by Julie Kenner
I studied her. Not the most rousing endorsement of my husband’s parenting skills, but I was pleased nonetheless. Stuart had screwed up, but at least he hadn’t scarred my daughter for life.
“It’s probably from Marissa,” Laura said. “It’s about the size of a cell phone. I bet she’s just returning the one you lost.”
That actually made a lot of sense. “Not really worth the trouble,” I said.
“Open it, Mom. It might be something else.”
I hesitated, running my fingertip over the brown paper packaging. It probably was my cell phone; what else would it be? But why wrap it? Why not leave it in the mailbox or simply in a small shopping bag?
If it wasn’t my phone, did I really want to open the package in front of Allie? No, I thought, I didn’t. The way my week was going, I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it at all.
I turned to Laura, hoping to buy some time. Or distract Allie. Or something.
“I should go,” she said. “Um, you want to come with me, Kate? I’m going to, um, go hide that big present.”
Subtle, my best friend isn’t. But at least I knew what she meant. She was going to take the Lexus—and the demon— back to her house.
“I’m going to do some more shopping, too,” she said. “I could use the company. The mall’s a madhouse this time of year.”
Allie cocked her head. “You guys are still up to something. What? Are you planning something for me and Mindy?”
“Keep asking questions, and you’re going to find nothing but coal in your stocking, young lady.” I turned to Laura. “Sure. I’d love to come with you.” To Allie, I said, “Watch Timmy, okay? We’ll only be gone a few hours.”
Not that I intended the kids to stay alone in the house. Before Laura and I got out of the neighborhood, I was going to grab Eddie from the library and bring him back home.
Probably an unnecessary caution, but a demon had just attacked me in my kitchen, and I wasn’t going to leave the kids alone. Eddie might be old, but he could still roll with the best of them. And I knew he’d do whatever it took to protect my kids.
I also knew he’d keep the doors locked, the alarm system armed, and he wouldn’t open the door to strangers. That’s the nice part about being old and curmudgeonly; you can piss off neighborhood callers and no one takes it personally.
Allie, however, was having none of it. “No way! That’s so totally not fair!”
“Alison Elizabeth Crowe, you know part of your allowance is compensation for watching your brother.”
“No, no, no. That’s fine. I’ll even play Candy Land with him. But you can’t go yet.” She made frantic gestures toward the package. “Open it!”
“Allie,” I said sharply. “Just drop it.”
“Jeez, Mom, what’s the big deal?”
I frowned, wondering if I were pushing too hard, bringing into sharp relief all my secrets for my daughter to see.
“Mo-om. Come on! It’s probably a Christmas present someone dropped off.” She bounced a little. “Just open the thing!”
I glanced at Laura, who shrugged.
I drew in a breath, wishing I had X-ray vision, psychic powers, something. I didn’t anticipate something dangerous—the danger, after all, had just attacked me in the kitchen. But danger takes forms other than the physical, and I could think of at least a dozen things that would have my daughter asking the kinds of questions I didn’t want to answer. Questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
Then again, maybe now was the time. I’d been younger than Allie when I’d started training, about her age when I’d killed my first demon. My heritage was her heritage, and someday I really was going to tell her. I just hadn’t planned on today.
I considered the box. I could stall, or I could open it and field whatever questions Allie asked.
Was I prepared for that? Prepared for my daughter to learn about my past? To ask questions about my present? To worry and fret and—God forbid—get involved?
No, I wasn’t. But I hadn’t been prepared for the sex talk, either, and I’d made it through that one relatively unscathed.
I’d make it through this, too.
I reached for the box, dragged my nail under the tape, and started peeling it back slowly.
“Could you move any slower?” my daughter asked, in a tone that suggested her mother was a complete loser. “It’s brown paper. Just rip it off!”
“Hey, you open your mysterious packages your way, and I’ll open mine my way.”
She made a face and bounced some more.
Honestly, her eagerness was catching. I ripped the rest of the paper off and revealed a plain white gift box.
I drew a breath, hesitating.
“Open it already!”
I did, yanking off the top before I could talk myself out of it. We both stared down. “A key?” Allie said, the confusion in her voice reflecting my own.
She reached down and snatched it up. A simple silver key. “Well, shit.” A look of horror, then, “Sorry, Mom.”
I didn’t bother to reprimand her. I was too busy looking at the key. I took it from her, then squinted at it. A number—287—was stamped in the metal, but other than that, there were no identifying markings.
“I think it’s a safe-deposit box key,” Laura said.
“No kidding?” Allie leaned forward to get a better look. “So it’s like spy stuff. Someone’s sending you secret clues, and you have to put them all together.” She nodded, pleased with that scenario. “Pretty cool, Mom.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“So let’s go,” she said.
“To the mall?”
“Duh. To the bank.” She reached over and took the key. “I mean, this is so Sydney Bristow.”
“I’m not sure—”
But Allie cut me off. “Come on, Mom! Aren’t you curious?”
Desperately curious, actually, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Allie. Actually, now that I had some time to think about it, I realized I should simply have told her the key was mine. That I’d dropped it, and Marissa had returned it.
A nice little lie, but it had come to me way too late.
I snatched the key back. “It’s a key, Allie. Nothing more. There was probably supposed to be a note. It’s probably not even a safe-deposit key. It’s probably for a locker. Some storage locker filled with fake flowers that Marissa wants me to sort in penance for falling down on chaperone duty yesterday.”
“So call her,” Allie said. “And if it’s not, we’ll go check at the bank.” She snatched up the phone and held it out.
But before I had the chance to take the phone from her, it rang. “Probably instructions from your handler,” she said, then answered with a quick, “Spies ‘R’ Us.”
I looked at Laura and rolled my eyes. “No more 24 for her, and I’m going to hide all the Alias DVDs.”
As she listened, Allie’s cheeks flushed bright pink. I shot Laura a knowing look. A boy, I mouthed. Sure enough, the next thing out of Allie’s mouth was, “No, no. It’s me. Hi, Troy. No, of course you’re not interrupting anything. I can totally talk now.”
With the phone pressed tight to her ear, she skulked away, heading upstairs where she would, undoubtedly, lie on the bed with her feet on the wall, and spend the next three hours on the phone. Not with Troy, of course. But with the post-call analysis with twenty-eight of her closest friends to get their take on every little nuance of Troy’s words, tone, and attitude.
In other words, where the key was concerned, I was off the hook.
Laura cocked her head toward the garage and whispered, “Do you really want to go with me to, um, move the package?”
I shook my head. “We’ll do it tonight, like we planned. But I do want to go check this out.” I held up the key. “Want to go with me?”
Laura hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m up to my eyeballs in laundry over there,” she said. “And Mindy’s probably home from choir practice by now. Besides, I think I’d be a nervous wreck if I couldn’t ch
eck on the car every six or seven minutes.”
I nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. “I don’t want to leave the kids alone, though. Can you take my car and go get Eddie?”
“Sure,” she said. And while Laura left to retrieve Eddie, I moved through the ground floor of the house checking the locks and sticking my head into every room, every closet, and under every bed. (Well, except Allie’s, but only because I couldn’t think of a reason for snooping.) All secure.
I found Timmy in the living room, about eight inches away from the television, completely naked.
I sighed, dragged him backwards so that I could at least later tell the Mayo Clinic surgeon that I tried to protect his eyes, and then shoved his legs into his Pull-Ups. “Why’d you take off your Pull-Ups?” I asked.
He peeled his eyes away from the television just long enough to answer me. “Gotta dance, Momma.”
Right. I mean, how can you argue with that?
“Stay here,” I said. “Any closer, and Dora goes bye-bye. You understand?”
A somber nod.
“And keep your pants on.”
“Not pants. Pull-Ups.”
That’s my kid, literal as they come.
“Mommy’s going upstairs. I’ll be right back. You be good.” But I’d lost him. He was back with the map and the girl and the talking monkey. Not a bad place to be, I thought, all things considered.
“Feet off the wall,” I said automatically, as I knocked and then opened the door to Allie’s room.
“Hang on,” she said into the phone, then rolled over to face me.
“I’m going out as soon as Laura gets back with Eddie,” I said, hoping the telephone call had distracted her from her desire to go with me. “Help him keep an eye on your brother, okay?”
“Sure thing, Mom. No problem. Want me to do a couple of loads of laundry, too?”
Because I am not a naïve woman, my senses immediately kicked into overdrive. “Sure,” I said. “And maybe you could clean the bathrooms, too? I think the cure to Ebola is growing in your bathtub.”
“No problem,” she said happily.
Yup, something was definitely up. “Give,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Nothing!” she said, her expression managing to reflect utter shock that I would paint her with any ulterior motive.
“Okay then,” I said, turning to leave.
“Um, Mom?”
I turned back. “Hmm?”
“I was wondering if, well, if I could go to the beach this afternoon.”
“The beach?” Clearly there was a catch. We live in a coastal town. Usually requests to go to the beach aren’t accompanied by offers to do the laundry and scour the toilets.
“Yeah. Okay?”
“With who?”
“Mindy will be there.”
“So you and Mindy are going together?”
“Um, not exactly.”
I moved and sat on the edge of the bed. I glanced at the phone. “Mindy?” She nodded, and I picked up the receiver. “She’ll call you right back,” I said, then hung up.
“Now,” I said, focusing on my kid. “Spill.”
“It’s just that Troy Myerson asked me to come, and, well, it’s Troy Myerson. And I really like him, Mom.”
“So I gathered,” I said, thinking of David, who’d been clued in to that little fact long before me. (I mean, I’m just the Mom.)
“Can I go?”
“On a date?” I shook my head. “You know we’ve talked about this. I don’t care what everyone else is doing, you aren’t dating until you’re sixteen.”
“I know! But this isn’t a date.” She pointed to the phone. “Mindy even agrees.”
“Oh, well, if Mindy says so . . .”
She made a face. “It’s like a party. And he called because he wants me to come. But it’s not like I’m his date or anything. It’s the whole surf club. They’re doing a barbeque. And Mindy’s going to be there, too, and a lot of the cheerleaders, and just because Troy’s going to coincidentally be there, too, doesn’t make it a date.” She paused for breath.
“Coincidentally?”
“Okay, maybe not so much of a coincidence, but please? Can I go? Honestly, Mom, if I can’t go I might as well just curl up and die now because my life will be so totally over.” She flopped back on the bed, my little drama queen.
“Chaperones?”
She sat back up, smelling victory. “Sure. Totally. Mr. Long will be there. It’s the surf club barbeque. They’re doing a cookout, and then the surf team’s practicing for the exhibition at sunset.”
“The exhibition?”
“Uh, yeah? I’ve only mentioned it nine thousand times.”
“Right.” I stifled a frown. Okay, so maybe she had told me. Has my attention span really been that deficient since I rejoined Forza? “The exhibition. Of course.”
“You could even come for the practice part,” she said, apparently unaware of my descent into guilt. “I’d totally be okay with that.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Sure. I mean, don’t come too early. But the guys are really good on the waves. It’d be fun. And you could even see Troy.”
I noticed that she hadn’t said I could meet him. Apparently at this juncture I was only allowed to watch from afar.
“Stuart can come, too,” she added, then frowned. “I mean, if he’s not working and all.”
I made a show of moving slowly through her room. I opened the closet, ran a finger along the top of her bookshelf, then peeked under the bed. No demons. This was a good thing.
“Come on, Mom. Pleeeeeze?”
“Do I have to drive you?”
She shook her head. “Bethany’s picking us up. Me and Mindy and JoAnn, too.”
I considered that. JoAnn was Marissa’s oldest girl, but I tried not to hold that against her. Bethany was the head cheerleader and student-body president. She was a senior and seemed reasonably responsible. What’s more, I knew her mom. I also knew that her parents had bought her a Volvo. Lots of airbags. Lots of safety features. I usually didn’t protest too much when Bethany was driving.
“All right,” I finally said. “You clean the bathrooms, do your laundry, vacuum under your bed, and change the cat box, and we have a deal.”
She squealed and threw her hands around my neck. “You’re the best, Mom!”
I hugged her back. The sentiment may have been entirely induced by the fact that she’d just gotten her way, but I still really loved to hear it.
Eight
“Find anything?” I asked, as Eddie plowed through the front door. I waved at Laura, who was idling in the driveway. She waved back, then pulled out as I followed Eddie inside.
“Not a damn thing,” he said.
“Well I found a demon in the kitchen,” I whispered, cocking my head so that he followed me in there. I brought him up to speed quickly—about the demon and the mysterious key—then asked if he had any theories about either.
“Not a one,” he said. He looked at me, his face tight with concentration. I held my breath, wondering if he’d had an epiphany; if he’d remembered something from his past that would shed some light on this whole freaky situation.
“Got any of those mini-corn dogs left?” he finally asked. “The ones you fed to the boy the other day? I’m so hungry I could eat the rear end of a rhinoceros.”
I sighed, then turned toward the kitchen. “Watch Timmy,” I said. “I’ll go heat some up for you.” Clearly the only flashes of brilliance I could rely on here were my own. Unfortunately, I wasn’t flashing, either.
While the corndogs were heating, I made an errand list. The bank was first—I wanted to check out that key, and now that Allie was distracted, I had the perfect opportunity.
After that, my list delved away from intrigue and into the mundane. Since my trip to the grocery store had been cut short, I still needed to make another run. A quick glance into the refrigerator and pantry revealed that we still needed al
l manner of dairy products (we were nearly out of milk and the cheddar cheese was starting to sprout fuzz) along with the basic life staples supplied by Chef Boyardee and Kellogg’s.
The pile of laundry in the utility room was threatening to reach the ceiling, but I’d pawned part of that disaster off on my daughter. And while the house needed a thorough cleaning, I decided that my investigations into the demonic were much more important. (I love it when my justifications for avoiding housework are actually legitimate.)
I tapped the pen against the pad, trying to think what else I needed to do while I was out. Timmy needed new clothes since he’d outgrown everything he owned. For that matter, I realized that I did, too. Need new clothes, that is. The museum party required a nice dress. Without drool stains or smears of ketchup that had only partly come out in the wash. Unfortunately, much of my wardrobe had that particular element of toddler chic.
I might have something in my closet that would work, but I didn’t bother looking. I was in the mood to splurge. Since my husband works for the county—and since I have two kids who need new outfits about every seven seconds—our discretionary clothes budget tends to be allocated first toward the kids, then to Stuart (who legitimately needs suits, ties, and shirts with clean collars). Anything leftover trickles down to me. Usually the trickle barely pays for a T-shirt at Kohl’s.
Today, though, money wasn’t a problem. I’d been back on Forza’s official payroll for almost three months now, and my monthly stipend was deposited directly into a brokerage account held for me in trust and in secret. We’re not talking a lot of money—I could probably make more selling Pampered Chef products—but I didn’t return to Forza to get rich.
Although I intended that the money go to the kids someday, at the moment, I figured a few hundred for a decent dress and shoes wouldn’t detrimentally impact their futures. And it would totally boost my self-esteem. It’s one thing to wear Kmart couture to a cocktail party being held in my living room. It’s an entirely different matter to forgo Donna Karan for the latest Jaclyn Smith duds while mingling with the rich on their own turf.
(And if you’re worried that Stuart would be suspicious, the answer is no. The man is entirely clueless as to the cost of women’s clothing. I could tell him that a pair of Jimmy Choo sandals costs $49.99, and he’d not only believe me, he’d be shocked by the expense. Men.)