Teeko asked him about his mother (apparently Gil had filled her in), and Heath confessed that she wasn’t well but doing her best.
My gal pal looked genuinely concerned and I could have hugged her for that. The limo drove through a rather flat section of town, then up into the hills. The scenery was breathtaking and we all chatted noisily, Gilley and I talking over each other trying to catch Teeko up.
Finally the limo pulled into a cul-de-sac and there sat a gorgeous modern-looking structure made mostly of glass and wood. I got out and my jaw dropped. The house was an architectural marvel. “You like?” Teeks asked, coming to stand next to me while I ogled the outside.
“Uh . . . ,” I said, totally at a loss for words.
“Can we live here?” Gilley asked, and I didn’t think he was kidding.
But Teeks laughed. “Of course!” she sang, then moved to the door. “This is the lodge I was telling you about. When I heard you three were staying in a hotel because Heath’s house wasn’t finished, I thought that I’d invite you to stay here as long as you like!”
Teeks then inserted her key and the oversized wood door slid open easily. Gil and I stepped through and came up short, our jaws gaping. The front hall was big enough to fit my whole condo inside. “Holy freakballs!” Gil said, staring up at the twenty-foot ceilings.
And then, I heard it and I felt my heart thud hard in my chest. A low, lone whistle echoed out from somewhere deeper inside the home. I looked at Teeko, and her smile was ear to ear. “Go on,” she said. “He’s been waiting.”
I dashed inside and followed the sound of a second whistle, past the kitchen to the massive living area, which was floor-to-ceiling glass.
There, against the French doors leading out to a huge deck, was a birdcage, and inside was my very own feathered gray friend.
“Hey, baby!” Doc said, fluffing his feathers and flapping his wings when he saw me. “How you doin’?”
“Doc!” I cried, running to his cage. It’d been months since the last time I’d seen the beloved pet parrot I’d owned since just after my mother died.
I reached into his cage and he stepped immediately onto my fingers. When I had him out and held him at eye level, he said, “What’s new, Magoo?”
“Doc!” I heard Gilley say behind me.
Doc fluttered his wings and made kissing sounds. “Gimme kisses?” he asked.
I held Doc close under my chin and cuddled with him, crying a little. I’d missed my little guy so much it hurt.
“Can I hold him?” Gil asked shyly. Gil loved Doc almost as much as I did.
I swiveled Doc around and he stepped onto Gilley’s outstretched fingers. I turned then to Teeko, who’d come in with Heath. “Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking.
She nodded. “I think Mama Dell and the Captain needed a break.”
I winced. Mama Dell was our dear friend, and she and her husband—known only as “the Captain”—had generously offered to watch Doc while I was away in Europe. “I owe her huge,” I said.
“Aw, don’t sweat it,” Teeks said with a wave of her hand. “I think she loves Doc to pieces. Which is the problem. I think the Captain was getting a little jealous.”
There was a flutter, and then I felt Doc land delicately on my shoulder. “Oooo,” he cooed, nudging my cheek with his beak. “Kisses?”
I gave him a peck on the beak and reached up to wiggle his tail feathers. “Missed you,” I said to him.
“Captain!” Doc said in a perfect imitation of Mama Dell’s voice. “Coffee’s on!”
We all laughed. Well, all of us except for Heath. He’d taken a seat at the bar and was talking on his phone to either Pena or Cruz about the investigation into Milton’s death. By the sound of it, there wasn’t anything new to report. Heath let them know we had new digs and where to find us if something came up that he needed to know. He then hung up his cell, tossing it aside and putting his head in his hands like he was simply weary of it all.
I swiveled Doc around so that he could see Heath. At some point I’d have to introduce my new boyfriend to my bird, which was likely to be problematic, because, according to Doc, I’m his, and only his. My last boyfriend had developed the habit of ducking every time he heard the flapping of wings. Doc’s an ace dive-bomber.
My birdie seemed to notice the new person in the room, and just before I had the thought to stop him, he zipped off my shoulder, aiming straight for Heath. I nearly shouted a warning, but just as I opened my mouth, I watched Heath look up and calmly hold out two of his fingers. Doc landed gracefully on them and clucked his tongue a few times. Heath pulled him in for a closer look and my parrot dipped his beak and cooed.
“No . . . way!” Gil whispered.
“Has he ever done that before?” Teeks asked.
“Flown to a stranger and played nice?” I said. “Uh . . . no.”
“He’s sweet,” Heath said, looking up at us while he stroked Doc’s head.
Just then Heath’s cell phone chirped and I moved quickly to retrieve my bird. For whatever reason, Doc hates phones and he’ll bite me if I ever try to talk on the phone while holding him.
Luckily, I got to the bird before Heath picked up the line. “Hey, Mom,” he said, and walked out of the room to get some privacy. I watched him leave, feeling anxious about all he had to deal with. I moved back to Doc’s cage and set him on the play stand on top.
With a big smile I turned back to Teeko and gave her an impromptu hug. “You went to a lot of trouble for us,” I said, squeezing her tight.
“Least I could do once I found out you guys were stateside.”
“Is John flying in?” I asked.
Teeks smiled. “No. He’s got some big deal he’s settling and can’t get away.”
That figured. John was a workhorse.
Heath came back into the room looking like he’d been kicked in the gut. I knew immediately that he was super worried about his mom. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, taking a seat at the bar again. “She’s really stressed-out. She knows she needs to be here, but she hates flying and she’s upset enough as it is. I’m thinking about flying to Phoenix and bringing her back so she doesn’t have to fly alone.”
I moved over to sit next to Heath and Gilley, and Teeko came with me. We all huddled around him not knowing what to do or say.
“If I can find a flight that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg,” he said, pulling out his cell again to flip through the screens, “then I should be able to head there and back sometime today or tomorrow.”
Teeko put her slender fingers on Heath’s wrist. “Allow me,” she said.
He looked at her blankly. “Allow you to what?”
“Let me send you to pick up your mother,” she told him.
“You want to drive the limo all the way to Phoenix and back?” he asked.
Teeks smiled. “No, Heath. You can take John’s plane out to Phoenix and pick up your mother.”
“You’d do that?” he asked incredulously.
Teeks looked at me and winked. “Of course,” she said. “M. J. cares a lot about you, and anyone M. J. cares about is like family to me.”
“Thank you,” I said, and the words simply didn’t convey all the gratitude I felt.
Teeks took up her coat from the couch where she’d laid it, and Wendell trotted after her. I suddenly realized that the little pug had been following her every move with his big bulging eyes since we all got into the limo. “He’s really bonded with you,” I told her.
Teeks looked down and blushed. “I may have been spoiling him,” she said, picking Wendell up and cuddling him.
“Teeks?”
“Yeah?”
“You should keep him.”
Behind Teeko Gilley raised his eyebrows. I ignored him.
“You mean it?” she asked, and the look on her face told me how happy I’d just made her.
I laughed. “Yes,” I said. “You’ve been so great about watching him, and looking out for me
, Doc, Gil, and Heath. It’s the least I can do.”
Teeko hugged Wendell. “Thank you, M. J.,” she said. “I’ll take the best care of him.”
Of that, I had no doubt.
Chapter 4
Heath’s mother was a welcome surprise. She arrived around eight o’clock that night wearing a colorful print dress and layers of turquoise and crystal jewelry. Her hair was very long, braided all the way down to the middle of her back, and she was much shorter than her son.
She was also pleasantly round, with plump cheeks and eyes as dark as onyx. When she walked in, the air in the room where we were watching TV seemed to brighten, and I liked her immediately. “Hello!” she said merrily when she saw us gathered around the television. Heath came in behind her, carting her luggage and looking a thousand times better than the last time I’d seen him. He set her bags down next to the bar and swept his mother up in a hug, like he hadn’t gotten enough of those in yet.
Gilley began waving his hands in front of his eyes, but a few tears leaked out anyway. The big softy.
Once Heath let go of his mom, he was quick to introduce us. “Ma, these are my fellow ghostbusters. Guys, this is my mom, Serena Lujan.”
Gilley got right up off the couch and threw his arms around Heath’s mother. “Welcome!” he said.
She laughed in surprise. “Oh!” she said. “Thank you, sweetie.”
He stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “Please,” he said with a big wide grin. “Call me Gilley. Gilley Gilleshpie.”
“Gilleshpie?” she repeated.
“Gillespie,” I corrected, stepping forward to offer her my hand and introduce myself. “And I’m M. J. Holliday, and this is my girlfriend Karen O’Neil. It was her plane you flew in on from Phoenix.”
Mrs. Lujan took my hand and pulled me in for a hug. “M. J.!” she said. “Heath has told me all about you!”
I could feel my insides tighten as I wondered what specifically he’d said about me. She must have sensed my reaction, because she pulled back, placed a hand on my shoulder, and said, “All good things—don’t worry.”
I let out a breath. “Phew!” I said with a laugh.
She then turned to Teeko. “Thank you so much, Miss O’Neil. You have no idea how grateful I am that you sent a plane to pick me up! I’ve never flown on such a beautiful thing! I felt like the Queen of England!”
Teeko blushed too and told Mrs. Lujan that it was her pleasure and to please call her Karen or Teeko like the rest of us.
“Are you hungry, Mrs. Lujan?” Gil asked, and I wondered if he was just looking for an excuse to eat again. He then sneezed so hard and so loud it echoed off the walls. “Thanks,” he said when we all chimed in with a “Bless you!”
Heath’s mother shook her head. “No, Gilley, thank you. I’m not hungry and please call me Serena.” I watched her take Heath’s hand in both of hers and she looked deep into his eyes. “You look exhausted.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days, Ma.”
She nodded knowingly. “You should turn in.”
Heath glanced at the clock on the kitchen stove. “It’s only eight thirty.”
“Eight thirty New Mexico time. What time does it feel like to you?” Heath didn’t answer her, so she looked round to me. “M. J.?”
“It feels like four in the morning,” I admitted. Heath cut me a look. “Sorry, sweetie. But it does. I’m still crazy jet-lagged.”
Serena gave a few pats to Heath’s hand. “You two, turn in, and that’s an order. Gilley, you look like you’re coming down with something.”
“I had a stroke on the plane from O’Hare, and then I caught SARS and then I nearly choked to death on a fajita,” he explained casually. “Gilley Gilleshpie.”
I shook my head quickly. “What he means is that he had a headache on the plane from O’Hare, and then he came down with the flu, but that last part’s true.”
Mrs. Lujan took all of that in stride. “Well, it sounds like you’re not quite over your bout with the flu,” she said warmly. “I make the world’s best hot toddy, Gilley. It’ll cure what ails you.”
Gil gazed at her as if she were his fairy godmother. “Okay!” he said, ignoring the frown I gave him. The poor woman just got in from Phoenix, for cripe’s sake.
Still, as I looked at Gil, I couldn’t help but notice that he did seem a little pale and his brow was a bit moist. I moved over to cover his forehead with my hand. “Your fever’s back.”
“SARS is hard to kick,” he said.
Mrs. Lujan winked at me while she rolled up her sleeves and moved into the kitchen. “Don’t worry. He’ll get a good night’s sleep after he’s had one of my remedies.” Then she turned to Teeko, who’d been observing all of this quietly in the corner. “Karen, I’ll need some rum and brandy—any chance you’ve got that stocked?”
Teeks pointed to the liquor cabinet next to the bar. “You should find everything you need in there, Mrs. Lujan.”
We didn’t all quite turn in right away. Instead we stayed up till about ten, sipping the hot toddies and getting to know Mrs. Lujan. I found her delightful and wonderfully kind—a far cry from her brothers. I could now see why she’d left the Pueblo. Her personality didn’t seem to fit in with any of the other Whitefeathers I’d met—besides Heath, Ari, and her husband, of course. But then, maybe I was being judgmental. I’d been introduced to everyone on a terrible day. Maybe they hadn’t been prepared for my arrival and were feeling a little defensive. I decided to reserve judgment for the time being.
When the clock struck ten, Mrs. Lujan clapped her hands and took up all our mugs. Gil’s head was drooping on his neck—he’d had three helpings of hot toddy and he was a little tipsy. “Gillshie Gillshepy,” he said into his empty cup.
Okay, so he was well past tipsy and more like drunk.
“Come on,” I coaxed, helping support him as he hopped (fell) off the barstool. I got him to the room Karen had assigned him and managed to get Gil out of his shoes and his sweater before he simply plopped back on the pillows and began to snore. I covered him with the bedspread and left it at that.
Heath had wheeled Doc’s cage down the hall and into our room, and was covering him up with an afghan just as I came in the door. “I didn’t want him to get lonely out in that big room,” he explained. I couldn’t help but think he was such a good guy for taking care of my bird.
Truth be told, I would have likely jumped him right there to show him my appreciation, but two things stopped me: First, his mom was in the room right next door, and second, his mom was in the room right next door.
No way was I going to do anything more than shake his hand that night. Which was likely for the best, because we were both weary down to the marrow. In fact I think we were asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillows.
I was deep in my slumber when a tremendous WHUMP hit the side of the house.
The noise sounded something like a giant sack of flour hitting the structure. It rattled the windows and shook the walls. Heath and I sat bolt upright and looked around with large eyes and racing hearts. “What the freak was that?” I asked him. That’s also when I heard Doc growling with fear from inside his cage.
Heath flew out of bed and moved to the window. Before he could peek through the blinds, however, there was a series of intense knocks on our door. “Guys?” I heard Teeko whisper through the wood. “Are you two okay?”
I hurried to the door and opened it to let her in. “We’re fine. Did you hear that?”
Teeks came into the room, but before she could even answer, Gilley raced straight by us and launched himself like a high-diver onto the bed, burying his head under the covers. “There’s something outside!” he shrieked. “Gilley Gilleshpie! Gilley Gilleshpie!”
Doc growled again and I turned on a lamp, hurrying to his cage to peek under the afghan. All his feathers were ruffled and his puffed-up form stared at me with big round eyes. “It’s okay, birdie,” I said to him. “It’s nothing. Probably just the wind.
” Doc didn’t look like he believed me.
“Gilley, did you see it?” I heard Teeks ask, while goose pimples rose on my arms and the hair on the back of my neck stood up on end.
Gil buried himself deeper under the comforter. “It walked past my window!”
I pulled the afghan back over Doc’s cage and turned around. Teeks was trembling and pale, Heath seemed rattled, and Gilley’s quivering form let me know exactly how he felt.
And then . . . we heard something else.
There was a slow grating sound unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It started at the corner of our room and seemed to pull itself along the outside wall. I felt the blood drain from my face and realized I was holding my breath until it stopped.
No one moved a muscle, and looking around at my friends, I could tell I wasn’t the only one who’d stopped breathing.
We waited in the stillness for something else to happen. It didn’t take long. Perhaps ten seconds passed; then some sort of growl reverberated from outside, but it wasn’t a growl like Doc’s or anything I had ever heard in my life. This was very deep and guttural. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say that it sounded like something right out of Jurassic Park. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t sound like a bear or a mountain lion—it sounded much bigger and ten times as deadly.
My eyes locked with Heath’s. “What the . . . ?!” I mouthed, and he shook his head.
Karen edged closer to me and she was trembling head to toe. She gripped my arm so tightly it hurt, but I wasn’t about to pull away. A second WHUMP rattled the house, followed by another series of drag marks along the wood, and all the while the growling never ceased.
Until abruptly . . . it did, and I think that was scariest of all.
We waited for about two more minutes in total silence, nobody moved a muscle, and I only took two deep breaths during that whole time. Finally Heath whispered, “My mom!” and ran out of the room.
Teeko and I raced after him, clutching each other like frightened little girls. Heath stopped in front of his mother’s room and knocked twice. “Mom!” he whispered urgently.