Fall

by Katherine Rhodes

  This time, I stood. “Look, you two talk. I’m going to go. It’s clear I can’t be privy to everything you know, or I’ll ruin the surprise.”

  Lily grabbed my hand. “Please, sit. Miriam and I will talk alone later. We came here for coffee, and to let Miriam see you with what she knows now.”

  Miriam grabbed my hand. “Don’t go. Not yet. Laxi is afraid of me and I don’t want you to be too. I don’t know how to make her understand…”

  “Miriam, she’s been through a lot. She was rejected by her parents completely, and she’s as much in the dark as I am. As the guys are. Don’t think that she doesn’t love you, she just doesn’t know what to do with you.” I laughed a bit. “I don’t know what to do with you. But you won’t scare me off.”

  She smiled at me, and let my hand go. Leaning back, she smeared her tears away. “This is ridiculous. I’ve gained something that I didn’t even know I’d lost and I’m freaking out.”

  “Immortality does that to you.” Lily smirked.

  Miriam’s mouth dropped open. “Wait. You’ve been away from your husband for—”

  Lily held up her hand to stop her words. “Yes. All that time. And we still can’t live together because of all this shit. We have more to accomplish before we can put everything to rights and I can go home.”

  “Holy crap, Lily, I’m sorry. I’m so over reacting to this.”

  “A little, maybe.” Lily smirked. “But don’t sweat it.”

  We were quiet for a minute, and it was pleasant, comfortable silence.

  Miriam cleared her throat. “Have you notice that Paige has been acting weird?”

  “Shit,” I mumbled as Lily answered her, “Yeah, I have.”

  They both looked at me, and I sighed. “How has she been acting weird?”

  “The other day, she was all business and not really interested in chatting with me,” Lily said. “I’ve never not had a chat with her. She’s always been gabby.”

  Miriam agreed, “She called me, talked business about a few fosters we were sorting, and that was it. She was all business, and that’s not like her. She’s usually bragging on how well she did or how hard she’s working. Or she’s got other questions beyond just the fosters she’s working with.”

  Lily pivoted in her seat to look at me. “Why? What’s going on?”

  I cleared my throat. “We caught her being discharged at Penn Medical the night Ben went missing.”

  “Discharged?” The two of them chorused the words and stared at me.

  “Sprained ankle, fractured ribs, and a serious laceration on her hairline.” I tapped my finger on the cup I was drinking out of.

  “Wait, more injuries?” Lily asked. “She was looking pretty rough around the edges when we had to deal with James and Dre.”

  “Yeah, more injuries.” The sip of coffee I took tasted terrible on my tongue. “Worse ones. She said that she slipped on a piece of laundry she dropped and fell down the stairs to the basement.”

  Miriam twisted her lip. “You don’t buy that at all, do you?”

  “Fuck no,” I answered. “Not even one little bit. And the only conclusion we could come to was that…well. The worst conclusion.” They waited, and I finally sighed. “Really? You can’t figure out what the worst would be in this case?”

  Lily shrugged. “She’s being abused? I don’t know how that’s possible considering she and Alain are… Wait.” The expression on my face gave it away. “Are you saying Alain Domingues is abusing his wife?”

  “How often do you trip over a sock you dropped and end up in the hospital for X-rays and stitches?” I asked. “I’ve dropped socks on stairs. It doesn’t usually cause me to go ass over teakettle. She also drove herself because she left in her own car. The nurses all think the same thing—he’s abusing her. Fischer talked to the nurse, the aide, and the doctor and they all said the same thing. Classic domestic abuse and classic denial. Even if you could get her to say she was being abused, there was little chance we could get her out because…well, more bullshit I’m sure. You get the idea.”

  I still wasn’t going to say anything about the pregnancy. We’d all agreed on that. No one needed to know.

  “Paige? Is being abused?” Miriam’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Lily.

  Lily was no help to her because she was staring at me open mouthed as well. “Paige? Domingues? The world’s most driven woman in the foster system?”

  “Oh, please, you all know that appearances aren’t everything.” I looked between them, and shook my head. “We all put up fronts. Paige is good at hers. Very good. Fischer and Lincoln were trying to make sense of all this, and did you know that she was raised in the foster system?”

  “Raised?” Miriam said.

  “Made it all the way through with no home lasting more than a year, and being kicked out at eighteen and one day by the last family.” I sipped the coffee I was holding. “Went to college on a full ride for social work, opened the foster agency when she was twenty-three and met and married Alain at twenty-six.”

  “Met and married?” Lily asked.

  “Six months.”

  The two of them got it right away.

  Miriam ran a hand down her face. “First sign of love, she bought in, and let it ride.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He saw her vulnerability and charmed the panties off her,” Lily whispered.

  I nodded. “This is all typical psychology for someone raised totally in the system, but finding an abusive predator is shit luck on her part.”

  Grimacing, Lily stared at her drink. “This is all terrible, and made worse by the fact that we can’t do anything about it at all until she’s ready to leave or ask for help.”

  Miriam had an elbow on the table and the heal of her hand pressing against her forehead, holding her head up. “How did she let this happen?”

  “She would never have seen it,” I answered. “You were in the system, Miri. You know that understanding real love isn’t easy when you’re constantly surrounded by conditional affection. Be good, we’ll love you. Be smart, we’ll clothe you. Behave, we’ll feed you. Be unseen, we’ll give you heat. Bring us a check, we’ll allow you to bathe. It’s all conditioned. Alain probably has the same thing running through her head, but the adult version. Which is just as bad, but for someone used to the conditions, she’d never see it for what it is: control.”

  Lily scrubbed her hands over her face. “Shit.” She snapped up and looked at us. “All those bruises, all those cuts, the little winces she would make if she hit a bruise. Even the way she flinches a bit if you move too fast around her. All of it.”

  Sipping the coffee, I sighed as I let it wash down and warm me. I put the cup down, and tipped my head up to the ceiling. I’d been thinking about this for a while, and I didn’t want to test my theory on just anyone. But the two people at the booth with me would be the best litmus test I could find. Since they were immortal and knew a hell of a lot more than I did about this right now.

  “Paige is number four.”

  The air was beyond still at the table. I found the two of them staring at me.

  “Isn’t she? She’s the fourth sin. Pride.”

  Lincoln

  I dropped the binoculars on my lap. “I feel like I’m in a cheap spy novel.”

  Fischer looked over at me, and raised an eyebrow. “Cheap? Those are the best binoculars that I could buy.”

  “We’re sitting in a car, behind a mansion, spying on a woman we know is abusing her employee.” I blinked at him a few times. “This is almost an Archer episode.”

  “Save for that whole Deadly Sins thing,” Bastian mumbled.

  “Clam it, Woodhouse,” I grumbled.

  “Hey, watch it. Who’s the sharp shooter in this car?” Bastian raised an eyebrow.

  “Who’s the one who put succinylcholine in the CPAP?” Fischer asked.

  “Are we going to compare murder methods?” I picked up the binoculars again. “Oh, there she is. Jesus Mary and
Joseph what is she wearing?”

  Bastian and Fischer had their glasses up in the next moment and both of them made gagging noise.

  “Oh, honey, that flower print is so not good a look for you,” Bastian said.

  “Oh, God, I didn’t even realize, I was too busy gagging on the Crocs she was wearing,” Fischer said.

  “Christ, orange? Does she think that coordinates?” Bastian lowered the binoculars. “Thanks, I’ve seen enough. Anyone have a melon baller for my eyes?”

  As horrible as her bathing suit-beach robe-croc thing was, I wasn’t taking my eyes off her until I saw poor Hector. The kid was a rail, and while he might have been good looking in the speedo a year ago, he looked like death warmed over now.

  The pictures we’d caught on the remote cameras that Reid and Lily had helped us rig up—how was that woman a detective? She was always skirting the law—were absolutely incriminating. For any other situation they would have been perfect for court and a guilty verdict.

  But Mrs. Worth was wealthy. Or her husband was. There was no doubt in my mind she’d used that to pay her way out of this, and once she was out, find another pool boy to start in on.

  Fischer had done his due diligence on the woman, and this time he was thoroughly disgusted by what he found. She’d been treated more than once for syphilis, which just grossed me out. STI happened, but when you kept getting the same one, you were being stupid.

  In the photos from last week, we had all seen the rash on Hector. Which meant he’d caught it from her, because once I dove into who this kid was? There was no way he caught it from someone else.

  Both Fischer and Bastian were willing to help Hector with his treatment, so it was time to stop this woman from spreading her diseases all over the neighborhood. While the other two didn’t believe me, I had known women like Mrs. Tricia Worth, and she was rich enough to not give a shit that she was full of germs. I was about ninety percent sure she was spreading her bacteria like some people spread butter on toast.

  So here we were, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, to scare her out of her filthy ways.

  I had added an addendum that if we could prove she was raping Hector, we’d be a little more than frightening to her. Best part of that?

  Reid agreed.

  Ever since we found that not only did he have a lovely, filthy side, but wasn’t afraid to use his demonic powers for good, I was all about that. Because being a demon meant that he had no qualms about flexing his abilities and moral standards.

  He also offered to help Hector find a good job for his family. Some healthcare for his mother. A decent car for his father to get to work.

  Doing good didn’t always mean you had to be good all the time.

  I put the binoculars down. “Are we ready?”

  “As we’re ever going to be,” Bastian said, zipping up his overalls.

  The overalls we were all wearing had a logo for Fishy’s Pool Services, and we were armed with a story that Hector had called us in for a clog he couldn’t get out of the filter and it was making it hard to clean.

  I turned the engine over on the white van with the same logo on a magnetic sheet on the side, and drove around to the front. I parked in the driveway and shut the van back off. Fischer put on his hat, glasses, and cheap stick on moustache. Since she knew his face, we had to be careful with that.

  The pavers on the side of the drive led around the back of the house, and Bastian just popped the latch on the gate and walked us in. We followed the house around to the back and rattled all the fake equipment we had with us just as we entered the pool area.

  “Oh, my God!” Worth yelled, jumping back and yanking her suit in strange directions. She wrapped the flimsy robe around herself. “Who are you? What the hell are you doing on my property?”

  “Hector called us,” I said with a smile. “He said the filter has been giving him some real problems lately.”

  The man in question, merely nineteen years old, leapt off the lounger he had been pinned on and made a beeline for us. “Si, yes, Senora Worth. I was having a lot of trouble with the filter. I needed some help.”

  He was playing along, which meant he was either desperate or hopeful we were really here to help him, not the filter.

  Worth narrowed her eyes at him. “Hector. You should have cleared this with me.”

  “I didn’t know they would be here today, senora. I thought they would be here in the afternoon.”

  “Come on, Hector.” Fischer took his elbow and led him toward the pool house. “Show me where the pumps are. You can tell me where the issue is.”

  “Si, thank you.” He went willingly with Fischer.

  The filter that we were targeting was right next to her, and I moved to pull the lid up. She looked disgusted that we were even there, ruining her afternoon delight.

  “Can’t this wait until tonight? Or this weekend?”

  “No, ma’am, you don’t want this to back up too much,” I answered.

  “What’s wrong with the kid?” Bastian put down his toolbox. “He looked a little iffy, kinda infected.”

  “He’s just my pool boy, how should I know?” She huffed and adjusted her robe..

  “I don’t know.” Bastian smirked. “Kinda looked like you were enjoying him a bit before.”

  She sniffed.

  Arrogant bitch.

  “Is this going to take a long time? My husband is coming home at five.”

  “We don’t know what the problem is yet.” I glanced up at her and did an assessment of visible sins. She was covered. The simple black that most people had on their fingers covered her hands and up to her elbows. She was slashed with cuts, and dotted with deep purple bruising. There were festering sores, complete with maggots.

  Just as bad as Fischer had said. She was up to way more than just screwing the pool boy. If I was reading them right, and who the hell knew if I was, she was also defrauding her husband, the women’s club she belonged to, as well as helping herself to cocaine and uppers on a regular basis. She was also contemplating offing her husband.

  She was an absolute peach.

  “Ma’am, are you going to stay here?” Bastian asked.

  “I was planning on taking a swim.” She was mad and indignant, and also slightly crazy for wanting to swim in mid-September with the chill in the air.

  Liar.

  I had an idea. It was not a good one, and if I could go to hell as a punishment, I was definitely going to be spending some time there.

  Bastian caught my eye, and nodded.

  Do it.

  Did I hear that? Did he say that? Was that in my mind or out loud, or just what I implied from his look. Jesus.

  But we didn’t have time.

  “Ma’am, this is going to take a while. I wouldn’t recommend getting in the pool at this point. Even though my coworker is shutting off the power, there’s a chance this could electrify the water.”

  Looking down at me, she scoffed and huffed. “Make sure it doesn’t. That’s your job.”

  “Ma’am,” I started.

  “Just do your job,” she snapped and walked to the shallow end.

  Bastian knelt down. “You good with this?”

  “I’m going to see if we can just shock her good,” I answered.

  My phone buzzed with a text message in my pocket and I pulled it out.

  Unknown: No. Take her down.

  Staring at it for a minute, I turned it to Bastian and let him read it. He jerked a bit after reading it.

  His phone buzzed a second later, and he read it with a shocked look. Turning it, I could read it.

  Unknown: Guys, trust me. I’d say you were doing the Lord’s work, but…wrong Lord?

  Bastian and I stared at each other.

  Wrong Lord?

  Was fucking Lucifer texting us?

  The devil texted?

  “He has a cell phone?” Bastian whispered.

  “He has reception?”

  Neither of us could stop the laugh th
at burst out, and it took a long minute for either of us to calm down. I stared at my own message, and finally tucked the phone away. “We’re the sins. If that’s true, we’d be agents of Hades, right? And Lucifer is the overseer of Hades, so that makes him our boss.”

  Nodding, Bastian tucked his phone away as well. “That all makes sense, as much as anything has made sense. If he says go, we’ll go. Grim Reaper duty, I guess.”

  “Forgot my scythe,” I grumbled.

  As I dug into the filter, and started to look for the wires that ran it, I guessed I should feel guilty about this in some ways. It was murder, and it wasn’t right, and shouldn’t have been acceptable in polite society. Or any society.

  Though, just like all the asses that ran the Pipeline, and were trying to gear it back up, this woman brought suffering to those around her. She didn’t care about the fact that Hector was probably going to have lifelong psychological trauma. That he could possibly be suffering from physical effects of this disease for years. We’d do what we could for him, but he was already damaged, and there was no guarantee he could be healed completely.

  “Do you know anything about electrical systems?” Bastian asked, kneeling down next to me and peering into the filter box.

  “Not a goddamn clue,” I answered.

  “See that large cable running to the big black box?”

  “Yep.”

  “Power cable. Looks like a 200 amp DC, too. Nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “You only need one amp to kill, and direct current works much better.”

  I stared down into the box. “We’re just going to kill this woman?”

  “Well…”

  Sitting back on my heels, I looked at Bastian. “This feels like it’s not the right way to do this. I feel like…we should ruin her. Take away her money, her cars, her privileges. Bring her down.”

  He stared down at the wires. “Can you do that?”

  “I’m a master of financial manipulation.” I took a moment to glance up at him. “I can get her ruined by just exposing her though, honestly. She’s a full-on hot mess, and it would be a lot more fun to draw this out, I think.”

  Ding.

  Unknown: Ah, there’s my Greed. I like this better.