by C. T. Adams
I took a seat on a stool next to the long counter that ran along the far wall. I stared out the window, entertaining myself by people-watching as I sipped my coffee and ate breakfast. A familiar green Hummer pulled to the curb across the street and Lewis Carlton unfolded from the driver’s side.
He was wearing glossy black warm-up pants with a pair of red stripes down the side and a dark red fishnet tank that showed off an upper body that was finely chiseled and covered with expensive body art. A gold ring glittered in his left nipple, clearly visible through the sheer fabric of his shirt. Gold-rimmed sunglasses with dark lenses hid his eyes. If he was cold, I couldn’t tell it. He jaywalked across Seventeenth, ignoring the honking horns and accompanying hand gestures from drivers who’d been trying to run the yellow light.
He strolled into the store, taking his place in line. Everyone stared. It was almost impossible not to. Whatever else you might say about him, the man had style. He chatted amiably with the people in line, accepting the adoration of the sports fans, signing his autograph on cups, napkins, even on one woman’s abdomen. He nodded a greeting at me. I nodded back, not really even tempted to leave.
Eventually he managed to get his coffee and break away from his fans to join me. “Mornin’, Buffy. How’s tricks?”
He lowered himself onto the stool next to me, facing in so that he could stretch his ridiculously long legs out into the aisle.
I smiled in spite of myself. “Fine, Carlton. You?”
“Not bad. Gotta give you props for offing Amanda Shea. I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.” He lifted his coffee cup in salute before taking a sip.
“Tom did most of it.” I didn’t say more because, while it appeared that there wouldn’t be charges pressed against either of us, I didn’t want to risk it. Besides, people were listening. They were trying to pretend they weren’t, but the guy with the newspaper was holding the silly thing upside-down, and the woman with the book hadn’t turned a page since Carlton walked in.
Carlton nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Fido’s all right. He’s good for you.” He grinned, flashing fangs. “Mind you, I’d be better. But he’s all right.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
He laughed. “You’d do it, too.” He took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his shirt. When he set the cup on the counter, his face was utterly serious. “You can’t do any more healings, Buffy. I don’t care how guilty they make you feel or how much money they offer.”
“Funny, my doctor says the same thing.” With everything that had been going on, I’d forgotten all about the MRI scheduled this week. Oh, and then there was the interview. My stomach tied itself in a knot just thinking about that.
“It’ll kill you.” Carlton’s words brought me back to the present with a start. “Hell, it was supposed to kill you to heal your brother. That, or leave you a mindless shell. That was sort of the plan—hook you in with the promise of it and then let you do yourself in. Without a symbiont, the human brain isn’t wired to handle that much psychic energy.” He shook his head in amazement. “You are one stubborn bitch. You just won’t die. Do you have any idea how much that pisses them off?”
“Them? Not you? They’re not listening in right now?”
He put his cup to his lips. Taking a long pull he looked at me over the rim of his cup before he spoke. “You hear any buzzing in here? Nah. You’re all right. From what I can see, when we leave you alone, you leave us alone. Only time you ever went out lookin’ for trouble was when they took that boyfriend of yours … what’s-his-name.”
“Dylan Shea,” I prompted him. I watched him react to the name, just a flicker of … something that passed through his eyes and was gone before I could guess what it was. It puzzled me. But what puzzled me more was why he’d be helping me. “Why are you telling me this?” I really wanted to know. If the rules still applied, he couldn’t lie to me. But if he was telling the truth, it was bound to piss off the queens and the hive. I’d seen the queens fell members who defied them with the psychic powers they could command. Why would Carlton risk that? It didn’t make sense.
Then again, almost nothing about the big black man made sense to me. He was a very big, very tough enigma.
“You helped me save those kids. You could’ve said no. They were working with Amanda Shea to kill you. But you helped us save them. They’re my hive now. My peeps. So I figure I owe you one.”
“Bet the rest of the queens don’t see it the same way.”
He flashed his fangs again. “No bet. I’m not letting you take my money on a sure thing.”
Setting his cup on the counter he rose and extended his hand for me to shake. “Take care of yourself, Reilly. They want you out of the way. Truth. They’d do pretty much anything to manage it. I’ve been sent off to Pueblo with the kiddies. Can’t have two queens in the same city. Besides, for some reason they don’t like me running into you.” He winked and then covered his eyes with the so-dark shades. “They seem to think I talk too much. Go figure.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Anyway, I saw you sitting here and figured I’d stop by and tell you good-bye and good-luck.” I took the hand he held out for me and shook it, feeling the strength of those fingers as his hand gripped mine, his playoff rings digging ever-so-slightly into my flesh.
“You too.”
He left the way he came, loping across the street to the accompaniment of car horns and hand gestures. I doubted I’d ever see him again, and I wasn’t positive that I wasn’t sorry. Carlton might be a Thrall, but he was an amazing individual. God help me, I actually liked him. That wasn’t a good trend.
I finished my coffee, dumped the trash into the container, and left for my run home.
It was clouding up. It might blow over. Then again, it could snow sometime this afternoon. If it did, I didn’t think it would amount to much. It was probably just one of those here-today-gone-in-the-morning snows that happen so often in Denver.
I made good time getting back to the apartment. When I got home there was a message on the machine from Gerry telling me how happy he was to hear from me. It was good to hear his thickly accented English. He promised to make a couple of calls. That was a relief. Business might not be booming yet, but it was a start. Gerry had a lot of connections in the jewelry industry. The people he worked with had been some of my best customers in the past. Morris Goldstein might be dead, but I didn’t doubt that someone had taken his place. Commerce, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
There was another message from the television network, confirming the time for the interview. I’d hoped that when the word got out about Amanda’s death they’d cancel. Not a chance. I was not only famous, I was infamous. The ratings would be huge. They’d do it here, in Denver, in my apartment. Could I please call and confirm that next Tuesday would be good for me? My mouth went dry with absolute terror. Why in the hell had I agreed to this? But Tuesday would probably work. I could be back from London by then. Oh, crap. I took deep, steadying breaths and reminded myself that a good charity would be getting a lot of money in exchange for my doing this.
So, afraid or not, I picked up the phone and called them back. I don’t run from my fears—most of them, anyway.
I also called the hospital to check on the date for the MRI. I was wrong. It was next week, not this one. At least I hadn’t missed it. Whew. I asked to be transferred to ICU, but there was no change in Mike’s condition. Still no visitors. Still no information other than he was in serious condition.
After spending a few minutes worrying about him, and praying a lot, I hung up. I started a stew cooking in the crock pot and spent the next several hours cleaning house and trying to find places to put all Tom’s stuff. I hung the picture of his family and the group shots of him with his firehouse buddies on the same wall with all of my photos, including the one of Tom as Mr. August from the firehouse calendar. It’s amazingly hot and stays just this side of decency because of the careful placement of a
coiled fire hose.
Blank convinced me that he was starving to death and hard food just wouldn’t do. He also lured me away from my work for a while with a wild game of “attack the feather duster.” Eventually he tired of the game and curled up in a sunbeam between a pair of potted plants.
By dinner time the place looked pretty good. Oh, it would need more work before the crew showed up, but the place definitely looked better than it had in a while. I was feeling pretty self-satisfied when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey baby, it’s me.” Tom was in a good mood, which probably meant that thus far this shift he hadn’t had to deal with anything bad. We’d been together long enough now that I could recognize the strain in his voice when he called after a bad fire, one with injuries or fatalities. He tried to hide how he felt every time, but it always affected him.
“Hi gorgeous. Hope you don’t mind. I’ve been unpacking your things. You get the right half of the bedroom closet and the bottom two drawers. Oh, and I hung your photos.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Tom? Is that all right? Did I do something wrong?”
He laughed. “Wrong? Hell no! I just never expected you’d let me move in without pitching a fit, and here you are hanging my pictures for me.”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “Kind of surprises me, too. I guess you’ll just have to repay me in creative ways.”
“Oh, I can do that.”
I mentioned the interview, and my job prospects. He told me it had been a good shift thus far, and that Rob had found another job. Then we said we loved each other, joked about what we’d do when he got off shift the next day, and hung up the phone.
I was in love. And it felt really good.
I ate the stew while watching Danger Mouse on DVD. It’s a British cartoon, with a one-eyed white mouse as a secret agent. Tom’s not a big fan but I am, so I watch it when he’s not around. I had a wild case of giggles watching “The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God” when there was a knock on the front door.
I felt outward but for some reason, couldn’t tell who it was. I furrowed my brow and asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Bryan.”
That seemed odd, but I was glad he was here. I hit the pause button and walked over to unlock the door and let him in.
He gave me a hug as he came through the door. I noticed there was a dusting of snow on the bomber jacket he wore. Apparently while I had been watching the television it had started snowing. His hands were red and cold, which meant the temperature was dropping, too.
“I heard you laughing all the way up the stairs.”
“I’m watching cartoons.”
Bryan stripped off his jacket and draped it over the back of one of the stools by the kitchen counter. “Cool! Danger Mouse. I love that one! Any chance I could talk you out of some of that stew? I’m famished. I spent all day at the hospital and didn’t get a chance to eat.”
“Sure. Help yourself. Any news on Mike since this afternoon? I called, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
Brian reached into the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a large bowl. He was filling it with stew as he spoke. “They’ve upgraded his condition to stable.” I raised my eyes and offered a sincere thank you while Bryan kept talking. “He’s conscious and aware. He was worried as hell that Amanda might have gotten you. I told him you were fine, that you’d be there if you could. When Joe came by, Mike raised hell with him for getting you kicked out. Told me that as soon as they get him in a room with a phone he’ll call you, and that you are not supposed to blame yourself.”
I snorted and the cat sneezed in unison. “Yeah, right.”
“We’ve already talked this to death, Kate. You can’t help it that you’re a magnet for nut cases.” An impish grin lit up his face. “It’s like that curse Willow put on Xander accidentally, making him a demon magnet.”
I laughed at his joke. My little brother had shown a grim determination to get reacquainted with pop culture while we were at Brooks’s house. He blew through the movie and DVD rental section at the local grocery with a vengeance. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was becoming one of his absolute favorites. He was trying to catch up with the rest of the series. He’d watched a couple of seasons already, all in a row.
Bryan opened the fridge and pulled out a can of soda. “Okay if I have one?”
“Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” He hooked the refrigerator door with one foot and pulled it closed before moving over to take a seat at the counter with the food in front of him. It was such a familiar gesture that it made me smile again. He took an experimental spoonful, blowing on it to cool it a little before putting it in his mouth. He got a look of rapture on his face. “Damn this is good. I don’t remember you being able to cook like this before. This is as good as Mom’s was.”
“I’ve been practicing,” I admitted with a small blush. “But I’ll never be as good as her.”
He dug in, alternating bites with sips of soda. I wandered back over to the couch and settled down to make myself comfortable.
“Katie.” Bryan’s voice was more tentative than I’d heard it since he’d come back to himself. None of us Reillys are exactly known for timidity, so I had to wonder what was up.
“What?”
“I did something, and I don’t want you to be pissed at me.”
That didn’t sound promising. “What did you do?” It sounded suspicious, even to me.
“I went to look up some of my old friends from … before.”
My stomach tightened into a hard knot. I closed my eyes and fought down a wave of rage. I wanted to scream at him, ask him why in the hell he’d do something so stupid. They’d gotten him into drugs, and when it had gone badly they hadn’t even had the decency to take him home or to a hospital. They’d dumped him at the side of the road in a strange town like so much trash. Why would he care about what had happened to them? But he did. Just like I’d cared enough to save Dylan, even though I knew he’d cheated on me with Amanda.
I grabbed a throw pillow and clutched it to my stomach with both arms, clenching the soft fabric in both fists so that I wouldn’t scream or throw something at the wall. I’ve gotten much better about controlling myself. I’ve only gone through two alarm clocks in the whole time I’ve been with Tom. A new record. But this was definitely pushing my limits. “And? What did you find out?” My voice actually sounded neutral. I was proud of myself for that.
Bryan started listing the names of the people he’d hung out with. I remembered a few of them. Others I hadn’t really known. A lot of them hadn’t liked me, or I them. Even the ones who didn’t dislike me had thought I was either a hard-ass or a stick-in-the-mud. Watching his face as he spoke, I saw the depth of pain he tried to hide behind a mask of calm. “Max died of an overdose. John was killed in a car wreck. Mindy and April got scared after what happened to me and stopped using. April got married to Josh last June. They’re expecting their first baby.” He smiled, grateful there’d been at least some good news.
“What about Toby?” Toby had been his best buddy. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned him first was probably a bad sign, but I couldn’t not ask.
He paused and I could almost feel the heartbreak flowing off him in waves. “Toby’s a zombie.”
Shit.
“I’m sorry, Bryan.” I was sorry. I hadn’t liked Toby much, mainly because I’d blamed him for getting Bryan into the Eden scene in the first place. But on my worst day I wouldn’t have wished he’d become a zombie. It was just too horrible.
“I know you hated him.”
No sense denying it. “Only because I blamed him.”
“You shouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault I took drugs, Kate. It was stupid, but it was my choice. You can’t blame anyone else for that.”
Yes I could. And I most certainly did. But I wasn’t going to say that out loud. Nope. Nope. Nope. “We should probably change the subject.”
“Why? It’s over. I’
m not going back. Why can’t you talk about it?”
I couldn’t stand any more. “They dumped you at the curb like trash, Bryan! I had to go find you in a strange city, without any clue where you were. Nobody would tell me. If I had any idea for certain who’d been with you that night I would have hunted each and every one of them down and beaten the living shit out of them for that. Yes, I blame them. You’re damned right I do.”
It occurred to me that I sounded exactly like Joe had when I’d agreed to help Dylan. It was a flash of insight like a blinding light that illuminated some of the darkest corners of my mind. I owed my older brother an apology. Maybe not the one he wanted. But I definitely owed him.
Bryan was still talking. I’d missed part of the conversation. He’d moved on to some other tangent and I hadn’t followed it. I shook my head to clear it and turned to look at my younger brother.
“ … you just don’t get it! You never have. Joe’s the smart one: He’s a doctor. You were a professional athlete. More than that, you’re utterly fearless. How could I possibly live up to you two? I wasn’t a good enough athlete to pursue professional sports. I wasn’t smart enough to get a scholarship. I didn’t want to do anything else. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to be?” He was ranting now, not really expecting an answer. His face was flushed, his hands waving in broad gestures.
“Whatever you wanted.” The words were just a shade above a whisper. He was on the verge of really losing it. I wanted to talk him back from that ledge. I just wasn’t sure how.
“I didn’t know—” he paused, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem. I’m alive, but I only have my old life, and no hope of any future. I don’t have a fucking clue.”
I let out a sudden burst of bitter laughter. “Welcome to my life, Bryan. Do you think I have a clue? I wish I could help you, but you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Maybe when you’re at college—”