Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel)

by Shrum, Kory M.

  I pushed his chest forcing him up away from me. “I’ve got to look for Ally.”

  “God forbid you spend a day apart,” he said.

  “No you don’t understand. She—” He covered my mouth with kisses, cutting me off. When I gave up he kissed me under my ear again. Each brush of his lips erased the thoughts from my mind. The conflicting stress and desire escalated, until for no apparent reason, my vision changed.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “You want me to stop?” he asked.

  “No—I—” I was dazzled by the layer of bouncy static between Lane’s body and mine. It was like the colorful waves I saw during a replacement, but sharper with more contrast. More importantly, I felt the static, felt it like an arm I could manipulate. And no sign of Gabriel or even an idea of how to change my vision back. It happened naturally during a replacement, but no one was dying—I hoped.

  “Oww. You shocked me,” Lane said, laughing.

  I thought about what I did—I had tried to “lift” the static like I would an arm. So if I just—

  “Owww, hey.” He cleared the mattress as if in genuine pain.

  “Oh my god,” I said. “I’m going to die.”

  “It’s probably these sheets,” he said, patting my thighs as if he could neutralize the static.

  It was not the sheets. All the months of electrical mishaps became clear in my mind: smoking computers, blown lights and fuses. Oh God, it was apparent, on top of everything else that was emotionally wrong with me, something was physically wrong with me.

  “I’m going to combust or something,” I said. And just when I thought my terror might kill me outright, my weird vision returned to normal again.

  “Oh thank God,” I said. I crushed a pillow against my face, breathing deep breaths of relief. “I thought I was going to be stuck that way forever.”

  Lane arched an eyebrow and I tried my best to explain what had just happened.

  “You’re just stressed,” he said. “Stress can really screw you up.”

  Stress—sounded like such a normal excuse that I accepted it immediately.

  “You know what is great for stress? Presents.” Lane handed me a box which I tore open. Throwing the tissue paper aside, I smelled them before I saw them. Leather—the smell of new shoes. Shiny black ones that smelled like leather, but weren’t because I loved cows and Lane knew this. I fingered the pristine white laces and marveled over the fact that they matched.

  “How was the funeral?” he asked.

  “My mother dies and you buy me shoes?” I asked.

  “I thought you’d love these more than flowers.”

  He was right of course. So I told him all about the funeral, even the weird guy who cornered me when I first got there—but I didn’t mention Rachel or Brinkley. Secrets, secrets.

  When he walked out of my bedroom with the promise of breakfast, he gave me a nice view of his bare ass as he went. I smiled into a pillow, thinking I’d have something to tell Kyra later.

  As soon as Lane was gone that moment of happiness dissipated. Stones filled up my stomach, sinking under thoughts of Ally—worry. Fear.

  Coming off pain pills didn’t help. I could detox just fine, I’d been doing it for years. It just didn’t help when something terrible was happening. I had to remember not to let my emotions get the best of me.

  Mechanically, I went through my morning. I found Winston asleep behind the entertainment center. I put him by his bowl filled with cheddar goldfish crackers on account that Ally was supposed to pick up dog food while I was gone but clearly hadn’t. While I let him out to do his business, I tried to call Ally twice but I still got her voicemail.

  Winston presented his belly for a good scratch but gave up after enduring just a few minutes of my pathetic attempt at a rub.

  Was Ally really kidnapped? Should I be looking for her? Where would I look? And maybe she isn’t kidnapped. Maybe she was just hiding Eve’s kid. What the hell was she doing? She would call to make sure I’d made it home okay—if she could call. So the real question was why couldn’t she call?

  Lane stuck his head out of the kitchen and called me to breakfast: oatmeal with brown sugar in it, cut fruit and raisin toast. For himself, he made an egg sandwich with cheese. We split the pot of coffee.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you without the gauze,” he said. He reached across my kitchen table and pulled down the collar of my shirt. “It looks good, just a little bruised.”

  The sunlight filtered through the windows and back door gave his features a soft, touchable look. He was completely at home here, no shirt, just boxers, sitting in a pale wooden chair on the same corner of my kitchen table.

  “Light bruising is to be expected,” I said, quoting Dr. York. “I’m just glad it won’t scar.”

  “Scars are hot.”

  I bit my lip. “Have you heard from Ally?”

  He sat his fork down gently but his jaw had tightened. Before he could get mad, I told him everything Garrison said about her disappearance. He didn’t speak, but eventually his jaw unclenched and he took my hand across the table.

  “You hate her,” I said, accepting his hand. “You’re probably glad she’s gone.”

  “That’s unfair,” he said. “Just because I dislike competition doesn’t mean I want her to get hurt.”

  “There is no competition because there is no prize—certainly not me,” I said.

  Then I told him everything.

  Somehow what started as a I’m not worth being jealous over argument became a full-blown confession. The words became water in my mouth. They flowed from mind to lips in one fluid movement and cutting the story off anywhere in between was as awkward as holding water in my mouth and trying not to swallow or spit it out.

  I told him about Eddie, all that happened and how I made him pay the price for what he did to me, about my regrets over Danny and Rachel. I even told him about finding Rachel cut up in the floor, about all the craziness she’d preached about angels, and how that terrifies me that I’m destined for a diet of mashed bananas. I didn’t mention that I was actually seeing an angel, but I used the phrase ‘half-crazy myself’ more than once.

  I also told him what Brinkley said about the FBRD, the Church and the military and how we have no idea who is pulling the strings. I even told him that my dad was a Necronite but had never come back for me. I talked and talked and talked until my ass was sore in my seat and minute after minute ticked off the clock. Not once did he interrupt me.

  “Wow,” he said once my voice had fallen away and the kitchen had filled up with silence. “I didn’t realize you had so much going on.”

  I snorted in response but we both remained silent for a long time.

  Finally, he spoke. But when he did, all the playfulness was gone from his voice. “No wonder you can’t commit.”

  After everything I just told him, that was what he fixated on?

  “And you love her,” he added and there was something in his voice when he said it that made me look at him.

  “She’s my best friend.”

  “Did you ever sleep with her?” He looked up from his dirty plate and gave me the most pitiful puppy dog eyes.

  My anger surged. “I just told you that I killed a man, I’m losing my mind, people want me dead and all you care about is who I like more? Unbelievable.”

  I wanted to put my plate away and get out of this chair but I couldn’t bring myself to move. His silence held me trapped in this seat.

  “Why did you break up with her?” he asked. His face was red but his voice was still steady. He’d managed to get his guard back in place.

  “We were never together,” I said. “It was just sex.”

  “Like us?” he asked. But it didn’t really feel like a question.

  I grabbed my plate and threw it in the sink with a thunderous crash. “Yes because she gave me the same speech you did about not being able to fuck me without her feelings getting in the way.”

  He pushed b
ack his chair and stood like he was going to leave. “I certainly have more respect for her now.”

  “And less for me?”

  He walked away.

  “I’m sorry,” I yelled. “What do you want me to say?”

  “For what?” he asked, his voice low. “What are you sorry for?”

  “For being an emotional vacuum. I know you want more, but I just can’t give it to you. And I think it’s really unfair that you force me to make a commitment now when my life is totally out of control.”

  Something in his shoulders relaxed. “Do you want to be with me?”

  “Yes.” I threw my hands up and gave a desperate shrug. “And no. It’s hard to explain.”

  He turned to face me. “Then why do you sleep with me? Most girls won’t sleep with a guy until they’re sure.”

  I still didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think you’re really good in bed was what he wanted to hear right now. Apparently, I waited too long because he started up the stairs toward the bedroom. When he reappeared he was dressed with his keys and wallet in his hand.

  A voice in my head screamed say something say something say something—as he moved back down the stairs and went straight for the door. It wasn’t until he slipped on his shoes and his hand was on the handle that I finally blurted the only words I could think of.

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  The near empty house echoed my desperation.

  He let go of the door handle. “What doesn’t hurt?”

  “Sex doesn’t hurt. What we have isn’t complicated.” I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going with this. My head pounded, another symptom of the last pain pill fading away and I could barely think straight. “Worrying about people, caring about them, waiting for them to hurt me like they always do—I can’t deal with that.”

  The color returned to his cheeks again, telling me I was going in the wrong direction with this. But I’d reached that point where I didn’t care.

  “You’re punishing me for something I haven’t done.”

  “Yet,” I was quick to add. “And I need something simple.”

  It was an eternity before he finally looked up and spoke. “It hurts me.”

  “I know,” I said and I closed the distance between us slowly. I was afraid he might take off like a spooked animal if I moved too fast. But he didn’t run away. “And I’m sorry.”

  “How sorry?”

  “Sorry enough that I’m willing to try and do better,” I said.

  “I want you to date me.”

  My heart fluttered and the panic started to rise in my chest. I felt myself pulling away but I held steady.

  “I can try dating you,” I said. “If you can keep it simple.”

  “Just me?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Just you,” I said. Probably.

  Promising Lane monogamy seemed like small potatoes and it wouldn’t interfere with the promise I’d already made Ally about keeping my lips to myself. So why did I feel like I’d just done something wrong?

  “I’ll think about,” he said and closed the door behind him.

  Chapter 20

  I was crying when Cindy called. “Where are you?”

  “Home. Why?” I said, and wiped my nose with my sleeve.

  “I need your help. Can I pick you up?”

  “Are you ok?” I assumed she didn’t see Raphael all the time since Gabriel didn’t stick around, but perhaps he’d shown up and told her to put extra money in the collection plate or adopt a Cambodian baby or something. Hopefully he hadn’t told her to play with any sharp objects.

  “I’m fine,” she huffed. “It’s just I think I’ve got a lead and I don’t want to check it out alone.”

  “Aren’t the cops the ones who deal with leads?” I asked.

  “I can’t just sit around and wait for someone to kill me,” Cindy said. “Is that your plan?”

  Healing my neck was my plan. Strangling Brinkley and Ally for worrying me to death was my plan. Lots and lots of therapy was my plan and, possibly, a new boy-toy. “Well, no, but—.”

  “Then help me,” she said. “I don’t trust anyone. I even made my mailman open my mail for me this morning. That’s how bad it’s getting.”

  The idea of a frantic Cindy shaking her mailman and demanding that he open the mail cracked me up. “He must’ve enjoyed that.”

  “The Victoria’s Secret Catalog maybe,” she said. “He’s got to think I’m nuts.”

  “How did you get him to do it?”

  “I told him an ex-boyfriend threatened to send me anthrax,” she said.

  “And he still opened it?” I said.

  “Look, are you going to help me or not?”

  “Okay, okay.” Bite my head off.

  “We need to see Jacob,” she said, stepping into my foyer thirty minutes later.

  I recognized the name of Eve’s cousin from the paperwork that Ally rehashed in every detail to me. “He isn’t an A.M.P, he just gives psychic readings. How do you know him?”

  “I don’t know him,” she said. “It’s just his name on my sign off sheet, which means it has to be a fake replacement too, right?”

  “Probably.” I knew Eve had faked Jacob’s signature for our replacement, but I didn’t know Jacob’s name was on Cindy’s replacement too. Was someone still trying to bait replacement agents? Brad Cestrum was still out there somewhere. It would also mean that the authorities were wrong about Brad only targeting me—and that I shouldn’t be the only Necronite under police protection. “Let me see it.”

  She thrust a piece of paper in my hands. There was Jacob’s signature at the bottom of the page. He was the supposed A.M.P. for her client tomorrow, some woman by the name of Judy. It was the same signature on Eve’s paperwork. Since I knew Eve forged Jacob’s signature, who forged this one since Eve was in jail? Or maybe she did more than one before she was arrested? If so, why did she fail to mention this to me when I questioned her?

  “Did you ask Frank about it?” I asked. Frank was Cindy’s handler.

  “The FBRD is conveniently holding him for questioning right now. Sound familiar?”

  “Did they suspend you from replacements while they’re investigating?” I asked. If someone was targeting agents, it would’ve been smart to protect all DR agents.

  She shook her head no.

  That made the FBRD look guilty as hell. “If Brinkley is right and the FBRD is responsible, maybe they hoped you would get yourself killed.”

  “Jacob doesn’t even have a FBRD-certification.”

  “Somebody’s lying,” I said, certain. “If we can talk to him, maybe we’ll get a better sense of what’s going on. Maybe even who Brad Cestrum is and how he is involved.”

  “That’s why we need to go over there and talk to him. We need to drill a hole in his watermelon head and get some answers.”

  “Easy, girl,” I said. I stepped into my new shoes and pulled on a black hoodie.

  “Nice shoes,” she said “So you’re coming or not?”

  I might not know where Ally or Brinkley was, but I was 90% sure Cindy was the next target. I couldn’t let her wander off alone. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  Cindy wanted to drive. I didn’t want Cindy to drive given the fact she seemed a little less stable than usual, but I let her anyway. She was a nervous wreck and that instability made me nervous. But hey, wielding a hunk of metal seemed to give her a false sense of control, so I let it go.

  Whatever gets her through the day.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said, trying to fill the silent car with conversation. She didn’t even glance my way. “Anything weird going on with you?”

  “Do you mean besides talking to an angel that no one else can see?”

  I told her about my electrical problems and what Rachel and kooky Mr. Reeves had said about superpowers. She gave me a strange look. “Maybe I don’t need a plumber after all.”

  “Please tell me why you think you need a plumber,” I said
.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why?” I said. I thought I was being awfully honest with my confession. It wasn’t fair that she got to hold back.

  Finally she said, “Let’s just say I have to be careful around toilets.”

  “Like they talk to you or something?” I pictured the lid flipping open and closed like a mouth.

  “I just can’t be in a bathroom if I’m emotional,” she said. And that’s all she would give me. Weird, because bathrooms, or sometimes my bed, were exactly where I hit if I was emotional.

  Jacob’s place was located off of Haywood Lane. It wasn’t anywhere near as high class as Cindy’s place or at least as legit looking as mine. I had a real sign and employees—just Ally and a maid—but Jacob worked out of his mother’s house, with only a little sign out front that said “Certified Psychic Jacob Willis” in black paint on a wooden board. Who the hell certified psychics?

  Cindy climbed the three-step cinder block porch and gave a few hard knocks. The screen door rattled and shook with each bang. But no one came.

  “How do you know he’s here?” I asked from the bottom of the steps.

  “His momma told me,” she said and knocked again.

  Finally, a little kid opened the door. He had an orange stained mouth and grubby fingers. The kid looked sticky. “Who are ya’ll?”

  “We’re looking for Jacob,” she said.

  The kid looked her up and down. “Are you a patient?”

  A large, rotund woman who dwarfed the doorway nudged the boy out of the way with a fearsome swing of her hips. “Client,” she said. “He ain’t no doctor.”

  “Mrs. Willis,” Cindy said. “We spoke on the phone.”

  “He went down to the store. He’ll be right back. Come on in and wait.”

  We filed into the small dwelling one at a time. His mom pointed us around the corner to a small room that was set up for Jacob’s “clients.” The room was more like a dark nook, separated from the living room by a plastic beaded curtain. Inside the nook, two folding chairs sat up beside a plastic covered card table.

  His mom pointed at the empty chairs. “Just wait here.”

  Cindy leaned over and whispered once she’d gone. “The least he can do is talk to us. It’s not like he saw me squeezing the life out of him or anything.”