Night Shift (30 page)

“What do you think you saw?” Fiji said, and took a step around Kiki. “Go home, Kiki, and don’t come back.”

She walked over to her house, finally locating Mr. Snuggly. He was sitting on the little wall around the porch next to a planter, and he looked proud—which meant he looked like all cats. But he nodded to her in a congratulatory way, and then set about cleaning his paws.

For a moment, Fiji hesitated at the door, looking back. She could see a shadow surrounding the cat, a shadow that didn’t match the domestic shorthair feline outline at all.

But Fiji had opened the door an inch, and she could hear the water of the shower running. She could imagine the warmth of the water and the clean smell of her soap and she knew Bobo was waiting for her to join him. She hoped Lemuel had healed his leg. If not, there was bandaging to do. She even looked forward to that. Fiji stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

T
he next morning, Fiji woke feeling like a new woman. The crisis was over. The demon was imprisoned. Bobo was asleep beside her. She had saved the world! She had had sex! Bobo loved her!

She tried to track down the essential difference she felt in herself. She was still Fiji, still the least important person in a contentious family, still a witch in a society that did not like witches, still round as a honeydew in a nation that revered stiltlike women.

But now,
she thought,
I am powerful.
It was a fact. Her feeling that she was transforming had begun before last night—in fact, when she had frozen the gunmen the day of the assault on Olivia. The day she had killed McGuire. Arthur Smith would never stop asking questions about that day, and she would never be held responsible for any of it. She knew that. And despite the fact that everyone was always talking about how nice she was, she didn’t feel guilty for having killed Ellery McGuire. It had been the only way to prevent the deaths of people she knew—people who were in her care.

She wondered if Sylvester Ravenwing would stay, and she rather hoped he would. She wondered if Olivia would decide to become a vampire. She wondered if Joe and Chuy would ever be able to re-attain heaven. And what would Teacher and Madonna do, now that Olivia’s father might come talk to Olivia directly? There was no need to protect her from Ellery McGuire any longer, Fiji figured.

It felt good to have a future in which to contemplate all these things.

She felt a little movement beside her and knew Bobo was awake.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said. Another thing she knew was that he meant it.

Joe and Chuy had gotten up at their usual time, but instead of Joe going for his run and Chuy preparing breakfast, they’d jumped in their car and driven to the kennel where Rasta had been boarded. The Peke was bathed and groomed and ecstatic to see his people. Everyone who worked at the kennel agreed that if all gay people were as nice and modest and normal as Chuy Villegas and Joe Strong, they wouldn’t mind having them around.

Joe and Chuy drove back to Midnight. “If we can’t ever go back home,” Joe said, “at least we have a dog.”

“‘God’ spelled backward,” Chuy said. It was an old joke, but they always enjoyed it.

Joe gave a silent sigh. Sensing the near-emergence of the demon had activated a hunger in him, a deep need he had suppressed for decades. He had wanted to fly, to defend heaven.

But they had promised each other not to fly, and he was shackled to Midnight.

“So you got to see Fiji buck naked,” Madonna said, apropos of nothing, to her husband.

“Me and everyone else in town,” Teacher said cautiously. “How’d that make you feel?”

He’d been folding laundry, and he kept on folding, though he also felt her eyes on him. “Sorry for her,” he said promptly. “She didn’t want to do that, and she’s no kind of exhibitionist.”

“You didn’t think you’d like to get a piece?”

“Madonna!” He was genuinely shocked. “You know I haven’t touched another woman since we’ve been married.”

“Uh-huh. But I also know you like women with curves, and that Fiji has got ’em. And they’re not as jiggly as mine.”

Teacher said, “Fiji has got nothing that you haven’t got, and I love you.”

Which was absolutely the right answer, if it wasn’t exactly accurate on all counts.

Later, Madonna said, “You think Mr. Wicklow will keep us here? Let us stay?”

“Now that McGuire is dead? Well, I hope so. I like it here, to tell the truth. You?”

“I’d like to try to make the restaurant a real concern,” Madonna said. “I’ve been kind of playing at it, because I knew he’d keep us solvent, no matter what. But if we really work, advertise, and get us a hook—maybe we’ll have the best pie in Texas, or something— maybe we can really make some money. Grady can have a car in high school.” Madonna had always envied the teens in her area who could afford that luxury. That was her idea of the best you could hope for.

“He could learn the value of work that way,” Teacher said. He tried not to sound excited.

“We wouldn’t be beholden to anyone,” Madonna said. “Of course, we also wouldn’t have a pension plan or health insurance.”

“Let’s see what the man says.” Teacher said. “Might be he has a plan we’d love.”

“Might be,” Madonna said. She was already thinking of new things she’d like to put on the menu.

Buying the house next to Fiji’s had been the quickest real estate transaction in the history of home sales. The sole heir had been delighted to get thirty thousand for a property he hadn’t thought about in ten years. Today, Quinn and Diederik started work on their new home. Quinn had some carpentry knowledge, and he enjoyed teaching his son what he knew.

“Marina broke up with me,” Diederik said suddenly, just as he’d finished prying up the old tile in the bathroom. “By text.”

“How do you feel about that?” Quinn continued on his way to the front door, where he tossed the old kitchen cabinet into a rented Dumpster.

“I liked Marina,” Diederik said. “But I liked having sex with her more than I liked her, I think.”

“Let me give you some advice. You may think that, but never, ever, say it out loud to a woman.”

“Why not?”

“That’s what every woman fears. Every woman wants to be liked because of who she is, her personality, not because she makes her sex organs available.”

“So I should pretend?”

That was a puzzler. Quinn thought about it. Finally he said, “The perfect answer? Never to have sex with someone you don’t genuinely like enough to hang around with.”

“How’m I going to do that?”

“We’re going to have a lot of conversations about this,” Quinn predicted, and he was right.

Though he didn’t share his disappointment with Diederik, Quinn had hoped that Fiji would choose him the night before, that it would be him curled up beside her in her bed next door on this chilly morning.

But Quinn looked at his son and he realized that if he’d had so much luck already, maybe he would have some more.

The Rev knelt in his chapel and prayed. There was always something to pray about, and the God of animals and humans was ready to listen. At least this time, the Rev could thank God for a long list of things. He was especially grateful that Kiki Cavanaugh had recovered from her spasm of madness enough to drive away all by herself, late the night before. He would be even more grateful, he confessed to God, if he never saw the woman again.

Lenore Whitefield had woken at four a.m. She could not have said exactly what had happened the evening before. She and the people in the hotel had stayed in all evening, not even approaching the windows, and had had a pleasant Halloween celebration playing games and eating candy.

But Lenore had been mighty irritated with Harvey because he hadn’t shown up. She figured he’d gone to a bar to binge-drink, something he did from time to time. He’d always come home before, but now the other half of the double bed was cold. Lenore rose and wrapped a fuzzy bathrobe around herself, made some coffee in the large kitchen. While it was perking she looked out at the little parking area for the staff, and she saw that Harvey’s truck was still there. Lenore found that somewhat reassuring. After she’d had her coffee and gotten dressed, she began searching the hotel. Harvey was nowhere to be found, though she discovered a rumpled bed in one of the unoccupied rooms. There was an empty bottle and the television was on to the Game Show channel, all signs that Harvey had hidden in there to drink. Her worry congealed into a lump in her throat.

Next, Lenore called Harvey’s cell phone and listened to it ring. She tracked the sound back to the room he’d used, where she found it under the edge of the bedspread.

This had never happened before. If his truck was here, Harvey was here. If Harvey was gone, the truck was gone. But he always answered his phone, and he always came home.

By the time the sheriff knocked on the back door, Lenore had admitted to herself that she was pretty sure Harvey was dead. She was sad. And she felt free.

Olivia woke suddenly, aware that she was still in bed with Lemuel, that he was cold and dead for the day. The previous evening had exhausted her, though she spared a smile and a moment to wonder how exhausted Fiji might be after spending the night with Bobo. They’d gotten off to a good start, if Olivia knew anything about sex at all, and she believed she did.

Her phone rang, and her hand shot out to pick it up before the sound could disturb Lemuel. It was a silly reflex. Ringing would not disturb Lemuel in the slightest. “Hello?” she said, in a normal voice.

“Melanie,” said a man’s voice.

“No, this is Olivia,” she said calmly. “You have the wrong number.”

“Don’t hang up, it’s your father,” he said.

She froze. It had been years since she’d heard his voice. And she hadn’t recognized it because it had changed so much.

“All right,” she said, unable to settle on one feeling.

“I’m so sorry, Melanie,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what, specifically?”

“For leaving your care to your stepmother.”

“You finally admit I told you the truth?”

“I do.”

“Hmph.” Olivia pulled the covers up until only her hand holding the telephone and her head remained uncovered. She wriggled closer to Lemuel, which was only a comfort emotionally.

“I just didn’t want to see it or believe it,” Nicholas Wicklow went on, when she didn’t speak. “I told myself that she needed the company of her younger friends, and that it was nice she was paying so much attention to you. It never occurred to me that she was abusing you in such a terrible, terrible, way.”

“Even when I told you so. Even when my brother told you so.”

“Even then. Melanie, did you . . . was her death really an accident?”

“You’re not famous for actually wanting to hear the truth, Dad.”

And Olivia hung up.

She wasn’t sure what she would do the next time he called. But there would be a next time.

Maybe she wouldn’t hang up then.

Manfred Bernardo was taking Stell to lunch. She did not have to go into work tonight, she’d aced her last test, and she was in a good mood. They drove over to Marthasville with comfortable moments of silence and pleasant conversation when they thought of something to say. Despite the fact that he’d been up late the night before, or maybe for that very reason, he was delighted with the bright cold day and the smooth, clean lines of Stell’s face. He admired her red sweater and jeans and boots. He was learning more about her on every date. More importantly, all he was learning was good.

Manfred liked women who could, and expected to, make their own ways in the world. Both his grandmother and his mother had proved themselves capable of that. Manfred also liked women who didn’t judge, and Stell didn’t seem to have an issue with Manfred’s occupation. She asked questions as she would about any unfamiliar job.

He’d offered a choice of an upscale Mexican restaurant or the best Italian place in the area, and Stell had picked the Italian place. Manfred had only been there once, but the service and food had been good, so he was hoping that would prove to be the case that day. A large party went in right before them, but for once Manfred wasn’t irritated about that. It would give him longer to talk to Stell.

Their conversation covered the agonies of high school, the thrill of graduating and heading out into the world, Manfred’s one year of ju-co while he tried to figure out how to make his psychic talent pay for him, Stell’s ongoing education and how many years she had left. He asked her what kind of work she wanted to do when she got her degree.

“I would be glad to work in a hospital for a few years,” she said, and Manfred could tell she’d thought about it. “But eventually, I think I’d like to work in a doctor’s office. Less pay, but regular hours, and closed on weekends.”

“You’ve got a plan.”

“Yeah, you bet I do. My dad is on a yard crew for a landscaper, and my mom cleans houses. They’re great people, but I don’t want that for me. I have some ambition.”

“I like that,” Manfred said. He looked at her sitting across the table, and realized he knew so much about her. Her head and soul were telling him things about Stell that her mouth would not speak on such short acquaintance. “I like that a lot,” he added, with emphasis.