Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (70 page)

The waiter came with the check and Ty handed him his credit card.

He reached across the table and took my hand.

“I wish I could hang out with you longer,” he said.

I stared at him and for a moment, it was only us. I wondered if that was what it was going to feel like when we were together. That we would be one and everything else would fall away except these feelings fluttering around.

“Me too,” I said. “Next week though I want a real date. Dinner. Movie. The whole kit and caboodle.”

“Wow,” he said. “The whole kit and caboodle. I guess things are getting serious between us.”

He smiled as the waiter came back, breaking our eye contact. Ty signed the receipt.

We walked down the stairs, past the small crowd waiting for seats, and outside. We lingered for another moment in front of the pub and then he kissed me goodbye.

“I love you, Abby,” he whispered as his hand fell on my waist.

Those strong feelings moved fast around me, but again the words stuck hard in my throat. But he wasn’t waiting for a response.

“Okay. I’ll call you on my break. Have a good night.”

“Okay. Bye.”

I watched him walk away.

CHAPTER 5

“Hey Abby,” Kate said. She was pouring hot water into a mug, the tea bag bouncing up and down.

“Hi,” I said.

Her hair was pulled up in a loose bun on top of her head and she was wearing an old T-shirt that was splattered with paint, the one she always wore when she was fixing up the house. 

“There can’t be anything left to paint in here,” I said as I passed by, staring at the stains on the shirt.

“No, the house is done,” she said. “It’s just comfortable.”

I knew it was also Dr. Mortimer’s. She had brought it home back one morning when they were dating. I wondered if she had gotten an email from him. He was still in India, working in a hospital.

“Want some tea? I just opened up a fresh Earl Grey.”

I smiled, not sure if there was such a thing as fresh tea in a box.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I was tired, which meant there was a likely chance of sleeping through the night. I wasn’t taking the sleeping pills anymore and most nights I was okay. It was good to be tired. It helped calm my thoughts. When I had something on my mind, I usually found myself outside staring up at the stars, waiting for dawn.

I took a quick shower and walked back out into the living room with wet hair. It was warm in the house. I found Kate on the sofa, watching one of those crime shows she loved. She was good at solving the cases and usually had it figured out after the first few minutes.

She handed me a cup and we watched the segment. It was about a husband who was suspected of murdering his wife even though no body had been found. They were trying to build the case on blood evidence and testimonials.

Kate muted the TV when it went to a commercial.

“So how was your day?” she asked, folding her legs and turning toward me.

“It was fine. Easy runs, friendly people. And no one fell in.”

It was a lame attempt at a joke, but when I saw Kate’s face fall for a minute I wished I hadn’t said it. She was still uncomfortable about me being a river guide and sometimes I forgot that it was best not to give her too many details about my day.

She sighed, but then forced a smile.

I took a sip of tea. It was just how I liked it, not too strong with a little cream.

“Were you able to get ahold of that guy today?”

She nodded.

“You bet I did. It wasn’t easy. He was avoiding me, so I finally just drove over there and waited outside his office.”

I cringed. Since the bombing, I had a new perspective on reporters.

Kate picked up on my thoughts right away.

“This guy’s a predator, Abby. It’s not at all like your situation. And he’s a public employee. He works for the city. He doesn’t get to hide.”

“So how long did you have to wait for him?”

“About twenty minutes. He was trying to sneak out the back door, but I caught up to him. I threatened to run the story with what I had, which wasn’t going to be flattering. He talked, denying it. So at least I have a few quotes from him now.”

It was nice seeing the old spark back in Kate’s eyes as she talked about her job. Writing stories like this one was what she lived for.

“Excellent,” I said.

Our lives had really gotten back to normal.

The only thing that wasn’t like before was that Dr. Mortimer was still gone. I didn’t know what Kate was going to do. I had the sense she was still waiting, still hoping that he would sort things out and make his way back to her. But it was hard to ignore that he seemed to be building a life for himself in India. And I knew that it must hurt, although she didn’t talk about it much. 

“Is Ty working tonight?”

“Yeah, every night this week,” I said. “I barely see him anymore.”

She laughed.

“Well, except all day on the river. You two seem good together. Happy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We are.”

“That’s great,” she said, smiling.

She unmuted the TV. The agents were off to arrest the husband.

I got up.

“Ouch!” she said. “That’s gotta hurt.”

“It does,” I said, holding my breath until the pain passed. “That’s the one thing I hate about leather sofas. Summer.”

I took the cups into the kitchen.

“Well, it’s late. I think I’ll head to bed,” Kate said when I came back. “Oh, I found an article today on how to buy tickets to the soccer games in Barcelona. I sent you an email.”

I had been saving for my Barcelona trip, and the extra hours I worked all summer were helping me to believe that I was actually going to go. Plus I had a little money that our mom had left me.

“Cool,” I said. “I’ll read it tonight. I hope you can come too, Kate. When was the last time we went on a real vacation?”

“It’s been too long. I might be able to make it happen. We’ll see.”

I said goodnight and stepped out in the backyard, watching the trees and listening to the frogs.

CHAPTER 6

I turned the sign over and pulled down the blinds. I collected the unopened sugar packets that had been left on the counter and put them back in the little ceramic container.

David put down the stack of money he was counting.

“Really, Abby Craig, in my own defense, Paloma Suárez looks a lot different than when she came in here that day. I mean
a lot
different.”

I was long over his temporary bout of amnesia, but I was still giving him a hard time. David had told me where Paloma worked. I had never been to Club 6 before.

“Really?” I said.

“Oh, yeah. At the club she wears a lot more makeup and little outfits with lots of shimmer and sparkle to spare. It’s like Chris Isaak designs her threads. You know, dancers have to look hot.”

“She’s a dancer? I thought she was a bartender.”

David smiled.

“She dances in the cage most of the time, tends bar the rest of the time.”

“The cage?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking up. “Club 6 has this cage that hangs down from the ceiling and people get in it and dance, dance, dance. Eddie likes the girls at the bar to get up in there so the customers will buy more drinks from them.”

“Sounds like quite the place,” I said.

“It is. It’s a little east of seedy, but who doesn’t need that once in a while, right?”

I smiled and shrugged.

He finished counting out the register and then went in the back for a few minutes while I put the last of the canisters away.

“Anyway, we’re all good now,” he said, grabbing his stuff from behind the counter. “I saw her just last night.”

We turned out the lights and walked outside. I stood in the warm air as he locked the front door.

“So, are you helping her or what? I mean, she seems really freaked out still. She told me it’s worse than ever. I guess she’s talking about the ghost bugging her.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to try. I’m meeting her tomorrow morning.”

We walked over to our cars, which were parked close to each other out on the street.

“You going to The Shins tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, sort of,” I said. “We’ll be in a canoe.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Now that sounds like one hot date with Mr. Big Spender,” he said. “What’s the encore? Feeding geese in the park at midnight?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I said.

“Anyway, I’ll be there. We actually bought tickets, so I get to sit on the grass and watch the band and everything. But maybe I’ll go over to the river and search for you guys and say hi. If I can’t find you, just shoot off a flare or something.”

I smiled.

“I’ll be there with some of those friends you met when we went out for your birthday that night.”

“That was fun,” I said. “Your friends are a blast.”

It was a really good night. It was at the beginning of the summer and Ty and I had met up with David for a night of bar hopping to celebrate my 21
^st
birthday.

“I guess we’re kind of lucky that we saw Mo play that night,” David said, standing in the street with the door open. “Now that she’s a big star and everything. Who knows if she’ll even come back to Bend? Maybe it’s straight to Hollywood.”

I unlocked my Jeep.

“Maybe,” I said, thinking Mo would be the last person to go Hollywood.

“Well, good night, Abby Craig.”

“Good night, David Norton.”

As I drove home I thought about Mo and her band. They were really pretty good. The lead singer had this low, sultry voice and it mixed well with the driving rock sound they were putting out. Mo was great on her guitar solos and I could tell that she really loved being up on stage, lost in the riffs. That it was what she was born to do. 

I thought back to her brother. His ghost had helped us stop the school bombing.

“It feels better knowing what really happened to him,” Mo had said to me the day before she left. “You know, I always felt bad about him, how it happened. Like it was my fault. But now that I know the whole story, it doesn’t hurt so much.”

It was a good thing, being at peace, and I was glad that I had helped her.

I turned up my street, thinking that maybe there was someone else I could be helping, too.

CHAPTER 7

There were a few other runners making their way around the college track.

It felt too early to be here. But here I was just the same. It was 7:08. I was sluggish, slower than a snail on gravel, my legs refusing to move any faster as I pushed them to the length of the three miles I had promised myself I’d do.

“Come on,” I said out loud near the finish.

It was only the first day of my new early morning routine. Maybe it would get easier. I couldn’t imagine it getting any harder. I was determined to build my endurance and work on my speed. The new soccer season wasn’t that far away and I was going to be ready this time, no matter how many hours I worked.

By the time I stumbled across the finish line, the sun was above the horizon, hot in my face. Sweat burned my eyes.

I sucked air for the next few minutes, walking for a while and then stretching.

Afterwards I looked around for Paloma Suárez. We had agreed to meet at eight.

“Hey, Abby,” she said, coming up behind me.

I turned and saw bags under her bloodshot eyes, a fast gray energy moving quickly around her.

“So you do this every day?” she said.

“Oh, hi. Well, that’s the plan. We’ll have to see how long I can stand it.”

“You’re a better man than me,” she said. “
Híjole
. I wouldn’t do it, even if they paid me.”

We walked over to a table near the school’s library.

“Are things any better?” I asked, sensing the answer before she spoke.

“No,” she said. “Worse.”

“It’s been my experience that they usually want something. Maybe help. Do you have a feeling about what he might want?”

She let out a long breath and looked at the tall trees surrounding the track.

“Me,” she said finally. “He wants me.”

“Why do you think that?”

"I know that sounds crazy,” she said. “Maybe I’m just being dramatic. I don’t know, maybe it’s all in my head. If nothing else, Abby, I’m hoping you settle that. If it’s just me being crazy or not. Because the people I talk to, that’s what they all think. That I’ve gone off the deep end.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, not sure what that might be.

“Can you just stop by the club and see if you see him? I’ve asked the bouncer, the customers, even the owner. This creepy guy is standing not ten feet away, and I’m the only one who can see him. If you came by, maybe you can tell me what you see.”

“Yeah, I can do that. No problem.”

"Thanks, Abby. I can’t tell you how much that means. You know, I even asked my sister to come in this last weekend. That shows how desperate I am. She doesn’t want me working at the club. I don’t know how many fights we’ve had over it. But she didn’t see him either. She’s a nurse over at the hospital, so her first thought was that I need to see a counselor or something. She thinks I’m mental. And the worst thing is that she might be right.”

I nodded slowly, remembering that feeling, how everyone thought I was a freak after my accident because I said I still saw Jesse. Even though he was dead. And I sure knew how it felt to have a sister who disapproved of my job. Kate had made progress, but she was still uncomfortable with me working on the river. Not that I could blame her. After all, I had drowned.

It didn’t mean that Paloma was really being haunted, but it did make me want to help her.

“So David tells me you’re a dancer?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Oh, so David remembers me now? How lucid of him. Yeah, they hired me as a bartender last year, but when business slowed down in the winter they cut my position. Eddie, the owner, said I could stay on as a cage dancer. At first I thought, no way,
pinche buey
, but with the economy the way it is, I didn’t feel like I could say no. He still lets me mix drinks when we get busy. Plus, it’s not like I’m a stripper or nothing. I’m not wearing much, but my vital organs are covered.”