Out of Body

by Stella Cameron

  39

  “Two things,” Nat said in Gray’s ear and much too loudly for Gray’s liking this morning. “The woman with Danny Summit last night was Sidney Fournier. She must have gone right from digging the dirt on him with you to his bed. How about that?”

  Gray looked at his phone and turned down the volume.

  Marley sat in the corner of Gus’s comfortable chintz couch, eating her way through a box of chocolates and not seeming to take any notice of Gray’s conversation. But Gus’s thin face showed the animation it always did when he sniffed police business. His eyes were bright as he pretended to look anywhere but at Gray.

  “Why would she do that?” he said. “Scratch the question. Just seems strange after she tried to blow the whistle on him. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. She seemed scared of him.”

  “She left his place after four this morning. Does that sound like she’s scared of him?”

  “Maybe she was trying to get more information from him,” Gray said. He wanted to get in the shower and think. “It doesn’t have to mean she was sleeping with him.”

  He caught a motion from Gus, who sent him a frown and nodded at Marley. So the old man had decided she was something special and her ears shouldn’t be subjected to less than pure comments.

  Marley didn’t miss a beat between chocolates.

  Smiling at Gus, he said, “Say again, Nat.”

  “I said they kissed at the door—for a long time. And a car was waiting for her—the one that takes her everywhere.”

  “Are you going to question her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good,” Gray said. “You’ll stand to get more if you give her longer to show what she’s up to.”

  “Glad you approve.”

  Gray smiled. “I’ll catch you later.”

  “Sure,” Nat said. “You might like to know there’s an unmarked car across the street. It’ll be there as long as Marley is.”

  Gray opened his mouth to protest but Nat hung up.

  “Well, hell,” he muttered.

  “What?” Marley said.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Gus told her. “He’s always been a mumbler. Every teacher-parent conference I had to listen to how he was so hard to understand.”

  Marley enjoyed that little piece of fiction far too much. “I’ll leave you two to entertain each other,” Gray said. “Try to find something more interesting to talk about than me.”

  “You gonna turn your human-interest article into a crime piece?” Gus said.

  “What?” Gray ran a hand behind his neck and stared at his dad.

  “That editor of yours called late yesterday. Seems you’re behind on your deadline,” Gus said with a grin. “I told him he’d better back off or you’ll sell the hottest story ever to come out of New Orleans to the highest bidder.”

  “Gus!”

  His dad laughed outright and his entire body quaked. “Gotcha. He said he understood, but could you get him at least something in a couple of days?”

  “Damn, you think you’re funny,” Gray said, smiling despite himself. “A couple of days,” he repeated under his breath.

  Gray heard the front door open.

  He grabbed his gun from the waist of his jeans and trained it on the doorway to the hall.

  “You got a way of overreacting, son,” Gus said.

  Gray sent him a warning glance.

  “Hey, Gus,” a female voice called. “Okay if I come in?”

  “Sure thing,” Gus said loudly.

  The chocolate box slid off Marley’s lap and hit the carpet. Candy rolled onto the rug. She turned sharply, just in time to see Willow Millet, with a green-and-white-striped motorcycle helmet on her head and Winnie in her arms, walk into the room. The helmet dripped water and the shoulders of her bright green jacket were dark with rain.

  “Marley,” Willow said. “What are you doing here at eight in the morning? Where have you been? Poor Winnie’s really upset with you.”

  “She’s with Gray,” Gus announced. “He brought her here last night, but she’s no trouble. All she eats is chocolates.”

  “I don’t get this,” Marley said, scooping a heap of those chocolates back into the box. “Winnie, come here, girl.”

  Winnie leaped from Willow’s arms, bypassed Marley without giving her a glance and sat at Gus’s feet, staring into his face with her bone sticking out like a yellowing handlebar mustache.

  Gus patted his lap and made coochie-coo noises. The little horror of a canine dropped her chew to jump up on the man’s lap and curl herself in a ball, apparently instantly asleep.

  He had, Gray realized, lost any control over what was going on in his own house—and maybe his own life.

  “I gave Willow a spare set of keys so she can get in real early if we aren’t up,” Gus said. “She’s going to take over for us here.”

  “That’ll be interesting for you,” Marley said to Gray.

  He shook his head. “You and Willow already met, Dad?”

  “You gave me her card,” Gus said. “I called her yesterday and she came right on over. She does everything.”

  “Including windows.” Willow smiled. She took off the helmet and held it under her arm. “I talked to Fabio and he’ll be expecting a shopping list from me. So you two need to write down everything you can think of. He’s fast so if he gets the list this afternoon, you’ll get your shopping by morning. Christa has a good-size space in her schedule next week and she’ll be here to go through all your cupboards and closets to get things ready for donation.”

  “You can see why I hired her,” Gus said. “Finally we’ll get some order around here.”

  “I’m sorry I had to bring Winnie,” Willow said. “She’s been on her own too much lately. But she loves a ride in the scooter trailer. She pokes her nose through that hole next to the window zipper.”

  Gray watched Marley with interest. She had a mixture of sad and mad on her face. Her sister was goading her and that annoyed Marley, but she didn’t want her dog to lavish attention on anyone but her.

  “I’ll make sure she’s got an even bigger bone than that one,” Gus said, oblivious to the atmosphere. “Put that on the shopping list, Gray. A bag of food just in case and some chews. And we can put a bed over in the corner for her, too.”

  “Is there anything else you plan to arrange while I’m not around?” Gray said.

  “Just a gardener to keep things tidy,” Gus said. “Willow sees to that, too.”

  “Oh, yes,” Willow said. “You’re going to love our Potted Ladies. They’ll make you want to just stare out the window all day.”

  Gray knew when he was beaten. He also knew he was tired—and worried. Now he was overwhelmed to boot. And he didn’t dare move too far from Marley in case something happened to send her back to the creature. He had not, Gray realized, seen anything of the thing Marley so feared. Very soon he would press her for more information on this Bonding, too, just to get more hints about what he could expect in the way of changes—like perhaps he might start levitating at inconvenient moments, or doing the chameleon and changing colors to match his background.

  Darn, he was so edgy he was going into his flip mode and it wasn’t appropriate now.

  Gus looked so cheerful, Gray didn’t have the heart to rain on his parade by criticizing his decision to hire a small army. His dad had needed more to occupy his mind for a long time and this Willow was interesting. He wondered what her particular psi talents were and had no doubt she did have them. The whole Millet family had always been said to be “woo-woo” and he believed it.

  Willow approached him. “I’ll do a good job for you and your dad,” she said. “If you think of something you need done and I don’t come up with it on my own, just let me know.” She lowered her voice. “I really like your dad. Looks like Marley does, too.”

  “He’s always had a way with women,” Gray said, smiling. “It must be satisfying to charm females the way he does—not that he often sees any.
”

  “I’m taking Winnie to the kitchen,” Gus said. “I want her to learn her way around. That okay, Marley?”

  “Of course.” But she didn’t look thrilled.

  Gus manipulated his wheelchair like a man who had had a lot of practice and left the room. Watching him, Gray was unexpectedly relieved. Gus needed company and diversion and, thanks in part to insurance and a quiet lifestyle, there was plenty of money to cover as much help as they wanted to hire.

  “Willow,” Marley said. “You should not have brought Winnie.”

  “Gus wanted me to.” Willow sounded defensive. “He’s enjoying himself. Surely you can share your dog for a little. I seriously brought her because I didn’t know where you were and couldn’t leave her alone again. But Gus had said he misses having a dog, but he figures it would be too much work for Gray since Gus might have a problem with feeding and cleaning up after a dog outside.”

  Marley sat with one of Gus’s lap pads draped around the shoulders of her white cotton dress. She looked a little forlorn—and anxious. Gray had been sitting on the edge of a table and he straightened up, concentrating on every hint of change in her expression.

  “I might as well tell you I’ve got a problem,” Marley told her sister. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, but there’s a lot at stake. You could really help me by keeping the others off my case. There’s too much riding on what I do.”

  “Okay,” Willow said slowly, looking at Gray, then back at Marley. “Is there something you’re telling me without telling me?”

  “I don’t know why you’d say that,” Marley said.

  “I’m your sister,” Willow said. “Is there…Has there been a Bonding?”

  “Willow.” Marley frowned at her.

  “I know about these things even if I don’t believe in them,” Willow said. “There’s something different. You don’t seem the same anymore.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  Willow wrinkled her nose. She approached Gray and stood too close for comfort, staring at him with her disconcerting green concentration. “Are you the one?”

  “Willow!” Marley exploded. “Please. You’re not interested in…Well, you’re not. So why ask embarrassing questions now?”

  “What happened to you?” Willow said to Gray as if Marley hadn’t spoken at all. “A lot of sadness. And fear. Someone hurt you, didn’t they?”

  Gray looked to Marley for help, but from her shocked expression, he wouldn’t be getting any from her, or not soon.

  Willow touched his face lightly.

  He felt himself grow detached from the room and blinked to focus.

  “Who were they?” Willow asked. “Your parents?”

  “No!”

  “I don’t mean Gus. He would never hurt you. But the ones who came before them. Were they people who took you in, but didn’t like you?”

  He felt an urge to escape. This was another of the “gifted” Millets, all right.

  Suddenly, Willow held Gray’s arm. “You were abandoned. Left outside a church when you were a small boy.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Gray said. “It happened a very long time ago and in the end I got Gus. I got the best part.”

  “They did things to you—”

  “Please stop.”

  Willow didn’t seem to hear him. “They wounded you. Always in places that didn’t show on the outside.”

  Gray’s mind shifted quickly. He felt his built-in protection waver and got an impression of lying on a kitchen table. He put the back of his arm over his eyes.

  “Could it be that he had powers and they were suppressed?” Marley asked. “Did it happen back then?”

  “I think so,” Willow said. “Gray, the young man and the woman held you down while the other man cut you.”

  Gray felt numb. He could see the yellowing ceiling in that kitchen. He should be able to, he’d stared up at it a number of times while he tried not to scream. But in the end he had always screamed.

  “It hurts so much,” Willow moaned. She covered her face and rocked in place.

  “Not anymore,” Gray said.

  “They sat on your legs and tied your arms together behind your back. The woman said…she wanted you castrated.”

  Gray’s eyes rose to meet Marley’s. She looked as if she might faint.

  “The men said, no, and they cut you inside your mouth. Long slivers of flesh cut out and thrown away. And you bled so much. They left you there and you rolled off the table and just bled such a long time.”

  Willow traced lines on his face. “I can feel where they did it. Why?”

  “Cruelty and true evil don’t need reasons,” Gus said. He had rolled his wheelchair into the room unnoticed and approached Gray. “They went too far that night and someone heard. They called it in and my partner and I went. Both of those men are dead. They died in prison—after they found out all about pain. I don’t know about the woman.”

  “But why?” Marley said. “There has to be a reason.”

  “You want to tell ’em,” Gus said.

  Gray shook his head.

  “They had a whole bunch of foster children. That’s how they lived. When they were arrested they said Gray was strange, that he wasn’t like other children. They said he was dangerous—an eight-year-old boy, mind you. They said he did things. Made things move around. Made the other children cry. They said—” Gus paused. “They said he wasn’t a human, but some sort of mutant.”

  “Are we done?” Gray said.

  Marley got close to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “It explains a lot. I wonder if you got born to people who didn’t understand. Perhaps something happened to your birth mother. It’s unusual for one of us to be abandoned. I don’t think I ever heard of that happening.”

  “We’ll never know,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

  “But you don’t mind that your powers are coming back?”

  “Not as long as I have you. I want them back.”

  Willow hadn’t moved away. She stood close, studying them.

  “And you needn’t bother to keep pretending the specialness of the Millet family is nothing to do with you,” Marley said to her. “So you detect the hurts of others? And you see the terrible events they’ve suffered. What else, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “You came over you,” Marley said. “And what you just showed could be used for good. You can pick out perpetrators, can’t you?”

  Willow crossed one lime-green-and-white sneaker over the other. “I don’t know about that. I’ve got a business to run. I just wanted to help you and Gray because…well, because you’ve Bonded.”

  Gray narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Everyone in the family will know because we have a connection at times that affects all of us. A Bonding affects us all since it’s the enlarging of our circle to include fresh blood. It hasn’t happened for a long time so it’s a very good thing.”

  “They cut him in a lot of places,” Gus said. “On the bottoms of his feet so he couldn’t try to go for help—”

  “Leave it there, please.” Gray’s nerves jumped. Gus was fixated on this now, but there were many things better left unsaid.

  “I’ll always hate what they did to you, Gray, but I’m glad I was the one who went out on the call. At the hospital they cleaned up inside his mouth and they had to do some grafts, but he’s okay.”

  “Of course he is,” Marley said, and caught Willow’s eye. Willow had not only been able to see the scars when Marley couldn’t, in full daylight, she had known she was seeing some sort of reflection from old wounds that weren’t visible on the outside, on his face.

  Marley didn’t intend to let her sister hide away all her lights again.

  This time it was her phone that rang and she backed away from the others a little to talk.

  “Marley, is that you?” a woman said for the second time. “Answer me.”

  “Who a
re you?” Marley asked cautiously.

  “It’s Sidney, of course. I need to see you right now.”

  40

  The moment Marley had hung up from talking to Sidney Fournier, the Ushers started rustling and arguing across her mind. “Don’t let Gray hear you. He’s more aware all the time. You talked to him when I wasn’t there—I can’t believe that,” she had told them.

  But they couldn’t keep quiet. Their whispers followed her from the cottage, into Gray’s car and kept coming in little bursts while they drove toward J. Clive Millet and the Court of Angels.

  “You okay?” Gray asked. He braked the Volvo for an accordionist who played and sang his way across the street despite the rain and occasional rumbles of thunder.

  “He needs to get in out of this storm,” Marley said. Lightning ripped the hot sky, but the musician played on.

  “Marley, are you okay?” Gray said again.

  “Great,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. The shop is my turf and it’s the best place for me to meet Sidney alone.” The whispering rose again and she frowned fiercely. “Stop it now. All of you. We’ll talk when I’m alone.”

  “Are you angry about something?” Gray said.

  She looked at him. “No. Why?”

  “I thought you were talking to yourself. Why can’t I be there with you when Sidney comes?”

  “She won’t open up if you are. She felt some sort of understanding coming from me and she’s decided to trust me. I think she’ll tell me about last night.”

  Gray had told her exactly what Nat said on the phone and she was ready to listen closely to Sidney when she came—which wouldn’t be for three hours—something Marley hadn’t told Gray when she agreed to have him drop her at the shop. Sidney had said she wanted to meet Marley right away, then changed her mind and asked to come later.

  Marley had a feeling. Not just any ordinary feeling, but a strong compulsion to spend time alone with the red chinoiserie house. Each time she touched it, she held her breath, expecting the Ushers to tune up and for the portal to appear. But she did not have to enter that portal until she made the decision she wanted to and this morning she wouldn’t go anywhere until she answered some of her own questions.