I adored that woman. She was fun and open and absolutely genuine. And, for some unfathomable reason, she cared for me. Deeply.
My one female customer, a shabby-chic blonde with a bag big enough to sleep in, paid out and left. About two minutes later, Mr. P wandered to the register, ticket in hand, his face infused with a soft pink, his eyes watering with humor. Cookie had entertained the whole place. The stripper followed him. He thumbed through some bills, shaking his head, still amused with Cookie’s antics. The stripper took advantage of the moment to explain.
“He saved my life,” she said from beside him. She’d wrapped her arm in his, but every time he moved, her incorporeal limb slipped through. She linked her arm again and continued. “About a year ago. I’d … had a rough night.” She brushed her fingertips over her right cheek, giving me the impression her rough night involved at least one punch to her face.
My emotions did a one-eighty. My chest tightened. I fought the concern edging to the surface. Tamped it down. Ignored it the best that I could.
“I’d been roughed up pretty bad,” she said, oblivious to my disinterest. “He came to the hospital to take my statement. A detective. A detective had come to see me. To ask me questions. I figured I’d be lucky to get a patrol officer, considering … considering my lifestyle.”
“Here you go, hon,” Mr. P said, passing me a twenty. He folded up the rest of his bills and pocketed them as I punched a few buttons on the cash register, then began pulling out his change.
“It was the way he talked to me. Like I was somebody. Like I mattered, you know?”
I closed my eyes and swallowed. I did know. I had become acutely aware of the nuances of human behavior and the effect it had on those around them. The smallest act of kindness went a long way in my world. And there I was. Ignoring her.
“I cleaned up after that. Got a real job.”
She’d probably been ignored her whole life.
She laughed to herself softly. “Not a real job like yours. I started stripping. The place was a dive, but it got me off the streets, and the tips were pretty good. I could finally put my son in a private school. A cheap private school, but a private school nonetheless. This man just—” She stopped and gazed at him with that loving expression she’d had since she’d popped in. “He just treated me real nice.”
My breath hitched, and I swallowed again. When I tried to hand Mr. P his change, he shook his head.
“You keep it, hon.”
I blinked back to him. “You had coffee and ate two bites of your breakfast,” I said, surprised.
“Best cup I’ve had all morning. And they were big bites.”
“You gave me a twenty.”
“Smallest bill I had,” he said defensively, lying through his teeth.
I pressed my mouth together. “I saw several singles in that stash of yours.”
“I can’t give you those. I’m hitting the strip club later.” When I laughed, he leaned in and asked, “Want to join me? You’d make a killing.”
“Oh, honey, he’s right,” the stripper said, nodding in complete seriousness.
I let a smile sneak across my face. “I think I’ll stick to waiting tables.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, his grin infectious.
“See you tomorrow?”
“Yes, you will. If not sooner.”
He started toward the exit, but the stripper stayed behind. “See what I mean?”
Since no one was paying attention, I finally talked to her. Or, well, whispered. “I do.”
“My son is with his grandma now, but guess where he’s going to school.”
“Where?” I asked, intrigued.
“That private school, thanks to Detective Bernard Pettigrew.”
My jaw dropped a little. “He’s paying for your son to go to school?”
She nodded, gratitude shimmering in her eyes. “Nobody knows. My mama doesn’t even know. But he’s paying for my son’s schooling.”
The tightness around my heart increased threefold as she wiggled her fingers and hurried after him, her high heels eerily silent on the tile floor.
I watched her go, giving Mr. P one last glance before he turned the corner, wondering for the thousandth time if I should tell him about the demon coiled inside his chest.
2
Alex, I’ll take The Slightly Less Traumatic Life for $400.
—JEOPARDY! CONTESTANT
It was thick and shiny and dark, the creature inside Mr. P, with razor-sharp teeth and claws that could rip through a chest in a microsecond. A niggling of recognition tingled at the back of my neck. I’d seen something similar before, but I didn’t know what it was. Not really. I only called it a demon for lack of a better explanation. What else would enter a human body and lie dormant? As though waiting to be awakened? As though waiting for its call to arms? And what would happen to Mr. P when that call came through? My only reference was the fact that I knew, probably from movies or literature, that demons could possess people.
Mr. P didn’t seem particularly possessed. Then again, how would I know? Maybe demons were really smart and knew how to behave themselves in the human world. But the one inside Mr. P seemed to be sleeping. It lay coiled around his heart, its spine undulating, flexing every so often as though stretching. And I thought tapeworms were horrifying.
I checked on Cookie’s customers, explained that anytime a patron is accosted in the Firelight Grill, their lunch is on the house, then went to check on her. But not before one last scan of the area outside. The billowing clouds from the otherworld, as I called the second dimension, were roiling and churning. A storm was coming, another one like the night I woke up, all fierce and savage, but that wasn’t what I was looking for.
As pathetic as it sounded, I was looking for tall, dark, and deadly. Another force that was fierce and savage. He came in every morning for breakfast as well as every day for lunch. And, apparently, for dinner as well. Every time I’d come to the café in the evening—because I had no life—he was here, too. A bona fide three-meal-a-dayer.
We had several three-meal-a-dayers, actually, and we had some drop-dead lookers in the bunch, but the regular I both feared and salivated to see was named Reyes Farrow. I only knew that because Cookie ran his card one day and I peeked at the name on it. Where others exuded aggression, deception, and insecurity, he literally dripped confidence, sex, and power. Mostly sex.
Admiration was not my immediate reaction to him, however. The first time I saw him and realized he was something else, something dark and powerful and about as human as a fruit basket, I fought the urge to make my fingers into a cross and say, “I think you’re at the wrong address, buddy. You’re looking for 666 Highway to Hell Avenue. It’s a little farther south.”
Thankfully, I didn’t, because in the very next instant, when my gaze wandered up his lean hips, over his wide shoulders, and landed on his face, I was dumbstruck by his unusual beauty. Then I was all, “I think you’re at the wrong address, buddy. You’re looking for 1707 Howard Street. It’s two blocks over. Key’s under the rock. Clothing is optional.”
Thankfully, I didn’t do that either. I tried not to give out my address, as a rule. But he had a prowess about him, a feral bearing that tugged at my insides any time he was near. I kept my distance. Mostly because he was bathed in fire and a billowing darkness. The kind that sent tiny shudders of unease through my body. The kind that kept me from getting too close for fear of being burned alive.
Of course, it helped that he never sat in my section. Ever. Probably a good thing, but I was starting to get a complex.
He hadn’t come in that morning, though, and that fact had me a little more down than usual. Tormenting Cookie would lift my spirits. It always did.
I spotted Kevin, one of our busboys, through the pass-out window and asked if he could keep an eye on things for me while I took five. He waved, his mouth full of Sumi’s incredible banana pancakes, then went back to his phone.
Grabbing my jacket on
the way out, I found Cookie in the alley behind the café, very close to the spot where I woke up. The Firelight Grill sat on a corner lot on Beekman Avenue, in an old brick building with dark inlays intricately placed to create gorgeous arches and carvings, to the utter delight of the tourists. It had a very Victorian feel.
Right next door sat an antiques store, with a dry-cleaning business beyond that. A white delivery van had backed up to the cleaners, and Cookie was busy watching the men haul boxes out.
“Hey, you,” I said, walking to stand beside her.
She smiled and wrapped an arm in mine to pull me closer. Our breaths misted in the chilly air. We huddled together, shivering as I scanned the area for the disturbance I’d felt the moment I stepped outside. A smattering of unease rippled in the air around us. A strong emotional dissonance. A pain.
At first, I thought it was coming from Cookie. Thank goodness it wasn’t. That couple clearly did not take offense. No need to worry about the incident overmuch. But now I was curious about the source.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Cookie asked.
I refocused on the closest thing to family I had. “I’m more worried about you.”
She chuckled. “I guess if that’s the worst thing I do today, it will be a pretty good day.”
“I agree. On the bright side, after the way you saw to that customer, I see a promising career on a street corner for you. You got skill, girl. We have to work with what God gave us.”
Completely ignoring what I said, she leveled a bright cerulean gaze on me. “And?”
It was almost like she was used to inappropriate, X-rated ribbing. Weird. I nudged a rock with the toe of my ankle boot. They were my very first score with my very first paycheck, and I’d quickly realized another truth about myself. I had a thing for boots.
“I’m good,” I said with a noncommittal shrug. When she narrowed that arresting gaze on me, I added, “I promise. All is right with the world. Seriously, though, you need to at least consider selling your body for profit. I can be your pimp. I’d be a freaking awesome pimp.”
Though she didn’t quite believe me—the I’m-good thing, not the pimp thing—she dropped it. Or pretended to. She oozed concern. After everything that had happened to her, she was still worried about me. I could tell. No, I could feel her concern, her desire for me to be well and happy. And I was grateful. Really I was, but there were times when I could feel deception swell out of her as well. It snaked into our conversations. A microsecond later she would change the subject. Yet I could tell she genuinely cared about me.
Then again, lots of people cared about me. From the moment I’d woken up in the alley behind the café a month ago with no recollection of how I got there, many of the residents of Sleepy Hollow, New York, had banded together to help me out. A total stranger. Some dropped off clothes while I was at the hospital. Some gave me gift cards to this store or that.
The outpouring of goodwill had waned after a couple of weeks—a fact for which I was also grateful—but people still stopped in to check on me. To see how I was doing. To find out the latest. Did the cops have any leads? Did I remember anything? Did anyone claim me?
No, no, and no.
Just like with Cookie, I felt their concern, but I felt something else from them that I didn’t feel from Cookie, nor from several of my other regulars: a freakish curiosity. A blistering desire to know who I was. If I’d really lost my memory. If I was faking it.
The doctors found nothing wrong with me. According to them, I was perfectly fine. Perfectly normal. But normal? Seriously? What they would think about my ability to see into a supernatural dimension? Was that fine? Was that normal?
But maybe they were right. Maybe the only thing wrong with me was psychological. If I couldn’t remember anything about my life pre-alley-awakening, was it me? Was I blocking my own memories? If so, what the hell had happened that was so awful? What made me not want to remember my own past? My own name? And did I really want to know?
Yes, I suppose I did. The struggle, the constant tug-of-war, the pull of wanting to know was stronger than the bliss of ignorance. In the meantime, there were people like Cookie who stood by me and kept me semi-sane.
There were the skeptics, of course. Not everyone believed I had retrograde amnesia, and I knew it. I felt doubt leach out of the occasional customer. I felt disbelief hemorrhage out of a random passerby, and with it, a revulsion.
For most, however, it was just a small suspicion. They wondered not only if I was faking it but why. And they were right. Why? Why would I fake something as horrific and agonizing as amnesia? For the attention? For the money? There were easier ways to get attention, and the money sucked. I now had a gazillion dollars’ worth of debt thanks to the hospitals and doctors and endless tests.
So my fifteen minutes were proving costly. I lived tip jar to tip jar. I could never pay all the bills I’d accumulated, not unless I got that major book deal I’d been angling for. At least, that was one theory floating around. According to some more aggressive skeptics, I had an angle that would lead to a huge payoff. Sadly, I didn’t. But their doubt, their certainty that I was faking it, kinda sucked. As far as I knew, I’d never faked it.
But that brought me to my second superpower. I could feel things. It was awesome.
No. It was beyond awesome!
If a deranged serial killer who uses control-top pantyhose to strangle brunettes ever attacked me, I’d be able to feel how much he wanted me dead.
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. It did have its perks. Like, I knew when anyone lied to me. I absolutely could-bet-my-life-on-it knew. No matter how good they were. No matter what tricks they’d adopted to conceal their deception, I knew. So there was that.
But along with the perk came the drawback. I felt other things as well. Otherworldly things. Sometimes I felt like I was being watched. Hunted. I felt the cold gaze of a stalker I couldn’t see. The hot breath of a predator fan across the back of my neck. The searing touch of a stranger’s mouth brush across mine. Of course, I only felt those things after my seventh cup of pre-noon coffee. The moment my customers’ faces started to blur, I switched to half-caff.
“Cold enough yet?” I asked her just as Dixie, the owner of the café and my savior—in the nonreligious sense—stuck her head out the door. Her hair was very much like Cookie’s only a bright, almost neon, red. Though I had yet to confirm my suspicions, I was pretty sure it glowed in the dark. It made her pale skin look vibrant and youthful despite the fact that she had to be in her late forties.
She raised her brows at us. “You two planning on waiting tables today?”
Cookie drew in a deep breath, preparing to face the music. Probably disco. Disco seemed more penitential than other forms of music. Except maybe thrash metal.
I decided to practice for my new calling in life as we turned to walk in. Whispering under my breath, I said, “Where’s my money, bitch?”
“I’m not going to be a streetwalker.”
I rounded my eyes in innocence. “I’m just practicing. You know, in case you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“Damn it.” I wilted beside her, all my hopes and dreams of being a pimp dashed against the cruel rocks of reality. And an unwilling ho.
Then the pain hit me again. A wave of it. It stemmed from somewhere close, but I couldn’t pinpoint the location. I turned in a circle, but saw no one.
“You okay, hon?” Cookie asked me, taking my arm again. And again the concern she felt welled up inside her. I didn’t quite understand her. Why she felt so strongly about me. Why she was so caring.
“You’re always so nice to me,” I said. Out loud. A little surprised by that fact.
She squeezed my hand. “We’re besties, remember? Of course I’m nice to you. Otherwise, I’d be the suckiest BFF ever.”
I chuckled softly for show, but she meant it when she said we were besties. With every fiber of her being. And that niggling suspicion was back stronger than ever. We’d o
nly known each other a month. Damn it. She was clearly one of those needy psycho chicks who boiled rabbits on the stoves of her enemies.
Oh, well. I’d enjoy her friendship while it lasted. But I mentally crossed bunnies off my shopping list.
When we walked back into the café, we had several new customers. We’d only been out for, like, thirty seconds. Weird how quickly they accumulated.
I had just hung up my coat when Dixie called out to me. “We have a couple of deliveries. Just waiting on fries for one.”
She wore a grin that stretched from multi-pierced earlobe to multi-pierced earlobe.
“You seem chipper.”
“I had a very productive morning.” Her face flushed and an excitement rushed through her as she packed up one of the orders.
“Clearly. I was wondering where you were.” She’d been gone all morning. Now I wanted to know why.
“I hired a new cook,” she said, her eyes a-twinkle. “He starts tomorrow. First shift.”
“What?” Sumi’s tiny head popped up, the pass-out window framing it almost perfectly, except she was too short so we couldn’t quite see the bottom half of her face.. “I’m first-shift cook. You can’t do this to me.” She waved a spatula. “I’ll sue!” Pretty brows slid fiercely over almond-shaped eyes, her wrath thoroughly incurred.
I never let my guard down around Sumi. The fact that she was vertically challenged meant nothing. She could kick my ass in a heartbeat. That woman had a temper. And she was quick. Limber. Horrifyingly good with knives.
“Oh, hush,” Dixie said, clearly not as fond of her faculties as I was of mine. “He’s going to be more of a”—she folded the top of the bag and stapled a ticket to it—“I don’t know, a specialty cook.”
“Cool,” I said, more interested in our customer base. One of our three-meal-a-dayers had shown up right on schedule, but with the eleven o’clock hour came our second-shift tag team, and my section was now officially split in half.
Francie and Erin were already busy taking orders.
The Dirt on Ninth Grave Page 2