Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) (12 page)

I think about hurting him. I think about the aikido I’ve learned and know I could hurt him, but I don’t. I won’t stoop to his level.

Frustrated I storm out of the house and go back to my car. If they don’t want help I can’t force it on them. And maybe Jesse will be better off without us getting involved in anything else. What I really wanted to confirm here was that there would be no repercussions for Jesse’s theft. No authorities. But it seems Gerard wants to keep it as much a secret as Jesse does. This is a relief and a lucky strike for Brinkley, who’s next in line to get a piece of my mind.

I don’t even make it to my car before the sound of Regina’s heels click after me down the driveway. I turn to see her clutching the cardigan.

“Wait, wait,” she pleads. Her bone-thin hands clutch mine. “Please help us. You must know people, doing the kind of work you do.”

“Your husband doesn’t want my help,” I say.

“I do,” she says in her thick drawl. Her grip tightens and her red-rimmed eyes clamp on mine. “
I
do.”

And here it is. My choice. Do I help her? I can’t find anything out on my own. I simply don’t have enough information or even access to information. I could ask Jesse directly, but I want her out of danger, not in it. And anything with Caldwell is bad news. I can’t ask Gloria because she is overworked and I don’t have contact information for Brinkley.

That leaves Jeremiah and Nikki.

“I know someone,” I say and pull my hands free of hers. “But I don’t know if he can help you.”

“Thank you,” she says. Tears well in the corners of her eyes and it’s almost too much for me to bear. “Thank you so much, Alice. Please call me the moment you hear something. Day or night.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say, chest burning. I failed to save the little girl last time.

Jesse

A
s soon as I stiffly climb the stairs to my bedroom and push open the door, I find another small yellow and orange suction dart stuck to the window. I wiggle the bugger free and unfold the message.

Diner at midnight.

Midnight is only 3 hours away. I think about sleeping but change my mind. My bed seems impossibly large and cold without a cuddle partner. And it isn’t like I have someone to call. Ally’s jumped ship and Lane is probably still mad at me.

And my house is too damn quiet. I keep going into rooms and hitting light switches only to have nothing happen. I should have told Ally about this electrical problem before she took a vacation. Maybe I can get Lane to do it. And the window. I can’t forget about the window. What good is a lock with a big damn hole by my door? I should also consider an alarm.

But I’ll think about all that later, after I talk to Lane.

My downtown office isn’t that exciting. There’s a parking lot in the back, connected to Broadway by a short, narrow alley. I park in the lot, then walk around to the storefront of Full Bleed, Lane’s comic book store. It’s how we met actually. He owns the building and I rent one of the offices. Brinkley chose the location, so it isn’t like I chose my office space for the hottie landlord.

Though it is totally something I would do.

I find Lane standing by a glass case talking action figures with a kid that’s probably sixteen years old. The kid wears black jeans and wide shoes matching the red skateboard leaning against his thigh. The kid points at something in the case and gestures wildly. I know this for the geekspeak it is and don’t interrupt.

The place is tidy and well-lit. Lane takes good care of it. Some comic book stores feel cluttered and dark to me, like a mother’s basement inhabited by a troll. But Lane’s store feels like what it is, a store. The center tables have comic books alphabetized like CDs and you can flip through each of the plastic-coated volumes. In the glass case, the cash register sits on is where the role-playing dice, collectables and anything Lane is nervous about getting stolen are kept. Along the walls are other action figures and paraphernalia for this or that series or show. In the corner, are two kids playing the newest version of
Call of Duty: Ghosts
.

That is the extent of Lane’s generosity, the option to preview most games before purchasing them.

After the skater leaves without buying anything, I approach Lane.

“Hey.” I think this is an acceptable greeting. Obviously not.

“I’m
working.” His snotty tone is hard to overlook. Because Lane is usually incredibly sweet, it makes his tantrums more obvious.

“O-
kay
.” I know waiting it out will just cause a bigger fight later. “What did I do?”

Lane plops onto the high stool behind the cabinet. “Nothing. You just did
your
job. I’m doing
my
job. Everything is fine.”

At least it’s something to go on. “So you’re mad about Jones.”

“You saved a man’s life,” Lane says, but his jaw is working on an invisible strap of leather.

“Yet here we are,” I tell him.

“I’m not mad,” he spits.

“Oh really?” I ask. I touch my forehead with my index finger. “That’s not what this vein in your forehead here says.”

“Just drop it, okay? You don’t understand.”

I shift my weight, leaning against the counter to try and alleviate the pain in my hip. Freaking rigor mortis.

“I get it. You didn’t complete the replacement. You’re disappointed and you hate that your license will be postponed. But you will get it, I promise.”

“You’ve replaced 100 people—”

“84,” I correct. “Jones was 84.”

“
84
,” Lane hisses, venomous. “None of them died.”

“And you’ve only replaced like 8 or 9,” I say.

“11,” he counters.

“I lost Nessa to the same man who’d stabbed you,” I say. “And I almost lost
you
.”

He gives me a look. A look I have never seen before.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“Look, I’m just saying I think Nessa would disagree,” I say. “Just because you got lucky and sprouted your NRD wings doesn’t mean everyone walked out of that church alive.”

“And what if I hadn’t?” Lane asks. He looks me dead in the eye and it’s almost a challenge.

I don’t understand. “What if you hadn’t what?”

“What if I hadn’t sprouted my NRD wings?”

I lean my weight against him. “Then I’d be a really sad girl.”

Lane makes a show of cleaning the fingerprints off the glass. I keep touching a corner, leaving a big thumbprint for him to wipe off until annoyed he looks up at me. When he opens his mouth to argue, I stick my tongue in it. What starts off as another attempt to annoy him, turns into a good long kiss, until the last bit of fight is gone from him and I feel his arms finally wrap around my waist.

“Wooo,” a chorus rings out from behind us. The boys playing the video game, a boy and a
girl
actually, have the game on pause, watching us. “Go, Mr. Lane.”

Lane grins, caught off guard. “Are you going to buy that game or what? I’ve let you play it for hours.”

The boy looking worried that he is about to lose his game privileges turns back to the game immediately. The girl is more reluctant, grinning at us for several heartbeats longer.

Lane pulls me into his arms. It’s rough and possessive but it feels good. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be mad that you saved him.”

“I still like you. And don’t be so hard on yourself. We can’t all be as awesome as
moi
.”

His grin falls at the corners, and bit by bit draws itself up into a pout.

“Oh come on,” I say. Man, I’m just saying the wrong thing left and right today. “I was joking.”

“But that’s it, isn’t it? Death-replacing is your thing,” he says.

“I’ve been doing it for years!” I say. “You’ve been doing it for months.”

“But even from the beginning,” he says. “You’ve been good. When I found out about my NRD I thought ‘Awesome’. This is
it
. This is my
something
.”

“I thought comics were your something.” He talks about being on the other side of the page a lot, being the artist, not the seller, but he isn’t sure how to launch himself in that direction. He’s the type to want more, the next thing, no matter what it is.

“Yeah, maybe. It’s becoming clear that I’m not meant to be an agent,” he says.

“Why can’t you be both?” I say.

“I’m not like you,” he says. “I wish you could see yourself in action.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” he says. “You can tell the difference between an Olympian running for the gold and Joe Schmoe out for a jog.”

“Who else have you seen death-replace?” I ask.

“No one, but—” he begins. I don’t intend to let him get farther.

“Exactly, no one. The girl who trained me, Rachel, she did like 200 something replacements. She makes us all look like amateurs.”

“You elec-tro-cute people,” he says, emphasizing each syllable. “You are different.”

I drop my voice low. “You’re not supposed to mention that.”

Lane glances at the kids playing the video game before murmuring. “They can’t hear me.”

But I know better. Someone is always listening. And I am a little different, aren’t I? A little freaking
weird
. I have the crazy vision, thermo-whatever. I have the gut twinge cramps that come just before the death itself. And my hallucinations—

“About that,” I say. “Do you know anything about electricity? Wirings and stuff?”

“Why?”

“My house,” I begin, but I’m distracted—by the big black crow that has landed on a light post outside the store, as the remains of the day bleed out. The last time I saw a crow, it appeared heralding Gabriel’s appearance in my life before everything went to shit.

And though this crow doesn’t look supernatural in anyway, and I’m almost certain that it’s just a bird on a light post, not some messenger that the worst is yet to come, I curl deeper into Lane’s embrace. It’s the way the black feathers shimmer the suggestion of cascading light, like seeing the world in thermal. Like seeing the shadow of something approaching around the corner, before the something is actually there.

Gabriel. I don’t know how I know but Gabriel is back, circling somewhere just beneath the surface and I don’t know how long I can hold him back. Because I realize that’s what I’ve been doing. Holding him back, pretending I’m okay and normal-
ish
again. But it isn’t working anymore.

“Your house?” Lane asks, frowning down at me.

“You were saying something about your house?”

But his voice is so far away.

Ally

I
pull up outside the safe house and see Nikki’s car parked by the dumpster. Seeing the deep blue trim makes my heart lurch and I stay in the car a tad too long before deciding to go up.

Thighs burning from the climb, I rap twice on the outer door and it opens. Parish gives a little salute without looking away from the monitors. It’s a Burger King spread today, not McDonald’s, covering the work station. I try not to stare too hard at the crumpled orange wrappers, French fry boxes or seeping soda cups. But I admit I’m a little horrified by the way he eats.

“Where’s Jeremiah?” I ask.

Parish is particularly fixated on a camera in the upper left corner. It’s a small dark woman and a man conversing in black and white pixels like an old movie. White words appear across the bottom as their mouths move.

“What is that?” I ask. I point at the monitor in question.

“Closed Caption,” he says. “I don’t speak Spanish.

Delaney is translating remotely.”

I recognize the name, but I can’t recall the face or where he’s located. Chicago? Portland?

“Where is that coming from?” I ask.

“Arizona,” he asks. Then as if he remembered my first question. He waves toward the back. “They’re with the bitch.”

“Don’t call her a bitch,” I say.

Parish huffs. “She spit on me when I offered her my last burger. She’s a bitch.”

“Maybe she’s vegetarian,” I offer, already moving away toward the dim hallway.

“Vegetarian? That shit’s for the birds.”

I pat his shoulder in friendly way. “Birds eat insects actually, and sometimes smaller birds. They aren’t vegetarian at all. And Jesse is vegetarian. I’m going to tell her you said that.”

He grumbles through a half smile, then leans closer to the monitors as if trying to read something unclear. His mouth moves slightly but no sound comes out.

I inch toward the torture room, musing on my own ignorance, how just days before I hadn’t even known this room existed, believing it nothing more than a glorified mop closet. And now—it’s amazing what the presence of a woman and a couple of chairs can do to change the purpose of a room.