Mercy for the Fallen (23 page)

I sped up, the closer I came to home.  Eagerness to see Parker again made me bold, and I landed in the backyard, barely pausing to tuck away my wings before I stepped into the kitchen.  It smelled… different in there.  Like spicy sausage – the real deal you cook on the stove, not the microwaveable stuff. 

“Parker?” I called out, moving deeper into the house.  It was a lot messier, but that wasn’t surprising.  Neither one of us had ever been what you’d call neat freaks, but it was usually me who prompted the chores in the household.  “Parker, are you home?”  The clock on the DVR said 10:30 a.m., maybe he was already up and out somewhere? 

“Parker?” I tried again, running up the stairs two at a time only to stop stock still when I caught sight of the bedroom.  The walls had been painted a creamy beige, lighter than the taupe they used to be.  The bed and all the furniture was the same, but the quilt was a cheerful yellow, with tiny white flowers embroidered all over it.  Had Parker really picked that out himself? 

There was a different scent in the room too, so light I couldn’t identify it, but it pricked at the edge of my senses, teasing me.  With a strange tingling sensation growing in the bottom of my stomach, I left it behind to check out Eve’s room.  The toddler bed was converted back into a crib again, the penguin mobile hanging above it.  The dresser drawers held tiny baby clothes instead of Eve’s toddler clothes, and I recognized some of them, like the pink sleeper with the bunny feet.  What the hell was going on? 

My phone was stone cold dead, but I found a charger on Parker’s side of the bed and plugged it in, dialing his cell phone.  It rang three times before an automated voice told me that my account was no longer in service.  Starting to feel uncomfortable, I checked the master closet.  Parker’s clothes hung neatly on his side, but I didn’t recognize a single stitch of clothing hanging on the other. 

Had he moved someone else in while I was gone?  Someone with a baby?

Somehow I got to the bottom of the stairs, stumbling toward the door.  The hallway closet was packed full of jackets and sporting equipment, most of them kid sized.  I had to find Parker and find out what the hell was going on before I lost my mind. 

Eden.  The answer came to me as I left the house.  Not the garden, but the nightclub Parker owned.  If he wasn’t at home, it was a safe bet I’d find him there.  

Only there was no Eden.  Not anymore. 

When I got to the club, an ugly neon sign bearing the name Cheaters glowed above the door.  Cheaters? 
Eewh
.  A liquor truck was backed up to the service entrance, and I slipped in unnoticed, almost getting hit by a pallet jack when I froze just inside the door. 

The club looked completely different inside.  Pink and aqua neon was everywhere, making the place look like a Miami Vice nightmare.  The small round tables and chairs were replaced by black vinyl couches and low, Lucite blocks, lit from beneath.  The only things that looked familiar at all were the dance floor and the bar structure itself.  

Wandering deeper, I made it to Parker’s office – no, not Parker’s – the name on the door said Donnie Cusmano.  Mr. Cusmano was a short, compact, man with a love of Neil Diamond (from the prints on the wall) and a lot of body hair.  As I searched for something, anything, that reminded me of Parker, he signed for the booze and went back to his computer. 

The computer.

I froze Mr. Cusmano, intending to shove him aside and see what I could find out about where Parker was online, but I never got that far.  The date on the lower right hand corner of the screen brought me up short way before I could type in a single keystroke.   It hadn’t been a few weeks or even a few months since I’d left Texas to take Eve up to Ma’on.  It had been five years.

Let me say that again.  Five… fucking… years. 

I stared stupidly at the date long enough for Cusmano to come back to life, and I froze him again without thinking twice about it.  Five years.  Why had nobody told me about this?  Michael especially had to have had some inkling, hadn’t he noticed on his trips back to pick up supplies?  Or maybe it just never occurred to him to mention it?  What did he care if years went by?  It meant nothing to him.

After freezing Cusmano for the third time, I started to emerge from my mental fog, picking up the phone since mine was useless back at home.  Or was it my home anymore?  It sure as hell looked like I’d been replaced.  Dialing one of the few numbers I still remembered by heart, I waited for Daphne to pick up, my toes tapping impatiently inside my shoes as it rang.

“Please, please, please answer the phone…” I murmured, already starting to fear for the worst as she picked up.

“Hello?” Her voice came on the line, tentative, since she probably didn’t recognize the number.

“Daphne!  Thank God you’re there!”  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, sending a sliver of relief through my belly.

“Mercy?  OMG, is that you?” she gasped in shock.  “I can’t believe it!”

I had to see her, I had to find out what else had changed since I’d been gone.  “Please tell me you’re still here in Seattle.”

“Is that where you are?  Holy cow, I can’t believe you’re back!” 

I could picture her pretty face clouding with emotion from the tremor in her voice.  “Yes, I’m… I need to talk to you.  I don’t understand what’s going on any more.”

“Of course, you should definitely come over.  Oh, but you probably don’t have my new address, right?  Where are you?”

“I’m at the club.  Well, not really.  I’m where the club used to be.”

“Do you mean Eden?”

“Yeah.”  Only I could never think of it that way again.

“Hang on, I’ll be right there.”

* * *

I wasn’t sure if the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was because of the nervous wreck I’d worked myself into, or from the fries I’d inhaled back in Australia.  Either way, I was a ball of stress as Daphne rolled up in a car I didn’t recognize, a white Honda Civic with a moon roof and tinted windows. 

“Mercy!”  I’d been about to go for the passenger’s side door, but she threw her door open, jumping out for an excited hug.  I was halfway to squashing her like a bug before I remembered my angelic strength and held back, hugging her carefully, more excited to see her than I could say.  Luckily, words weren’t necessary, when she pulled back, I could see she was even more overwhelmed and excited to see me than I was to see her. 

“I can’t believe you’re here!” she said, blue eyes shiny with unshed tears.  Her hair was cut shorter now, to her shoulder blades, still hanging in perfect blonde ringlets.  “Come on, let’s go back to my place.  I want to hear absolutely everything about where you’ve been!”

Only I wasn’t ready to talk about it, not yet.  Parker had filled her in on Eve’s abduction and my trip to Hell to get her back with Adam, but she had no idea what had happened to me after that.  I supposed I could understand Parker wanting to be tight lipped about it.  Instead, I got her talking about Matty and my mother.  It turned out Matty was still living in Las Vegas with Oriana, working ‘the circuit’ as they liked to call it.  They had a pair of three year old twin boys, Fin and Col, and she had some pictures she could show me in her email. 

Matty a father… I couldn’t get over it.  And Oriana a mother… I wasn’t sure whether I should be excited for them or afraid.  And I’d missed it!  Missed it all.  Daphne chatted on about my mother, something about Oriana threatening to turn her tongue into a snake if she didn’t go home after she’d come to Vegas to “help out” after the twins were born.  After that she wasn’t sure what my mom had been up to. 

When she pulled into an underground parking lot beneath a posh high-rise, I stopped asking questions long enough to pay attention to our surroundings.  While I hadn’t thought she’d be living in the same tiny studio apartment, I hadn’t expected her to pull into such an expensive building either. 

“You live here?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator.  Daphne gave me a secretive grin, tongue peeking out between her teeth as her giddy nature asserted itself, playing it coy. 

The apartment on the top floor (lucky number thirteen if you counted the lobby and the two garage levels) was ultramodern, not how I pictured Daphne living at all.  The kitchen was super sleek with red lacquered cabinets and a stainless steel countertop on the impressive island.  The living room was more eclectic than posh, and that’s where I saw Daphne’s influence. 

A fuzzy purple throw was tucked over the arm of the buttery soft couch, the Hello Kitty pillow I recognized tucked onto a weathered club chair.  Two giant bean bags, one pink the other blue corduroy, sat in front of the flat screen TV, somewhat out of place with the rest of the moneyed opulence, and the TV console was littered with open DVD cases.  And the books… there were books on every available surface.  Some open, some with napkins serving as bookmarks, one even holding a lamp at the right height to read by.

Daphne went right for the open kitchen as soon as we got there, letting me meander around to check the place out while she put the kettle on.  The view from the windows held my attention for a few minutes, savoring the hustle and bustle of real life after staring at little more than trees for so long, until the whistle of the kettle caught my attention. 

“This place is amazing,” I smiled, settling onto one of the barstools.  “What did you do, rob a bank?” 

“
Nothing that dramatic,” she waved the question away without actually answering it.  “Are you hungry?  Wait… I know just the thing!”  The tea was abandoned for chocolate chip cookies and giant mugs, big enough to be soup bowls filled with hot chocolate and topped with a huge scoop of Chocolate Explosion ice cream.  “Do you want any hot fudge?” she asked, licking the tips of her fingers after putting the ice cream away.

“Ah, no thanks, I’m good.  I think we’ve about done it with the death by chocolate here.  For the moment I’ve only got the clothes on my back, I’d rather not split my pants.”

“My sweet tooth is going crazy for a fix, so indulge me.”  She grabbed a bottle of dark chocolate syrup, liberally coating the ice cream/hot chocolate concoction and adding a puddle to the plate of cookies to dunk them in as well.  I stared at her while she stuffed herself with chocolate, wondering how she managed to eat the ice cream before it melted and became lukewarm goo.  Did she eat like this all the time now?  She’d put on a few pounds, but still looked healthy enough. 

I pushed away my cup of cocoa, still half full and so sweet I couldn’t take another sip.  It was time to get some answers now, whether I liked them or not.  “Daphne, I just got back to town and everything is so different,” I began.

“I know, right?  It’s this global warming.  Can you believe it’s the beginning of October already?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” 
In for a penny, in for a pound…
  “What can you tell me about Parker?”

Her jaw dropped.  “You haven’t talked to him?”

“I don’t know where to find him.  I went to the house, it almost looks like someone else lives there.  The club’s gone, where is he?”

“He sold
the club a few years ago.”

“A few years ago…”  She said it so naturally, as if it wasn’t the craziest thing I’d heard all day.  “Why would he sell Eden?  He loved that place.”

Daphne pushed the edge of a cookie around and around in the puddle of chocolate syrup on the plate.  “
After you left… things weren’t so good for him.  I don’t know the whole story because I didn’t see him right away, but when it became pretty clear you weren’t coming back… well, he started drinking.”

“But I was coming back.  I did come back.  I just had no idea it would take so long.  Adam should’ve told him.”

“Adam?” she said, looking up in surprise.  “He never told him anything about where you went.  As far as Parker was concerned, you disappeared and weren’t ever coming back.  That’s why I was so floored to hear from you today.  We all thought you were gone for good.”

Why hadn’t Adam told him where I’d gone?  I knew he couldn’t tell him specifically where, but he should have at least told him something about what I was doing.  And why hadn’t Adam warned me about the time difference?  “Is Parker okay now?  You said he started drinking… was it bad?”

Her gaze dropped away again.  “It was pretty bad there for a while, I’m not going to lie.  When he realized you weren’t coming back…” She held up a hand when I would have interrupted her. “I know you planned to, but you didn’t.  When you didn’t come back, he fell apart for a while, but then he seemed to do better.  The next thing I knew he was off the sauce and putting Eden up for sale.  He said it was time for him to start something new.  Plus, I think it was hard for him to keep working there.  You know, all the booze and memories.”

“So where is he now?”

“He’s still around.  He bought a coffee house a few years ago, and he’s got three of them now.”   

“Then he’s doing better.”

“Oh yes, much better, he’s…”  The light that came into her eyes dimmed as she hesitated.

“What?”

“He’s married now.”

I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.  “Married…” I gasped, not sure the word was recognizable as English, but Daphne understood me well enough. 

“I’m going to do this fast like a Band-aid, okay?” she said, her pretty face scrunched up like something awful was coming.  “He’s married to Luz now.  He adopted her boys and they have a baby girl together, named Parker.”