Flight from Mayhem (33 page)

Mary's eyes grew clear and the cunning look that I had seen on her face was gone, along with the fear. She hesitantly stepped toward Tonya. “You mean I can leave? It's okay for me to leave? I can rest?”

The spirit of Mary's husband roared and he charged toward Tonya. Chai let out a shout and within the blink of an eye was between them. The spirit froze, a look of fear crossing his face as Chai blazed with a brilliant, fiery light and held out his hands.

“You will harm her no more!” As Chai's words reverberated through the kitchen, Mary silently moved toward Tonya, who closed her eyes and whispered something that I could not hear. The pentagram of blue light expanded, and Mary entered it, vanishing as she touched the edges of the energy. All we heard was a soft “thank you,” and Mary was gone.

Mary's husband was apparently pissed off because the
walls began to rattle, and it felt like we were in the middle of an earthquake. But then Tonya held her dagger over her head and began an incantation.

“O mighty Hecate, Guardian of the Crossroads, I call to thee! I summon your power, O Mother of Ghosts. I ask that you consign this spirit, this demon to the Netherworld! Punish him for his deeds and prevent him from crossing back to the land of the living! O mighty Hecate, hear my prayer!”

And then the earthquake stopped.

Mary's husband froze, and the next moment, his form broke down, flooding into a pillar of black smoke. A portal opened in the middle of the kitchen ceiling. The vortex reminded me of a spinning kaleidoscope. A sudden gust of wind sprang up, and the smoke was sucked through the portal as if into a giant vacuum. The vortex slammed shut and vanished.

The house felt remarkably quiet, as if it had taken a deep breath and exhaled all the bad memories.

“They're both gone.” Tonya looked over at me and shook her head. “Mary just needed someone to know that she didn't kill the baby, and she needed to be freed from her husband's tyranny. Imagine, being trapped with your abuser in the spirit world. How horrible.”

I closed my eyes, but the house truly felt empty. A soft wind started to blow through the broken window. “It's over. They won't be back.”

“I think when morning comes, we'll call Elena Johnson, and I'll make an offer on the house. Maybe it's time I left Port Townsend. And somebody ought to love this place. It has good bones, even with a few skeletons in the closet. Besides, until we catch Jack and make him stop, I don't feel like returning home.” Tonya smiled, but tears were running down her face.

We headed back across the street. “I don't really want to stay in my house tonight. It stinks and we need to clean it up before we can move back in.”

“I can go to a hotel for the night. It won't hurt me any.” Tonya shrugged. “Just let me get my suitcase.”

“You can stay at my apartment, Shimmer.” Alex headed toward the Range Rover. “I'd like that.”

“Chai can crash in my room,” Tonya said. “Considering Skelton is still out there, it would make me feel safer to have someone else around. I doubt if he knows what's going on here, but right now I'm a little bit paranoid.”

“Understandable. I'd be happy to spend the night.” Chai glanced at me and glared as a smirk crossed my face. “And I'll be a perfect gentleman. No worries there.”

Tonya gave him a puzzled look, then shrugged. “If I were worried, I wouldn't have offered.”

We drove back to the office, where Tonya picked up her car. She and Chai drove off to find a hotel as Alex and I headed toward his condo. It had been a long night, and I hoped that nothing else was going to drop in our lap until we had all had a good sleep.

*   *   *

A
lex and I
finished taking our showers, and then we curled up in his bed together. I knew it was now or never, and I knew that I had to say something.

“Alex, I have to tell you something. When we were trying to figure out how to help Bette, before you woke up . . . Well, we were frantic, searching for any information we could find that might help us. Ralph had told us about the figure of light he saw, and we needed to know if you had anything that might shed light on what it was or if it might relate to her being kidnapped.” I pulled out of his embrace and straightened up, crossing my legs on the bed.

He frowned, pushing himself up to sit against the headboard. He crossed his hands over that rock-hard abdomen of his and asked, “What's going on?”

“I looked through your desk.” I waited to see if he would understand what I was saying.

After a moment, understanding dawned in his eyes. “I see. Did you find what you're looking for?”

“No. Oh, hell.” I was tired of pussyfooting around. “I saw the pictures of Glenda. And I looked through Bette's file, but I didn't look through mine. I only saw the pictures because I was trying to find anything that might help us with Bette.”

He nodded, chewing on his lip. At least his fangs hadn't descended and his eyes weren't crimson, so he couldn't be terribly angry. “What do you want me to do with them?”

Flustered, I shrugged. “I'm not sure; after all, they're not my pictures. I just wanted you to know.” But that wasn't true. I wanted to ask,
What are you still doing with them?
But I felt embarrassed for having snooped.

Alex leaned forward, rubbing the ever-present stubble on his chin. After a moment, he said, “To be honest, I had almost forgotten they were there. I'll get rid of them. I'll shred them.” He cocked his head, giving me a sideways glance. “You say that you didn't look in your file?”

I shook my head. “No, I didn't. I thought about it, to be honest. But I wasn't sure that I'd like seeing what you might have written in it. And I want you to know, I never would have touched your desk if we hadn't been so frantic.”

“I believe you. Shimmer, if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you don't poke yourself in where you think you don't belong. Tomorrow night, after I've talked to Frank, I want you to come to my office and I'm going to show you everything in your file. I want you to see that there's nothing there to hurt you. And I'll shred Glenda's pictures while you're there. I told you, I want us to work. I don't know what we have here, either, but I want to see where it goes. I don't want you to have doubts about me. I wouldn't have given you a ring if I thought that I might want to go back to that bitch.”

I smiled then, turning the ring on my finger. “I love it, you know.”

“I'm so glad.” His eyes were cool, but a sparkle in them
told me he truly was happy. “Speaking of Glenda, tomorrow night I'll have a talk with a couple buddies of mine. They have influence with her. They owe me a big favor and I'm going to call it in. I'll get Glenda off our backs.”

I exhaled deeply, letting the tension drain with the breath.

“I won't ask about Bette. If I'm supposed to know, good. Until then, I won't say a word. But if you need help, you know I'm here. I love that bad-assed broad, and I don't have many people that I can say that about. And for what it's worth, I'm not jealous of her. I'm not jealous of what you had with her, and I'm not jealous of the friendship that you still have. I trust Bette, and I trust you.”

That was what it came down to.
Trust.
I had never thought I could say those words to anybody in my life, but I realized that I
did
trust Alex. And I trusted Bette and Ralph and Chai and Tonya and Stacy. I had gone from having no one to having a circle of friends.

Alex must have sensed the shift because he held out his arms. “Shimmer, let me make love to you. I want to feel your skin under my fingers; I want to taste you. I want to slide inside you and move so slowly that it feels like time stops.”

He folded me in his embrace, his hand trailing down to caress my nipples, to cup my breasts and then slide down toward the V between my legs. I let him touch me, holding very still as he fingered my sex, stroking gently until I ached with desire. I moaned, shifting so he had easier access. As he slid two fingers inside me, thrusting gently, I wrapped my hand around his erect penis, squeezing as two drops of pre-cum trickled out of the head.

“I want you,” I whispered, lowering my lips to fasten around him. I slid down his length, gripping him with my mouth as I stroked his rock-hard cock with my tongue. And right then, I realized that this was the only place I wanted to be.

Alex gently pulled me up to face him. “Let me love you, Shimmer. Let me prove myself to you. Let me make you happy.”

“Love me, then. Love me, because I meant what I said. I
do
love you.” The words echoed strong in my heart.

And then Alex made love to me until the sun rose and dragged him into his deep slumber.

As I quietly showered again and then curled up in the spare bedroom, drifting as the weariness of the past few days took hold, I thought about my life. We would repair the damage done to my house, and Chai and I would move back in. Tonya would buy the house across the street, and I would introduce her to Stacy. I thought they would make great friends. And Ralph . . . dear Ralph would soon be married with a family of his own.

And one day, when it was time, we would find out what Bette's secret was.

As I drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that—for the first time in my life—I had a family. And that was a treasure greater than any dragon hoard I could ever accumulate.

I write to music a good share of the time, and so I always put my playlists in the back of each book so you can see which artists/songs I listened to during the writing. Here's the playlist for
Flight from Mayhem
:

AC/DC:
“Back in Black”

Air:
“Playground Love”; “Moon Fever”

Android Lust:
“Here and Now”; “Saint Over”; “Stained”; “Dragonfly”

The Animals:
“Bury My Body”; “House of the Rising Sun”; “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”

Arcade Fire:
“Abraham's Daughter”

Arch Leaves:
“Nowhere to Go”

The Black Angels:
“You on the Run”; “Evil Things”; “Don't Play with Guns”; “Holland”; “Always Maybe”; “Broken Soldier”

Black Mountain:
“Wild Wind”; “Queens Will Play”; “Buried by the Blues”

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club:
“Feel It Now”

Black Sabbath:
“Paranoid”

Bobbie Gentry:
“Ode to Billy Joe”

Boom! Bap! Pow!:
“Suit”

Broken Bells:
“The Ghost Inside”

Cher:
“The Beat Goes On”

Cobra Verde:
“Play with Fire”

Commodores:
“Brick House”

Crazy Town:
“Butterfly”

Dire Straits:
“Money for Nothing”

The Doors:
“People Are Strange”; “Hello, I Love You”; “Roadhouse Blues”

Eastern Sun:
“Beautiful Being”

Eels:
“Souljacker Part One”

Fatboy Slim:
“Praise You”

FC Kahuna:
“Hayling”

The Feeling:
“Sewn”

Fluke:
“Absurd”

Garbage:
“Queer”; “#1 Crush”; “Push It”; “I Think I'm Paranoid”; “Bleed Like Me”

Gary Numan:
“I Am Dust”; “Sleep by Windows”; “Here in the Black”; “Love Hurt Bleed”; “Remember I Was Vapour”; “Petals”

The Guess Who:
“No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature”; “American Woman”

Harry Nilsson:
“Coconut”

The Hollies:
“Long Cool Woman”

Jace Everett:
“Bad Things”

Jay Price:
“Something Bad”; “Baby Where Are You?”; “Boneshaker”; “I Don't Want You Anyway”; “Number 13”

Jeannie C. Reilly:
“Harper Valley P.T.A.”

Jessica Bates:
“The Hanging Tree”

Johnny Otis:
“Willie & the Hand Jive”

Joy Division:
“Atmosphere”

Julian Cope:
“Charlotte Anne”

The Kills:
“Wait: You Don't Own the Road”; “Future Starts Slow”; “Satellite”; “Dead Road 7”; “Murdermile”

King Black Acid:
“Rolling Under”

Ladytron:
“Black Cat”; “Ghosts”; “I'm Not Scared”

Little Big Town:
“Bones”

Lorde:
“Yellow Flicker Beat”

Low with Tomandandy:
“Half Light”

Mark Lanegan:
“Riot in My House”; “Phantasmagoria Blues”; “Wedding Dress”

Matt Corby:
“Breathe”

Nancy Sinatra:
“These Boots Are Made for Walking”

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:
“Right Red Hand”

OneRepublic:
“Counting Stars”

Orgy:
“Blue Monday”

The Pierces:
“Secret”

PJ Harvey:
“Let England Shake”; “The Words That Maketh Murder”; “In the Dark Places”

Rachel Diggs:
“Hands of Time”

R.E.M.:
“Drive”

The Rolling Stones:
“Gimme Shelter”; “Little Red Rooster”; “19th Nervous Breakdown”; “Lady Jane”

Screaming Trees:
“Where the Twain Shall Meet”; “Dime Western”; “Gospel Plow”

Stealers Wheel:
“Stuck in the Middle with You”

Syntax:
“Pride”

Tamaryn:
“While You're Sleeping, I'm Dreaming”; “Violet's in a Pool”

Three Dog Night:
“Mama Told Me”

Tom Petty:
“Mary Jane's Last Dance”

The Verve:
“Bitter Sweet Symphony”

Voxhaul Broadcast:
“You Are the Wilderness”

Wild Cherry:
“Play That Funky Music”

Zero 7:
“In the Waiting Line”