Keeley Thomson (Book 2): Keelzebub (23 page)

“What’s this I hear about you taking your clothes off an parading around in front of my coworkers?” He growled it at least, instead of screaming at her. Totally forgot to mention her not coming home too. It was an improvement.

Or at least this situation let him focus on his particular set of malfunctions, which meant he didn’t have to find an excuse to go ballistic. This one was ready made as far as he was concerned. More, this time she’d actually done it. Kind of.

“I just flashed them. Warned you it might happen, if you remember?” She yawned and patted her mouth, contrived, but not too phony looking. Then she yawned for real. Keeley waited for him to start yelling, or tell her that she was grounded. This time she couldn’t just sit in her room though, because she had… People to kill. Probably.

It really didn’t seem like that good a reason suddenly. Maybe she could get Darla to do it without her? That would be kind of lazy, true, but did she really want to be responsible for the death of innocent people? That’s what she would be thinking if she were an innocent sixteen year old and still cared about things like that, right? She looked at her dad, smiling.

“What?” He actually sounded confused.

“I flashed them. Well, actually I flashed two guys that were about to start kicking the heck out of another in the middle of the street, to distract them, until the police could get there, but I don’t deny it. I get that it might be embarrassing to you. Still, some of your co-workers were looking at me pretty hard and if they give you any grief over it, remind them that I’m just an impressionable sixteen year old and that they’re perverts if they keep mentioning it. Not that they really are, but it should get them to not go on about it too much.” She yawned again, eyes getting heavy. She was really sleepy now, and almost nodded off as she stood there.

“Oh.” He didn’t say any more.

“It worked, to stop the fight, no one got seriously hurt, and well, I don’t look so good, so there’s that, and you probably look like your daughter’s a tramp, so, you know, sorry about that. But I couldn’t let them fight and ruin the event and I wasn’t going to jump in and go all kung-fu on them either. It was all I could think of at the time.” The sad part was that, in retrospect, that was about true, wasn’t it?

“On the good side Mrs. Gibson thought it was a clever use of resources, and all that Dan Carmichael saw was a bit of my back. He’s nice enough, but a bit too slick, you know?”

She rubbed her face, honestly feeling the weight of everything for a second and then sighed.

“Well, no rest for me, I need a shower and then have to get off to work in the mailroom. Apparently, in the real working world, they don’t pay you if you refuse to show up and work. It’s only four hours though, from one to five, so I should be back around five-thirty or so? Unless something else comes up. If it does I’m going to try and handle it by curling up and sleeping at it until it goes away.”

There, if that didn’t mix his hot button issues with a desire to see his daughter as a hard working and potentially useful person, she couldn’t think of what would.

“Oh.” He sounded baffled still, but not angry anymore.

“Well, that’s not great. I’d really prefer you keep your clothes on in public from now on, if it’s all the same. Especially in front of my coworkers and the head of the company. Still, it’s done, so we’ll deal with it, I guess… It sounds like you’re working too hard though.” He looked at her, his blue eyes meeting her brown for a moment, searching for something in her face. The hint of a lie or the hope that it was all a joke perhaps. If so, Charles didn’t find it.

“I mean, I’m glad that you’re finding yourself like this, but are you having fun? Because the thirty-odd dollars a week you’re going to be getting from Coretechs just might not be worth losing sleep for days at a time.”

Sherry moved in and gave her a small hug, causing yet another flood of information to jolt through Keeley. At least it was mainly stuff she already knew. The only big difference was that half a dozen guys had tried to flirt with her the night before. Her mom had enjoyed the attention, but also felt bad about it, knowing it would hurt Charles if he heard about it.

At least it was no one that Keeley knew. Not even Dan, who’d been fairly polite about the whole thing when they’d met. Then it seemed like Dan really liked her, didn’t it?

“It’s true sweetheart. Running yourself into the ground needs a payoff, and right now, at your age, if you aren’t enjoying it, then don’t do it. Except your schoolwork.” A huge grin passed over her features then, and strangely enough, or maybe not so strangely, a similar look came to Charles’ face. Sherry kept talking, a bare hint of laugh in her voice, with an undertone of something more serious.

“That’s never fun, schoolwork, but needs to be done anyway. Still, you get the idea?”

She did.

Sort of.

Her parents were trying to treat her like a real girl, even though she clearly wasn’t. It was nice and helped her keep up the whole “pretend” thing where she was actually just what she seemed, and not a hundred year old Demon.

She grinned tiredly and patted her mother’s arm.

“Thanks. I really am having a good time though. It’s hard work, but I’m learning a lot and when I put together the community Halloween party in ten days I’ll know to get other people to do most of the work. This was way too rushed. We can cut the costs dramatically with some time to plan. Plus, I’m not missing any school for that. If it can’t be done evenings and weekends, it’s just not happening.”

Charles and Sherry both went a little blank and her dad pulled at the hem of his shirt, which didn’t need to be adjusted, a slightly nervous gesture.

“Mrs. Gibson has you working on that already?”

“What?” Keeley shook her head and turned away toward her bedroom, so that she could grab some clean clothes for after her shower.

“Oh, no, she doesn’t know about it yet. I’m going to be getting with her and Darla tomorrow though, to present the plan. It’s a good one though, isn’t it? For PR I mean? We also need to look at the exposure from last night’s stuff. Get with Chief Benson too… So much to do. But yeah, it’s fun. The second it stops being that, I’ll dump it all on someone else, I promise.” She made a cross over her heart and grinned.

With that she made her escape, surprised that she’d managed to get away without even being grounded or anything.

It would certainly make what they had to do next easier, wouldn’t it?

Chapter twelve

Keeley didn’t get in touch with anyone until the next day, Sunday. Darla called at about seven in the morning and set up a brunch meal with her and the others. That meant Hally, Eve and Gary, not her new crew of “special friends”. Not in particular.

Keeley was just pulling into the Yorks driveway to pick up Hally when she saw them all waiting for her. Just standing next to the drive.

It was freaky, because clearly they’d actually been waiting. For her. They didn’t just happen to be standing about like that. It wasn’t like they were caring for the lawn or enjoying the brisk morning air.

“Keeley!” Steve waited, sensibly, for the rental car to stop, but he was on her fast enough that she wondered if he’d run into the burgundy door before she managed to get it open. He pause about four feet away, then stood, looking up at her, but not too much. He was young, but she figured he’d make it to a good six foot tall, about two inches taller than his father.

“You haven’t been by to visit…” That sounded sad, as if she’d been gone for weeks, not just a few days. Plus, they’d only met once before. It was a little odd. At least if you didn’t know about the deal. She hugged him, which made Hally laugh, since the kid was obviously enthused to see her.

He really was a little bundle of hormones. Keeley ignored that part and smiled at him, making solid enough eye contact that it would count as flirting in most states.

“I’ll try to drop by when I can. I’ve been working pretty steadily though for the last few days.”

His life wasn’t huge, when it hit her, compared to some she’d had to deal with lately, so the flow of information was manageable. His biggest negative at the moment involved locking himself in the bathroom to “think” about her a little too often for her comfort.

It wasn’t the masturbation part that bothered her. People did that. Almost all of them. The ones that didn’t normally had some pretty solid issues come up around it, especially if it was due to guilt. No, that part was normal. It was the thinking about her that much that was the problem. He was thirteen, he should be taking a swing at a few of the girls in his class at school, and maybe falling in love for the first time, not obsessing over someone he couldn’t be with. At least not for several years.

She’d have to have a chat about that with him soon, try and get him on the right path. Also, he really seemed to be talented musically. It was clear in every move he made, but his work ethic sucked. That needed to be addressed too. And she was, in a literal sense, the “boss of him”.

Heh.

“For now, well, have you been thinking about music lessons? I hear you love the guitar, but need to get to practicing really hard? Girls love musicians. I’d like you to do that.” It wasn’t subtle of her, but the parental Yorks nodded happily about it and Steve reacted like she’d offered to come over and play videogames with him. Naked.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that, but you know, things always come up. I’m not that great yet.”

Keeley smiled at him and made a rolling gesture with her right hand.

“Hence practicing. You’ll do really well. I’ll call in a few days and see what you have set up. Practice lots.”

He left without saying anything then, casually enough that it didn’t look forced, to go and start. Hally seemed amused by it all at least.

“Ready to go?” The red haired girl was wearing a pink long sleeved shirt with a bright yellow skirt that had straps like overalls, with shiny silver buckles. It was heavy jean material, but looked adorable. She sounded pretty happy and had a book bag with her, as if they were going to practice for a math test. They probably didn’t need to that day, not really, but a bit of review might not hurt if they found a few minutes.

Practice almost never hurt, did it?

“Nearly ready.” Keeley walked over to Ginger, who smiled and looked a little worried for some reason. Nervous, as if she was going to be judged. Or punished.

Like Keeley would do that?

“I need a house in this area. It’s for some friends, but I need decent space. I don’t care about the yard and it can be a fixer-upper. Really it would be best if it was. Do you think you could find something like that for me? I probably won’t need it for a few weeks, but, you know, a commission is a commission. I might have a few other things coming soon too.” She waved her hand happily as Ginger nodded.

“As big as possible and as cheaply as possible. Haunted is no problem.”

That got a laugh and Ginger said she’d do what she could. It wasn’t an order or anything, just something she needed, and really, an extra commission never did hurt. Keeley needed to learn more about the woman’s business, if she was going to help take over her real estate office. Or start her own. Either way.

The elder Yorks stood and waved goodbye as they drove off, Keeley not saying anything, though Hally watched the scene disappear behind her with a sweet smile.

“They’ve been a lot nicer since they told us about being in hiding all these years. It’s like a weight has been lifted off of them. I thought it would change everything and really it has. I just didn’t think it would be for the better. They’re not even talking about moving or anything. I kind of thought we’d all have to change our names or something, but we don’t.” She gave Keeley a funny look then.

“Steve wants to date you. I told him you might be a little too old for him yet, but I don’t think that’s going to stop him.” She changed the topic so fast Keeley wondered for a moment how her friend avoided whiplash.

“So, um, the party went really well. It’s in the Sunday paper and online and everything. They even have a picture of you. It’s at a distance, behind Darla…” Her voice was sly, as if she was being sneaky.

Darla hadn’t been there, “Mrs. Gibson” had. Then Eve had already told her about everything, hadn’t she? They were pretty close to best friends, so it was only to be expected.

 Girls.

Keeley kept her eyes front and nodded. As long as Hally was being calm about it, why not? She was the one that fought the hardest to understand the weird stuff that had happened to her in the last few weeks, and kept reminding the others, so it must feel a bit like vindication to her.

“Really? I look OK though? I’ll have to see it. I bet I blinked. I always blink in pictures.” Just to confirm it all she reached over and touched Hally’s left arm without looking at her, bare skin soft under her fingers. It was there though.

She knew everything.

Including the fact that this brunch was really about taking out the people that killed Rob. Gary knew too. Eve again.

Sigh.

So much for secrets.

Keeley winked at her and drove in silence, though Hally was subtle enough not to blurt everything out. She dropped hints instead, as if trying to get confirmation of it all. It was bizarre enough that anyone would want that, wouldn’t they? To know that other people saw what they did and knew the same things?

She took the girl by the hand to lead her in, even though it felt a little forced to her, doing that. Hally liked it though, and thought it meant Keeley was trying to hit on her. It was cute.

Darla was herself again. The “her” Keeley thought of as the real one, even though it probably wasn’t at all. Young, hot and blond, dressed in sensible tan slacks and a soft looking blue button up shirt with long sleeves. Soothing colors. Keeley hadn’t thought of that, but was in pretty neutral Blue and black. Jeans and a t-shirt, one that wasn’t straining over her breasts as much, since she let the swelling go. They were pretty much back to normal. She’d worried about stretching, but that hadn’t happened at all. Probably a Demon thing.