abuela. Then she said, “Maybe I’m really dumb and missing something, but neither East nor Salem are Spanish, right?”

  “My mom was Mexican, and her name was de Silva. Dad’s side was Irish…mostly. And Salem is technically an English name, and it’s a bit of a long story. But we—my brothers and me—spent a good chunk of time with my mom’s side growing up.”

  Cara nodded and ate the rest of her meal, and then downed her coffee. “I have to go over to the site.”

  He glanced at the clock. “Shift doesn’t start for half an hour.”

  “Good. I’d appreciate it if you took the full half hour.”

  “Ah. Ashamed to be seen with me.”

  “It’s not exactly a good look professionally, ok?”

  “You’re all about professionalism, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” she said. “My business is my life, and if you mess it up even a little bit, I’ll find your abuela myself and tell her you were a terrible host.”

  “The nuclear option.” Mal sighed. “Ok, get to work. I’ll saunter in with a minute to spare.”

  That day was a little awkward at work, not just because Cara was terrified Mal would let slip that Cara was now sleeping in his house, but also because she had to explain Barry’s absence.

  The crew took it well, and if anything, they seemed happy that Barry was revealed as the thief. Turns out, Mal wasn’t the only person who disliked the guy.

  Jalen was in such a good mood that day that he actually smiled at her and said good morning when she passed him while he was installing the housing for the electrical.

  “Whoa, Jalen. Was that a good morning? I thought you hated me.”

  “No, ma’am. You’re probably the best foreman…forewoman…whatever…I
’ve ever had on a job.”

  “Then why can’t I get the time of day out of you?”

  Jalen looked at her, really looked at her, for the very first time. “Remember the first day when you said no flirting, no hitting on you, all that stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me that. I know that. I had that drilled into me. And when stuff started going missing, I was just waiting to be called for it. Cops always look at a black man first.”

  Cara blinked, seeing things from his perspective. “Oh, Jalen.”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s depressing. I guess it was a good thing Barry was a dumbass and let himself be caught. Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re a good worker. If I was local, I’d hire you permanently.”

  “Thanks.” He turned back to his work, but Cara felt like the brusqueness she’d seen before was a little lessened.

  Cara spent the rest of the day working on the fireplace carving, wanting it to be done so she could have a nice backdrop for the shots of the floor. She took a ton of process pictures, chronicling her work on the carving and the installation of the whole mantelpiece.

  She once again forgot that she’d had no opportunity to make her own lunch. She dashed to the office trailer and found several granola bars. She ate them and washed the sticky rice taste down with caustic orange soda. Then she returned to work.

  At four, Mal walked into the parlor. Just like he did every time, he skirted around the edge of the floor and gave the whole room a dirty look. Cara was going to have to ask why he didn’t like her marquetry.

  “Shift’s over. You want help packing up the tools?” Barry was in jail, but Cara had reiterated to the crew that they should still practice caution and put all the expensive stuff under lock and key when it wasn’t in use.

  She shook her head. “I want to keep working.”

  “Do you? Or is this a way to avoid being seen with me?”

  “Not everything is about you, Malachy East,” she said, laying on the sarcasm. “I actually want to finish this.”

  “It looks amazing, by the way,” he said, gesturing to the mantel. “The carving on the people’s robes and all the little folds and stuff. I’m sure there’s a term for that.”