by JB Lynn
I shrugged. “I don’t think Armani knows what the hell she’s talking about half the time.”
“But her predictions are eerily accurate.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Maybe I should ask her about my brother,” I mused aloud.
“Brother?”
I told him about the extra tree that my parents had planted, my dad’s confession that they’d given up a brother, and Aunt Susan’s passing out at the mere mention of his existence.
Zeke shook his head, worry lines marring his forehead. “Geez, Maggie. Don’t you have enough going on? Do you have to go looking for trouble?”
“I didn’t go looking for this,” I said defensively. “It all just kind of fell into place.”
“Hold that thought.” He answered his cell phone. “Hello?”
I sat back in my seat, sulking at his insinuation.
“Sure. Hang on.” He held out his phone to me. “It’s for you.”
I didn’t want to talk to Ms. Whitehat. I didn’t have the time, inclination, or energy to pull off whatever job she wanted to assign me. I shook my head, refusing to take the phone.
“Take it,” Zeke urged. “You’ll be glad you did.”
Grudgingly I let him hand it to me. “Hello?”
“Hey, beautiful,” a gravelly voice replied.
“Jack?”
“Alive and well. Well, relatively well considering how hard that guy whacked me. You’re okay?”
“Black and blue and red all over.”
He chuckled, “Is that a newspaper joke for my benefit?”
“It is indeed.”
Some of the pressure I’d been feeling lightened as I talked to him.
“I’ve talked to your sister,” he said.
“Lucky you.”
“She reminds me of you. Smart, determined.”
“Almost got you killed,” I added.
“Yeah, well, that comes with the territory around you.”
I chuckled.
“Look,” he continued seriously. “I’ve been offered a job. A change-the-world kind of gig, so I wanted to let you know that I won’t be around for a while, but I’m okay.”
Selfishly I knew I’d miss him, but there was no mistaking the excitement in his voice. I forced myself to say, “I’m happy for you, Jack.”
“Thanks, Maggie. See you around.” He disconnected the call.
I handed the phone back to Zeke who was watching me carefully. “You okay?”
I nodded. “It just feels like everything’s changing.”
“Change can be good.”
“Change can be terrifying,” I muttered, standing up as the door to Doctor Donna’s office opened.
“Can Katie stay out here with your friend while we talk?” the redheaded therapist asked.
I looked to Zeke.
“Absolutely,” he assured me.
I smiled at Katie, who ignored me. “Be nice to Zeke, okay?”
She didn’t answer.
The shrink waved me into her office.
All the chairs were low, probably so she could be at the same level as the children she worked with.
“Katie hates you,” she said once I was seated.
I almost fell off my chair.
“At least that’s what she thinks,” the doctor continued. “She blames you for everything that’s happened.”
“It has been a lot for her,” I excused.
Donna nodded. “It’s been a lot for you too. Are you seeing anyone?”
“Dating? No.”
“I meant professionally. Are you getting help with all that’s happened?”
I shook my head.
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure, why not? You already know the kid hates me.”
“Why do you think your sister made you Katie’s guardian?”
It was a question I’d thought a lot about. I rattled off the answer I’d come up with. “My aunts are too old, my parents are too screwed up, and I was the only sister available at the time.”
The doctor nodded, chewing on the end of her pen. “And you accepted the responsibility because?”
“I had no choice.”
“You had a choice,” she chided gently. “You could have refused the request.”
“I just told you. There was no one else.”
“You said you were the sister that was available. Does that mean you think she would have preferred one of your sisters to get custody of Katie?”
“I don’t think it. I know it.”
“How?”
“I just do.” I jumped up from the mini-seat. “Look, I know I suck at the parenting thing. I don’t have the mothering gene or whatever, but I’m doing my best and I can do better if you just tell me what to do. It’s not natural for me, but I’m really good at following instructions.”
Donna stood slowly. “You love your niece very much.”
“I do.”
The therapist grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “A solution will present itself,” she promised. “It always does. You just have to recognize it when it appears.”
“That’s your advice?” I asked incredulously. “Look for a solution on my own?”
She shrugged. “To woo woo?”
Considering I listened to psychics and ghost whisperers, I didn’t think anything was too “woo woo” for me. I shook my head.
“You’ll figure it out,” she reiterated. “But I do think that seeing your own therapist might help you get some clarity.” She handed me a business card. “You’ve been through just as much as Katie. Give Doctor Oatman a try.”
Zeke was pulling a quarter out of thin air for Katie when I stepped into the waiting room.
She clapped with delight at the trick, a genuine smile on her sweet little face.
For a brief moment I wished that he could pull a solution out of thin air for me.
Chapter Twenty-four
After taking Katie home, I spent eight hours at The Corset. Zeke tried to help, but even he seemed overwhelmed by how much work it took to keep the place open.
I was glad to head back to the B&B at the end of the shift. Considering how little sleep I’d had and how exhausting the past few days had been, I expected to sleep soundly, but instead I had a restless night.
So restless that at one point, after two in the morning, I walked out the cellar door, crunched across the frosted ground and stared up at the crisp, clear night sky, trying to put the questions swirling around inside my head in some kind of order so that I could catch some zzzz’s.
What did Susan know about my brother and why had she passed out?
I’d avoided her after she’d regained consciousness, assuming that if or when she was ready to talk about it, she’d find me.
Where were my parents hiding out?
And why were they robbing people for such piddling amounts when I’d given my dad a wad of cash to leave town with.
What was I going to do about Patrick?
I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know about him and the blonde, but if he found out I’d spied on him, he’d be angry. Very angry. He kind of scared me when he got angry.
What the hell was I supposed to do about Katie?
Had my search for her endangered Darlene? Where was she now? Where had she been? What was going on? And what the hell did Zeke know about it?
“Can’t sleep?” Zeke asked.
Whirling around, I found him standing behind me.
“I heard you get up,” he explained, draping an afghan around my shoulders.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“I’m a light sleeper. Especially on that cot,” he acknowledged ruefully. “Plus, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Define ‘okay’,” I joked feebly.
“Okay: the state of not being on the verge of falling apart.”
I shrugged. “Hard to say if those are the parameters.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I hesitated.
“But inside,” he insisted. “It’s too cold out here.”
I nodded my agreement and followed him back inside.
“How long have you known?” I asked before we’d even sat down on the couch.
He didn’t play coy. He knew I was asking how long he’d known Darlene was alive. “Not that long.”
“Before you came back to town for Alice’s wedding?” I asked.
“After. When did you find out?”
“Today.”
He shook his head. “You got confirmation today. How long have you known?”
It was a loaded question. How was someone whose mother resided in a mental health facility supposed to answer that question? If I were to tell him that a woman who talked to ghosts had told me a few months earlier, and that I believed her, he'd probably think I was just as crazy as my mom.
“Gypsy told me.”
“What?” I gasped.
“Gypsy, that medium I brought here, she’s the one who told me Darlene was alive. She told me right after we drove away from here.”
“And you believed her?”
He shrugged.
“I believed her too,” I admitted, though for a while I was afraid it was just wishful thinking on my part.
“And then I ran into Darlene again.”
“Where?”
“On a job.”
I could tell from his tone that he was being deliberately vague.
“She wants to retire.”
“Retire from what?”
“The job.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “You’re going to have to give me a little more than that to go on.”
He shook his head. “It’s a job you’re perfectly suited for.”
“Working for Whitehat?”
He shrugged. “Working for the organization that Whitehat works for.”
“The one you’re so desperate to get away from?”
He shrugged again. “I was. But recently I’ve had some assignments that were more rewarding. What do you say?”
“I can’t,” I replied automatically.
“Why not?”
“Katie. My family. I have to look after them.”
“What if there was someone else around to do that?”
“Who? You?” I scoffed.
He shook his head. “Darlene. And Dave. He’s a good guy. Straight up. Responsible. Doesn’t shy away from the Mr. Mom duties either.”
“They’re in hiding,” I reminded him. “Or have you forgotten?”
He shook his head. “Rumor has it that there’s a way for them to come home.”
“How convenient,” I drawled sarcastically. “After all these years, I finally manage to track her down and suddenly she’s ready to come home.”
Zeke scowled. “Bitchiness doesn’t become you, Maggie.” Before I could respond he added, “And would it really be so bad if she came home and helped out with Katie? Maybe took over for you?”
For a split second I entertained the fantasy of giving up my obligations. For a moment I believed that “stop mom” actually meant “stop being mom”. It felt wonderful. It felt a lot like freedom.
Then reality hit. I remembered my responsibilities. Katie couldn’t be handed off like some family heirloom I no longer wanted.
“I can’t.”
For a moment I thought Zeke was going to argue with me, instead he changed tactics. “Because you can’t forgive Darlene?”
I swallowed convulsively. “It’s hard when I don’t understand what happened. What’s going on?”
Zeke considered me for a long moment. “She wants to see you. To explain.”
“Convenient that you know this and not me,” I sniped.
“She wants to come home, Maggie,” he said quietly.
“She left us,” I reminded him bitterly. “She left us and let us think she’d died a terrible death. I looked away. I was too busy keeping an eye on my mom and I didn’t watch Darlene. Do you have any idea what that guilt did to me?”
Zeke closed his eyes as though my words pained him. “She wants to make amends.”
I kept the fact that she could never make up for the years of self-recrimination I’d been tortured with. Instead, I changed the course of the conversation. “She was going to kill Jack to save her family.”
“She was desperate. Haven’t you ever been so desperate to save someone you loved that you would have done anything to protect them?”
I’d become an assassin to pay for Katie’s care. Sacrificed my soul and for what? She hated me and I hated my life.
I didn’t answer Zeke. I threw a pillow at him and lay down. It wasn’t a mature way to end the conversation, but it was effective.
Chapter Twenty-five
Not surprisingly, I was exhausted when I dragged myself into The Corset the next morning.
Templeton was already there, working in the “special” section, singing some aria or some such shit. Whatever it was, it gave me an instant headache.
“Do you mind keeping it down to a dull roar?” I yelled.
“Do you have to yell like a barbarian first thing in the morning?” God asked from his hammock that was my bra.
Templeton peeked out between the stockings. “Maggie. I didn’t know you were here.”
“I didn’t know you were going to be here either. I could leave,” I offered hopefully.
“No, no. I can’t stay. I have to get to the hospital soon to check on your aunt.”
“How’s she doing?” I asked, instantly feeling guilty that I’d forgotten to ask about her over the last couple of crazy days.
“Good. Good. She meets with the surgeon today to find out if she can go home.”
“Great,” I said with false cheer, when what I was thinking was that there was no way she could climb the B&B’s stairs. I wasn’t a psychic like Armani, but I saw furniture moving in Angel’s future. We weren’t paying the man enough.
As though he read my mind and knew I was thinking of my psychic friend, Templeton said, “I heard that Armani did some pretty impressive work yesterday.”
I nodded, biting my tongue to keep from pointing out that I’d been the one to pull the Scrabble tiles, figure out Katie’s hiding place, and climb the tree.
Templeton considered me for a long moment. “Is something bothering you, Maggie?”
I shook my head. “Just a lot on my mind.”
He nodded. “If there’s anything I can help with…”
“I appreciate the offer,” I said with a smile, “but there’s nothing…” I trailed off for a second, thinking that maybe Aunt Loretta knew about my brother and Templeton could ask her about it. After all, she was currently bed-bound, so even if she too passed out from the shock of the question, she’d be perfectly safe.
Before I could broach the subject, Templeton announced, “Will you look at the time?” and ran out of the shop.
“Time to sell the corsets,” I muttered as the door practically hit him on the butt as he made his escape. I looked around the store. “Do we even sell corsets?”
“You should never try for a career in retail,” God muttered from his hiding spot. “How do you not know what your stock is?”
“Because I have a lot of distractions,” I snapped.
“Talking to yourself?” a voice asked from behind me.
Gasping my surprise, I spun around to find Zeke watching me.
I was tempted to berate him for startling me when I saw he carried coffee and a grease-stained bag that appeared to contain donuts. I swallowed my admonition and offered him a smile in the hopes it would net me some caffeine or sugar, or both.
“Is that for me?”
“You’re not supposed to go anywhere without me,” he chided, handing me a warm cup.
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to bother you.”
Zeke shook his head. “It’s not a bother. It’s my job at the moment.”
