I stilled, wondering how Shawn would take Reyes’s bluntness.
“No. That’s why I hired your wife.”
“Then you hired the best.”
Once the ice had been broken, the conversation flowed like a smooth whiskey. They talked about everything, including the fact that they were almost but not really kind of sort of brothers.
“I heard about you my whole life growing up.”
Reyes cringed. “That couldn’t have been good.”
“Nope, which made me want to meet you even more.”
Reyes ducked his head, suddenly bashful.
“How long have you known about me?” Shawn asked him.
“Few years now.”
“Did you know I wasn’t their biological son?”
“I suspected. But they kept you. They must’ve really loved you.”
The look of surprise on Shawn’s face was priceless. “Wow, you really don’t know them at all, do you?”
Reyes grinned and shook his head. “Can’t really say that I want to, either.”
“I hear that,” Shawn said, laughing.
They were getting along famously. After I served them coffee, I was suddenly so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open and there was a pillow somewhere with my name on it. I went to bed early to give them time to get to know each other, then I lay awake, listening to them talk and laugh and commiserate.
Three hours later, Reyes joined me. Or he tried to. Artemis was taking up most of his side.
He slid in, scooting her over in the process, and lay in silence for a long time while I lay in agony, waiting with baited breath. But after a while, I really did get sleepy. We both rubbed Artemis’s ears and I took his hand into mine. His long fingers laced into mine; then, just before his breathing evened out and he drifted into oblivion, he said, “Drop the case.”
A wave of disappointment washed over me until I realized I’d learned something. His reservations had nothing to do with Shawn. He liked the guy. I could tell. So there was something else eating at him. Interesting.
* * *
Later that night, I felt an elbow at my ribs, and it wasn’t my own. It was nudging me out of an incredible dream. I was on the verge of nudging it back when a hand slid around my mouth.
My eyes flew open, but Reyes held me against him, tight, and whispered, “Shhh,” into my ear. Then he pointed.
Startled, I followed his line of sight and jumped again. He tightened his hold and waited for the image to come into focus. It did, and I slowly realized Amber was standing beside our bed.
I tried to rise, but he continued to keep a tight grip on both my body and my mouth, so I couldn’t ask him, “What the fuck?”
Then I realized why. Amber, tall and slender with long dark hair and a graceful bearing, stood in her gown. Her hair had fallen forward, but I could see her eyes. Barely. She gazed at us from behind the curtain of locks. No expression. No emotion.
A glint lower down drew my gaze to her hands. Her right hand, to be exact, in which she held a chef’s knife. Our chef’s knife. The one Reyes used to chop vegetables. The one that was so sharp, I’d once accidently brushed my fingers against it, soft as a feather, and come away bloody. And Amber was slicing her leg with it.
Blood soaked her gown, creating a large, dark circle as she slid the knife across her thigh again.
I lunged forward, but Reyes pulled me back. I fought him. His hold tightened, and he whispered into my ear, “I’ll go around the bed and grab the knife. Stay put.”
But before I could acknowledge with a nod, Amber spoke, her voice low. Monotone. “The oceans will boil. All the sand will die, and it’s your fault.”
“Stay put,” he said again. He eased backwards, his weight pressing into the mattress.
“The skin will slide off your bones if you don’t eat him.”
He inched off the bed. Then, before I could blink, he stood behind her.
“The beaches are covered in broken glass.”
With the care of a snake handler capturing a cobra, he took her wrist into his hand. She’d already made another incision. Blood streaked down the front of her gown. I pressed my hands to my mouth.
“The fish are very angry.”
He gently took the knife out of her hand, and I rushed forward. Kneeling on the bed before her, I took her face into my hands.
“Amber?”
Reyes tossed the knife away and held her shoulders should she fall.
“Amber, sweetheart, can you hear me?”
She’d curled her hands into fists and glared at me. “The blood is evaporating too fast, and the birds can’t breathe.”
I pushed her hair back. She was covered in sweat and tears. “Amber, it’s Aunt Charley.”
Her gaze finally locked onto mine. She stared a long moment, then said, “Unofanira kudya iye.”
It took me a few seconds to pinpoint the language. She spoke chiShona, a language that belonged to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. “You must eat him,” she said. In chiShona. Since when did Amber speak chiShona?
Before I could say anything else, she collapsed. I yelped, but Reyes caught her.
“Take her,” I said, scrambling off the bed and running for my robe.
Reyes already had on pajama bottoms. He scooped her up and headed for the door. I grabbed the first aid kit out of the bathroom and followed him.
He put her on our dining room table, then turned on the lights. I lifted her gown to assess the damage. The blood drained from my brain, and the world tilted. Just a little. She’d done some damage. Miraculously, none of the cuts looked deep enough to require stitches. There were just so many of them.
“Go,” he said, taking over. He ripped open the kit and found the peroxide.
I backed away but couldn’t seem to stop staring at her leg.
“Dutch,” Reyes said, his voice hard. “Go get her.”
I shook myself and nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Both our front door and Cookie’s stood wide open. I flew through them, then remembered that her husband was a detective. With a gun. I could only hope he wouldn’t shoot me, because I had no intention of waking them softly.
I barged into their bedroom, turned on the light, and ran to Cookie’s side.
Uncle Bob woke up instantly, his hand going for the gun locked in a holster safe on the side of his nightstand. He would have to unlock it before he could shoot me. That gave me just enough time to let him know who I was.
“Uncle Bob, it’s me,” I said, shaking Cookie awake.
“Charley? What the hell?”
“It’s Amber.” I nudged my BFF again. “Cook, sweetheart, wake up.”
Cookie bolted upright, her eyes almost as wild as her hair.
“Cook, it’s okay.”
Uncle Bob was already out of bed. He was used to being roused at all hours. Cookie, sadly, was not.
“What?” she asked, her gaze darting wildly about the room. “What happened?”
“Cookie.” I coaxed her to me. “She’s okay, but you need to come to my apartment.”
She finally focused on me. “What? Who’s…” Then it sank in. “Amber!”
She scrambled out of bed, slipped on a sock, only one, then found her robe. Uncle Bob had already thrown on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.
We hurried back, and Amber was sitting in a dining room chair as Reyes administered first aid.
“Amber!” Cookie ran to her and kneeled beside the chair. “Oh, my God. What happened?”
Uncle Bob stood back and took in the picture while I kneeled beside them.
“We woke up,” I said, “and she was in our room, sleepwalking.”
“What?” Cookie questioned Amber with a look of astonishment. “Amber?”
Amber shrugged. “I don’t even remem—” She hissed in a breath as Reyes poured another round of peroxide on her shaking leg. In fact, she was shaking all over.
“But what happened?” Cookie asked, taking in the bloody scene.
/> “Do we need to get her to a hospital?” I asked Reyes.
“No!” Amber said. Then softer, “No, really, the cuts aren’t even deep.”
I leaned forward. Put one hand on her face and one on her arm. Turning her arm over, I asked, “Like these?”
She pressed her mouth together. Bowed her head.
She had over a dozen cuts on her arm, all at different angles and different depths.
Cookie gasped aloud. Then threw a hand over her mouth.
“It’s not what you think,” Amber said.
“You’re … are you mutilating yourself?”
“No.” Amber shook her head. “No, Mom. Never.”
“Then … then I don’t understand.”
Amber chewed on her bottom lip.
“They aren’t deep,” Reyes said. “She doesn’t need stitches, but this will have to be cleaned a couple of times a day and the bandage changed for a few days. Just to be safe.”
Amber put an arm around Reyes as though for strength.
He looked up at her and winked. “You’ll be okay, princess.”
She nodded. She melted a little first, but nodded valiantly in the face of lethal charm.
Cookie stepped closer. “Amber, what is going on?” she asked, growing frustrated.
“I’m not cutting myself, Mom. I swear.”
Reyes began wrapping her leg.
I took her foot and straightened out her knee to make it easier. “You’ve been upset,” I said. “I’ve felt it, especially this morning.”
“Oh, that?” She shook her head as though dismissing the notion. “That was nothing. I just … I just got bad news.”
“What kind of bad news?” Uncle Bob asked.
Amber’s eyes rounded, and I felt a distinct jolt of fear. I couldn’t help the anger that shot through me. Was this because of him? Because of his behavior of late? Was he somehow stressing her out?
I shot him a warning glare over my shoulder.
He mouthed, “What?”
“Amber Olivia Kowalski,” Cookie said. “Explain.”
Amber chewed her bottom lip a bit longer, then said, “I just woke up and I had cuts on me. I don’t know why. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
What the hell? “Amber, do you remember speaking to us?”
My question surprised her. “What did I say?”
“Something about the oceans boiling and broken glass and then”—I looked at Cookie and Uncle Bob—“she spoke in chiShona.”
Cookie flashed me a puzzled expression.
“It’s a language native to a people in Zimbabwe.”
“Come again?” Uncle Bob said.
“She spoke a Shona language. She said I must eat him.”
“Eat who?” Amber asked, her expression a little grossed out.
I stifled a laugh. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Amber shrugged, helpless. “I’m sorry, Aunt Charley. I don’t remember.”
Reyes finished taping the bandage. I scooted a chair over so he could stay close to her, then I scooted one over for Cookie and myself. Uncle Bob could just stand there and stew. The bully.
“I didn’t figure you would, actually,” I told her. “You’ve done this before.”
“Done what?”
“Prophesied.”
Cookie shook her head. “Charley, you don’t mean that time at the school carnival.”
Amber was pretending to be a fortune-teller at a school carnival, only when I went in, she didn’t have to pretend. She slipped into a trance and prophesied about the Twelve, a dozen hellhounds that, we didn’t know at the time, had been sent to protect Beep. And she prophesied about Beep’s war with Satan. She’d nailed it, too. Every word.
“She’s very powerful,” I said to Cookie. “I tried to tell you.”
Cookie hadn’t wanted to listen when we spoke about Amber and her sensitive nature. Her gift. Cookie’s cousin was also touched with a gift, but she’d gone a little insane. The thought of Amber having the same abilities terrified her.
“Surely … no, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”
Cookie deadpanned me. Maybe she hadn’t seen the movie. After taking a moment to absorb what I was saying, she shook her head. “Okay, so maybe she does have … abilities. What does that have to do with her cutting herself in her sleep?”
I sat back in the chair. “I wish I knew. Do you remember anything, hon?”
Amber shook her head again. “I just remember waking up on your dining room table and Uncle Reyes pouring peroxide on me.”
“Sweetheart, why have you been so stressed?” I asked her. “I felt it, so don’t even try to wiggle out of this one.”
Uncle Bob took a chair a few feet away.
She folded her arms. Pursed her lips. Lifted a shoulder to her chin.
“Stress can bring on bouts of sleepwalking and apparently self-mutilation and prophesying.” Leaning forward, I tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. “You can tell us anything. No matter who is in this room. You know that, right?”
She nodded.
I let her relax a little, then hit her with, “Are you afraid of your stepdad?”
I knew if she were afraid of him, she probably wouldn’t answer with him sitting right there. But her emotional reaction would give me all the proof I needed, at which point I would promptly order him to leave the room and we would get to the bottom of this. Instead, she jumped to his defense.
“What?” She straightened in her chair. “No. Not at all.”
Relief washed over me like a welcome tidal wave. I was really worried. I gave him my best “You’re lucky, punk” look.
He gaped at me.
I turned back to her. “Okay, sweet pea. Spill.”
“It’s nothing. Really.”
“Amber,” Cookie said, her mommy voice in top working order.
“I’ve just … I think someone is stalking me.”
Uncle Bob bolted out of his chair.
I took Amber’s hand. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been, kind of, getting texts.”
“What kind of texts?” Cookie asked.
Uncle Bob stormed out of the apartment and came back thirty seconds later with Amber’s phone. He thrust it into Cookie’s hands, whose face, as she read the texts, went from shock to disbelief to absolute horror.
She pressed a hand over her mouth.
“May I?” I asked Cookie.
She handed me the phone. I didn’t want to embarrass Amber, but stalking should never be taken lightly.
I read three texts and sat in such shock, Uncle Bob took the phone to see for himself.
“It started when I was at the mall with Brandy.” She dipped her head, ashamed. “We were taking selfies, and we stuck out our tongues. Five seconds later, I got a text that said, Stick out that tongue again, and I’ll show you what to do with it.” Amber looked at me as though pleading. “We were so scared, we called Brandy’s mom to come pick us up. We went to her house and were watching a movie.”
“This happened when you stayed the night with her?” Cookie asked.
“Yeah. Dad let me. About three weeks ago.”
Amber had been staying with her dad because Cookie was in New York babysitting little old me. I’d gone crazy and forgotten my name. Along with everything else. She was gone when Amber needed her because of me.
“You were watching a movie?” I asked her.
“Yeah. Brandy fell asleep, and I was watching the end. We were in our pajamas, and I had my feet on the coffee table, and I get a text that says, Let your knees fall apart so I can get a better view.”
Cookie began shaking.
“Mom, we were in her basement. There was only one tiny window in the basement. He had to be in Brandy’s backyard.”
“Oh, honey,” Cookie said, pulling Amber to her.
Amber still had Reyes’s hand in hers as she clung to her mother with the other. Reyes sat patiently, rubbing hi
s thumb along the back of her knuckles. Warmth radiated through my chest as I watched him. He was going to be such a great dad when we got Beep back.
“I turned off the TV and didn’t sleep that whole night. I was so scared, I just watched the window.”
“I’m sorry, hon,” I said to her.
“Everywhere I go, he’s there. If I go to the movie, he’s there asking me if I’m sleepy yet because he drugged my soda. If Quentin and I go to the park, he’s there, saying, If you don’t stop bending over, I’m going to beat that ass.”
Cookie closed her eyes, frustration and worry coursing through her.
“Then they got even worse.”
I agreed. Even the few I read could have made a porn star blush. To say that to anyone, especially a thirteen-year-old.
“He started threatening to hurt me. Like, one time at school, we were eating lunch and he knew I was wearing a dress. He threatened…” She swallowed hard. “He threatened to cut off my legs if I spread them any farther. He called me a slut and said he could see my wet panties.”
I stilled. I hadn’t gotten that far. I turned to Ubie. “How did he get her number?”
“He even watches her at school,” Cookie said to him.
He was still scrolling through texts. “It could be anyone,” he said a microsecond before he stormed out again.
He came back in with his own phone and began making calls.
“Amber, why didn’t you tell us?” I asked her.
She leaned back into her chair. “I couldn’t. That’s all.”
The look on Cookie’s face was one part astonishment, two parts determination. “That’s not good enough, missy. I want an explanation.”
I put a hand on her arm. I’d never heard her call Amber missy before. It was out of character.
“You were in New York, anyway,” Amber continued, growing defensive. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Worry me? Amber, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
Uncle Bob raised his voice. “Now. I need it now.”
“I would block the number,” Amber added, “but then he would text me from a different number. Like every day he had a new number.”
“Why don’t we just change Amber’s number?” Cookie asked.
“And worry for the next year, if not longer, if he will come after her? Cook, these texts are brutal and violent. They may very well be from your everyday neighborhood stalker. The kind who never comes face-to-face with his victim. Completely harmless.” I was lying through my teeth. No stalker was ever completely harmless. There were always ramifications. “But we need to be sure.” I looked at Amber. “Did Quentin know?”