Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2)

by Kory M. Shrum

I wake up to the sound of a ringing phone. I’ve slept the whole night away in the chaise, the tea cup long empty and cold on the side table. I rub at my sticky eyes again as the phone trills urgently. I fumble for it with groggy hands and cradle it against my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Alice Gallagher?” a man asks.

  “This is she.”

  “This is Davis, a meter inspector with the state department. Are you still the contact person for 1321 Greenbrook Drive?”

  I cough and clear my throat, trying to sound more professional than unconscious. “Yes, I’m Ms. Sullivan’s assistant. How can I help you?”

  “We received reports of an electrical disturbance in the neighborhood, so they sent me out to check. It appears a power line is down outside the residence. Were you aware of this?”

  “No.”

  “And the damage to the outside box suggests a power surge. I just checked the meter and it has stopped completely. There’s no reading whatsoever coming from the residence but you have not reported a power outage.”

  “The house has no electricity?” I ask. What happened? “Is Jesse home now?”

  “I knocked on the door but there was no answer. Also, there’s a pane of broken glass by the front door.”

  “I’m on my way,” I say. I am already pushing myself out of the deep arm chair and falling into my shoes and coat. “Can you wait there for me?”

  “Sure,” he says.

  I try to call Jesse’s house phone but no one answers. Nor does she pick up her cell or answer the office phone. I remind myself Jesse is really bad about answering her phone, or remembering to bring it at all. That it doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped and decapitated.

  But I don’t feel any better by the time I pull into the driveway behind the Concept Energy truck. A tall man with a yellow hat and thick gloves gets out of his truck as I do.

  “Ms. Gallagher?” he asks coming toward me, a utility belt jolting against his hips as he walks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ll let you in.” I don’t know what else to say so I just focus on the problem at hand. My heart beats harder when I see the broken glass beside the door. It’s been covered with a small piece of cardboard from the inside. I try not to stare at it too obviously as I let him into the house. I tell him the fuse box is downstairs and he disappears through the door leading to the unfinished basement.

  When another attempt to reach Jesse fails, I call Gloria.

  “Jesse’s window is busted out and she has no power,” I say.

  “She’s fine,” Gloria says.

  I suck air, unaware I’d been holding my breath at all. My relief turns to anger. “What happened?”

  “Someone threw a brick through the window. It just scared her.”

  “Why didn’t she call me?” I ask.

  Gloria says nothing as if waiting for me to say more. But the technician reappears.

  “I have to go,” I say.

  Gloria hangs up without saying goodbye. But then again, she’s not known for her phone etiquette.

  “A power surge destroyed the wiring. We can repair the conduit to the home and the busted wire outside, but the house itself may have to be rewired by a good electrician. Many of the components have been damaged.”

  “What would it cost to replace it?” I ask. When he looks hesitant I ask. “What is your best estimate?”

  “15-20 grand. But depending on the cause, your house insurance may cover it.”

  I try not to look crestfallen. “Thank you.”

  The technician taps his hat and leaves. He pauses just before getting into his truck, gives the house one more look. I sigh and feel the last of the adrenaline leave me.

  And because it’s like uncurling a fist that’s been clenched for a long time—painful and slow—I keep repeating it. You can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t do everything.

  “But watch me try,” I say.

  Someone pounds on the front door and I can see through the glass it isn’t the electricity guy having forgotten something.

  Regina Lovett, mother of the little girl Jesse saved, pushes past me and enters the darkening house without permission. It’s a wonder why she even bothered to knock.

  “Where is she? Jessica Sullivan! Come here right this minute.”

  It’s the voice a mother uses.

  “It’s just Jesse actually. With an “e” and she isn’t here,” I manage to say. Regina’s wild movements shake the last bit of calm from me and despite the fact that we’re past the part in the day when lamps are no longer needed, the house comes into sharp focus. Regina comes into sharp focus. The white light of the damp overcast day stretching the shadows around her.

  Her skirt is torn and muddy and she’s only wearing one shoe. Her hair is wild, tangled and the cut on her right cheek, a tiny thing, has bled quite a bit.

  “Jesse!” Regina screams.

  “I told you she isn’t here,” I say again. I’m looking for weapons stashed under the remains of her clothes. That’d be my luck. “What happened?”

  “What happened? Don’t you know what they did?”

  I shake my head no. I realize she can’t hide a gun or knife under the tattered remains of her clothes. But that doesn’t mean she won’t try to harm me using her bare hands. So I keep a distance from her. Enough that I can move if she lunges.

  “They came to my house. They called him into his office for a chat,” she pauses for exaggerated air quotes. “I thought it was important Church business. But then he calls me into the office. He starts screaming at me for the replacement, saying I betrayed him. How did they know? How did they know?”

  I shake my head again. “I don’t know, Regina.”

  “He threw me out! My own husband!” She laughs. It’s manic and frightening. Before the words are completely out of her lips, she starts barreling on again. “I was furious but fine. He was angry but he would forgive me. He covered up the theft, whatever Jesse took. He said it would be best just to pretend it didn’t happen rather than report it. But when I tried to take our baby and leave, he wouldn’t let me go. He told me she was dead. He told me she was dead!”

  She screams this at me and the hair on my arms rises. Spit flies from her mouth like a rabid dog. Her eyes are wide, dark and crazed. I take another step back.

  “But she isn’t dead,” I say, disbelieving. Unless he hurt her. “Did he hurt her?”

  “I don’t know,” she answers. “I managed to get her into the car, but they followed us and hit us. They hit us. They pulled my baby from the car and took her. They took her! And all because that thing came into my home and stole something.”

  “You need to go to the police, Regina. If someone has your daughter.”

  “No. No, Gerard doesn’t want me go to the police.”

  “Who cares what your husband wants. Your little girl—”

  “They’ll kill her,” Regina says. She comes toward me and grabs my coat. Her blood caked fingers bunch the red felt into her fists. “They’ll kill her for being an abomination.”

  And all over again I’m looking in Eve Hildebrand’s eyes through the plexiglass of the Davidson county jail. The same glossy crazed look of a mother begging for her child’s life.

  They’ll kill Nessa. Please. Please.

  “Regina,” I say. I can’t pull away from her even if I want to. She has a death grip.

  “I just wanted her to live,” she says. Her eyes well up with tears and her lip quivers. The first ream of sobs rakes her body. Her back bows with the pain of it and she pulls me down into the floor with her, sobbing. “I just want my baby to live.”

  “I know,” I say and put one hand in her hair. Something sharp rubs against my fingers and I realize it’s little shards of glass. Regina’s hair is full of little bits of glass as if she’d pulled herself from the wreckage of her car and walked to Jesse’s.

  Once her sobs begin to quiet, her grip loosening, I dare to speak. “Listen, Regina. Just listen, okay? We can find your dau
ghter, but we need help. We need to call someone.”

  “We cannot ask for help without him knowing,” she says softly.

  I ignore her fears. Fear never accomplished anything. I see the image of the woman tied to the chair in Jeremiah’s safe house. If I tell him a child is missing, I know what it will mean for that woman.

  “Have you spoken to your husband? He might know something.”

  “He won’t speak to me. He’s furious about what I did.”

  And I try to keep my anger to myself. How could he be anything but grateful that his daughter survived? How can he believe in a God that would approve of a child’s premature death? Why do so many idiots assume that we are supposed to stand back and let God’s will be done? What if it was God’s will that Regina’s daughter be saved by replacement? He helps those who help themselves right?

  “We need to talk to him,” I say.

  “He won’t speak to us. And he leaves tomorrow afternoon for Chicago.”

  “We’ll have to try,” I say. “We have to try to get her back, right? We can’t give up.”

  She’s quiet and I think she won’t answer me, that she dare not answer me but then she nods. She pulls back from me, her face a mask of smeared mascara.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  Regina stares at me through her mess of a face. I speak her name twice before her eyes focus on mine. “How did you get here?”

  “I drove.”

  I inspect the driveway. A heap of car sits behind mine. It looks like it’s been driven through hell and back.

  “How did you know where Jesse lives?”

  “We all know,” she whispers. “The whole congregation.”

  That explains the hate mail Jesse gets. The TP in the trees or the pile of dog shit on the porch. And once there were several windows blotted out with slurs written in soap marker.

  And now the brick.

  I let out all my frustration in one long breath. “Okay. I can get a tow truck for your car. But is there somewhere I can take you?”

  “What about Julia?”

  “We’ll get her back,” I say. “But not tonight. We’ll speak to your husband tomorrow morning before he leaves, okay?”

  She falls to her knees and begins to inch toward catatonia again.

  I kneel in front of her and take her hands. “Regina, where can I take you?”

  “No one will take me,” she says. “Gerard is such an important man.”

  “Is there someone else? Family maybe? Someone who will shelter you just for tonight?”

  Because I need tonight to think. I have to decide if I’m really going to take this to Jeremiah. If I do, I’m all in. I can’t ask for his help and then bail on him later. But this isn’t my problem, not really. I shouldn’t keep trying to save everyone. If I really want to get Jesse out of this hell, I have to quit getting involved. I have to walk away and let someone else deal with it.

  But first I need to think—and figure out if I can really do that.

  “My sister,” she answers finally. “She lives in Brentwood. In River Oaks.”

  I want to get her out of here before Jesse comes home. “Is there anything you need from your car before I drive you there?”

  And somehow I manage to get her out of the house and into the car. She wants to grab a couple of things from her car and I let her while I call the tow truck and pay with my credit card over the phone.

  “One more thing,” I say to the silent Regina as I fasten my seatbelt and pull forward enough to edge around the demolished car blocking me in. “Promise me you’ll never come to this house again.”

  Jesse

  I’m in the back of a big white van, being driven to an unknown destination by a stranger.

  It’s every girl’s worst nightmare.

  Except most big creepy van nightmares don’t have the following animals involved: three ferrets, two rabbits, a cage of gerbils, and another cage of rats running those multi-colored plastic tubes. Beneath them is a larger cage with two half-squirrel, half-rabbit creatures called chinchillas. Across from me sits Lane and beside him are three aquariums full of snakes and spiders—also known as the reason I wouldn’t sit on that side of the van.

  “You owe me,” I say, watching a spider with furry legs press itself against the glass, longingly like it wants to come over and suckle my face.

  “I have to have someone licensed by the FBRD to observe my last replacement.”

  “Your last probationary replacement.” I grin and jiggle the dog tags around my neck identifying my NRD—the official don’t cut me open tag—now required

  by all death-replacement agents. “And then you’ll get your very own pair of these.”

  Lane flashes a brilliant smile, the same great smile: half-eager boy and half-mischievous guy trying to get into your pants. I really like that smile.

  “You love this, don’t you?” I ask.

  “I never knew I’d love doing anything more than comics,” he says.

  I lean forward and run my fingers through his hair, ruffling it. I am going to tell him how adorable he is when he’s excited, but my stomach cramps. The nausea rolls me like a surprise wave, pulling me down with it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Are you getting car sick?”

  “Don’t you feel it?” I groan, reach out, and grab ahold of the wire mesh of the rabbit cage. The rabbit inside sniffs my fingers. Please don’t mistake me for a carrot, Bugs.

  “Feel what?”

  But I don’t have time to explain it to him. I don’t have time to say maybe he is different. Maybe he won’t get the pre-death sickness like I do. Maybe he won’t get the funky vision either—or if he’s real lucky he won’t hallucinate like I do either. But I don’t have time to do anything except squeeze his hand and say, “Get ready.” Besides maybe it’s a blessing Lane isn’t a freak like me. Maybe he’ll stay off Caldwell’s radar—though I’m not sure how much that has helped other agents.

  Lane realizes what I am saying and starts to crawl toward the front of the vehicle, toward John Jones, owner of Petsapalooza and driver of this large white delivery van. One second Lane is poking his head through the little window separating us and the animals from John, the next, we are rolling.

  I fly forward and my face slams against one of the snake aquariums. It shatters and I don’t feel the glass as much as hear it. It isn’t until the van stops rolling that I realize I’m lying in a pile of snakes and something is running down the side of my face. My first thought is spiders. Then more realistically blood.

  Near hysterical, I kick open the back door of the van and climb out. I do a funky dance in the street to make sure no tarantulas or snakes have slipped under my clothes. The cars around us stop moving and begin to clot up the road. The sounds of squealing tires and horns echo off the close-knit buildings of West End. A few people are climbing from their cars and taking fucking pictures with their phones. Others sit behind the wheel with their mouths open as something warm spills into my eyes. I wipe at it and my hand come away red.

  Limping away from the van, I go to the closest car. It’s a burgundy sedan with a plump woman with teased blond hair behind the wheel. Her mouth is completely open, giving the impression of a round black speaker for the soft country music seeping from the car. Her daughter, or whoever the pudgy blond kid in the passenger seat is, screams bloody murder. It splits my ear drums.

  “Gee-zus, shut up,” I beg and press my palm against the glass. “I just need your help.”

  The child keeps screaming. My words taste metallic, like I’ve been sucking on spare change. Then I find the raw piece of my cheek flapping against my tongue. Damn. Unless I die—and it is Lane’s gig not mine—I’ll have to heal this cheek the old-fashioned way—with stitches and shit. Just wonderful.

  I yell through the window. “Do you have a cell phone?”

  At least the driver nods yes, but her child hasn’t stopped screaming at full decibels.

  “Call 911 and tell them there’s bee
n an accident at—” I look up to check the signs but I can’t see through the blood in my eyes. “At wherever the hell we are right now.”

  And then I feel something on my left shoulder, see the shadow of huge furry legs in my peripheral. I scream like a banshee and tear my clothes off. Just the first two layers, my black hoodie and T-shirt until I’m standing in the street with just my bra and jeans on. Then I shake my shirt like it’s on fire. It isn’t until I watch the spider hit the pavement that I can stop screaming. The kid falls into giggles. The little shit.

  But then the child has stopped laughing too and now simply stares at me the way her mother does. Until I realize why.

  In those few seconds when my shirt is off and my chest and stomach are bare, they’ve seen my scar. Everyone has. In fact, some of the assholes taking pictures of the accident have turned their cameras my way. My Y-shaped scar cuts just below my collar bone from one side to the other. Then a longer line stretches between my breasts down to my navel. It’s my autopsy scar, the one scar that embarrasses the hell out of me and that I am completely powerless to heal.

  In my very first death I was dead for two days. Everyone’s first death is the longest. And by the time the coroner diagnosed my cause of death as smoke inhalation, he realized something was different. My incisions were healing in front of his eyes and my heart started beating while the cavity was still open. Instead of sewing me up, he panicked and made a phone call.

  Because my skin was held open, peeled like a freaking banana instead of sealed in a position to grow back together, the healing wasn’t clean. Even the partial decapitation I suffered last fall had healed clean, thanks to Dr. York and Kirk.

  “What are you looking at fat ass?” I yell. I yank my

  shirt over my head, tears mixing with the blood. Then I slam my hand against the hood of her car. “Go feed your kid another Ding-dong!”

  Not my finest moment. And I already feel like shit before I even make it back to the van. And as sorry as I am another part of me doesn’t give a shit. That part is just mad. Mad that people stare. Mad the people standing around took pictures instead of coming to see if I was okay. I’m bleeding from my head. Surely that’s a clue I need assistance.