by Madelyn Alt
“And this is—”
“Someone who isn’t happy about the effect on their own bottom line. It happens all the time. No big deal.”
“Well, now.” Jensen looked him in the eyes. “That may be, but I’m not so sure that I would write this off so quickly. Death threats are no laughing matter.”
I could see that the note was made out of letters cut from a magazine and pasted onto a piece of notebook paper. “ ‘The mighty will fall’?” Turner read. “Not very original, is it.”
“All it takes is one crackpot without an imagination,” Tom replied.
Turner shrugged. “I have a security system in place. Unfortunately my brother is often the last one here, and he sometimes forgets to activate it. Family. What can you do.” He clamped his lips tightly around his cigarette, a hard man with an even harder attitude. An old-style Hoosier if I’d ever met one. “Look. I know the people I deal with on a daily basis. They may be tight-fisted bastards, but as for a real threat? I think I’ll risk it.”
I cringed inwardly. Old habits die hard—thanks to my upbringing, my hands downright itched to form the criss-crossed corners of the Holy Cross. There was nothing more arrogant than thumbing one’s nose at death, and if I were Joel Turner, I wouldn’t have chanced it for all the chocolate kisses in the world. For me, a self-affirmed chocaholic, that was saying something. In fact, the superstitious part of me—the part of me that had just spent the last eight months intimately associated with the darkness that had settled into the cracks and corners of my beloved hometown, and had only barely come out swinging—was a little worried that this new threat was an omen. A sign that things were not yet finished. I had been hoping that the trouble had left us in the way that it had come in: quietly and without fanfare. And maybe it had. Certainly nothing had happened since April, when Luc Metzger had met an untimely demise on a quiet county roadside with a Pennsylvania Dutch hex symbol to mark the spot forevermore. But to flaunt that hope in the face of reality? It was just not a good idea.
Not a good idea at all.
Chapter 2
By the next morning, I had shaken off my fear-tinged mood of the night before. It was Sunday and I woke up early, no longer tense with worry but unable to sleep. I lay there in bed awhile longer, but even the air in my basement apartment was feeling clammy and close, so I thrust my feet out from under the damp sheet and rolled upright in the bed, wiggling my toes against the carpet as I contemplated the day stretching before me.
What to do, what to do . . .
Sundays in this small Hoosier town offered little in the way of entertainment for those poor slobs who woke up without significant others to occupy their time. Tom, I knew, would be putting in a twelve-hour shift today, so any kind of romantic fun was out of the question . . . and I most definitely would not allow my eye or thoughts to wander in other directions. Most especially not in the direction of a certain dark and dangerous hunk-o’-honey who seemed to be doing his level best to lead me down the garden path to temptation. Avoiding Marcus hadn’t been easy. As a key member of the N.I.G.H.T.S. and Liss’s partner in magick, he often appeared out of nowhere. I hated to admit it, but lately, just the sight of him set my pulse to racing. It scared me . . . especially since I had the distinct impression that the intrigue was mutual. Why? Gee, it might have been that kiss we’d shared, before either of us had known what hit us—and believe me, it had packed a wallop. And then there was the dancing around the Beltane fires, when I’d discovered the truth about the relationship between Marcus and Liss. As in, they weren’t an item. As in, that made my hands-off view of Marcus a moot point. Except for my relationship-or-not situation with Tom, my conscience, and those pesky little things called morals.
Tricky, tricky.
Heading into Enchantments might have been an option, except for the fact that it was Sunday, the store was closed, and I’d been devoting so much time to my duties there of late that Liss had pretty much ordered me to spend more time on myself.
I thought for a moment about calling up Steff . . . except then I remembered that I had seen her boyfriend’s vintage Jag parked curbside when Tom dropped me off the night before, and I wasn’t about to be the person who pooped that party. Maybe later.
My only other options were grocery shopping (Wal-Mart on a weekend? Mass hysteria. Fun, fun . . .), driving around aimlessly by myself (yawn), or reading (and I had just finished my latest library find and hadn’t yet found the time to seek out another). Which left me with either cleaning my apartment or visiting with my family.
Guess which one I chose? I will admit I did check the Guide de TV for any reruns of Magnum P.I. before deciding, just in case, but even my beloved Thomas had abandoned me. I was on my own.
One thing that families can always be counted on for is to fill up the unwanted nooks and crannies of any spare time that a girl might find on her hands. Idle hands are the Devil’s hands, my Grandma Cora used to say, and I still find those words echoing through my brain in just that way. My conscience, you know. It comes to me often using the not-so-dulcet tones of my late Grandma C, whispering to me from inside my head, chiding me to behave the way a good Catholic girl should. I don’t know why it has to be Grandma C—and I often wish it weren’t. There’s nothing like your grandmother inserting her judgments into a private moment to make you want to banish her from your thoughts forever. Why couldn’t the voice of my conscience be male and intriguing? You know, the Phantom to my Christine?
Then again, in somewhat private moments, I’m not sure that would be an improvement. Could prove a bit of a distraction, that’s for sure. Ahem.
Still, now that the decision had been made, I was looking forward to spending some time with my family. I glanced at the clock. Nine thirty-five. My mother would be heading home soon, preferring the quieter early mass to the later one overrun by growing families. If I hurried, I could get there first and have a little time with my dad and Grandpa Gordon without my mom’s more . . . forceful personality interjecting itself.
The plan decided, I launched myself into action, digging through dresser drawers and the closet for any combination that would be comfortable enough to see me through the steamy heat I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape from, and yet leave me covered enough to avoid my mother’s always judgmental eye. I settled on a plain old T-shirt, not too close-fitting, and a pair of knee-length shorts—still shorts, but long enough to cover any wobbly bits that might otherwise have been in view on my thighs. One further concession to comfort was a pair of flip-flops, which I knew my mother hated, but sometimes a girl just has to be herself and go with the flow. Especially when the temps were supposed to reach the mid-nineties. (Help. Me. Now!) Breakfast was a toasted English muffin and a handful of grapes, both of which were suitable for eating on the run. Which I did, munching my way down sleepy residential streets until I reached the old Indian trail, now residential route, that sheltered the old-fashioned farmhouse that stood out from its more up-to-date neighbors like a plain white hen in a yard full of exotic chickens.
Home.
My dad came out of the garage, wiping his hands on a shop rag, when he heard my old VW Bug puttering into the circular drive that looped around an ancient oak that had once held my playhouse in its bowers. Glenn O’Neill was a quiet man—meek, some might say—who had let kindness guide him throughout his lifetime. It was a quality that made him a wonderful father, but might perhaps have served as a detriment in his accounting career. The stresses of his job at the luxury boat factory were evident in the worry furrows and lines that stretched across his brow, the pinched look at the corners of his mouth. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
I left Christine parked beneath the shade of the oak and went to give him a big hug.
“Hey, sis. I wasn’t expecting you today. Good to see you, though.”
He gave me one last squeeze and big smacking kiss on the cheek. I laughed and smooched him back. “Hi, Dad. How are things?”
“Oh, same old, same old
. You know.”
My mouth twisted in distaste. “They’re still working you to death, I suppose. How many hours did you put in last week?”
He shrugged and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “The work had to be done.”
“Dad, it always has to be done, and it’s not going to go away. You know that. They know that. I think it’s awful what they do to you. Why don’t they hire some help, if there’s that much to do?”
He mumbled something about the downshift in the luxury markets owing to higher gas prices and worry over the world economy, but I knew the truth of it as well as he did. If there weren’t someone there already who was willing to step in to fill the void, more help would have been hired. Still, it wasn’t up to me to point that out to him any more than I already had. It was his job. His paycheck. His life.
I sighed, wishing for the impossible for him, then changed the subject. “When do you expect Mom back from mass?”
“She didn’t go.”
“She didn’t . . .” I blinked at him, certain I had heard wrong. In all my years, I could count on one hand the number of Sunday morning masses my mother had missed. Usually it involved one of us kids coming down with something at an inopportune time, but with all of us out of the house, that left only her, Dad, and Grandpa . . . I glanced toward the house, frowning. “She’s feeling all right, isn’t she? Is Grandpa okay?”
“Fine, fine. It’s your sister, that’s all. She’s been keeping your mother so busy, she doesn’t know which end is up and which is down. She’s feeling a bit out of sorts and frazzled, that’s all. She wanted to go this morning, but I wouldn’t let her. Told her the Church could do without her one Sunday out of five hundred.” He looked a bit smug about it, too, and I knew why. It wasn’t often that Mom let him push her around. Which meant Mom really must not be feeling herself.
“I think I’ll go in and check on her,” I said, gazing off in that direction. Besides, Dad’s attention was already wavering back toward the garage.
“Sure, honey,” he said distractedly with a pat on my shoulder. “She’d like that.”
My mom and I had enjoyed a somewhat less than perfect mother-daughter relationship for as long as I could remember. Same old story. She didn’t think I was trying to make a life for myself. I wanted a life of my own, rather than living out her fantasies of perfection. We were working on that. Not always well, but . . .
I heard raised voices as soon as I approached the screen door. “I don’t want to hear about it, Dad, and that’s final.”
“Don’t tell me what to talk about, missy. It’s bleedin’ hot in here and you know it! My jimmies are hanging so loose, it’s a wonder they aren’t migrating straight outta my boxers in protest, and at my age, that’s not a pretty sight!”
“Oh, for the love of—! If your mouth hasn’t been just a-running on and on lately, I just don’t know.”
“Well, it’s true, and I’m too old to be tempering my tongue to keep from insulting a daughter who’s as prickly as a porcupine. You have to admit, Patty, you’ve been a little hard to live with lately.”
Everyone else in town had their air-conditioning on full blast today in anticipation of the soaring temperatures. My mom was the only person I knew who had insisted upon having central air but rarely turned it on owing to the wastefulness of it all.
But I’ve got to hand it to my Grandpa G. There weren’t many people who could take on my mom when she was in full-on Control Mode. And I’d lived with her long enough to know that this was all about control. She wanted it, and you were going to give her her due, by golly, or there would be hell to pay. So long as you understood that and stepped aside, you could get along with her fairly well. You just had to be smart and learn how to get around her.
And I had had a lot of practice at that.
Mom and Grandpa both looked up when I walked in. Mom sat at the table with a coffee cup clenched in her grip, scowling.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, breezing into the room and setting my purse on the counter. “Dad told me he wouldn’t let you go in to church this morning. What’s up?”
Still glaring at Grandpa, my mom waved off the question. “Oh, you know how your father is. Always worrying about me.”
Grandpa had steered his Hoverchair over to the old, ceiling-high cupboards and was now leaning dangerously sideways on the seat while he aimed the tip of his cane at a lineup of cookie boxes with the skill and strategy of the wiliest pool shark. The tip connected, as expected. The nearest box teetered on the edge of the shelf and fell to the floor, causing my mom to wince and close her eyes.
“I’ll get it,” I said helpfully, already bending at the waist. “Here you go, Gramps.” I handed him the box and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, leaning in close. “It’s good to see you.”
He kissed my cheek soundly. Scruffy gray whiskers prickled the tender skin over my cheekbone, but he smelled good, like aftershave and licorice. “You too, chickpea.”
“Check to be sure that’s something healthy and not the Thin Mint cookies,” my mom warned wearily, her eyes still closed. “He’s always trying to get into the Thin Mint cookies.”
Grandpa G surreptitiously slid a tube of the cookies out of the box before handing it back to me with a huffy, “Fine. Fine! Take them. I didn’t want ’em anyway.” He gave me a broad wink as he steered his wheelchair toward the door to beat a hasty exit. Still, he couldn’t seem to resist grumbling under his breath about pushy women and how it was still considered a crime in this country to starve an older person to death, before rolling away down the ramp my dad had built for him with his prize tucked under the flaps of his flannel shirt. Funny, he’d wear flannel three hundred and sixty-five days a year, but he still wanted his air-conditioning. That was Grandpa G for you.
I tried not to smile at his sass as I replaced the box on the shelf. It wasn’t easy.
Mom waited until he was gone before pinning me with one of her famous penetrating stares. “He had the Thin Mints with him, didn’t he.”
It wasn’t so much a question as a declaration that she was waiting for me to confirm. I could have lied, but I knew she’d see right through me. “Just one tube, Mom. Not enough to hurt him.”
“It’s enough to throw his sugars way out of whack, if he eats them in one sitting. Which he has been known to do.” She tapped her fingernails against the table, inhaling deeply. “That man will be the death of me yet.”
“Sounds like Mel is vying for that distinction lately.”
Far be it from me to point out my younger sister’s spoiled princess performance to her chief enabler, but . . . oh, I just did that, didn’t I? I know, I know. It was a small and petty thing to do. Some things never truly die, and sibling rivalry is one of them. Cain and Abel, anyone? I rest my case.
My mother leaned back with a weary sigh. “I won’t deny it. Your sister has been running me ragged.” She stopped for a moment to take a sip of her coffee, which I noticed she was drinking black, without her usual heavy dose of cream and sugar. Wow. Hard core. “It’s the hormones, of course, and the boredom. Her obstetrician just told her that it’s to be bed rest for the next three months solid. Bed rest? Your sister? She can’t clean her own house. The girls are running amok without constant supervision during the day. Greg hasn’t been much help either. At the office at all hours. It’s enough to drive any woman around the bend.”
Mel was always enough to drive me around the bend. But a pregnant Mel, bored, bedridden, and toxemic? Yeesh. “So you’ve been filling in?”
She shrugged. “During the day, as much as I can. At least the house can be clean, the girls don’t have to be with a nanny or a nurse, and Melanie has someone there with her in case of an emergency.”
“I don’t get it. Why can’t Greg just cut his hours short?”
Mom raised her brows and pursed her lips. “Your brother-in-law has a busy schedule. A busy legal practice. You can’t expect him to be the primary breadwinner and take care of everything on the home front, too.”
Greg Craven and my sister, Melanie, had been married for about six years now, ever since Melanie had graduated from her party-girl-looking-for-a-rich-husband years. Greg won the big prize. Or, perhaps I should say, Melanie did. Greg was as up-and-coming as a young lawyer could be in a small town. His specialty? Divorce and family law, and from what my mom had told me, business was booming, more so than ever before. I guess that would explain his hesitance to scale back his hours to accommodate his bedridden wife . . . or maybe it was just that Mel could be a royal pain in the ass when she couldn’t do what she wanted to do.
“You know,” my mom said, interrupting my musings, “there’s no reason you couldn’t help out, too.”
Wait . . . what?
“With me there during the day and you in the evenings after work until Greg gets home, the entire day would be covered.”
Well, yeah, but . . .
“I mean, you are her big sister. It would be nice if you could be there for her in her time of need.”
Warning! Warning, Will Robinson! Guilt trip, straight ahead.
“That is what family does, after all. Looks after each other.”
“All right! All right. You win,” I said, holding up my hands in submission. I know, I know. I was too easy. But she was right in a way. It would have been awful of me to let my mom suffer alone. “I’ll help out for a couple of hours in the evenings. It’ll be fun, right? Me and the girls? It’ll be like a slumber party. Yeah, lots of fun.” Just me, and the girls, and Mel the Prima Madonna.
My mom beamed. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
Was there any other?
Oh, my God. What had I gotten myself into?
My mom had decided that, this being Sunday, it was the perfect opportunity for me to head on over to Mel’s with her, to let Mel know about my willingness to serve, and to show me the ropes on everything that Mel would need done every day.
Oy.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be helpful. What I didn’t want was to see the look of triumph on Mel’s pretty face when she realized she was going to be able to order me around.
