“Look, one day you’ll realize I’m on your side. Really on your side. Until then? Play whatever game this is and be done with it. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
“You’re not leaving for work?” Leah spat out the word “work.”
“Not today.” Paige turned and left for real this time. She was going to have to do something about Leah’s ill feelings about work. She was going to have get a job one day and, heaven forbid she have a kid and have to work at the same time. Holy shit. “You’ll wish I had, I’m sure.”
Henry showed up several minutes after that.
Paige stood on the blind side of the door. “Did you see anyone out there?”
Henry frowned at her. “What?”
“Rachel. Did you see Rachel out there?”
“No. Why would I see her, anyway?”
“She’s back in town. Brought Leah. Something’s up. I just don’t know what.”
He closed the door behind him. “You mentioned pie.”
“I might have over spoke.” She walked toward the kitchen. “Ethel brought the apples and Grandma did make the pie, but we ate it all last night.”
“Paige,” he said, his tone accusatory.
“Sorry. I had to get you over here.”
“Why?”
Paige cleared the door to the kitchen and walked toward the play pen. They needed to get Bobby his own gear. His own car seat. He needed a bouncy seat. She didn’t remember much from when Leah was a baby, but she remembered that bouncy seat had saved her life more than once.
“What couldn’t you tell me over the phone?”
“This.” She retrieved Bobby from the play pen. “This is Heather’s baby.”
“Cute kid.” Henry reached out and gave Bobby one of his fingers. “How’d you end up with him?”
“According to social services, I was named next of kin.”
“Okay. Still doesn’t explain why I traveled for forty-eight minutes for no pie.”
“He’s the prophet. Or a prophet. Whatever. Heather was killed because the angels are trying to kill him.”
Henry blinked slowly, his expression deadpan. “You want to run that by me again?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t sound any less crazy the more times it’s repeated. Trust me. Angels brought him to me. I doubt seriously Heather named me as next of kin. We hadn’t talked in over five years.” She just now made that connection. The angel who’d delivered Bobby to her had probably just told her that. If she was serious about not wanting a trail leading to the Whiskey’s, she’d make sure there wasn’t a paper trail, either. So, what about paperwork? What about insurance? Taxes?
Tax credit. Holy Hell. She’d be able to use the tax credit again. Blessed Mother. She might actually get a tax return.
How in the eleven pits of Hell was Ethel going to make it credible that Paige had delivered a baby?
“So, you think an angel killed his mother?”
“Don’t know that yet. Angels are behind it, but would they have stopped time and tortured Heather? I’ve got to be careful. I can’t work this case.”
“I’m willing to bend a few rules on this one. She was a friend. You knew her. Normally, that would be a strike against you, but in this instance? You’re her best bet in finding her killer.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you, but whoever killed her is still looking for Bobby. Trust me. Heather wasn’t tortured because he wanted to hurt her. She was tortured because he was after Bobby’s location.”
“That doesn’t make sense. He was just hiding under the bed.”
Paige shrugged. “The boy has some power. How much, I don’t know. He was able to alert me to Rachel showing up at midnight last night.”
“So, she’s a threat to him as well?”
“If the angels are trying to kill him and she’s the angel whisperer? And a bitch? Yeah.”
“Wait. A what?” He shook his head.
“An angel whisperer.” Shit. She’d forgotten he didn’t know everything.
“Like you.”
“No. I can reach through the Gate and bring demons or send them back. She can only hear what angels are talking about and tell them things.”
“Oh. So, if she discovered you had him?”
“Yeah. She’d tell the angels and they’d be knocking on our door, killing us to get to him.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“And you working the case?”
“Could bring angels down on my doorstep trying to kill us. I’d rather that not happen.”
Henry bit his lip and shook his head. “There are things I’ve missed about having you around, Whiskey.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You sure know how to keep things interesting.”
Henry didn’t stay much longer. He got the information she had to give him. He gave her shit for making him drive forty-five minutes for a run-down, then left to get some ‘real work’ done.
Bobby was still sleeping and Leah still wasn’t talking. She’d disappeared into the attic.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Leslie said, rocking Kamden in her arms, a bottle in his mouth. “Tyler and Mandy go up there all the time. One of them probably mentioned it to her or somethin’.”
It irked Paige that she wasn’t able to spend any time with her daughter and the girl was in the same house with her. But it also irked her that she was forgetting that Leah was a person, not a thing to be coveted and controlled. She wanted to yank Leah out of the attic and talk to her, hug her, love her.
But if the girl needed some alone time, then that’s what Paige was going to give her.
Which left her with nothing to do. Well, she could go through demon books. “Where are Great Grandma’s journals? I need to start going through them.”
Leslie gave her a frump-lipped, wide-eyed expression. “Attic.”
Perfect excuse?
Fuck it. Paige had a job to do. She needed to go through her Great Grandmother’s journals anyway. But she also needed to see if there was anything mentioned in them that would lead Paige to Heather’s killer. Granted, angels weren’t demons, but some demons were angels. She might have something in there that might be helpful.
“Where’d Grandma go?”
“Nap.” Leslie searched the dining room. “Dexx,” she yelled.
A thumping sound came out of the garage attached to the kitchen and a muffled, “Yeah. Hold on!” followed. He opened the garage door, dirt on his face, wiping grease off his fingers.
Leslie curled her lips. “Ew. What are you doing?”
“Giving your car a tune-up.”
“Oh! Then, work away.”
“What did you need?”
“A baby sitter. Paige and I need to go to the attic.”
“Ah.” His expression said he knew what was going on.
“Not because Leah’s there,” Paige said. “Great Grandma’s books are there.”
“Oh. Where’s Alma?”
“Taking a nap.” Paige hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “Did you want me to go wake her, because I can.”
“Oh, no.” He held up his hands. “Can I just keep the door open and listen for baby wailing?”
“Sounds good to me.” Leslie put Kamden next to a still sleeping Bobby in the play pen. “Wow, this one really sleeps.”
“Must be all that propheting he’s doing.” Dexx shoved his red rag in his back pocket and headed back into the garage. “Don’t die in the attic.”
Paige frowned, shaking her head. “Whatever.” She led the way to the stairs. “I’ve got a question.”
“Okay,” Leslie said, following.
“Why would Rachel pull Leah from school? Why would she risk it. Aren’t there laws about attendance or something?”
“Yeah. There are. Unless she’s being homeschooled.”
“And, she…is?” Paige had a hard time wrapping her head around Rachel being a teacher.
“Yeah. And, according to Rachel, she’s doing
great.”
“Huh.” Well, it was just a thought.
“So, what do you want to do later?” Leslie asked.
“You think there’s going to be a later?”
“Heck yeah. You’re going to get bored looking through those journals real quick. They’re in a different language, most of them. So, yeah. Bored. And sleeping babies? No kids?”
“Leah.”
“Who’s hiding. Yeah. What do you want to do?”
She had no idea. “Go to the shooting range?”
“Oh! I’d love to. Can’t afford the range fee this week, though. We could go on Monday. It’s ladies’ night. All we have to pay for is ammo.”
“Excellent. Let’s do that.”
Leslie pushed past Paige on the stairs. “Okay. Then, let’s go to Target.”
“Really? When you’re bored, you go to Target? When you can’t afford the range fee?”
“What do you do?”
To be honest, Paige hadn’t been bored in a really long time.
“And don’t tell me you screw Dexx.”
“Leslie! Language.” Paige chuckled.
“The babies are sleeping, so I can talk anyway I like.” Leslie stepped onto the second floor landing and headed down toward Paige’s room. “The electricity coming off you two is sizzling.”
“Really?” Paige hadn’t really noticed it. She’d been too busy with other things.
“Oh my blessed Mother,” Leslie exclaimed. “Are you kidding me? What horrible luck drew Dexx to a woman who can ignore her own libido?”
Paige shrugged, her mouth open. “I’ve been busy.”
“Focused, is what you mean. So many things are making sense, now.” Leslie opened the door opposite Paige’s and went up the tight stairs. “I had thought you could just go through cold spells. But now I see you just get so focused that everyone else just gets cut off.”
“What?”
“You focus so much on what’s going inside your head, that you shut off your emotions.”
“I do not.” Yeah. She kind of did. Did that make her a bad person?
“You do, too. Any normal woman would have ripped that man’s clothes off the first time he shared her bed. And he’s been in your bed how many times now?”
Paige missed this. The quick, off-the-cuff, don’t-think-before-you-speak banter. “I told him I loved him.”
“Whoa. You didn’t.”
Yeah. “It’s true. He’s my best friend.”
“So, you told him you loved him and you haven’t even slept with the man.”
“I’ve slept with him.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You haven’t had sex with him.”
“You know what?” Paige stopped on the tight stairs, leaned against the wall, and glared at her sister. “Everything is all about sex. It sells everything. Does it sell people, too? I don’t know about you, but I kinda would like a relationship with a man I want to talk to and do things with. Not just screw him.”
Leslie stared up at her. She blinked once. “Tell me you’re not a born again Christian or that you rediscovered your virginity.”
“Goddess, no. But…” Paige flopped her hands against her thighs, her shoulders slumped. “I’ve had flings. I’ve had relationships based off sex.”
“But?”
She closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “I want what I had with Mark.”
“Ah.” Leslie’s lips pursed.
Mark Eastwood. Leah’s father. The only other man Paige had ever loved. Their relationship had been fast and short. Within the span of a year, they’d married, gotten pregnant, and then she’d buried him.
“Makes sense. However. In all these weeks—it’s been months, Pea—you couldn’t test drive him?”
“We’ve been busy. There was Louisiana and then there was the murder case in Denver, and then he was bitten.”
“And in all that time, you two couldn’t fuck?”
“Hey!” Paige’s head popped into the attic. She grabbed the rickety railing at the top of the stairs and stepped into the wide room. “Leah is up here.”
“So, I’ll teach her a few new words. Rachel will love it.” Leslie stood in the middle of the room and searched.
“Words you wouldn’t teach your own children?”
“The merits of being an aunt instead of a mother. Where did those books go?”
Where did Leah disappear to?
The attic was open along the entire expanse of the immense house. Stuff filled the space between the slant of the roof and the wooden floor. Overstuffed chairs and bookcases, a large china hutch, and several traveling trunks took up quite a bit of space on the far end. A large desk dominated the other side.
“How did this crap get up those stairs?”
Leslie shrugged. “Grandma said that the stairs weren’t always enclosed. When they put in your and Leah’s rooms, they put walls on the staircase.”
“And made it impossible for anything else to come up or down the stairs?”
“Did you want a room or not?”
“Hey, I’m glad for the room.” Though, she didn’t remember it being built. It had always just been there.
Oh, if walls could talk.
“Right. So. Dexx.”
“Oh, shut it.” Paige walked toward the desk. “Didn’t you just have the books a few weeks ago? You were reading them when I was solving that murder case in Nederland.”
“I was pregnant.”
“Excuses.” It had been so long since Paige had been pregnant, she had a hard time remembering all the things she’d forgotten, but she did vaguely recall her coworkers giving her a hard time for the things she’d failed to complete. Vaguely. She’d slept since then. A lot. A lot of sleep-filled nights. When was she going to get another one of those? Oh. There were so many wonders of being single. Why was she fighting so hard to be a parent again?
“If you and Dexx tangoed in the sheets, maybe you’d remember what it was like to lose your mind to pregnancy.” Leslie rummaged through the shelves at the other end. “I swear, I put them right here.”
Something shifted behind a wall of boxes near Paige.
Probably Leah, hiding, wanting her space. “Okay. Well, let’s just find the journals and then go. I don’t want to pester Leah.”
“And we have better light downstairs, anyway.”
After several minutes, however, they still didn’t find the journals.
Paige and Leslie regrouped in the middle of the attic, frowning at their surroundings.
“You’re sure you left them up here?”
“Yeah.” Leslie rubbed her head, her brown hair fanning through her fingers like a super model. “I couldn’t fucking read them, Pea. Why was I going to haul them downstairs if I couldn’t read them?”
“Your kids go away and you swear worse than a sailor.”
“It’s a freedom I enjoy. You’ll understand in a few days. Trust me.”
“Where would they be?”
“Who else would be up here looking at them anyway?”
Paige clamped her lips shut and opened her palm. She reached inside of herself, touched on the source of her power, and pushed it into the center of her hand. “Where are Great Grandma’s journals?”
A light flared in the palm of her hand. It rose in the air. Dust particles lit up like glitter.
“Oh, blessed Mother,” Leslie groaned and covered her mouth. “We’re breathing that.”
“And we’re not dead.”
“Shut up, jerk.”
The light rose into the air and sped away, toward the desk.
Paige and Leslie followed.
“I swear,” Paige said, “I searched the desk.”
The light circled the desk a few times, then ducked behind the wall of boxes.
Frowning, Paige stepped around the boxes and folded her arms over her chest.
Leah huddled behind them, the journals poking out of her shirt. She blinked her brown eyes up at Paige, an expression of abject horro
r filling her expression. “I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
That seemed genuine, though with someone who knew how to manipulate people, it was hard to tell. But something about her slumped posture, how her hands were placed in front of her, how her knees were curled up in front of her abdomen spoke volumes. Or it was just her mother instinct in her raising her hackles.
“Are those journals you have there?”
Leah shook her head.
Leslie pressed her shoulder to Paige’s. “Yeah. That’s them.”
“What are you doing with them?” Paige asked, thoroughly confused.
Leah licked her lips.
Paige craned her head forward. “Lee? What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. Then, can I have those books that aren’t shoved up your shirt?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because?”
“They’re not your books.”
“They’re not yours, either!”
Paige raised her chin, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. “What does Rachel want with them?”
“What?” Leah straightened, her eyes widening as she looked around.
“What does Rachel want with Great Grandma’s journals?”
“Nothing.”
“She sent you up here to retrieve these?”
“No.” Leah shrank in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“So, she brought you here so you could sneak up here and get these books. Why else? What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Leah stared up at Paige, her mouth hanging open, her expression incredulous.
Oh, to be a kid again, thinking that that was going to work. On anyone. “And you expect me to believe that?”
“Yes!”
Paige shook her head, her mind racing. What would Rachel glean from these journals? Why would Rachel even want them?
So Paige wouldn’t have them? Would that be reason enough? She drove all the way from New York to Texas.
“Did you really drive down here?” Paige asked.
Leah startled and looked around, confused. “Yeah.”
“Did Rachel tell you anything?”
Leah shook her head almost frantically.
So, Rachel had told her something. “Are you a necromancer?”
Her eyes wide, Leah licked her lips.
“So, no.”
Leah opened her mouth as if to say something.
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