“She can’t stop herself from wandering and you didn’t take her with you.” Jerry’s tone somehow managed to be pragmatic and annoying at the same time. “I think, as her babysitter, that’s on you.”
I held up my hand to quiet him. “Thank you, Jerry.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I ground my teeth as I looked to Braden. “Do you see what happens when you don’t follow rules? This is your fault.”
Braden’s cheeks flushed. “Excuse me? You’re the one who is supposed to be in charge.”
“Yeah, well, I told you guys to stay in the van.” I couldn’t let it go. If my siblings could follow rules I wouldn’t be in this mess. Honestly, this was all on them. I was innocent in this particular case. “I wasn’t asking for the world. I simply needed fifteen minutes to collect a soul. Was that too much to ask?”
“Obviously,” Cillian replied dryly, his attention on a book.
“We gave you fifteen minutes,” Aidan pointed out. “Did you do what you were supposed to do?”
“No.” My frustration bubbled over. “I didn’t get a chance to because I found Braden inside.”
“Oh, don’t do that.” Braden wagged a finger. “You were distracted by that chick and you know it. You weren’t even looking for your soul.”
Intrigued, Cillian lowered his book. “What chick?”
“You picked up a chick in there?” Jerry was officially horrified. “She probably has herpes. You should stay away from her.”
“She doesn’t have herpes.” I automatically tossed out the statement without giving it much thought. “She probably doesn’t have herpes,” I amended. “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t flirting with her. I was trying to find a location on Peter Langstrom, not a date.”
“Sure.” Braden rolled his eyes. “She was simply an informational source.”
“She was.” I refused to back down. “Besides, I know her from school. She was in my class last year … although I think she dropped out or something now that I think about it.”
“You know her?” Cillian’s eyebrows migrated north. “I have trouble believing anyone from our neighborhood has been hanging in this neighborhood.”
For some reason his dismissive tone rankled. “Hey! We’re all human beings.”
“Certainly.” Cillian nodded. “We’re definitely all human beings. But the human beings here are having sex in the parking lot and even shooting themselves up with God knows what despite having a rapt audience watching their every move.”
Well, if I wasn’t officially horrified before, I passed the mark with one little statement. “You saw people having sex?”
“I believe the drug use was more shocking to our young charges,” Cillian challenged. “Aisling kept saying that’s not how they do it on Beverly Hills, 90210.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose to give myself a moment to regroup. “So, basically you’re saying that in the ten minutes I was away my baby sister – the sister who loves to tattle to Dad to get her own way – saw people having sex and someone else shooting up. That’s what you’re telling me, right?”
“Pretty much.”
It took everything I had not to lunge to the front of the van and beat the snot out of Cillian. “And why, pray tell, did you let her out of the van?”
Cillian shrugged, noncommittal. “You know how she is. She bites if she doesn’t get her own way. I didn’t want to wrestle with her.”
I tugged on my hair and glared as I growled. I could not form words I was so upset.
“I think he’s about to blow a gasket,” Braden announced as he climbed into the van and reclaimed his seat next to Aidan.
“Do you blame him?” Jerry wrung his hands as he leaned forward. “My Bug is out there, in a cold and filthy world, and she could be in trouble. I think we should all blow gaskets.” Jerry had referred to Aisling as “Bug” since the first time she’d invited him over for a playdate. I never understood why the name stuck – she saved a bunch of ants from annihilation that day and turned into a hero in Jerry’s eyes – but sometimes I found the name endearing. This was not one of those times.
“Aisling is fine,” I snapped. I was almost positive that was true. Sure, she was almost fourteen and had a mouth like a trucker with Tourette’s – and about as much common sense as a rapper trying to win a disco dancing contest – but she was a survivor. I had no doubt about that. “I’m heading back inside to collect her right now.”
“What about your soul?” Cillian asked. “When are you going to collect that?”
“At the same time I collect Aisling.”
“But you don’t even know where your soul is,” Braden pointed out. He looked to be having fun at my expense – something that was worth a good atomic wedgie the second I found the time to focus on him – but I had bigger things to worry about than his smarmy smile.
“I’m closing in on my soul,” I lied. “Basically I just need to head back up and collect it.”
“You have to find Aisling, too,” Aidan pointed out. He looked mildly nervous. His relationship with Aisling was interesting on a variety of different levels. They were close – unbelievably close sometimes – but Aidan also struggled for separation. He looked genuinely fearful now.
“I’ll find Aisling,” I promised, resting my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about her. I’ve got Aisling completely under control.”
Aidan didn’t look convinced. “But … .”
“No.” I shook my head, firm. “I’ll find her. I promise. Give me … ten minutes. I’ll go inside, track down Peter Langstrom and drag Aisling out by her hair if I have to.”
Aidan’s purple eyes met mine for a beat and then he slowly nodded. “Okay.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Okay.”
“Be as quick as you can,” Cillian instructed, his expression sober. “I think that the longer we’re in this neighborhood the more likely we are to find trouble.”
I agreed with him. Adding to the tense situation inside the van seemed a poor idea, though. “There won’t be any trouble. I’m going to find Aisling, collect my soul and then we’re out of here. I promise that will be the end of it.”
TWO MINUTES LATER I WAS back inside and searching for my sister. I felt like an idiot for having made the promise.
“Hey, man, have you seen a little girl wandering through here?” I focused on a guy passing by, his hair standing on end as he shuffled through the thickening crowd. “I’m looking for a little girl.”
The man slowed his pace and looked me up and down, his lips curving into a sneer. “Listen, dude, that’s sick.”
I made a face. “What’s sick?”
“I know this place looks like a ‘come one, come all’ kind of hangout but we don’t allow stuff like that.” The man was firm in his conviction. “There are no little girls available here, you pervert.”
It took me a second to realize what he was saying. “I wasn’t talking about that!” I was officially horrified. “I’m looking for my little sister. She took off and ended up somewhere in here. I’m trying to get her out, not pick her up.”
“Oh.” The man looked genuinely relieved. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel. You shouldn’t let her wander around in here. It’s dangerous.”
“Why do you think I’m looking for her?”
He shrugged, his eyes glazing over as the music shifted to a harder beat. “I don’t know. I hope you find her.”
I watched him go with a mixture of dislike and pity, taking a moment to collect my wits before shaking my head and glancing around. Aisling wasn’t on the first floor. I was almost positive about that. That meant I had another climb in front of me.
I bypassed the second floor with only a cursory look – there were even fewer people hanging out on that level than before – and moved directly to the third floor. Searching for Aisling wasn’t easy. She wasn’t very tall and there were bodies in every direction, some of them dancing and others doing things I didn’t want to think abou
t.
I was lost in worry about what Aisling would tell our father when he got home, when I felt a body move in at my left. I wasn’t surprised to find Courtney there. She seemed happy to cozy up to me even though we barely knew each other.
“I wondered if you would be back,” she purred, batting her eyelashes as she leaned closer. “I thought maybe you’d skedaddled.”
“No. I didn’t ‘skedaddle.’ I’m not even sure I know what that word means.”
“It means to take off.” Courtney was serious. “My mother used to say that word all the time. That’s how I learned it.”
I blinked several times in rapid succession as I regarded her. “Okay, well … I don’t suppose you’ve seen my sister, have you?”
Courtney looked to have ingested something in our time apart because she was even hazier than when I’d seen her fifteen minutes before. “Your sister? Do I know your sister?”
I tugged on my limited patience and forced a smile. “Probably not. She’s only fourteen.”
“You brought your sister to a rave?”
“I left my sister in the parking lot so I could conduct my business,” I clarified.
“And what’s your business again?”
She really was on my last nerve. I felt sorry for her in a way. Okay, I felt really sorry for her. I’d never paid much attention to her in school – we ran in different circles, which wasn’t necessarily a good or bad thing – and somehow she’d fallen off my radar. I had no idea how she ended up here, in this place, but I honestly wanted to help her. But I had a missing sister, other siblings in a van in the parking lot and a soul to collect. I didn’t have much time for Courtney Dempsey.
“I need to find Peter Langstrom,” I reiterated. “I need to talk to him.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Courtney turned thoughtful. “He generally takes over the fifth floor on nights he’s here.”
“He does?” I was surprised to find I actually had actionable information for the first time tonight. “Does he hang out alone up there?”
Courtney snorted, amused. “Peter? Why would he be alone?”
“Well … I was simply hopeful. The conversation I need to have with him is not for public consumption.”
“I don’t think he cares about things like public consumption, whatever that is.” Courtney rolled her eyes. “If you really need to see him, he’s up on the fifth floor. That’s where he spends all of his time. I can’t remember the last time I saw him hanging out anywhere but the fifth floor at one of these things.”
“That information is most helpful.” I turned to head back to the staircase but paused before walking away from my former classmate. “Can I ask you something?”
Courtney pursed her lips and bobbed her head. “Sure.”
“Why do you hang out here?”
“I like the ambiance.” Courtney let loose a nervous giggle. “Who wouldn’t love ambiance like this?”
She was making light of her current situation, but I remained uncomfortable with the idea of simply walking away and leaving her with … well, any of this. “I’m serious. Why are you here? I didn’t even know you’d left school until I saw you and realized I hadn’t laid eyes on you in at least nine months or so … and that includes graduation.”
Courtney shrugged. “I didn’t graduate.”
“But … why?”
“Because I didn’t want to graduate,” Courtney snapped, her eyes flashing with impatience. “What could I possibly get out of graduation that I can’t get here?”
The answer to that seemed more than a little obvious. “I don’t know. How about a job?”
“Why would I want a job?”
“To … I don’t know … pay for things. Isn’t that why most people want a job?”
“You sound just like my parents.” Courtney shook her head. “Not everyone has desires on a corporate world, Redmond. Some of us want to live a less-structured life.”
That sounded like a load of crap. “No one says you have to get dressed up and go to an office building every day. That’s not for everyone. I realize that. In fact, I don’t do that.”
“No?” Courtney didn’t look convinced. “Where do you work?”
I swallowed hard, realizing I’d backed myself into a corner of sorts. Did Courtney realize what she was doing when she started asking questions or was that a coincidence? “I work for my father.”
“Real estate?”
“Antiques.” That was the official line, anyway. You couldn’t list “reaper” on your résumé and get away with it, so a cover story was necessary. As far as the outside world was concerned, my father dealt in antiques and we spent our time canvassing estate sales to collect items for auction. No one knew the real truth, and I wasn’t about to share that information with Courtney, no matter how sympathetic I was to her plight.
“You make antiques?” Courtney knit her eyebrows. “That sounds like a cool job.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth as I debated how to answer. Finally, I realized getting into a discussion about how one does not “make” antiques would only distract me from my ultimate goal. “Yes. We make antiques.”
“I might like something like that.” Courtney took on a far-off expression. “You didn’t need to officially graduate from high school for that, did you?”
“Actually I did graduate, and it was necessary. I have to fill out paperwork and be able to identify authentic and fake pieces as part of a test to get the job. It takes a lot of training.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been good with training or anything.” Courtney tugged on her shirt to smooth it. “You should probably get going to the fifth floor if you expect to conduct business with Peter. I know you don’t want to hang out here if you don’t have to.”
Under normal circumstances – er, at least different circumstances – I would have argued the point and tried to figure out a way to get Courtney out of this environment. I still had to find Aisling and collect a soul, so I couldn’t spend my time on what was probably a lost cause. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted to abandon Courtney to this life … even if it was of her own making.
“Here.” I dug in my pocket until I came up with a business card. It had a fake job title but a real phone number. I was amused when Dad delivered a box of business cards to my room and instructed that I always carry some with me. I thought it was a waste of time. Now I could see that it wasn’t.
“What’s this?” Courtney made a face as she studied the small rectangle.
“If you want to talk – or even hang out – give me a call.”
“You want to hang out with me?” The way Courtney screwed up her face told me she was dubious. “Why?”
“Let’s just say I think you can do better than this,” I replied without hesitation. “I know you don’t want to believe that and that you have a lot going on, but it’s true. Unfortunately for both of us, I really need to find my sister. If I lose her, my father will lose his shit and it won’t be pretty.”
“How are you going to find her?”
“Oh, don’t worry about Aisling. She’s not one to fly under the radar. In fact … .” I broke off when I shifted my eyes to the archway and found Cillian, Braden and Jerry standing out in the open, looking completely lost and out of their element. “You have got to be kidding me!”
Courtney followed my gaze, seemingly amused. “Hey. Those two over there look just like you.”
“They’re my brothers.”
“What about the one in the fancy little outfit?”
“He’s like a brother,” I replied. I meant it. Jerry was like a brother, which meant I often wanted to wrestle him to the ground and rub his face into the dirt. “I need to see what they want. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Courtney waved me off. “I’ll keep the card and call you tomorrow … I mean, if I remember.”
“Okay.” I knew she probably wouldn’t follow through but I smiled all the same. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
<
br /> I watched her wander back toward the dance floor for a moment, conflicted. Then I remembered the people standing in the archway and swiveled quickly. I was furious when I strode in their direction. “What are you doing here? I told you to wait outside.”
“We have a situation.” Cillian was calm, but I could sense an air of unease washing over him.
“And what situation is that?”
“Aidan took off inside looking for Aisling.”
“Oh, geez!” I slapped my hand to my forehead. “You cannot be serious.”
“We are.” Braden looked a little too pleased with himself as he smirked. “Basically we’ve lost both Aidan and Aisling. Do you still think it was a good idea not to call Mom and Dad when this job popped up?”
It took everything I had not to strangle him. Of course, he wasn’t wrong. I was in such major trouble I didn’t even know where to start looking to get myself out of it.
6
Six
“I don’t understand how this happened.”
Cillian didn’t shrink from my fury, which probably would have been wise on his part. Instead, he merely shrugged. “Aidan decided he couldn’t wait for you to find Aisling and took off.”
“We tried to stop him,” Braden offered. “It was impossible.”
“You didn’t try that hard,” Jerry argued. He looked out of place, but you wouldn’t know it by his righteous indignation. “You barely tried to stop him.”
“Hey, I tried,” Braden countered. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
I rubbed my forehead as I tried to collect my thoughts. “So, basically you’re saying that both Aidan and Aisling are running around this place.”
“Pretty much,” Cillian confirmed. “We followed Aidan inside but lost him on the main floor. Braden thought we should probably find you, and because he knew where you were last, that’s where we headed.”
“Well, great.” My stomach tilted, the fettuccine alfredo from earlier in the night threatening to reappear. “I cannot believe you just let him run away like that.”
“We tried to stop him,” Braden persisted. “You know how sneaky he can be when he wants something. Heck, he’s almost as good as Aisling.”
Grim & Bear It: A Grimlock Family Short Page 5
