by Yvonne Heidt
Putting the empty box next to the front door, Jordan decided to call it a night. Tomorrow was her first day at the Bremerton Police Department and the first day back on the job since she’d been shot several months earlier. She hated the thought of having to start over, but it wasn’t as though she’d left anything important behind in Seattle.
A memory intruded of brown hair and cold green eyes almost as if to argue with her. She ignored it. She wouldn’t give the betraying bitch any more time than she’d already stolen.
Jordan walked into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face and stopped short in the doorway. The bathroom box was sitting in the middle of the white tile floor. She could have sworn she already unpacked it. Yet there it was, a full carton staring back at her, and the medicine cabinet door stood open.
She quickly put the items away, irritated that it was so cold in the small room.
Jordan switched off the overhead light and climbed into her new bed. Her apartment was on the third floor, and the streetlight outside her window illuminated her bedroom with an almost dirty yellow glow. She added blackout curtains to her mental list. She guessed they’d sell those wherever the hell they sold ugly drapes.
She punched the pillow and turned away from the windows to stare at the closed bedroom and closet doors and prepared herself for a restless night. She hated going to sleep in unfamiliar places. She’d learned as a child that the worst dangers came at night. Jordan was on the verge of falling asleep when she heard a loud crash outside the bedroom. She was instantly alert and aware. When she caught herself pulling the comforter up to hide under, she was disgusted at the reaction. What was she doing? She was a cop, not a helpless, terrified child waiting for her junkie mother’s latest conquest to find her. Since she’d been shot, the memories seemed to surface at sudden noises. It made her sick that the wall she’d built around the horror of her childhood seemed to be crumbling.
Jordan swore when her feet hit the icy floor. She didn’t need to turn on a lamp; she could see perfectly by the sickly light coming in the window.
She heard laughter and a car door slam shut in the parking lot outside. Jordan glanced at the clock and saw that it was three in the morning. Inconsiderate assholes. With a heavy sigh, she threw herself under the covers and pulled them up over her head to block out the light. For good measure, she also pressed the extra pillow over her ear in an attempt to muffle the sound.
*
The sky was clear and sharp, which was somewhat unusual for Bremerton. This time of the year was usually overcast and gray. Sunny sat in the front seat of the van, bracing her feet on the wide dashboard. Laying her head back on the seat, she closed her eyes and imagined all the remnant energy of the night flying out the window. As far as investigations went, this one was pretty normal. It wasn’t all evil, all the time, as some television programs would have people believe.
She opened her eyes again when Shade pulled the van into Tiffany’s driveway to drop her off.
Tiffany gathered her purse and opened the side door. “Good night. See you around noon.”
Sunny turned to look at her. Tiffany’s freckled and fine features appeared washed out in the harsh, overhead light. “I’m sorry about the whole spider and skateboard fiasco.”
Sunny smiled. “All part of the job.”
Shade waited until the porch light went off before backing out slowly. “I worry about her.”
Sunny turned. “Why? Have you seen something?”
“No, not like that.” Shade ran her fingers through her choppy brown hair and paused. “Life just seems so hard for her, you know?”
“Is that asshole ex-husband of hers hassling her again?”
“Not that I know of. We could handle that. She just looks so tired all the time.”
“Well, we do work odd hours. You know how much energy it takes out of us. Tiffany had three back-to-back healing sessions this afternoon before we left, and you know how much that takes out of her. I tried to get her to reschedule, but she said she needed the money.”
“Being a single mom is tough.”
It was beyond frustrating that Tiffany wouldn’t accept any help. Sunny was comfortable financially, but what good did it do if she couldn’t help the people that she loved? The ghost investigations didn’t bring in much, and she never took money from people who couldn’t afford to pay. It was the individual readings in their own specialties for clients that paid the bills for all three of them. Each felt a personal responsibility to help others with her gifts in her own way. The investigations were an integral part of that. To assist people and spirits on both sides of the veil. They rode in silence for the last few miles, and after Shade stopped the van, she turned to Sunny and put a gentle hand on her leg.
Sunny felt the blast of hormones fill the space between them and winced internally. She loved Shade, she really did, but they’d gone down this road. She knew the best thing to do would be act normal and friendly to defuse the tension. “It’s late.”
A wicked grin spread on Shade’s face. “Want me to stay?”
Sunny heard the hope in her voice before she shut the mental door in her mind. “You can sleep in the guest room.”
“Nah, I have a hot date.”
“At four a.m.?” Sunny knew that Shade would break that date for her in a second, and it made her sad. She pulled the evidence box from the backseat to bring inside with her, careful not to touch Shade while doing it. Shade pulled her shoulders back.
“Yeah. You know me. Anytime, anyplace.”
Sunny did know. Shade’s androgynous beauty turned heads all the time, male and female. There was something so edgy about the bad girl with her dark Cleopatra eyes who always wore black leather. “Lucky girl,” she said.
Sunny heard the whispered response before she closed the door, but walked away as though she hadn’t.
“But she’s not you.”
*
Sunny’s house was a once-grand Victorian that had been converted into apartments in the sixties and then renovated back into a single residence by her parents in the early eighties. When they remodeled, they turned three of the four bedrooms on the second floor into comfortable sitting rooms for clients and left the tiny kitchenette.
Sunny appreciated the setup. She didn’t have to go downstairs to fetch water or tea either for herself or a client. It was also a great place to hide the junk food her mother protested against. Sunny loved the game. She hid cookies and potato chips, and her mother pretended not to notice.
Three years after her father died, her mother retired and turned her client list, and the large house over to Sunny before buying a nearby condominium that overlooked Puget Sound near the ferry terminal. But she hadn’t been able to stay away and insisted on being the receptionist for Sunny’s new business, Sisters of Spirits. The idea had been born fifteen years previously after she met Shade and Tiffany during the filming of her father’s documentary. Sunny thought the abbreviation S.O.S. was clever.
She paused in the spacious foyer. From where she stood, the client reception area was to her left and a sitting room with a large fireplace was on her right. The reception area was a circular wall of bay windows with lush potted foliage and a window seat with colorful cushions. Her mother’s pretty carved desk was positioned so she could easily see who was coming and going, and there were even more plants on her desk. In keeping with the house’s era, table and floor lamps with their elegant stained-glass shades were present in each room. Sunny always left them on before she left for the evening; she loved coming home to the soft colored light they emitted.
Sunny turned one of them off on her way to the kitchen, passing through the dining room that doubled as a conference room. She trailed a finger across the long, teak table that her mother kept so well polished it looked like glass.
Standing at the small farm sink, she rinsed her travel mug and went up the kitchen staircase. The entire third floor was her private space. The old architecture and antiques mixed with modern furnit
ure formed an eclectic style that Sunny considered reflective of her personality. Crystals shimmered in the windows, and fairies and dragons lived on her shelves alongside her precious books.
When she renovated the bathroom, she tried to keep to the old details of the house, ending up with an antique bathroom with all the modern conveniences. She glanced with longing at the large slipper tub next to a window overlooking the bay. Instead, she conceded to the late hour and opted for the quicker shower.
Sunny laughed when she climbed up into the bed and heard a yowl. “Oh,” she said to the pair of Siamese cats. “Excuse me. Did I bother you?”
Isis purred and stretched before butting her head against Sunny’s shoulder and toying with her wet braid. Ash couldn’t be bothered to move, but she petted the cat anyway and stretched out. “You know, guys, I should get a dog. Then I could have someone meet me at the door when I get home.”
Chapter Two
Jordan woke to the sound of banging on her front door. Three hard knocks in quick succession. Startled at waking in an unfamiliar environment, it took her a second to adjust and remember she was in her new apartment. Maybe she’d imagined the noise. Just as she thought it and checked the clock, the knocks repeated.
Who the hell would be banging on her door at six in the morning? She stalked down the hallway, not bothering to check the security peephole, and swung the door wide. “What?”
The landing was empty. Again. Pissed off, she ran to the railing to look down and catch the punk messing with her. Even with a clear view down, she couldn’t see or hear anything.
Jordan turned to go back to her apartment when the front door slammed shut in her face. “Shit!” She tried the knob to find herself locked out, in her skimpy white tank and boy shorts.
The sound of slow, plodding footsteps carried up the stairs. Great, she was, for all purposes, half-naked in a strange environment. No sense in pretending. There was nowhere to hide. She turned to face whoever was coming.
A tall, skinny young man rounded the second flight of stairs carrying some plastic bags, looking down at his rather large feet, which meant he didn’t see her standing there until he reached the third stair from the top. He screamed shrilly, throwing his arms up in the air, groceries went flying in all directions. When it appeared that he was going to fall backward, Jordan grabbed his arm and pulled him to the landing. His face turned white and his eyes bugged behind his thick glasses. My new neighbor, evidently.
“Jeezus, you scared the crap out of me.” He apparently noticed her underwear because he averted his eyes, blinking them almost spastically.
“What are you doing?” asked Jordan.
“Trying to wake up. It’s not every day that I come home from work to find a naked woman waiting on my doorstep.”
“You ass! I’m not waiting for you. I got locked out of my apartment.”
He looked incredulous. “You’re the cop? Are you working vice?”
Jordan folded her arms against her chest. “Some punk-ass kid has been pulling knock and dash on my door. I was trying to catch them and my door slammed shut.”
He shuffled his feet after stuffing his wayward groceries back in a bag and held out a hand. “Jackson. Steve Jackson.”
She shook it. “Jordan Lawson. Get your eyes off my chest, Jackson.”
“Right.” Steve bent to pick up various bags. His shoulders began shaking and he coughed.
“Are you laughing at me, Steve Jackson?”
He cleared his throat. “No, but I am wondering how you’re going to get into your third-floor apartment in your underwear. The landlord lives on the other side of the courtyard.”
Jordan’s head started to hurt. “I have to get ready for work.”
“You have a problem.” Steve unlocked his door and ushered her in. “Come on in. We’ll call Agnes to unlock the door for you.” He handed her a flannel shirt hanging on a grinning skull hook.
She quickly put it on while she followed him into the kitchen. It was an exact reversed replica of her own. Well, except the counters were buried in takeout containers, dirty dishes, and fast-food wrappers. “Maid’s day off?”
Steve stood in front of the open refrigerator, a milk carton halfway to his mouth. He blinked behind his glasses. “Huh?”
“Never mind. Phone?”
“Oh, right. It’s in on the coffee table.” He gestured to the living room.
Jordan stepped through the small dining nook. Dirty clothes draped the couch and floor. A sixty-inch television nearly covered the wall in front of her. Several game consoles lay on the floor in front of it. Books covered every surface in the room, stacked on tables, the stained carpet, and overflowing on the shelves.
“Holy shit!” She tripped over a mound of clothes.
“Sorry about the mess. I don’t have much company.”
“I can see why,” she muttered under her breath. She would wait standing up.
*
“Well, look who just rolled in.” Sunny took a sip of her coffee and glanced at her watch. “At two in the afternoon.” She tapped a fingernail against her mug. “Late night?”
Shade stood in the doorway and tried to focus. “My eyes are bleeding,” she said, slipping her dark glasses down to peer over the top.
“Oh, they are not.”
“Says you. I’m the one looking out of them.”
Sunny laughed. “Well, c’mon, tardy girl. Tiffany is already reviewing last night’s recordings. I saved the audio for you.” She paused. “Since the video would be too hard for your bleeding eyes and all.”
Shade gave her a quick salute and headed for the back office on the first floor.
Sunny heard the laughter from her spot in the reception room and was glad for it. Sometimes, the work they did was so shrouded in darkness, or rather other people’s perception of it, that laughter was hard-won.
The front door’s merry little bell rang, and Aura Skye, Sunny’s mother, came through the arched doorway laden down with packages. Today, her toenails were visible through her gladiator sandals and were painted blue. The silver anklets and bracelets she wore rang as she moved closer. Blond hair hung down her back, the same honey shade as Sunny’s, only stick straight, a trait that Sunny envied on some days. Sunny smiled when she recognized the patchwork skirt made from her father’s old clothes. “What?”
“Nothing, I’m just taking a minute to love and appreciate you.”
Her mother’s face lit up. “Oh, I love you too, baby. What a good girl you are. Now get out of my chair.”
“What did you buy?”
“Stuff. Go to work.” She kissed Sunny’s cheek and shoved her toward the back.
Sunny went to join her friends in the war room, as Shade called it, much to her mother’s dismay.
She stood in the doorway. Shade kicked back in her chair with her long legs stretched out in front of her and her monster headphones in place, listening to the audio to see if they’d caught any electronic voice phenomena. Tiffany was sitting cross-legged on her chair watching the computer screen and night-vision video. Both were totally engrossed in their tasks; neither one looked up at her entrance.
God, she adored them. Aren’t I just full of sentimentality today? Sunny checked her watch and saw she still had an hour before her first appointment for the day. She started to sit in the third chair, but Tiffany waved her off.
“We’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?”
Tiffany paused the video and nodded. “I’ve got a good head start, and I can help Shade when I’m finished. You can go get ready for your appointments.”
Sunny started to leave, figuring she could get in a bit of meditation time, when Shade sat up suddenly to rewind the recording to listen again, her head cocked to the side. She automatically picked up a pen to mark the time on the notepad and repeated the section of audio, a smile spreading across her face.
“Class A.”
Sunny rushed back to her station. Class A EVPs were voices caught on recordin
gs that could be heard clearly, without any filters or noise reduction. Donning her candy pink headphones, she twirled her finger in the air to gesture another replay. “Go,” she said, closing her eyes to focus. She heard herself say, “Won’t you please talk to me?”
There was a pause, then, clear as a bell, a child’s sweet voice answered, “I’m okay here.”
Sunny opened her eyes. “Again.”
“I’m okay here.”
Familiar chills ran down her spine, something she felt every single time. It was one thing when spirits talked to her telepathically and quite another when she actually heard them, that underwater quality to their voice phenomenon when the frequency was other. She felt a tear burn in the corner of her eye. “I don’t hear any threat at all. Did either of you sense a child last night?”
“No,” Tiffany said. Shade shook her head.
“Me either.”
Sunny took her headphones off and set them on the desk. “Good catch.” She was excited and wanted to sit and help, but it was Shade who motioned her out this time.
“Go on. We got this. We’ll review after your reading.”
Sunny was torn but finally nodded and left, her skirt billowing around her legs as she headed up the stairs to the second floor. She opened the door to the room where she would do the reading and took out her abalone shell and white sage stick to sweep the room. Habitually, before and after every reading with a client, she cleansed the air. The whole ritual was beneficial to clearing the room of any lingering energy of previous readings or stubborn others who wanted to stay. Sunny never wanted to know anyone’s last name or why they booked a reading with her. It was important to Sunny that her integrity never be in question. She didn’t ever want to be accused of misleading her clients, or worse, taking advantage of them. Being a medium was part of who she was, not something she did. It was innate to her identity.