by Gina Ardito
Yippee.
“Your sarcasm is grating, Sean,” Verity muttered, one eyebrow arched in disapproval. “I would advise you to keep your animosity in control until you leave this auditorium.”
With that simple admonishment, she transformed him into a petulant child. He’d forgotten the sensory link that allowed her to hear his thoughts as easily as if he shouted them. A flush of heat wafted over his neck and cheeks, and he ducked his head to hide his reaction from her knowing gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You should also work on your sincerity. Your penitent act is a little weak.”
So much for hiding. “Yes, ma’am.” He clasped his hands on the tabletop in the pose of obedient schoolboy. Inside, however, his stomach roiled.
“Be that as it may,” Verity said. “Your services in bounty hunting are no longer required. The Board would like to transfer you to the Probation Department.”
His head jerked up, and he studied her face for any hint of ridicule. He found none. The most serene expression met his scrutiny. “Probation? For what? For disagreeing with your destruction of two loving, innocent people?” He shot to his feet, screeching the chair legs across the linoleum floor tiles. “Go to hell.”
“Sean.” A warning tone, followed by a sigh and a light tap to the wrist, beckoned him back into the chair. A command he refused this time. “You are not on probation. Yet. But your continued animosity toward me and the Board will not solve anything. I am urging you to forget about Luc and Jodie, for your own welfare. Since you’ve seen the Chasm for yourself, I’m sure you don’t want to find yourself banished there.”
He bit his tongue to keep a perfect fuck you in check and shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Sit.” She jerked her head toward the chair where he’d eaten so many meals as a child in Brooklyn. “We’ve much to discuss.”
Frowning, he dropped into the chair again. Why the hell couldn’t he maintain some backbone around her?
“And don’t pout,” she chastised gently.
“I’m not.” He meant the words to be a firm denial, but they came out an adolescent whine.
Verity laughed. “My mistake, then.” She laid her hands palms-up on the table, and her happy expression sobered without becoming harsh. “This isn’t a punishment or a demotion. You obviously can no longer continue as a bounty hunter. The Board, however, believes you can become an excellent probation officer. You’ll report to that department immediately after we’re through here. Xavia is waiting for you. But first, close your eyes. I want you to watch something.”
He barely did as she directed before a vivid scene popped into his head. Unlike his last experience with this neurosensory mind-meld, the details of Sean’s former lives did not fill his senses. Instead, he saw a young woman staring into a medicine cabinet mirror. Her eyes, glistening from the strip of lights above the cabinet and a well of unshed tears, shot lasers into Sean’s heart. So much pain communicated from those sweet teddy bear eyes. Unbidden, Sean reached out a hand to touch her, only to draw back when he remembered he was viewing an image in his head. Whoever the woman was, she resided on Earth, far from his place here in the Afterlife.
Scrick-tick. Scrick-tick.
The strange rhythmic sound in her bathroom drew his attention. A bottle of prescription painkillers, cradled between her trembling hands, rolled back and forth, the plastic catching on the gold band on her third finger.
So much pain.
Where the hell was her husband? Even separated by dimensions of time and space, Sean sensed how alone she was. Alone, abandoned, and rapidly losing hope.
“Who is she?” The question erupted before he could stifle his curiosity.
Verity frowned. “Her name is Isabelle Fichetti. And as soon as she swallows those pills, she’ll become your responsibility.”
Chapter 2
When the pain became too intense to bear, Isabelle Fichetti opened her eyes to white light bright enough to sear her retinas. She blinked and managed to discern wavy lines inside the blinding blankness. Another blink transformed the lines to shadows. Finally, as her foggy vision sharpened, she took in familiar details. A fourteen-inch television mounted on the pale yellow wall, a shabby end table with a remote control on a cord, and a pink plastic water pitcher on a tray table.
A hospital. A fucking hospital.
She stifled a groan and punched the scratchy sheets. No, no, no! She shouldn’t be here. She should be dead. Instead, she lay in a lumpy bed with raised arm rails in a room that reeked of wintergreen-scented disinfectant. An I.V. line snaked from the back of her hand to a bag of clear fluid suspended from a metal pole. God, how her stomach hurt! Rolling to her side, she brought her knees to her chest. The pain didn’t ease. Jeez, she felt as if someone continuously jabbed her abdomen with a red-hot branding iron. But worst of all, she was still alive. Of all the rotten luck.
Dammit, couldn’t she do anything right? Just wait ‘til the tabloids heard about this disaster. She could see the headline now. Shipp Wreck: Former Television Star’s Failed Suicide Attempt. Because, after all, no one really knew her as Isabelle Fichetti. To the public, she was still Bethany Shipp.
For the last fifteen years, she’d tried to live down the role she’d played for nearly a decade, that of precocious Bethany Shipp, daughter of single mom and yoga instructor, Camilla Shipp in the television sitcom, “Shipp Shape.” That damn show had launched her into stardom. She’d grown up on the soundstage, from the age of seven to just before her seventeenth birthday. The viewing public had followed her journey through childhood into her chubby pre-teen years, seen her with—then without—braces, watched the acne bloom on her face, and tracked all the changes she’d undergone on her way to womanhood. Once the cameras stopped rolling, however, her fans lost interest, having typecast her as that adorable imp they’d grown up watching. So that, even years after the cancellation, she couldn’t land so much as a feminine hygiene commercial. Washed up at thirty-three years old.
The business had chewed her up and spit her out. Yet, like a whipped puppy, she kept running back for more. This last time, she really thought she’d nailed a co-starring role in the latest movie adaptation of a New York Times bestselling novel. But after weeks of waiting for the director’s call, she saw the blurb on “Hollywood Inside and Out.” Her plum role had gone to some no-talent who’d happened to snag a small part in last summer’s blockbuster. A hooker, for God’s sake. Autumn Lefleur played a dried-up old hooker for five minutes on the screen, and suddenly she was the next Meryl Streep.
Nothing remained for Isabelle. No favors left to call in, no friends with connections. Her agent had let her go three years ago. The days of being discovered, or in her case, rediscovered, at the local soda shop like Lana Turner were long gone. Nothing remained for her. Except death, she’d thought. But even that final role eluded her.
And wouldn’t her soon-to-be ex-husband burst into belly laughs over this latest screw-up? Carlo Romanelli. He was, after all, just another cold-hearted bastard in Hollywood, a place that bred cold-hearted bastards like cockroaches.
The door to her room opened, and a well-stacked, bleached blond nurse strolled inside. “Oh, good, you’re awake.”
“What’s so good about it?” Isabelle grumbled.
“Well,” the nurse replied. Her name tag pegged her as Nancy Julian, LPN. Her frozen face pegged her as having undergone one too many Botox injections. And the bump at the top of her nose suggested she’d used a sub-par plastic surgeon. “For starters, it’s a beautiful day.”
The Winnie-the-Pooh characters dancing on Nancy’s scrub top should have given Isabelle a clue that she’d run into one of those perpetual glass-is-half-full women. “This is L.A. It’s always a beautiful day.”
Nancy unwound the stethoscope from around her neck while pushing a wheeled blood pressure hookup toward the bed. “Could I just say, Ms. Fichetti, I’m a big fan?” She slipped the cuff on Isabelle’s upper arm and smoothed the Velcro tab into place. “I mean,
you probably hear this a lot, but I grew up watching ‘Shipp Shape.’ Your character, Bethany, was such an inspiration to me. I don’t think I would have survived my rocky adolescent years without that show.”
As the cuff tightened on her arm, Isabelle gritted her teeth into a smile and offered the same response she gave all her gushing fans. “Thanks. The show was very special to me, as well.”
Hypocritical? Maybe. But in Hollywood, today’s nurse could be tomorrow’s studio executive. From the barrista at the local coffee shop to the top plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, everyone in LaLaLand was obsessed with the business. They were either in the business, trying to break into the business, or like Isabelle, scrambling to get back into the business.
Apparently, her trite reply satisfied because Nurse Nancy nodded, then stripped open a package containing what looked like a white pen and attached it to another gizmo on the blood pressure machine. “Open your mouth, please.”
The minute Isabelle complied, the nurse shoved the pen thingy into her mouth. A disposable thermometer. “Keep this under your tongue.”
On a hiss of air and hum of machinery, the cuff’s stranglehold eased. A series of beeps drew Nancy’s attention to the thermometer, which she withdrew from Isabelle’s mouth. After tossing the plastic piece into the wastebasket, the nurse turned her attention to the digital readout on the machines. She frowned for the briefest moment. But before Isabelle could bat an eyelash, she had fixed a phony smile in place. “There. That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” She rolled up the cuff and pulled the machine back into the corner of the room, near the grimy windows that overlooked another brick-walled hospital wing. “I’m just going to page Dr. Valentine, let him know you’re awake. He’s going to want to come in to talk and review your records with you.”
Pushing the button on her remote, Isabelle raised the bed until she sat upright, the wafer-thin pillow settled somewhere near her hips. “Great. I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”
~~~~
“Pause.” Xavia Donovan halted the scene unfolding in the hospital room on Earth and scowled.
Not another spoiled Hollywood starlet who expected untold gifts from the universe because of a stroke of random luck in her youth. Cripes. In California, they grew the pity-partiers faster and more plentiful than citrus fruits.
From her cushy captain of industry chair in the Probation Department’s office, she studied the ashen-faced Isabelle Fichetti’s image as it appeared on her clipboard and scowled again. Wuss. Coward. Xavia had seen this one’s type too many times before—both in her position here and in her lifetimes on Earth. How would any of these spoiled divas handle real problems, real tragedies?
The index finger on her left hand lazily traced the inside of her right wrist where, once, long ago, she’d pressed a razor blade into her all-too-human flesh. Nothing remained of that incident. One of the perks of death was the ability to re-circuit herself to look the way she had in her prime of life—before her son’s death, before her suicide. No wrinkles, no scars, no post-pregnancy pouch. Carefree. But no matter how she looked on the outside, the bitter memories lingered on the inside.
A rap-rap-rap on her door drew her away from her own painful past and Isabelle Fichetti’s minor trials, up into the face of a man who stood on the threshold of her office. Familiarity tickled her brain. Something in his vivid blue eyes, a spark that ignited her synapses, woke up her awareness.
Not in a good way. Her cells roiled as she stared at his boyishly handsome face, the curls of blond hair that dipped low on his forehead, the wide expanse of shoulders in a chambray button-down shirt. He leaned against her door jamb—insolent and indolent—and watched her with an interest that bordered on feral. Testosterone tickled her nostrils, made her mouth water. Despite her Amazon queen persona, a persona she’d honed from her first day in the Afterlife, this man’s scrutiny made her acutely cognizant of her femininity. And his oh, so obvious masculinity.
On an impatient huff, she pushed away the thought and gave him her most frigid stare. “Are you looking for something?”
His equally icy expression threw her off-kilter. “Not something. Someone. And if you’re Xavia Donovan, I’m looking for you.”
The words, combined with the intensity of emotion in his eyes, sparked a chill inside her. “And you are…?”
“Sean Martino. Your newest probation officer.”
The bottom fell out of her stomach. Frazzled, she fumbled for the edge of her desk and upended her clipboard, which fell to the floor with a clatter. She flinched, but he never moved, not even in reflex. “You’re Sean Martino? The troublemaker from Bounty Retrieval?”
“Is that what they’re calling me these days?” The words pelted hot and hard, a hail of verbal bullets.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied as she bent to scoop up the clipboard. “Who are ‘they’?”
“They. The Elders, the Board, the bastards who ruin lives after death. Whoever told you I was a troublemaker.”
“No one told me you were a troublemaker. I just assumed that fact since you were transferred.”
His posture visibly stiffened. “And what? Everyone who’s transferred to Probation is a troublemaker?”
“I wouldn’t know.” With trembling hands, she set the clipboard in its slot on her desktop. “In all the time I’ve been here, you’re the first transfer I’ve ever received.”
Back now ramrod straight against her door jamb, he folded his arms over his chest. “I’d ask how long you’ve been here, but we can’t ever know that for sure, can we?”
She understood what he meant. Time didn’t exist here. While the living world continued to revolve around the sun, the Afterlife—an entirely separate realm—remained constant. No day, no night. No clocks, no calendars.
Rather than discuss the particulars of Earth versus the Afterlife, she indicated the chair opposite her desk. “Close the door and have a seat.”
He moved with purpose, as if each stride brought him closer to his prey. When he sat across from her, his focus locked on her face, and a jolt crackled through her senses. She forced her gaze away from the deep shadows in his eyes, shadows so like the pain behind her own brown eyes. Business. Stick to business. “I assume you saw your first case? Isabelle Fichetti?”
He nodded. “Just before she took the pills.”
“And afterward? When she woke up?”
“No.” His eyebrow quirked up. “Did I miss something?”
Oh, for God’s sake! Just the whole reason for your assignment. “Where’s your clipboard?”
“Back at my room at the Halfway House.” He jerked his head over one shoulder. “I don’t carry my board on a hunt.”
“Why not? You do know you can miniaturize the board with simple manipulation until it fits snugly into a pocket or your palm, don’t you?”
“Yes, but the circuits often burn out on reentry into the Afterlife, so hunters are advised to leave their boards in their rooms until their return from Earth.”
If he hoped to make her feel foolish for asking, he was in for a shakeup. She didn’t shatter easily. “Why didn’t you stop to get it before coming here?”
“Because there was no time. The Elders caught me in Reception after my last bounty, told me about the transfer, showed me Isabelle Fichetti in her bathroom with the pain pills, then sent me on my way.”
Terrific. Of all the half-assed ways to handle a transfer… She waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind. But in the future, as long as you’re working in this department, you’ll keep that clipboard with you. We need to be in constant contact with our offenders. This isn’t as simple as bounty hunting where you zip down, grab a ghost, and zip back, easy-peasy. Probation is gut-wrenching work.”
His eyes narrowed to dangerous lines. “Ever actually do any bounty hunting? My guess would be no because you’re talking out your ass right now.”
“Wow.” She didn’t attempt to keep her sarcasm in check. “Good thing you’re not a troublemaker.”
/> He flushed. “Okay, my comment was uncalled for. I’m sorry. Just don’t disparage bounty hunters, and I’ll keep a civil tongue from now on.”
Touchy guy. Not a good sign. Best he learned where he stood with her from the get-go. “I don’t recall saying you could dictate terms to me, Mr. Martino.”
“Yeah, right,” he grumbled. “Sorry again.”
Folding her arms on the desktop, she leaned forward, holding her gaze steady on his. “I understand that bounty hunting is primarily a solitary affair, but probation is an entirely different matter. And I sincerely hope you won’t have trouble adjusting to a female boss.” God knew she’d had to prove herself a thousand times over to some of the he-men women haters who wound up here.
“Not an issue,” he said with his right hand upraised. “Promise.”
Oh, yeah, right. If she had a dime for every time she’d heard that line, she’d be the richest woman in the Afterlife. Not that money meant anything here. For now, though, she let him have the last say on the subject. The sooner she finished with him, the sooner he’d be out of her office, and the sooner her equilibrium would return. Hopefully. “Good. Let me explain to you how this department works. Probation is for those on Earth who, in a moment of weakness, attempt suicide but are pulled back to the living through human intervention, luck, or a combination of the two. It’s our job to make sure they don’t try again, which requires constant monitoring, especially immediately following a failed attempt. Unlike bounty hunters, we do not travel between the realms.”
“Why not?”
She arched a brow at him. “Excuse me?”
“Why don’t we travel between the realms?”
“Because unlike bounties, our offenders are still very much alive. There are stringent guidelines against the dead directly fraternizing with the living.”
“Directly fraternizing?”
“Yes.” Why all the damn questions? Was he testing her? Or was this his way of causing trouble—by feigning stupidity?