Текст книги "Eighth Grave After Dark"

Автор книги: Darynda Jones

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“What?” I asked him at last.

“It is talking about you,” he said as though astonished. “You are the first pure ghost god.”

I frowned. We’d had this conversation before. “I thought I was the thirteenth. What the heck?”

He shook his head. “You are the thirteenth god, but the first pure ghost god.”

With as much dramatic flair as I could muster, I threw myself—mostly just my head—across the table. “You never give me the entire picture of anything. I’m so confused.”

Reyes laughed softly. “Okay, here’s what I know: There were seven gods, or what we would call gods, in your dimension. They were the original gods. They created everything there, like the God of this dimension created everything here.”

I turned to him, trying to understand. “So, like another galaxy?”

“No,” Osh said. “Like another universe. This one is taken.”

“There are other universes?” Garrett asked.

“There are as many universes as there are stars in the heavens of this one.”

Garrett sat back, as impressed as I was. “Okay, so in mine, there were seven gods. Not just one.”

“Yes, for lack of a better term. They are actually very different entities, but we will go with ‘god’ for now.”

“Gotcha. Going with god. And we have seven.”

“You had seven. Eventually, through time, there were thirteen total entities, including you. But you are the only one left. The last of your kind.”

I did the dramatic thing again and Reyes laughed again.

He pushed my hair out of my face. Tucked it behind an ear. “The original seven weren’t like your god. They could procreate, but only once.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why only once?”

“Because once they created another god, what I’m calling a ghost god, they melded together and became one. They ceased to exist. Their union created another being—”

“Like Beep!”

“—like Beep, only they converged into one being, a single ghost god, with all the power of the two that merged to produce it. Therefore, the new entity is more powerful than the individual gods that created it. It’s like two stars colliding to create a single supernova, one that can live forever and has an endless supply of energy. And now, in a process that took millions of years, or even billions, all of the original gods have converged, either with each other or with another ghost god, until there is only one left. And they were magnificent. They were great celestial beings floating in space with the power of a billion suns.”

I sat back, impressed. “Okay, this is a really cool story.”

“Thank you.”

“But why am I the first as well as the last?”

“If you do that math—”

I gaped at him in horror. I had no idea there would be math involved.

He ignored me. “—you’ll realize that seven original gods, and the ghost gods they created, could only have produced a thirteenth if all of them had eventually merged. All seven of the original gods and three of the original ghost gods had merged until only two ghost gods were left. For the first time, two ghost gods, with the power of all those who came before them, merged and you were created from their union.”

I squeezed my eyes and tried to envision the process. “I don’t think you’re very good at math.”

“I’m very good at math.” He took a pencil and paper and drew me a chart with X’s representing the originals and O’s representing their offspring, the ghost gods. He was right. Seven, when boiled down to one, was thirteen total. Seven original and six ghosts.

“So, it’s like my mother and my father gave up their lives to create me?”

“Yes, and no,” Osh said. “They still live inside you. If this is right, the power surging through every cell in your body could destroy this universe. Could destroy a million universes and everything in them. Thankfully, your species is very kind. I like to think the gods before you are sort of like—” He looked at Reyes for the word.

“Like counselors,” Reyes offered.

“Exactly. They’re like counselors. They’re still there inside you, in the consciousness and memories that define your genetic make up. You’re just a separate entity”

“So, to answer your question,” Reyes said, “you are the first pure ghost god, the only one created from two ghost gods. And because there are no more, you are also the last.”

“That’s kind of sad,” I said. “But they’re all still here?” I placed a hand over my heart.

“Like advisors.”

“Think about it, though,” Osh said, gazing at me in awe. “All that power, all that energy, the potency of seven original gods, has been harvested and passed down to you.”

Reyes looked at Osh and did something I’d never seen him do. He sought Osh’s counsel. “This is where I get lost.”

Osh nodded to encourage him.

“Why is she here on this plane? If she is the last god of her universe, of her people, the very last of her kind, why is she here?”

“That’s something even I can’t fathom.”

“The first time we had sex,” I said, making Reyes a little uncomfortable and Osh perk up, “I saw you see me.” I looked at him. “I saw you pick me out of a thousand beings of light. They were all just like me. There has to be more of us.”

“They were not all just like you. To give you a metaphor of what your dimension is like, imagine God, the god of this dimension, among his angels. He is not one of them. He created them. He has the power to reduce them all to ash with a single thought, but he still lives among them. And his angels, while more powerful than the mortal life in his realm, are not like him, though they are made of a similar substance. Of a similar light.”

“So you saw me among my angels?”

“Metaphorically speaking. And, again, you have to understand, all of this took place over millions of years. Probably billions. The gods of your dimension are more ancient than any other beings I’ve ever come across.”

I had an epiphany. “Then I’m older than you.”

“What?” he asked.

“You may be centuries old, but I’m older. I’m millions of years old.”

He grinned. “Yes.”

“I robbed the cradle,” I said, quite pleased with myself. “I wish I remembered all of this.”

“From what I understand, you will once you know your celestial name. It’s like a safety switch. But you aren’t supposed to know your celestial name until your physical body dies.”

“But I did die!” I argued. “When the Twelve attacked us. I stuck a blade in my chest and died, baby. I saw the heavens above us. Trust me.”

“You died, but you came back,” Osh said, struggling to understand himself. “That’s the only way it makes sense. You didn’t take up your position as the grim reaper like you’re slated to do.”

“So, the other grim reapers, the ones that reaped, for lack of a better phrase, before me, they were from my world as well?”

“Yes,” Reyes said. “But they were like the angels. No god has ever taken on such a menial task.”

“Then why leave the gene pool?” Garrett asked. “Why bring in a being—a god, no less—when you already have people for that?”

Reyes nodded, agreeing that the whole thing was utterly illogical. “Like I said before, it’s like sending a queen to do the janitor’s work.”

“Or a god,” Osh said, “to clean up someone else’s mess.”

Garrett sat in thought, then looked at me. “So, whose mess are you here to clean up?”

7

A friend will help you if someone knocks you down.

A best friend will pick up a bat and say, “Stay down. I got this.”

–TRUE FACT

Cookie and I compared notes as we ate some of the wonderful fare Reyes and Osh had grilled up. We came up with very little, unfortunately. She was still waiting on information from Kit, and as long as I was stuck at the convent, I just couldn’t do much. I felt helpless, and the dread that had taken up residence in the back of my neck concerning the Loehrs weighed on me. I didn’t know how to tell Reyes what I’d done.

I begged Cook to go, spend at least the night with her husband in a nice place, but she was adamant about staying. Gemma and Denise were still there, too. They’d been hanging out a lot. It was weird and a little disturbing. Well, Denise was a lot disturbing, but she kept to herself mostly. She picked up our plates and made herself useful. So there was that.

Quentin and Amber went back to watching movies, which reminded me, I needed to call Sister Mary Elizabeth before it got too late. If anyone had the lowdown on what was going on up top, it would be her.

Reyes got up from the table to clean the grill. Gemma found a plush corner in the living room in which to read. Uncle Bob had to get back to the city. Osh was nowhere to be found. That guy kept odd hours. Kit sent over the interviews they’d done with all of Faris’s friends, and Cookie couldn’t wait to dive in, so I took the opportunity to chat with Garrett, since we were the only ones left at the table. All our conversations were about prophecies and hellhounds. I wanted to know how he was doing. Kind of. Really I wanted to know how his son was doing and his baby mama, Marika.

I gestured him to move closer. He frowned suspiciously, then scooted his chair over. Like half an inch. Jerk.

“So?” I asked, drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Another one. Since I was officially off coffee until Beep was born, hot chocolate had become my friend. We weren’t as close as me and mocha latte, but we were getting there. It took time to build a relationship. Trust had always been an issue for me.

“So?” he asked, drinking a beer, his beverage of choice.

“How’s Zaire?”

One corner of his mouth went up. “He’s good. I get to see him almost every week.”

“And what about Marika?”

He lifted a shoulder and leaned back in his chair, straightened out his legs in front of him. “She’s doing well. We’ve been talking.”

I scooted closer. “And?”

“She wants to try dating again.”

“Dude, that’s great.”

“I don’t know. She used me to purposely get pregnant and didn’t tell me.”

“Of course she didn’t tell you. What would you have done if she had?”

“Run in the other direction. But it’s still not okay, Charles.”

He was right, of course, but we all make mistakes. I decided to remind him of that. “Do you remember that time I was helping you out with a bust—?”

“You mean that time you butted into my stakeout because you wanted me to lick your coffee cup?”

“Exactly. And what happened?”

“The guy came home. I busted him. End of story.”

“No, before that.”

“You tried to poison me.”

“No, after that.” And I didn’t try to poison him. I just wanted to know if my cup was poisoned. It tasted … poisony. Turned out, I just didn’t rinse well. So much for my theory that my landlord at the time was trying to kill me.

He drew out his exhalation to make his point. A long, needless point. “Fine. I get it.”

“No, what happened?”

“I went into that diner to get a cup of coffee.”

“No. You went into that diner to try to get a date with one of the waitresses.”

“I know the story.”

“And why was I really in the same neighborhood as you?”

“Because you were staking out that diner.”

“I was staking out that waitress. And why was I doing that?”

“Charles—”

I shoved an index finger over his mouth.

He glared.

“Why was I doing that?”

“Because you figured out she was spiking men’s coffees with eyedrops.”

“Yes. She had this weird vendetta thing going on and was purposely making men sick. I saved your ass. You could have died.”

“I wouldn’t have died.”

“You could have gone into a coma like poor Mrs. Verdean’s husband.”

“So, where are you going with this?”

“You made a mistake hitting on that woman when your gut told you she was about as stable as a three-legged chair. We all make mistakes.”

“What Marika did wasn’t a mistake. It was quite intentional.”

“I get it. I do. I just hope you give her a second chance is all. Especially now that she broke up with her boyfriend.”

“She broke up with him?”

I nodded, knowing that would get his attention.

“I don’t know, Charles. Chicks are crazy.”

“Duh. That doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying.”

“Maybe it could work. I mean, I’ve always wanted a family. And Zaire is great. Marika has her moments, too.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said, punching his arm. “So, did you get it?”

“Is that the only reason you’re talking to me?”

It wasn’t, but I couldn’t let him know that I genuinely cared about him. “Of course.”

His mouth widened into a grin that made his silvery eyes sparkle. “It’s behind that weird box.” He nodded toward the potato bin.

“Sweet!” I scrambled up to check out my new toy. “I’ve always wanted a sledgehammer.”

At about half my height, the handle wasn’t bad. The head of the sledgehammer was about the size of a Big Gulp. All in all, it seemed pretty nonthreatening.

I took the handle and tried to pick it up, ignoring the skiptracer at the table. His snickers would not deter me from my task.

“Fine,” I said, dragging it from behind the potato bin and across the floor.

“You aren’t going to kill anyone with that, are you?”

“That’s certainly not the plan,” I said, huffing and puffing as it scraped along the tile with an awful, horror-movielike sound.

“You realize this floor is over a hundred years old.”

I felt bad about the floor. I really did, but I couldn’t pick the stupid thing up. “It’s much heavier than it looks.”

“Would you like some help?”

“Nope,” I said, winded. I’d traveled about two feet. “I got this.”

There was a tiny room off the kitchen with a wooden closet of some kind. Nobody knew what it was, even Sister Mary Elizabeth. It could have been a confessional, for all I knew. Either way, no matter what we did, we could not get the door open. Normally, that wasn’t a big deal. But the more I thought about it, the more it ate at me. There could be anything in that closet. There could be a dead body. Or a mountain of gold. Or a staircase to a secret passageway.

After months of trying to pry it open, I couldn’t take it anymore. This was my last hope. That door was coming open if I had to tear down the wall around it.

Garrett got up and followed me to the room that we had set up as the laundry room. Though I’d refused his help physically, he decided to help in other ways. He watched and chuckled and assured me I was batshit every so often. So, there was that.

After an eternity, we got to the door, a thick wooden thing set in the middle of a wall in the small room. The wall butted up against the room that Cookie and I had set up as our office, but we’d stepped the rooms off. There was a good five feet of space in between that wall and the office wall. So what was there?

I was about to find out.

As Garrett watched from the doorway, swigging his beer pretty as you please, I pulled with all my might to try to at least get the sledgehammer off the ground. I wasn’t weak. I could lift stuff. Heavy stuff. Well, heavy-ish. This thing was insane.

I set it back down just as Reyes walked up. He wore the same doubt-ridden grin as Garrett.

“Gonna get it open, are you?” Reyes asked, wiping his hands on a towel.

“Yes, I am.” I set the hammer down to take a break. “We need to know what’s in there. There could be anything. I mean, why is it locked?” I examined the door for the thousandth time. “No, how is it locked? There’s no lock.” I pointed to emphasize the absurdity of it all.

The door was massive. In a convent with regular doors and regular walls, why was this door—the same door that was impenetrable—so thick? So sturdy? Reyes had even tried to see into the closet incorporeally. He couldn’t get in!

“I mean, aren’t you even curious? What kind of room is impenetrable even to something that is incorporeal?”

I struggled to lift the sledgehammer again, but now I had an even bigger audience.

“She at it again?” Osh asked.

“Hardheaded as the day is long,” Reyes said.

My frustration rose to new heights. “Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, if you aren’t going to help, what were you talking to Angel about?”

His gaze narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“In that field today. I saw you.”

He straightened. “What were you doing out there?”

“I was following that sweet departed nun. She’s been trying to show me something and then someone pushed me and I almost fell to my death and were you there? No.”

A blast of heat hit me then, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me or because someone had pushed me.

“What do you mean, someone pushed you?”

Oh, thank God.

“Who pushed you?”

“Why were you talking to Angel?”

“Is that what happened to you?” He took my arm and indicated a scrape down the back of it, his touch scalding.

“Probably.” I shook off his hold and gripped the sledgehammer again. “And I have no idea who it was. I smelled something weird, though.” I straightened and thought about it. “Like lavender or something.” I bent to my task again.

He stepped to me, curled his fingers under my chin, and lifted my face to his. “Who was it?” The moment he stepped forward, I felt consumed by fire, like I’d been swallowed by a blazing inferno.

“What were you talking to Angel about?” When he didn’t answer yet again, I stepped out of his grasp and pointed in the general direction of the living room. “Go stand in the corner with Mr. Wong.”

Cookie had joined us then, doing her best to look over Osh’s shoulder. “Is she trying it again?”

Reyes turned from me then as though frustrated. “Why is he here?”

“Mr. Wong? I have no idea.” But I stopped to wonder as Osh and Reyes eyed each other. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Why is such a powerful being in the house?” Osh asked.

“No. Well, yes—that, too—but I was thinking he needed to get out more. Maybe meet a girl. Try the singles scene. He seems awfully lonely.”

I pulled on the hammer again, raising it about two inches off the floor, and swung with all my might. It tapped lightly on the door, the sound barely audible above the sound of the spin cycle.

Then someone else joined us. Gemma stood behind Garrett, but I didn’t think the high-pitched screech that nigh drew blood from my ears was coming from her. Nope. It came from none other than my stepmother.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, pushing her way into the room.

Ignoring her, Reyes shook off his misgivings about Mr. Wong, the sweetest man alive, or, well, dead, and stepped to me again. “Are you okay?” he asked, taking my arm and caressing it.

His touch liquefied my insides. “I’m fine.”

“A sledgehammer?” Denise howled. “What are you doing letting her lift a sledgehammer?”

“I’m calling Katherine,” Reyes continued, unfazed by Denise’s rant. “I think we need to be sure.”

“Katherine the Midwife,” I corrected. Since we couldn’t take me to a medical team to give birth, we’d brought a medical team here. We even had one of the downstairs rooms outfitted with everything a modern midwife would need.

Denise ripped the handle away from me. “Do you know what that could do to the baby?”

Was she kidding? “The baby is the safest person in this room, Denise.”

“Charley, you can’t lift something this heavy.”

“Yes, I can. Not very far, but—”

A slap echoed along the walls and I realized my face stung. The moment was so shocking, so surreal, everyone stood in complete silence. Even Denise. She seemed the most shocked of all.

Reyes reacted first. His heat exploded around me and I slowed time to watch a hand lift to Denise’s throat. He would snap her neck in a heartbeat, before he even knew what he was doing, his anger was so great. I stepped in front of him, put my hands on his wide chest, and pushed with all my might. Then I allowed time to bounce back with my hands still on his chest, my body braced for impact.

It crashed around me, and Reyes, not expecting my influence, took an involuntary step back. I’d hardly fazed him. He started for Denise again, but I put my hands on his face and drew his attention to me.

“Mom!” Gemma yelled, tackling the big guys blocking the doorway to get inside. She didn’t know what Reyes was, but she knew he was supernatural and she knew he was as deadly as they came. She got between Reyes and Denise and held up her hands to fend him off.

“I’m sorry,” Denise said, trying to calm him.

“Reyes,” I said, my voice soft, soothing. “It’s okay.”

His anger physically hurt, it was so hot.

“You have to calm down.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re boiling me alive.”

He sobered instantly, his eyes shimmering with emotion. A telltale wetness gathered between his thick lashes as he glared at me. Then, ever so slowly, he came to his senses.

I wiped at a tear that slipped past its glistening cage, but he turned from me, embarrassed and furious and, I suspected, afraid of what he would do.

“Are you okay?” I asked Denise.

Both hands were covering her mouth. “Charley, I’m so—!”

“Get her the fuck out of my house.” Reyes didn’t turn around when he spoke.

“Come on,” Gemma said, rushing Denise out of the room.

Garrett helped, ushering them out, and then he and Osh blocked the door in case Reyes changed his mind.

“I’m okay,” he said to them, but they didn’t move.

Cookie looked on the verge of tears herself.

“We’re okay, hon,” I promised her.

Even unconvinced, she took that as her cue to leave.

“Reyes,” I said, placing a hand on the small of his back. It scorched my skin. “What is going on? You’re so hot. Your temper is like a ticking time bomb. You leave and you’re gone for hours. And then when you do come back, you stay away from me for the rest of the night. I don’t understand.” I couldn’t even imagine how he’d react when I told him about the Loehrs. The very thought filled me with an all-encompassing dread.

“Tell her,” Osh said, leaning against the doorjamb.

“Is it—?” I lowered my head, so afraid of his answer. “Is it me? Is it … how I look?”

His temper flared again as he faced me. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

“I’m pregnant, Reyes. I’m the size of a blimp.”

The incredulous look on his face stopped me. He was astounded. “You’re stunning. You’ve never been more beautiful. Don’t you understand what you are? You’re a god and I’m the son of your worst enemy.”

I got over the beautiful remark, and asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“If you don’t tell her, I will.” Osh was pushing him. Now was not the time. Or was it?

“What is he talking about?” I asked Reyes as he glared at the Daeva.

“Okay, fine,” Osh said. “I’ll tell her.”

The murderous expression he leveled on Osh made me wince.

He took a step closer to him, his movements dangerously smooth. “It will be the last thing to come out of your mouth.”

Osh nodded. “’Bout time you grew some balls.”

In the underworld, Osh had been a champion. Their best and fastest fighter. Even faster than Reyes, so my surly husband said. But he was not as big as Reyes. Not in human form. I wondered if that mattered, though.

Reyes took another step toward him. I stopped my husband with a hand on his chest, but only because he allowed me to.

Then I faced Osh. “Tell me.”

The grin Osh wore was completely unnecessary. He enjoyed antagonizing Reyes far too much for my comfort. “He hasn’t slept since the attack.”

“What?” I whirled around. “What attack? When were you attacked?”

“The one eight months ago,” Osh explained. “He would be useless in a fight now. If the Twelve somehow get across the border—”

“Eight months?” I asked, astonished beyond belief. “Is he kidding? You haven’t slept in eight months?”

We were supernatural, sure, but we had human bodies and human needs. No wonder he looked so tired and disheveled all the time. I’d once gone three weeks without sleep. It about killed me. But eight months?

“Why?” I asked him.

“Oh, but we haven’t gotten to the best part,” Osh continued.

Reyes’s jaw muscle leapt. “Don’t do this. I stopped. It didn’t work and I stopped.”

“What?” I asked, squelching a shudder of fear.

“You stopped after how many attempts? A dozen? More?”

“I stopped, Daeva. That’s all that matters.”

I dug my nails into Reyes’s biceps to remind him I was there. “Just tell me,” I ordered Osh.

“He thought he might have found a way to kill the hounds.” He glanced at me, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “He was wrong.”

“To kill them?” I looked from Osh to my husband then back again. “And what way was that?”

This time Garrett spoke, but he did it minus the smirk. “He dragged them onto holy ground, thinking it would kill them.”

The shock that jolted through my body was like sticking a fork into a light socket. I turned to Reyes, aghast and appalled and dumbstruck that he would even try such a thing. “You did what?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer at first, and when he did, his demeanor was that of a schoolboy being chastised after having been ratted out. “I only tried it a few times. It didn’t work, so I stopped.”

“Fifteen,” Garrett said. “He tried it fifteen times.”

The thought of Reyes not only fighting a hellhound, but dragging one onto the consecrated ground—on purpose!—and then fighting it, sent the world spinning beneath me. Before I knew it, the floor disappeared.

“Maybe if he’d had a little sleep, he wouldn’t have had his ass handed to him on a silver platter every time,” Osh said into the darkness surrounding me. “Those fuckers can fight.”

I sank to the ground as though in slow motion. The edges of my vision blurred, then three sets of hands landed on me until Reyes lifted me into his arms. Even though I weighed 1,014 pounds, he carried me with ease to the stairs and up to our room. Where Denise, Gemma, and Cookie were. This was not going to end well.

“She’s still here?” I asked Gemma, trying to shake the fog from my head. “Are you kidding me?”

“I had to apologize,” Denise said, both hands still covering her mouth. “Is she okay?”

The glare Reyes shot her would have shriveled a winter rose. But no one ever accused Denise of being a winter rose.

“I’m okay, hon,” I said, gesturing for him to put me down.

He did so slowly, then steadied me until I had my footing. “I’m not leaving you alone with her, so don’t even think about it.”

“Reyes, it’s okay. She didn’t mean to slap the living shit out of me.” I said the last bit while leveling my own glare on her.

She had the decency to look embarrassed.

“It’s not her I’m worried about. Is that what you were doing in the field with Angel?”

He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

He was lying. I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I raised my chin and turned from him. After a moment, he left.

Then I turned on the woman who’d made my life hell growing up. “What are you still doing here?”

“I wanted to explain.”

“Charley,” Gemma said, “if you’ll just hear her out, I think it would be good for both of you.”

“Why? She has never listened to me. Why should I have to listen to her? I should mark her soul for Osh. Oh, wait, she doesn’t have one.”

“I don’t have one?” she said from between gritted teeth.

There she was. I knew the helpful, nurturing routine wouldn’t last long.

“You think I’m a big joke,” she said, her face the picture of rage.

“Hon, you’re not a joke. You’re the punch line.”

“You didn’t even go to your own father’s funeral.”

Gemma gasped.

“You’ve been holed up in here for months like you’re in witness protection or something.”

“The only one I need protection from is you.”

“That’s it! Sit down! Both of you.”

Denise sat on the bench at the end of the bed, while I crossed my arms over my chest again, showing just how defiant I could be.

Gemma reached over, grabbed my ear, and led me to the chair in the corner of our tiny room. “Ow, holy cow, Gem! Katherine the Midwife is not going to be happy with you.”

“Her name is just Katherine. You have to stop calling her Katherine the Midwife.”

She let go and I rubbed my abused cartilage. “How did you do that?”

“Sit down!”

“No, really. I’m having a kid. I need to know how to completely incapacitate someone by grabbing their ear.”

“Sit down.”

I sat down. “So, you’ll tell me later?”

“You need to listen to what Mom has to say.”

“No, I don’t.”

“She deserves that much, Charley.”

“Wait, you were there. Right there through our entire childhood. You saw it. You saw what she put me through. And might I bring up the slap I just received.”

It was the second time in my life Denise had slapped me in front of a crowd, and it was just as jolting and humiliating as the first time.

“I saw you both going at each other like children on a playground our whole lives.”

“Yeah, but she always started it.”

“That’s not what I saw.”

“What about the time she dragged me off my bike in front of all the neighbor kids because I didn’t do the dishes? Or the time a boy threw dirt in my face, right in my face, and she turned away, refused to do anything about it? Or the time she tried to run me down with her car?”

Denise sucked in a sharp breath. “I never tried to run you over with my car.”

“Oh, right, I just made that one up. But you admit to the other things.”

“Charley, oh my God,” Gemma said. “Can we stick with nonfiction here?”

“What? I needed backup just in case you didn’t find the other events horrific enough. I know what I’m saying seems childish and ridiculous for me to be holding a grudge for so long, but she was like that every day of my life. In everything that I did. She never complimented me. She never took up for me. She never stopped nagging me about the stupidest things. It was like she made it her personal mission to make sure I knew I was less than she was. Mothers don’t tear down, Gemma. They build up. Like she did with you.”

“That’s not true, Charley,” Gemma said in her psychiatrist voice.

“She slapped me in front of all those people. I was five years old.”

“Charley, look at that from her perspective. It was a horrible situation. You told a woman whose daughter had been missing for weeks that her daughter was in front of her.”

“She was.”

“We’re mere mortals, Charley. We didn’t know that. Mom was mortified. She was horrified and she panicked.”

“Like a few minutes ago?” I rubbed my cheek. She had the decency to look ashamed. “Were you panicking then?”

“Yes,” she said.

I looked at Gemma and scoffed. “Did you know that same woman sent me a bike after I led the cops to her daughter’s body. Your mother wouldn’t even let me have it.”

Gemma looked stunned. “Of course. You helped bring her closure.”

“Even a stranger believed in my abilities, and she—” I looked her up and down. “—made me feel like a freak every chance she got.”

“I didn’t think you should be rewarded for doing what you did to that poor woman. You had to learn that was wrong. You don’t just blurt stuff out like that, even if it’s true.”

“Well, I learned, all right. Don’t you worry about me. Is this over yet?”