Demon 04 - Deja Demon (9 page)

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Authors: Julie Kenner

BOOK: Demon 04 - Deja Demon
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And since she taught me how to use e-mail, I’ll have to admit it doesn’t suck.
“Mom! Hello? Quit worrying I’m going to drop it and answer the question. What do you want me to tell Stuart?”
I grimaced, because my daughter was becoming wiser with each passing day. And also because it really was a darn good question. I ran my fingers through my hair, considering even as I pulled my unwashed hair back into a ponytail with an old newspaper rubberband I saw lying on the counter. “Milk run,” I said. It was the best that I could think of.
I grabbed my keys and my purse and headed for the door. I was stepping onto the front porch, my hand on the knob to pull it closed, when Allie pounded into the entrance hall.
“He answered! Just now. No idea why he didn’t call, but he sent an e-mail.”
Relief undulated through me, and I held on to the doorjamb, feeling a mixture of elation and nausea. “What did the message say?”
“He had to go to L.A., but he’ll be back soon and he’ll call you as soon as he can. And he said if you need backup, to call him. And to be safe. And,” she added, with a bright smile, “he said to give me a kiss from him.”
“That part’s easy enough.” I pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. “From your daddy.”
“I’m glad he’s not dead,” she said, so matter-of-factly it made me cringe, as I remembered how common death was in my youth. We mourned, yes. But we never slowed down.
I shook off the melancholy. Allie was a long way from that life. A
very
long way if I had anything to say about it. Which, fortunately, I did.
“What do you think he’s doing in Los Angeles?” she asked, as we moved back into the kitchen.
“No idea,” I said, forcing my voice to sound unconcerned and uninterested. In truth, I was as curious as she was. He’d only come back into town yesterday. Why turn around so quickly and drive all the way down to L.A.? “Now that we know he’s safe, I’m less concerned about his specific whereabouts than I am about a certain MIA demon.”
“No kidding.” She headed for the big picture window, presumably to make sure an army of demons wasn’t about to come crashing through. She lifted her thumb to her mouth and began chewing on her cuticle. “So where do you think it could be?”
“My money’s on Eddie.”
“For what?” Stuart asked, dragging his fingers through his hair as he strode into the kitchen. He hooked his arm around my waist, pulled me close, and planted a kiss on my cheek. I was so distracted I barely noticed.
“Kate?” he repeated, as he released me and headed for the coffee maker. “Your money’s on Eddie for what?”
“I—oh—you know. That he’ll make some colorful joke in front of the kids at the festival next weekend, and all the neighborhood moms will shun me.”
“Ah, is that all?” he said casually. “I thought maybe you were wondering where he hid the body.”
Allie clapped her hand over her mouth in time to muffle a squeak, and I spilled the cup of coffee that Stuart passed to me.
“Ha-ha,” I said, forcing a bit of mirth into my voice. “What a thing to say.”
He grinned, clearly pleased with himself. “You’re all so jumpy I figured murder and mayhem must be involved.”
“Always is,” said Eddie, shuffling into the kitchen and taking the seat across from Timmy, who immediately passed him a Frosted Flake. “So who died?” He looked at me. “That we don’t already know about, I mean.”
“We were just saying that if anyone knew where to hide a body it would be you,” Stuart said, while I glared daggers at Eddie. “Former cop and all.”
“Eh?”
“Your previous profession,” Stuart said, pulling out the story I’d laid on him when I’d first brought Eddie home.
Eddie turned to me, peering at me over half-moon glasses. “He knows about that?”
“That you were a
cop
, Gramps,” I said, as I grabbed the milk from the fridge and moved to fill up the cup of my toddler, who was now pounding his empty cup on the table and shouting repeatedly for “Mommy, milk! Mommy, milk!”
“A cop,” he said with a snort. “I’ve watched those reality shows. They think they go after some bad characters? They ain’t seen nothing ’til they’ve been trapped in a mausoleum with fifteen—”
“Waffles?” Allie blurted, holding up a box of Eggos she’d yanked from the freezer. I considered kissing her on the spot, then decided to take the more subtle approach and raise her allowance, applying it retroactively, all the way back to infancy.
“My head is swimming,” said Stuart, shooting one final glance toward Eddie, and then shaking his head as if he’d just set aside a Sudoku puzzle that he was never going to work through. “So what fabulous plans do you have for this beautiful Saturday while I’m stuck in my office and Allie is under house arrest?”
He shot Allie a stern look as he spoke, and she held up her hands, each holding a waffle. “I didn’t forget. Honest.”
“Laura and Mindy are coming over, and the four of us girls are stuffing Easter eggs,” I said, as Timmy dumped the dregs of his Frosted Flakes on the floor. “And cleaning.”
“Great,” Allie muttered behind me. “Grounded I can handle. Cleaning
and
grounded? Not so much.”
“What’d the kid do?” Eddie asked. “Sneak out and get herself caught up in the middle of some bad-ass rumble?”
“What?” I said. “No. Of course not.” Not exactly, anyway.
Eddie snorted. “Just thought. What with the scrape and all.”
Stuart and I turned in unison to Allie, who automatically raised her hand to brush at her bangs. For the first time, I noticed the angry, red abrasion near her hairline.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Doesn’t hurt at all.”
“I think we should clean the bathrooms before Laura gets here,” I said brightly, before Stuart decided to ask me if I’d bodily wrestled my child to the ground as punishment for her supposed sneaking out. “You could join us, honey. I’m sure Clark understands the need for a candidate to have a sweet-smelling toilet.”
“It’s a nice offer,” he said. “But I’ll pass.”
Of course I’d figured as much, but at least I’d distracted him away from Allie’s face.
“Coffee for the road?” I asked, pulling his travel mug out of the cabinet. Not that I was trying to get rid of him or anything.
“Thanks,” he said, then went over to get big, sloppy wet kisses from Timmy, our son’s favorite kind. I poured coffee to the sound of slurpy kisses, then planted one of my own on Stuart’s cheek as he came back to take the mug from me. At least, I tried to. He turned his head just in time, and ended up planting a knee-weakening kiss on me.
I swooned a little, and I’m pretty sure I moaned. What can I say? It’s not every morning I’m greeted so enthusiastically.
“Um, hello?” Allie said. “There are children present.”
I pulled away, and turned to her with what I’m sure was a googly-eyed smile. “You’re right. We’ll take this into the living room.”
I grabbed Stuart’s mug and walked him to the door, our arms intertwined. “I’d say I had a lovely night last night,” he said. “Except that last night was this morning.”
“You can say it anyway,” I said, pressing the mug into his hand and reaching up to straighten his tie. “On a Saturday, no less. Before you became a man of the people, you used to go into the office in a faded Polo shirt.”
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he said, making me smile. “Actually,” he continued, “about that going-into-the-office thing. Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t heading straight out the door this morning?”
“You were serious?” I asked, feigning shock. “I assumed that was sweet talk to get me into bed.”
“A little bit of that,” Stuart confessed. “And a lot more truth.”
“Oh,” I said, and stopped moving slowly toward the doorway. “That’s great.”
Don’t get me wrong—I love the idea of having Stuart around more, especially on the weekends. But with a missing demon, I have to say he picked a crappy day to start playing the family man.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, taking my hand and tugging me back into the living room. “From the look on your face, I was beginning to think you were trying to get rid of me.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, managing to quash the nervous giggle that bubbled in my throat. “So, um, what exactly did you have in mind? In case you haven’t noticed, the entire household is awake.”
“Nothing that would trouble the natives,” he said. “I only thought we could leave Allie to the slave labor, and you and I could sneak off for a bit. A quick drive, and then a movie. What do you say?”
What I wanted to say was that I was utterly flabbergasted. Stuart hadn’t suggested a Saturday afternoon sneak-away since—well, not since he’d decided to run for office. “Photo op?” I queried. “Chance to show yourself as a man of the people? Random poll at the theater door?”
As soon as I said it, I wished I could take the words back. A flash of hurt crossed his face, quickly replaced by a pathetic smile. “I guess pretty much everything I suggest these days ties back to the campaign, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Stuart. I was only teasing. It’s not—”
“But it is,” he said.
I took his hands and looked into his eyes. “No,” I said firmly. “It’s not. I understand. You have a campaign to run. You’ve invested a lot of time and energy into this campaign, and you need to do everything to make it pay off. You’ll make a great county attorney, and I don’t resent the time away. Really.” I crossed my heart. “I swear.”
“All right,” he said, and this time the smile seemed genuine. “But my offer still stands. I can carve out two hours to hold hands with my wife in a dark theater. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve even got a little ulterior motive going, too.”
I cocked my head, trying unsuccessfully to read his mind. “More ulterior than a dark movie theater and all the possibilities that lie therein?”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “But I want to show you a house.” He held up a hand before I could protest. “I know we’re just thinking about it, but Bernie saw it come on the market, and he thought I might be interested.”
Before Stuart went to work for the county attorney’s office, he did real estate law exclusively, having put himself through law school by working part time as a real estate agent. Bernie was an investor he’d known for years, and he’d made a killing buying, fixing, and reselling houses in the older section of town. Lately, Bernie had been making noises about going into business with Stuart, and my husband had allowed himself to be bitten by the house-flipping bug.
Honestly, considering that San Diablo was becoming quite the haven for refugees from Los Angeles, the idea wasn’t a bad one. And because Stuart knew that, the infection was spreading at a rapid pace.
“Don’t you think you have enough on your plate?” I asked. “For that matter, are you allowed to do that kind of stuff and still be county attorney?”
“Don’t worry about that, Kate. Legal training, remember? I’ve read all the rules and regs.”
“It’s an awfully big commitment,” I said, thinking of the limited nest egg we had squirreled away. I had additional money, too—primarily my minuscule
Forza
salary—but Stuart didn’t know about those resources, and I’d already decided to save that money exclusively for the kids’ educations.
He took my hands. “It’s an investment. And it’s something we can do together.”
I laughed. “Because I’m so good at laying tile.”
He didn’t laugh. “You’re good at whatever you put your mind to. And the idea of working side by side with you . . .” He trailed off with a shrug. “I think we’d have fun.”
“We probably would,” I said, starting to feel bad about being so negative.
“So you’ll look at it with me?”
“Okay,” I conceded. “Set up a time.”
“How about we go now? Then the movie?”
For a moment, I seriously considered that option. It had been months since I’d been to a movie, and the idea of sitting close and sharing a bucket of popcorn was appealing beyond all reason.
Then, of course, reality crashed down around me. Missing body. Squirming extraneous limbs. Sword of Caelum. Grounded Hunter-in-training. Hyperactive toddler.
Things to do, demons to kill. The usual Saturday morning rundown.
“Now won’t work,” I said, careening down a slippery slope of lies. “I already told Allie that we were going to be having a little talk this morning before Laura and Mindy get here. About boys and responsibility, the whole nine yards. Considering what happened last night, I don’t know that we want that to wait. Do you?”
He immediately shook his head, looking so totally with that program that I had to plant my feet and smile through a tidal wave of guilt.
“How about this,” he suggested. “The house now. Dinner and a movie later. I’d really like for you to see it during the day, and I’m booked solid tomorrow unless we can squeeze it in before mass.”
I made a face. “Now you’re not negotiating fairly.” With two kids and a husband to get out the door on Sunday mornings, I considered myself lucky if we all managed to get to mass wearing something more appropriate than our pajamas.

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