Kellen hovered near her ear, his lips but a fraction from touching the outer shell of it. “Well, Miss Sensitive and Nurturing, do you see what I’m up against? You don’t have the patience for this any more than I do.”
But then a thought hit her. She held up a finger to Kellen’s lips. “Wait. Maybe what he’s trying to tell us has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with what’s going on right now. I remember D telling me that while the whole thing with Clyde was going down, ghosts kept showing up and giving her clues that they didn’t realize pertained to Clyde’s predicament until later. So maybe what Joe was spewing—the monkey business thing—and whatever Maurice wants have to do with Carlos.”
Maurice began to jump up and down with a frantic gesture that made his comb-over flap. “‘Tragedy’!” The syllables echoed around the room, ominous, anxious, coming in stuttering waves.
Marcella blanched, barely able to find the words to speak. “There’s going to be a tragedy?” she squeaked. “With Carlos?”
His head bobbed up and down with furious jabs.
Fear clutched her heart. “I need more than that, Maurice. I need you to tell me what’s going to happen to Carlos. Who’s jive talkin’? For that matter, whose broken heart needs to mend?”
While Kellen grabbed a pen from the counter and scribbled the titles on a piece of stray paper, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans, Maurice’s image began to flutter.
“No, wait!” Marcella shouted, chasing after Maurice’s disappearing form. “Come back! God damn it, I’ll never watch Saturday Night Fever again if you don’t get your ass back here!” She stomped her foot when he slipped away completely. Kellen came to stand behind her, placing his warm hands on her shoulders with a reassuring touch. She so wanted to curl against him and sob in the shelter of his broad shoulder.
“We’ll figure it out, I promise,” he said, though he didn’t sound like he believed it. Pulling the paper back out of his pocket, Kellen ran his fingers over his wrinkled brow as he stared down at the song titles. They sprawled across the paper, menacing and ugly. Tragedy. What did it mean?
“Fuck. I don’t like the sound of this. I’m worried about Carlos.”
Marcella let go of a shuddering breath, wrapping her arms around her waist. “Me, too.”
Brushing a chunk of her hair over her shoulder, he asked, “Who’d have thought, Marcella Acosta?”
She didn’t like the sentimental tone to his voice or the way her heart went soft like room-temperature butter at his touch. “Thought what?”
“That you’d get so wrapped up in a frightened little boy.”
Certainly not her . . . She bristled. “Please. I’m not wrapped up. I’m involved by proxy and because you couldn’t help but be a pansy-ass where your sister’s concerned. I have nothing better to do with my time. God knows I can’t shop, so I may as well try to help Carlos.”
His pessimistic glance made her harden her eyes. “Right. I saw how indifferent you were to his snotty charms while you cooed at him over my shoulder all sweet and maternal. And that brings me to a question. How did you end up meeting Carlos? In the chaos, we never got around to establishing that.”
She shrugged her shoulders in what she hoped appeared as indifference, brushing his heated hands away as she did. “When you were kissing Delaney’s ass at her house and I disappeared—I ended up in Carlos’s bedroom. I have no idea how it happened. It seems I have no control when I’m sucked from one place to another. If only someone would suck me into the nearest designer boutique.”
“This means something, Marcella. So far you’ve only been summoned by someone with the gift of sight who’s been thinking about you.”
“I’d venture to guess Carlos wasn’t thinking about me in cheap lingerie,” she said dryly.
He gave her a shameless, lascivious smile. “Touché.”
She rolled her eyes. He was back to not biting again. “Then explain why a kid, one I don’t even know and never saw before a couple of days ago, is thinking me up.”
“I don’t know, but somehow you’re involved in this.”
“That brings me to why I’m here at the butt crack of dawn. Last night I hooked up with my contact again—”
“Who is this contact, Marcella?”
“If I told you, even with all the ghosts and demons that run amok in your life, you’d never believe it. Anyway, he said there’s some kind of box involved in this thing with Carlos and it’s bad.” Stopping there, she watched him assimilate the information. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself speculate on this box until she had solid proof of its existence.
Kellen frowned. Leaning against the counter, he steepled his hands over his lips. “A box? Do you know what that means?”
The ringing of the phone saved her from answering his probing question. No one needed to panic until it was absolutely necessary.
After a brief conversation, he clicked the off button on the phone with a grimace. “That was Mrs. Ramirez.”
Instantly, fear clutched at her gut. “Is Carlos all right?” She knew her tone only verified his earlier statement, but she didn’t care. This strange pull, this odd connection to Carlos left her with no room to hide her emotions.
“He’s fine, but his mother’s in some serious shit.”
Marcella had never given thought to his mother. “His mother?”
“Mrs. Ramirez says she’s in jail. She asked if I’d watch Carlos for her so she can go bail her out.”
Jail? How could a sweet woman like Mrs. Ramirez have a daughter capable of landing in jail? “That poor kid,” she muttered. It wasn’t bad enough that the boogeyman was hot on his heels, but now his mother was locked up. “Did she say why his mother’s in jail?”
His face was grim with concern. “Solicitation of an undercover cop, and according to her, this is totally out of character. Mrs. Ramirez rambled on and on about what a good girl her Solana is—was.”
Good girls didn’t offer to wonk for cash. “Jesus. Is she bringing Carlos here?”
“Yeah. You wanna stick around?”
She couldn’t look at him for fear her eyes would give her away. Instead she let her eyes drift to the world globe Kellen had set out on the table in the story time area. “Are we baking cookies and finger painting? There’s nothing I love more than ruining a good manicure as I add ten unwanted pounds to my thighs while I amuse a child who surely has some icky diseases.” How’s that for maternal? In reality, there was nothing she wanted more than to hang around and just be near Carlos. See that he was safe. Protect him.
Gak.
“I was thinking maybe we’d do something fun like play Xbox 360 games. Maybe Guitar Hero or Rock Band. But what do I know about fun—me being such a snooze and all?” he teased.
“An assload of snooze,” she reminded him with a smirk.
Kellen chuckled over his shoulder, heading to the back of the store while Marcella fretted. Spending any more time with Carlos and Kellen than was necessary was treading on dangerous territory. Already this peculiar affinity for Carlos was burning a hole in her heart, and it frightened her far more than going back to Plane Dismal for eternity. What alarmed her even more was the possibility that she’d end up sucked back there and not be able to stay here and help. For all the good she was doing at this point.
The jingle of the bell on the door, and the sound of a harried Mrs. Ramirez rushing in with Carlos in tow, interrupted her worry.
Carlos, running behind his grandmother, backpack in tow, caught sight of her and gave her a shy smile.
And then her heart sang.
Jesus Christ on the crapper.
She gave him a little wiggle of her fingers and slipped behind the pair to listen to what Mrs. Ramirez said to Kellen. Kellen sent Carlos into the living room, where he’d set up the video game and told him to wait for him so they could rock out together.
When he turned to Mrs. Ramirez, he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and listened to her frantic explanation. Her d
ark hair, smattered with gray, usually so neat and tidy, flew in stray strands about her head. She clutched her large, multicolored purse to her chest like it was her lifeline. Her words shot from her mouth in chunks filled with anxiety. “I am so sorry, Meester Kellen. I don’t know what to do. My baby, she is a mess! This is not like my Solana. She is a good girl. But since Carlos’s father die, she never been de same.”
Kellen looked over her shoulder to catch Marcella’s gaze momentarily. Their questioning glance synchronized. “I had no idea Carlos’s father was dead. How long ago did it happen?”
Tears filled her large, almond-shaped eyes. “A year ago. He die in car accident. Ohhh,” she moaned, “it was so bad. So, so bad. My Solana, she cry and cry. Me and my husband tell her to come home from California. We help with Carlos while she work, but she no work. She always with the going out at night. She gone all the time. Poor Carlos, he so sad, and now, bad things happening with him, too. You see yesterday. You know, Meester Kellen, Carlos, he like you and Meess Delaney.”
“So you understand?” Kellen asked, his voice hesitant.
“I think I do, but I am scared.”
Kellen’s nod was calming, his words caring and gentle. “It’s okay, Mrs. Ramirez. I’ll help as much as I can.”
She shook her head, obviously overwhelmed. Digging a wad of tissues out of her purse, she pressed one to her nose and sniffed. “I have to go now. The bail man, he say I have to hurry. You look out for my baby, yes? I could be gone a long time.” The worry in her eyes tore at Marcella.
“You have nothing to worry about. You go take care of Solana. Carlos and I will be just fine.”
Mrs. Ramirez hurled her portly body at Kellen, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing. “I make you enchiladas when this all done. I promise. Carlos,” she called to him where he sat in front of a drum set. “You be good boy for me, okay?” Her fond smile, so obviously riddled with worry for her grandson, melted when he nodded his consent.
Kellen kissed the top of her head and set her from him, encouraging her to go get her daughter with a gentle nudge. The bell on the door chimed, signaling her departure.
Both Kellen and Marcella breathed simultaneous sighs of relief. Mrs. Ramirez’s fear and anxiety were like a heavy weight. Her burden was clear. Her love for her family, more so.
Marcella knew that kind of love.
She knew that kind of pain.
She knew.
“Hey.” Kellen gave her shoulder a nudge with his, pulling her from her reverie. “You wanna play drums or guitar?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want to play anything.”
“Wow. You’re an assload of fun,” he whispered with a wink.
“C’mon, Marcella,” Carlos coaxed. “It’s fun.” His smile, so different from the wide-eyed terror of the day before, yanked at her poor heart. A heart that wasn’t accustomed to so much use.
“Fine. But you both do know I may not be able to pick anything up, don’t you?”
“You can sing,” Kellen offered with smug satisfaction. “I even have a microphone stand. You don’t have to touch a thing.”
Carlos waited with excited expectation in his twinkling green eyes. Those eyes. There was just no resisting them. Throwing up her hands, she gave them both a mock pained look. “Okay, but just remember, I’m warning you. I sound like I’ve been dipped in acid when I sing. You’ll both be a pair of sorry, deaf men when we’re through.”
Kellen watched Marcella’s pert, round behind sway to the music as she lent truth to her earlier statement. She blew chunks as a vocalist. But that hadn’t stopped them from doubling over with laughter as he and Carlos razzed her about how Russia had called and asked her to stop all that caterwauling.
Out of glee-filled spite, she’d smiled that sly, seductive smile of hers, with a tilt of her lips; thrown back her head; and begun to sing even louder, leaving Carlos almost unable to play the drums due to his fits of giggles. Giggles that made Marcella, the allegedly vain, shallow demon, glow with such apparent joy, Kellen was left dry mouthed.
Her long, curly hair fell in waves down the back of her ruined dress, so enticing he wanted to drag his hands through it before securing her full lips to his in a kiss that would demand she submit. Her voluptuous curves, swishing to and fro, left him planting his guitar firmly on his lap to hide his obvious arousal.
But what had caught his attention, beyond her obvious beauty, beyond her sultry charms, was her interaction with Carlos. The connection was clear between the two as they joked and laughed when she failed a song.
This was a woman who had more facets than a diamond. The woman he’d always thought was cold, calculating, and heartless was warm, funny, and bonding with a little boy she’d known for just a few short days.
It made him want her all the more.
He wanted her so much he ached with it. Ached in places he hadn’t known existed. Last night, when her curves had been so molded to his, he’d pressed her for answers about her past mostly because he truly wanted to know who Marcella was, but also to distract himself from finishing off that trashed dress of hers by tearing it from her body.
He wanted to explore every blessed inch of her, and now, knowing she wasn’t who she’d always claimed she was made it that much harder to stay away from her.
“Fire awwwaaayyyyyy!” Marcella howled into the microphone, finishing with a curtsy when Carlos fell off his chair and pretended to pass out from her ear-bleeding screeching.
Kellen smiled when she knelt beside him and said, “Excuse me, mister. Are you making fun of my velvet pipes?” She reached out to give him a poke under his arm, failed miserably by sticking her finger right through his armpit, then giggled with abandon when they both realized she couldn’t touch him. This scene that played out right before his feet was one he’d often hoped for—maybe not with a ghost and a nine-year-old who was being hunted by demons, but similar if not as desirable. When they’d bent their heads together while Carlos explained the rules of the game, it had done something totally unexpected to his heart. Unexpected and he’d like to claim unwelcome. But he couldn’t. Damn it all, he couldn’t.
Yet, soon enough, it would all go up in a puff of smoke.
Marcella couldn’t drift here forever unless Delaney found some sort of answer. Carlos would have to go home to his grandmother and his wayward parent.
He had to get a grip. Setting the guitar aside, he rose and said, “Okay, rockers. Whaddya say we break for something to eat? Hard-core musicians need to refuel.”
“Awww.” Carlos chirped his protest. “Can’t we play just a little bit more?”
Carlos’s obvious need for any kind of attention showed in the way he preened when praised and tried harder when corrected. He was a classic case of unintentional neglect. More than likely, Mrs. Ramirez was too overwhelmed by his mother’s behavior to devote as much time to him as she’d like, and his mother’s lack of interest since her husband’s death all led to a cry to be heard. Add into the mix his father’s death, demons, and ghosts, and it made for a mess of emotions on overload.
Marcella held out her hand to Carlos and gave him a teasing grin. “C’mon. Kellen’s right. Little twerp rockers need nourishment if they hope to rock another day.”
Carlos grabbed for her hand, knowing full well he couldn’t hold it, but playing the game with her anyway. She led him into the kitchen by holding her hand out to him, then yanking it back as they laughed their way into the kitchen.
Kellen paused for a moment in the midst of their instruments’ electrical cords and discarded drumsticks, listening to the sounds of their laughter, straining his ears to catch the words Marcella spoke in Spanish.
And for the first time, he understood why his sister was so happy now.
He understood the ache she’d once described when she’d talked about children and a husband, a home. The fear she’d never have those things because of her gift. The relief he sometimes saw in her eyes when he relayed an enc
ounter with a particularly surly ghost. He suddenly understood the soft hush to her tone when she spoke of Clyde and the love they’d fought for.
He understood.
Carlos dug through his backpack, pulling out his treasured army men to show Kellen while Marcella hovered, feeling far too cozy. Familial.
Really, how long did bailing someone out take? The longer the hours grew while they waited for Carlos’s grandmother to come back, the more Marcella never wanted their time together to end.
Seeing them together, Kellen listening with interest and patience to Carlos, left her wanting both to escape and to join them, all at once. When Kellen placed his large hand over Carlos’s to show him how to draw a three-dimensional box, her heart got all warm and syrupy. Carlos wasn’t at all upset or fearful of her presence. He didn’t flip a nut because she couldn’t touch him. He didn’t seem to find anything about her, besides her name, strange at all. Which led her to wonder when he’d begun to experience the afterlife.
“Hey, Marcella. Do you still hate my army men?” Carlos asked with a giggle that swelled her heart.
She rolled her eyes with intended exaggeration. “I never said I hated them, young man. I said I didn’t want to play with them. I think I’m just more of a Barbie Dream House kind of girl. Or maybe Malibu Barbie, ya know, wisenheimer?”
“Barbies are stooopid,” he chanted on a laugh, ducking his head to dig in his backpack.
“Hey”—she pointed a finger at him—“you calling me stooopid?”
Carlos shook his head immediately. “Nuh-uh. My grandma’d yell at me.”
“Hey, I’ve got a question for you, little man. You mind?” she asked, floating toward him.
Green eyes became hesitant.
But Marcella sought them, winking. “It’s no big deal. I was just wondering something, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” She kept her request easy and as though it were no big thang if he didn’t want to answer.
My Way to Hell Page 12
