The Turning Season (14 page)

“Well, maybe next week she'll let him stay for ice cream.”

“Not sure he wants to,” Joe answers. “He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who just hangs out. Some kids, you know, they have no interest in talking to adults—they just want to be with their peers. Other kids seem kind of awkward with boys and girls their own age. They want to be with the grown-ups having grown-up conversations. But Alonzo didn't really seem comfortable with kids or adults. He didn't seem to hate being there, but he didn't—he didn't seem like he was going to fit in anytime soon.”

I sigh. “Yeah. I'm not sure where Alonzo is ever going to feel like he belongs.”

I don't have to elaborate, because this is the moment the waitress chooses to bring over our meals, so we lose the next few minutes to rearranging plates and pushing glasses out of the way and taking our first bites of the food. The beef stew is delicious, and Joe's hamburger and fries smell just as good.

“I love this place,” I say. “I'm never eating anywhere else.”

“Fine by me.”

I take another bite. “Though I'm not sure I can convince Celeste to come here very often,” I add.

“Celeste—” he says, like he's trying to remember who she is.

“My best friend.” I glance at him. “The one who had the little incident with Bobby Foucault at Arabesque.”

“Oh, right. The one who turns into a mountain lion.”

Again, I almost choke. I'm tempted to correct him—
bobcat, not mountain lion
—but, of course, I don't. Instead I swallow hastily and answer, “Exactly! She prefers establishments that are a little more upscale.”

“As any wild animal would.”

Now I'm laughing. “Do you think so? Wouldn't they be more comfortable at more casual venues? Picnics, hot dogs from food trucks, that sort of thing?”

He's grinning. “I never gave it any thought. I suppose so. We'll have to ask her.”

I try to imagine that conversation and decide I can never introduce the two of them. There's no telling what kind of answer Celeste would give to that question. “Well, I'm not sure this is her kind of place. But
I'm
coming back here sometime.”

“Next week, maybe?” he says easily. “We can meet for dinner again.”

A glissando of pleasure tingles up my spine. “That would be fun,” I say.

“We might even make it a habit.”

Before I can respond to that, one of the other patrons stops by our table on his way out of the pub. The friends he's with pause at the door, talking among themselves as they wait for him.

I'm not thrilled to recognize Sheriff Wilkerson, looking every inch the benign Andy-of-Mayberry-style representative of the law. The skin crinkles around his blue eyes as he offers me a warm smile. “Well, hello there, Miss Karadel,” he says in that soft Southern drawl. “Good to see you back in town for the evening.”

“Good to see you, too, Sheriff,” I say, my voice as friendly as I can manage.

He jerks his thumb in Joe's direction. “What are you doing hanging around with questionable characters like this fellow? Don't you know he's nothing but trouble?”

He says it in such an exaggerated way that I'm pretty sure he's joking, and the amusement on Joe's face makes me think I'm right. I assume an anxious expression.

“Oh no, I scarcely know him,” I answer. “Tell me, quick! What's so terrible about him?”

“I had him watch my dogs for me one week when I was out of town, and when I got back, they wouldn't give me the time of day. Just sat at the door all night, whimpering and pining away, hoping Joe would come back. He alienated their affection, that's what he did.”

“That
is
pretty bad,” I reply.

“And then, when I tried to convince him to sign on as a deputy, he turned me down! What kind of man doesn't want to protect and serve? 'Specially a big man with an excellent understanding of firearms.” He shakes his head. “I have to figure he's up to no good. I just don't know what it is yet.”

I cut my eyes over at Joe. Sheriff Wilkerson tried to hire him, and Joe turned him down? It reinforces my belief that Joe's one of the good guys—albeit a somewhat lost and uncertain good guy.

“He does sound suspicious,” I say. “I'll see what I can find out.”

“Would you do that for me? And then report anything you've learned.”

“I will.”

“Good girl.” He actually pats me on the shoulder as he turns to go. But I'm not surprised that, one step from the table, he turns back. “Have you heard from Miss Janet lately?” he asks.

“Not this week.”

“Well, next time you do, you be sure and tell her I said hi.”

“I'll do that.”

This time he does depart, and a
whoosh
of street air comes wafting through the door as he and his friends exit.

“You refused a job as deputy?” I say the minute the door is closed again.

Joe shrugs. “I'd just quit the police force a couple months before that. I didn't think I was ready for the same kind of job, just in a different place.” He glances around the pub. “Though Quinville isn't much like Joliet.”

“Probably more about rescuing stray kittens and less about solving homicides.”

“Still gotta be ready to deal with the homicides,” he says quietly. “And I'm not sure I am.”

“Well, I can't say I blame you for that,” I say on a long sigh.

“And we're back to dreary topics,” Joe replies. “Come on. Let's think of happier stuff to talk about.”

“Dessert might be a happier topic,” I suggest.

“Yes. Dessert. We need that.”

We wave the waitress over and she reels off the selections. We go from thinking we'll split one to agreeing we each want our own to wondering if we might get
three
and share them all.

“You're going to be bad for me, I can tell,” Joe says as soon as the waitress departs. “You heard Wilkerson call me a ‘big man,' right?” He glances down at his stomach. “I keep eating three desserts every night, I'll be a
huge
man.”

When I throw my head back and laugh, the pain is so sudden and so intense that for a second I think I've cracked my skull against the back of the bench. It's so overwhelming that I'm disoriented for a moment—I can't figure out what's happening or why.

Then the nausea slams like a fist into my stomach and I think I might throw up right at the table. “Oh my God,” I say, and I can hear the stark terror in my voice.

Joe's instantly concerned. “Karadel? What's wrong?”

I put both palms up to my face so I can support my head, which is shrieking with agony, but then I don't have a hand free to cover my mouth in case I start vomiting. “Joe. I'm going to be sick. Really sick. I have to leave right now.”

He's digging into his pocket with one hand and wildly waving at our waitress with the other. “Do you think you got food poisoning? Were you allergic to something?”

I think I'm about to change shapes. Sooner than I expected and much faster than I usually do, and holy God, my head might explode before I transform.
“No—it's a migraine—I get them all the time, but they're usually not this sudden.” My voice comes out almost as a gasp.

The waitress has jogged up to the table, and Joe throws a few twenties at her. “Cancel the dessert. My friend's sick, and we've got to leave.”

“I'll be right back with your change.”

“Keep it,” Joe says, pushing himself out of the booth. “I have to get her home.”

Solicitous as an undertaker, he bends over me and eases me out of my seat. “I'm not sure I can make it home,” I say shakily. “I might just drive to Bonnie's.”

“You're not driving anywhere,” he says flatly. “I'll take you wherever you want. There's an urgent care center just down the street—or the hospital, if you'd rather—”

God, no. The last thing I need is to be in a public facility. My head is pounding so hard I can't think straight, and my one clear thought is that I have to get out of sight as quickly as possible. “I just want to get to Bonnie's,” I say.

He's ushering me out the door, where the fresh air makes me momentarily feel better. But as soon as I take a deep, hopeful breath, the nausea roils more violently in my stomach. “God,” I say.

He has one arm around my waist, the other holding on to my elbow, and he's urging me toward his truck, parked across the street. I resist as best I can. “I really think I can drive myself,” I say, though I am not positive this is true.

“Well, you're not going to,” he answers. I don't have the strength to pull away from him and head to my own car, so I just give in. He practically lifts me onto the seat and actually fastens the seat belt around me. I lean my aching head against the headrest and pray I can hold on for another ten or fifteen minutes.

“Where to?” he says as he climbs in next to me.

“Take 159 to Mannheim. Right on Mannheim, left on Poplar,” I whisper. “They live just off Poplar.”

“Are you
sure
you don't want to go to the hospital?” he asks as he pulls away.

“I'm begging you. No hospital.”

I close my eyes, hoping the motion of the car doesn't upset my stomach even more, and try to gauge from distance and the turns he makes when we've arrived at Poplar. I guess right—he's just swinging through the intersection when I look at my surroundings again.

“Three blocks down. Little street called Blossom. Turn left. They're the third house on the left. Blue shutters,” I croak out, then I close my eyes again.

Only as I feel him turn into the driveway does it occur to me to wonder if anybody's home. I have a key to their place, but Joe seems worried enough about me that I'm not sure he'd be willing to leave me alone. An attitude I would find sweet if it wasn't, in this situation, highly inconvenient.

But I open my eyes again as he cuts the ignition, and I can see lights on in various windows in the two-story brick house. It's almost full dark, so the rose garden and the porch swing and the small fountain are practically invisible, but even so the house manages to project an air of hospitality.

He's out of the truck before I've taken a breath to thank him, so I wait for him to come around to my door and help me climb out. Impossible as I would have thought it, my head hurts even more, and I briefly entertain the idea that I have an aneurysm, something even more deadly than my usual malady. Even with Joe's help, it's hard to stand upright, hard to navigate the three concrete steps that lead to the wide porch. The button for the doorbell is tricky to find, as it's usually hidden behind a curtain of ivy, and Joe doesn't bother hunting. He just pounds furiously at the door with his left hand while supporting me with his right arm. I can't hold my head up, so I'm resting it against his shoulder.

Alonzo opens the door, takes one look at me, and calls “Bonnie!” even as he pushes the door wider so I can come in. Joe helps me over the threshold and then stands there while I sway against him, not sure where he should escort me next. We've stepped just inside the living room, an elegant place of antique furniture and muted pale-winter hues. If I could speak and gesture, I'd point Joe's attention to the Cooper Blair original on the wall. But at the moment, all I can think is how bright the room is, how pulsing with color. I stand mute, ready to crumple to the floor. I think all that's holding me up is Joe's arm around my waist.

Bonnie bustles into the room, drying her hands on a kitchen towel. “For heaven's sake, Alonzo, what—oh.”

The minute I hear her voice, I know I'll be all right.

“We were out to dinner,” Joe says. “And suddenly—she says she got a migraine—she says she doesn't want to go to the doctor. But I don't know, she's acting so funny—”

“No, no, this is fairly common for Karadel,” Bonnie says briskly. “Alonzo, take her to the guest room. Right now. Bring her some water and—well, you know what to do.”

It might be my fevered imagination that Joe releases me with some reluctance into Alonzo's hands. But Alonzo's arm around my waist is as steady as Joe's, and he leads me with infinite care out of the room and down the shadowed hallway. I catch echoes of the conversation between Joe and Bonnie. I think he's explaining again that I just suddenly got sick, and she's assuring him that I'll be all right, that this has happened to me before, that she will take care of me. I hear something about my car and I think Bonnie is promising him she'll fetch it from in front of Paddy-Mac's.

I don't know. Their words are muffled by our distance from the front door and the escalating throb of blood in my head. Without warning, I drop to the floor, right there in the hallway, curling in on myself, clutching my head, biting my lips to hold back the moans. It feels like a saw blade is ripping down my spine—it feels like a tourniquet has been knotted around my lungs. My fingers splay and contract; my hips pop apart and recombine. I lift my head to howl—

And then everything is fine.

Pain gone. Body light. Bones aligned and muscles perfectly balanced. I blink once and look around.

I'm low to the ground and flooded with sensory input, sounds and scents particularly sharp. I extend my right front leg and am not surprised to see it covered in fluffy orange fur. Apparently, my new hybrid serum is still allowing me to turn into a cat, like Isabel—but the addition of Baxter's blood has had some unexpected and unpleasant side effects. I might need to rethink my formulas.

But I can't force my mind to stay on that subject. I'm distracted by a noise in the other room—the sound of the door shutting—and by the rich smells drifting down the hallway. Fish and bread and cheese, among other inviting scents. Bonnie must have been in the middle of making dinner.