by Sarah Wynde
She tapped her fingers on the desk, debating, and then, with a twist of her mouth, she picked up a phone and called Ty.
“Clear?” He didn’t bother with hello when he answered, jumping straight to the information he wanted.
“Not exactly,” Sylvie answered reluctantly. She glanced at the monitors again. Everything looked as if it was running properly, but it couldn’t be.
“Not exactly? You’re on the house phone.”
“Confirmed. The house is currently clear.” Sylvie put a little extra emphasis on the second to last word.
“Currently?” Sylvie could hear the shock in Ty’s voice.
“Confirmed.” She waited. In the background, she heard the noise of the party; the faint formal music, the dull clamor of conversations, the clinking of silverware against fine china. Rachel’s ‘friends’ had made an early start to the evening, but the diners must be on dessert by now. Or maybe that was wishful thinking; she wanted Ty back at the house sooner, not later.
Finally the noise quieted, and Ty’s voice came back, “Report.”
Sylvie paused. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened. At least not where she couldn’t be sure who could overhear. “We had a visitor,” she finally said. “I don’t know how he got inside. The security system is up and running but he was in Chesney’s office.”
“What? What the hell were you—”
“It was fine.” Sylvie interrupted Ty. She knew he was questioning her decision to enter the house, especially with Rachel in tow. If she hadn’t recognized Lucas, it would have been a terrible decision. Maybe it had been anyway. “But I don’t know how he got past the system. It’s still online and it looks like it’s working the way it’s supposed to. Can you send a tech?”
“Fine?” There was a sarcastic edge to Ty’s voice.
Sylvie pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to hold back a hasty retort. She couldn’t do this, not right now.
She wanted to get home. She needed to get home, to the safety of her small apartment, the comfort of her solitude. She wanted to close the door behind her and shut the world out. “Ty, do you really want to have this conversation while you’re on duty at a party? Or do you want to send me a damn tech?”
This time the silence was on his end. “Was anything stolen?”
“No.” And then Sylvie added, “Not that I’m aware of.” Could Lucas have stuffed something in a pocket before she’d gotten there? Damn, it hadn’t even occurred to her to check.
“All right, I’ll tell—”
“No.”
“No?”
“Chesney, right?”
“Mr. Chesney,” Ty corrected her dryly.
Sylvie tried to restrain her sigh. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t tell him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Is this . . . .” Ty paused. They didn’t often speak about her sixth sense. Ty knew about it, had for years. But for both of them, not talking about it had become habit.
After Sylvie ran away from Tassamara, she’d joined the Marines. Her first duty station was Somalia. Peace-keeping forces, that’s what they called them.
Right.
Peace-keeping.
Sure.
In a world dominated by strong men, Sylvie kept her head down, but on a terrible October day Ty listened when she told him what she could do. For the next decade, they’d stayed close. And when the detailed background checks required for intelligence jobs killed their chances of career advancement, they’d joined forces.
In Sylvie’s case, she’d gotten out of the Marines barely ahead of her dishonorable discharge. It turned out that stealing the identity of a dead girl to join the service was frowned upon. Sylvie would have loved to protest—she’d been seventeen, too young to join. She hadn’t had a high school diploma and they would have rejected her. Hadn’t her decade of service proved her worth? But there wasn’t any arguing with the system.
And in Ty’s case, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t told, but he hadn’t been as careful as he needed to be either. He’d never get the position as intelligence specialist that he’d been up for, and now that the service knew . . . well, his military career was dead.
Sylvie had been bitter, too bitter to move forward, but Ty had been more practical. Fortunately for her, he’d dragged her along. As he built his own security business, her skill as a bodyguard and a reader of people had been a cornerstone of his success. Enough so that he paused now, willing to listen to her reservations.
“I don’t know,” she said. Everything was churning inside of her. She couldn’t make sense of the way she felt. But she knew she didn’t want to tell Chesney that Lucas had been in his office. Not now, not yet.
“All right,” Ty said slowly. “Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Yes.” The words felt like a lifeline to Sylvie. Tomorrow. She’d let everything happen tomorrow.
Chapter Three
She did cry.
And she had pictures. Way more of them than she should have had.
She shook them out of an envelope, and then laid them out, one by one, across her bed. Dillon perched on the nightstand next to the bed and looked over her shoulder. There he was as a baby, and that was okay, she’d been around when those pictures were taken. But then he was a little dark-haired toddler, and how did she get those? She had three of them, all different, all dog-eared and worn. Then that picture, that was him on his first day of school. He’d seen it before. And then that was his first soccer photo, followed by a couple snapshots from a Christmas. He might have been eight or nine when those were taken, he wasn’t sure.
How had she gotten all those photographs? Dillon couldn’t help feeling annoyed. His dad must have been in touch with her. Why hadn’t he known? What was the big secret?
“You could have come and visited, you know,” he told her. She didn’t respond, of course, just reached through him for the box of the tissues that stood behind him. “Or called, maybe. Like on my birthday?”
She cried quietly, no gulping sobs, just a steady stream of tears rolling down her face as she touched the photographs with gentle fingers and piled up the tissues on the bed next to her.
It was weird. When Dillon had taken those pills, he’d known he might be risking his life, but he hadn’t really cared. He’d been so tired of being ordinary. He wanted to be like his dad and his uncle and his grandpa and his Aunt Nat. Oh, sure, Grace and his gran were fine without being psychic, but that was different. They were girls. He could almost feel his gran smacking the back of his head for thinking that, but that didn’t make it feel less true.
If he’d thought about dying, really dying, he still might not have cared. Okay, he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known it was going to kill him, but if he’d imagined his own death, he would have thought that it wouldn’t matter to him. After all, he’d be dead. And the people he left behind? Sure, they’d cry a little, be sad. But then they’d have a funeral and life would go back to normal. Instead his gran died. His dad stopped smiling entirely. And now this total stranger was using up an entire box of tissues on him.
Dillon felt helpless. He hated it.
Her phone rang and she reached for it, answering it without looking. “Yeah?”
“We have to talk.”
Dillon was sitting close enough that he could hear the voice on the other end of the line. His dad.
“Go to hell, Lucas.” Sylvie disconnected and set the phone back down. But the call seemed to have motivated her. She gathered the photographs together, and slid them back into the envelope, and then uncrossed her legs and stood.
She went over to the black dress lying on the floor of the room and picked it up.
When they’d gotten here, she’d unlocked the door, walked into the apartment, straight into the bedroom, and straight out of the dress. Dillon had closed his eyes quickly—yeah, being invisible meant that he could be as much of a voyeur as he liked, but wow, it was totally creepy to
think of watching your mom like that—while she pulled on a t-shirt and yoga pants. Now, though, she shook out the dress and held it close, looking it over as if checking it for stains or smells, then with a shake of her head, tossed it over the back of the chair in front of a small desk.
“That’s a really ugly dress,” Dillon said conversationally. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he liked talking anyway. And maybe she’d be a sensitive, one of those people who got vague impressions of what spirits were saying. That’d be cool. Maybe she’d decide to go shopping for a new dress. It had been a long time since Dillon had been in a mall.
He supposed he could text her, but what would he say? Hi, Mom? That might be awkward, but he started considering his options as she disappeared into the bathroom and he pushed himself off the nightstand. This night had been the most exciting of his ghostly life, but she was probably going to bed now. Time for him to explore.
As the water started in the bathroom, he checked out the apartment. It was tiny. A short hallway from the front door opened onto a little kitchen, with barely room for one person to stand in it. The living room, next to the kitchen, held a couch, a small table with a couple of chairs, and several bookcases, with a door that opened straight into an overcrowded bedroom that held a double bed, a dresser and a desk and chair.
Security jobs must not pay much money, Dillon thought. Or maybe this was a really nice neighborhood? He hadn’t been able to tell much from the outside because it was so dark, except that it was a tall apartment building. He’d have to take another look in the morning. It was a quick drive from the fancy house, though, so that might be why she lived here.
Still, if he had to guess much about her from her apartment, he’d mostly guess that she was camping. This wasn’t a home. Except for the bookcases, there wasn’t any evidence that she really lived here. The couch could have been a Salvation Army reject, the table and chairs were plastic. He would bet that she could walk away from everything in the apartment without a single regret.
Maybe that’s who she was? What she was like? She’d left her kid without much regret, it seemed.
But then he thought about her tears and knew that he wasn’t being fair. He didn’t understand her, that was for sure. But he wasn’t stupid: it was obvious that she cared about him.
And he’d had a pretty good life. He looked around the tiny apartment and tried to imagine what it would have been like to live in it. Then he thought back to his earliest memories. His aunts and uncle had been more like big sisters and a big brother. The house was crowded and noisy, but in a good way. Someone was always around to read him a story or get him a snack or play a game with him.
His gran and grandpa might not have planned on raising another kid, but they’d made it fun. They’d definitely taken him to Disney World often enough: with annual passes, sometimes he’d felt like the Magic Kingdom was the playground down the street. Not that he needed another playground—his backyard had been enough.
His grandpa had hired an architect to design his tree house. Remembering the window boxes made him smile. Gran kept planting flowers in them, but the flowers always died. Either he watered them too much or not enough, never in-between. It was a great tree house. In fact, he thought, looking around again, this entire apartment might be smaller than his tree house.
Truth was, he’d never spent a lot of time missing his mom. He wasn’t some kid who felt forever betrayed by her absence so he wasn’t going to dump that on her now. He’d had a good life. It was a shame he’d screwed it up, but that was on him, not her.
In the other room, her phone rang. Dillon peeked in as she crossed to the bed, her toothbrush in one hand.
“How did you get this number?”
Must be his dad again, Dillon thought, and hurried to the bed so that he could hear both sides of the conversation.
“Sylvie—”
“This is an unlisted number,” she snapped at him. “How did you get it?”
“That is not important,” Lucas snapped back. “I have to talk to you.”
“What the fuck do you think there is to say? You—he—I trusted you. Asshole!” Sylvie spit out the last word, then hit the disconnect button on the phone, and dropped it on the bed.
Hmm, thought Dillon. He felt a smile tugging at his lips. His mom was kind of a bitch. She was definitely not the Mrs. Weasley of his imaginings.
Hanging out with her was going to be fun.
*****
Sylvie felt hung over.
She wished she was. She hated crying.
That damn therapist that Ty made her go to a few years back said that crying was healthy. Cortisol and stress hormones were released in the salty tears, she’d said. Sylvie would rather get rid of her stress through good old-fashioned sweat.
She glanced at her watch. She was sitting on a bench in Marion Park in DC, waiting for Ty. The day was crisp, the sky a pristine blue, and the small playground was already populated with well-bundled toddlers.
She didn’t want to be here.
As soon as Ty got here and they discussed yesterday’s events, she’d head to the gym. With any luck, she could beat the Saturday afternoon crowds. And then maybe later she’d have time for a run on the Capital Crescent trail. She probably wouldn’t run the twenty-two mile Rock Creek Park loop, but five or six miles, maybe even eight, might clear her head and help her shake off the way she felt.
Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her leather jacket, and she pulled it out and looked at it. Lucas. Again. She stuffed it back in the pocket. She wasn’t talking to him.
“But it’s not fair.” The words were a whine, and Sylvie tried to hide her wince as an adult man led a little girl in a pink jacket by the hand to her bench. Great. Company. Just what she was not in the mood for.
“Five minute time-out,” responded the man firmly. “You sit right there.” He glanced at Sylvie, apology in his eyes, and she nodded, a slight tip of her head, to let him know that it was fine. She wasn’t enthusiastic, but she was sitting on the bench closest to the playground, inside the wrought iron fence that surrounded the park. It was the best spot for keeping an eye on a kid.
“You’re so mean, Daddy.” The little girl sniffled as her father turned and crossed back to the climbing structure. A littler one over there must be his, too, Sylvie realized, as he helped a toddler climb the steps to the short, curving slide. “But I want some.” The girl kicked her feet sulkily. “I want some.”
Sylvie glanced at her. She was maybe four or five, Sylvie thought, probably cute when she wasn’t pouting.
“I want some,” the girl whined again, even though her father clearly couldn’t hear her.
“Kid,” Sylvie said. “If you want something, you need to choose a better way to get it.”
The girl looked at her warily, and Sylvie continued. “You’re using a whiny voice. It’s only good for two uses.” She held up her hand, and extended her index finger. “One, annoying grownups. If that’s your goal, you’re doing great, and you should keep going.”
The little girl’s lower lip slid out, just a little, and Sylvie quickly added, holding up a second finger, “And two, telling grownups you’re tired and need a nap. It’s a good voice for that, too.” She could sense the girl’s doubt turning into curiosity. “But if you want to get a grownup to give you something, you need to find your sweet voice. Do you have a sweet voice?”
She waited. The expressions on the girl’s face were easy enough to read, but the flavor of her feelings was even easier—mystified by this adult talking to her, but also intrigued.
“Yes, I have a sweet voice,” the little girl finally said.
“Let’s hear it,” Sylvie prompted, then let her eyes go wide as the girl tried out an over-the-top saccharine voice. “Wow, that’s sweet. Maybe we should practice?”
She and the girl spent the next few minutes solemnly discussing voices and ways to get what she wanted, until finally the father called out, “Time’s up, Maria.”
The gir
l hopped off the bench and then paused, as she said, “I’ll try right now,” and gave Sylvie a little nod good-bye.
“Wait.” Sylvie stopped her as she turned to go. She had one more question. “What did you want to get?”
“Ice cream,” Maria answered. “Sometimes on the way home, we get ice cream from the corner store,” she said, pointing across the street to the Capitol Supreme market with its neon grocery sign. Concrete flower pots and a single umbrella table on the sidewalk suggested that in warmer weather it might be a pleasant place to pick up a sandwich or quick meal. “But Daddy said no.”
Sylvie bit back her smile. “One last idea, then. When you’re wearing your winter coat, maybe aim for hot chocolate?”
The little girl grinned at her and ran off as Ty finally appeared, pushing a stroller. He greeted her, saying hello and handing her a white coffee cup, as the toddler in the stroller chortled, “Silly, silly, silly!” and reached with extended arms for Sylvie.
“Sorry we’re late,” Ty said. “The line at Peregrine was out the door.”
“No worries.” Sylvie set the coffee down on the bench next to her and reached to unbuckle Ty’s son, saying, “Joshua, Joshua, Joshua,” to the excited boy, and trying not to let her feelings show.
But Ty saw something anyway. “You look like shit. What happened last night?”
“Little ears, Ty, little ears,” Sylvie reprimanded him as she finally got Joshua free.
“Oh, right.” He looked sheepish as he glanced at his son, who was all wrapped up in winter clothes, a hat on his head, mittens on his hands.
“Jeremy’s not gonna like it when Josh starts greeting people that way.” Sylvie lifted the little boy out and tried not to flinch as he hugged her, wrapping his arms around her neck and kissing her cheek wetly. She stroked his dark head and said, “Hey, baby.”
“Me big boy,” he protested, already kicking to get down.
“That’s right,” she confirmed for him. “You’re huge.”
She set him on the ground. “Me play,” he announced, as he turned and marched toward the slides. Sylvie watched him go.
