I trusted Malcolm because my father had given me his name, but maybe going on his word alone meant being too trusting …
“I’ve known Malcolm for a number of years. Before we go any further, I should explain to you that while I am sensitive, I can’t do what you do. I know what’s out there; I can feel the beings when they move past me or if I go into an infected building. I’ve never put eyes on them, and yet I’ve always known they existed, if that makes sense.”
Actually, it did. “I’ve known many people like you in the world. Sometimes it’s about choice. Have you actively said to yourself, to the universe, or to whatever that you’d like to see them?”
He held up his hand. “Just the opposite actually. My sister was like you. She could see them. Everywhere we went. Even when I couldn’t feel them, they were there for her. I don’t want anything to do with it. Bad enough to be aware of their existence. She had an obligation to do something about them because she witnessed their destruction, the way they pulled at the energy of the living.”
My mother used to talk to me about our social obligation, the contract we’d apparently made with the universe to help when we could. We performed a service most people would never know they needed. And when I’d turned eighteen, I’d decided I didn’t have to honor that contract. Guilt I hadn’t acknowledged for years pushed at my stomach.
“Had. You’re speaking about your sister in past tense.” Why beat around the bush? I could stand around and let him get to the point, or I could make him tell me whatever he’d stalked me here to say.
Chase was handsome as sin, but that didn’t negate the fact that I didn’t want him in my living room first thing in the morning if he didn’t have some knowledge I absolutely had to acquire right then.
“She was killed on a job a few years ago. Malcolm should not have sent her, alone, into the kind of intense situation where she landed. She managed to call me. The door was locked behind her. It wouldn’t budge. The entities were everywhere. Eventually, before I could get there, they sucked her dry. The ME had no explanation short of some form of extreme dehydration to explain her death. Thirty-three-year-old women don’t drop dead for no good reason. They also accused her of breaking and entering. Of course, she was dead. So that should have been the last thing that bothered me, except it burns. Malcolm let her be accused of being a thief when he sent her there.”
I put my hand on his arm and squeezed. Whatever else I thought about his sudden appearance, I meant what I said next. “I am truly sorry for your loss.”
He narrowed his eyes and looked away. Chase’s pain was raw. He wore it on the outside of his sleeve, and I didn’t have to be an expert on the subject of death to see it.
“Thanks.”
I took a deep breath. “You’re welcome. What I’m going to say to you next will be hard for you to hear.”
“Malcolm’s dangerous. Whatever justification you’re about to make, the fact remains the same. He’s irresponsible, and he gives the impression of being in charge, only he’s not. I track him. I follow his cases. Am I obsessed? Sure. Do I care? No. He’s not safe. Don’t work for him. You have to be new because we haven’t run into each other before.”
“Chase,” I needed some water. My throat was getting dry. “This is a dangerous business. Hands down. No question about it. My body is still buzzing from last night because I exerted so much energy clearing a Cascade. I’m not even sure when I’m going to come down. People die taking on the supernatural. I’m so sorry about your sister. I wish she was an isolated case. I don’t think Malcolm is any more dangerous than anyone else. He isn’t forcing me to do this. I sought him out. I appreciate your concern, even though it’s somewhat odd coming from a stranger. I, ah, I’m not sure what you want …”
He interrupted me, speaking very quickly as he ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve been all over. I’ve met other brokers. The way Malcolm conducts things—the interviews, the people he says yes to versus the nos—it’s all his way or the highway. He’s hiding things. He doesn’t act like the others. I want you to understand before you find yourself on the ground of a haunted house calling to say goodbye or begging for help.”
A pounding on my door caught my attention, and I whirled around. Someone else? “This place is like Grand Central this morning.” I’d never actually seen Grand Central, but I liked the expression. Maybe someday I would. Although since Levi and I split, the likelihood I’d be travelling anywhere had become slim to none. Unless I took up with my parents in the back of the van.
I shuddered at the thought.
I wasn’t going back in the van, and my kids weren’t going to know that life. I swung open the door, and Malcolm stormed through it like he’d been invited and had been coming over for years. He’d had my car brought home, which meant he knew where I lived. I took a deep breath. Maybe I needed to simply accept that everyone in the paranormal world I encountered would somehow end up learning my address.
My broker only had eyes for Chase. “You have some nerve. I’ve been putting up with a lot of crap because I understand grief and the way it fucks with our heads. But enough is enough. Get out of Kendall’s house. Now.”
Chase crossed his arms across his chest. “She invited me in.”
“I bet she did. You were probably spitting out some bullshit and scared her into listening. Get out.”
I put up my hands. “Hey Alpha caveman people. This is my house. You can all get out, or you can calm down.”
My phone rang, and I crossed to the table to pick it up. Almost no one used the landline number anymore. It was probably just a telemarketer, but at least it broke up the screaming, hot men and gave me a chance to find my feet. I was way too high to be managing this. What I needed were donuts. Lots of them …
“Hello?”
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Yates. This is Mrs. Brown from Hill Country. We need you to come down to the school and have a meeting about your son.”
I sucked in my breath. If Dex’s teacher called me in the middle of the day, something was wrong. “Is he okay?”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” She brushed off my question like every parent on the face of the earth wasn’t terrified something had gone terribly wrong when they got a call about their child. I’d seen the ghosts of children whose lives were taken too soon. And the leftover spirits from their parents who could never get over the pain of losing their babies. Anything happened to the kids, and I’d never recover. “We need to talk about Dex’s behavior and the challenges we’re having in the classroom, and I’m afraid we can’t put off having this discussion any longer. I’ve been trying to be sympathetic given your situation at home, but I can’t do it anymore. We need you and possibly the boy’s father if he’s available today.”
I swallowed, my fear turning to utter annoyance. If one of the kids was sick, of course I would get to school for them; nothing would hold me back. But it was such standard bullshit that the teacher called and expected me to simply be able to drop everything and come. What happened to making appointments?
I took a deep breath. This was Dex, and he needed me. I’d move mountains for him, and as far as I knew I didn’t have any pressing plans. “I’ll call his father, and if he can come, we’ll both meet you there. Otherwise it’ll just be me.”
The guys had fallen silent behind me, which meant they were listening to what I said instead of talking to each other. I didn’t have time to be annoyed. Dex’s behavior had gotten so out of hand they had to call me first thing in the morning? Why was I so relieved that it wasn’t Gray they’d phoned about? Heaven help me, what the hell was the matter with me? What kind of mother even had such awful thoughts? I rubbed my eyes as I quickly dialed Levi.
He picked up on the first ring. Some calls went to Levi’s secretary, but even during our worst times together, he’d always taken my calls himself and as fast as he could manage. I don’t know why the small courtesy always made me feel special, yet it had. No matter how bad things got, he still wanted to talk to me.
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“Backing out of our date?” He answered on a laugh. “I’m not going to let you. I demand to take you out.”
I wished I could breathe in his smile. “I wish it was that. No, it’s the school. Dex is in trouble. They want at least one of us down there. I’m going.” I eyed my living room guests, and my cheeks heated. Talking to Levi felt private. I shouldn’t have an audience to do so. What would they think of my non-sensitive ex-husband, and why did I care? “Can you get out to join me?”
“Hold on.” I heard him clicking like he was on the computer, typing while we talked. “I’m going to take care of things really fast, and then I’ll meet you there.”
“Great.” I hung up but didn’t move for a moment. That had seemed so easy, like we were back together. How easy it would be to pretend we really were still a couple—to forget the night he’d packed his bag and left me broken in the hallway of the house I now tried to manage on my own.
I shook my head. I couldn’t focus on the divorce. Dex needed me, and I wouldn’t fail him.
I turned around, meeting Chase’s eyes and then Malcolm’s as they both waited for me to say something. “I still feel kind of loopy. Either of you want to drive me?”
Half an hour later I was dressed, Chase was nowhere to be seen, and I sat in Malcolm’s car outside of the school, ready to go in and find out what trouble my middle son had caused that required me to show up at the school in the middle of the day.
“I hate kids.” Malcolm drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, halting me in my tracks. I turned my head to stare at him. He wore dark black slacks and a green collared shirt. He hadn’t shaved overnight, and the dark hair covering his face did nothing to make him less mysterious. Malcolm could apparently pull off facial hair and still come across as hot instead of swarthy.
“What kind of person hates kids?”
He raised his hand in the air. “This kind of person.”
“Right. Well. Have a nice day. Thanks for the ride.” I stopped before I got out of the car. Maybe it was the loopy, post-clearing haze I couldn’t get rid of, but I had to ask him what I wouldn’t usually dare. “Chase says you’re dangerous. Are you?”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “You’re more dangerous than I could ever be. Go; your kid needs you, and since you decided to go and procreate, you should do something about it.”
“I’m not dangerous.” Why would he say that?
Malcolm leaned over me and opened the door. “Yes, you are, Sage. Don’t ever doubt it. And as for Chase, he’s got a lot on his plate. I won’t let him bother you again.”
“Did you get his sister killed?”
He motioned toward the door. “Go.”
Damn it. I wanted answers even if I hadn’t known him long enough to be entitled to them. “Why do you drag that ghost around with you?”
“So I never forget. Go, or I’m driving off to the rest of my day, and you can sit in the car while I do so.”
I believed him. Somehow, Malcolm struck me as the type who would do just as he threatened. He wouldn’t make an empty statement he’d not follow through on, which meant he’d drive away with me half-hanging out of the car.
“Thanks for the ride.” I stepped out of the car, and apparently feeling he couldn’t spend one more second in the vicinity of either me or my kids’ school, the second I closed the door he sped away as though the devil chased him down the road.
I took a deep breath. Between the still buzzing of my blood as it raced through my veins from the night before, the weirdness of having Chase and Malcolm arguing in my living room, Levi’s manner on the phone, and something being wrong with Dex, I had to find my bearings. Walking into the school in my current state wouldn’t endear me any further with people who had already heard rumors about my so-called drunken outburst at the PTA meeting.
Why had I even gone that night?
I squared my shoulders and marched inside prepared, I hoped, to handle whatever the universe planned to throw at me next. My gumption only lasted until I’d gotten through the front doors of the school. The world we lived in meant the days of simply coming and going from children’s schools were long gone. Security measures had been put in place to keep strangers out and to make sure the kids stayed safely where they belonged during the day. Or so we hoped. There were some mornings I could barely drive away and leave my babies within the four walls where they did their learning.
I’d seen horrible otherworldly things in my life, yet the human variety scared me even more.
The first line of defense, once I was buzzed through the front door, were the four secretaries whose job it was to man—or in this case woman—the front office. Settled in the back corner of the office was a computer I had to get onto to print up a label with my name on it. That would show anyone who encountered me in the school that I had stopped at the office and had the right to be there.
But first I had to get through conversations with each of the secretaries. Once upon a time, they’d loved me. I’d been one of their favorite volunteers. Except now they thought I was a raving drunk whose actions forced Levi to leave me.
I braced myself for the onslaught of looks. They wouldn’t say anything to me directly, but the way they would make eye contact with each other across the room, while I tried to make small talk and sign in, made my skin crawl. I wished they would simply say whatever they were thinking instead of the constant not-talking I could feel all the way up my spine.
I waited for the computer to register my name and stood there feeling all the eyes on me in the room. Four sets of gazes, all of them judging me as a terrible mother.
I looked over my shoulder to smile at Bonnie, the oldest of the four secretaries. “Beautiful day.”
She nodded once. “It sure is.”
I’d been polite. That was the best I could do.
“Mrs. Yates.” The vice principal called my name just as Levi entered the office. His presence changed the mood in the room immediately. I turned in time to see the grins crossing the faces of all four secretaries the second they saw him.
I bit my tongue. There were lots of things I wanted to say and never would—at least not as long as I had my children in their school. Even if I were the drunken mess they thought me to be—and it wasn’t like I could ever prove I wasn’t unless they could suddenly see ghosts—it was still Levi who had broken up our family.
Why did he get the free pass in the minds of acquaintances who should really be minding their own business? And why did I care?
“Hi.” I nodded to the principal and then to Levi. He crossed by me to the computer, which of course worked much faster for him than it had for me. Even the machines treated Levi like gold, he’d once been my prize, and I’d been happy to bask with him in the love the world gave him.
I walked toward the principal’s open door, forcing Levi to speed up to catch up with me. “Did you take a helicopter? How did you get here so fast?”
“This time of day there’s no traffic.”
I snorted. “There’s always traffic. You’re just Levi Yates. They open up the streets for you every time you deem to go into the car.”
“What?” He looked at me sideways. “You look…different. I can’t put my finger on it. Something has changed. You seem…”
Whatever he would have said, I never heard since the principal started speaking before we’d even sat down. The pleasantries she would have given us before the divorce, and would likely have extended if Levi had been alone, were done these days. She had us both in the room and wasn’t going to keep us there any longer than she had to. For all she knew I might suddenly erupt into some kind of outburst, and Levi would have to handle his crazy wife.
Or maybe she didn’t think that. Maybe I was just a paranoid lunatic who assumed the entire world was saying horrible things about her.
Dex’s teacher, Mrs. Brown, sat next to where the principal took her seat, and to her right sat the school guidance counselor Mr. Drake. They’d pulled out all the big guns for th
is conversation. The only person absent from whatever discussion we were about to have was the Vice Principal, Mrs. Ryder, but we wouldn’t be seeing her because she was on maternity leave for at least another few weeks.
Levi side-eyed me before he pulled out my chair for me to sit down. He didn’t like this showing any more than I did. What the hell had Dex done?
I scooted back in my seat while at the same time Levi leaned forward.
“I’ll get to the point.” The principal pushed her long, blonde hair behind her left ear and cleared her throat before she spoke again. “Dex’s behavior is out of hand, and Mrs. Brown and I think it’s time to pursue diagnosing what’s going on with him.”
Medical help? My mind twisted. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Did they think he had a brain tumor? What kind of medical help worked for behavior? Was it some kind of therapy? What did they mean?
“You’re talking about ADHD.” Levi hadn’t budged from where he’d leaned forward.
“It isn’t our place to speculate on the nature of the problem. You need to speak to a medical professional. But we’re here to recommend you consult with a doctor.”
“You realize you’re breaking Federal Law, discussing it like this. It’s your job to identify, evaluate, and accommodate for learning and emotional disabilities,” Levi snapped back.
How the hell did Levi know that? Had he been up at night reading Federal Education law?
“Many of our parents prefer private evaluation as they can be done in a shorter time frame,” the principal’s eyes flared at Levi.
I’d never felt more out of my depth in my life. Sometimes my upbringing reared its head to smack me hard and point out how little I knew about things outside of my own depth. Levi had known exactly what the principal meant; he’d known the second she spoke. Maybe he’d even had some inclination about Dex before we’d been called in for this instant conversation …
“Why did we have to meet like this?” I interrupted Levi’s questions to the principal with my own. I’d not even heard the last three of them. “Did something happen today to warrant a call so that Levi had to leave work and I had to run down, instead of making an appointment to discuss your concerns at a mutually agreed upon time?”