I’d stowed my now-unreliable tools and was just finishing putting replacement charms in the vest pockets when there was a light tap at the door. Minnie and I looked up at the same moment and her questioning mew coincided with my, “Yes?”
It was both creepy and endearingly cute.
“You okay in there?” Dawna poked in her head with Dottie right at her heels in an odd contrast of personalities and visuals. “We heard the safe open.”
Dawna is our receptionist. She’s my age, Vietnamese American, and was the epitome of high fashion in a cherry red skirt and blazer and sleek patent-leather heels. Dottie, on the other hand, is elderly, with a delightful lack of self-consciousness, a white-bread, walker-using American in vivid red velour sweats. Two halves of a whole or maybe just a vision of all of our futures. Dottie is our backup receptionist—brought on when Dawna suffered a mental collapse that put her in the mental ward for a little while. As far as I knew, she wasn’t doing inpatient therapy anymore. Emma still was.
“I’m moving slow, but I’m moving. What time is it?” I was guessing it was around ten o’clock given the position of the sunbeam on the floor, but I could be wrong. “Hopefully I know what day it is. Anyone know when I got here?”
Dawna shrugged, but Dottie said, “According to the security log, three men and one woman entered at seven fifteen this morning.”
I wondered immediately which three. Then I noticed that Dawna looked as startled as I felt. “We have a security log?” I asked.
“That shows the sex of the person who entered?” said Dawna.
When she nodded, my eyes met Dawna’s and we nodded. “Sweet.” It came out of our mouths at the same time, which made all three of us chuckle. I’d have to see what else the log showed.
“Oh, and it’s ten twenty,” Dawna added. “You have someone on the phone and someone in the waiting room. Should I tell them both to get lost or do you want one or the other?”
Did I want to see anyone? Actually I didn’t feel all that bad. I should be hungry, but I wasn’t. I briefly wondered what that meant—had Gaetano or Jones gotten some nutrition into me? I felt sore, but not to the point of turning down work. “Depends. Who’s who?”
“Your old therapist, Gwen, is on the phone. She says it’s important. Detective Alexander is downstairs. She’s been waiting nearly an hour and says she’ll wait all day if she has to.”
Crap. Well, there could be worse people waiting I suppose. Like my mother, for example. But she was in jail. One of the many reasons I had a therapist.
“I told her you’d had a long night. Was it a successful night? I haven’t been able to reach Emma.” Dawna was being deliberately coy with Dottie right there. I understood, but it wasn’t really necessary. Like Emma, Dottie was a clairvoyant. I seem to know a lot of them. Vicki had been, as well. I was betting Dottie already had seen what had happened. She’d told me that once she met me she started getting multiple images of my future—mostly of future dangers. Naturally. The death curse put on me as a child saw to that.
I nodded. “We got Kevin out and he was fine last time I saw him. I don’t know more than that. But I’ll bet you can’t reach Emma because she’s back in Birchwoods.”
“Okay. Gwen first and then I’ll see Alex. Everything else okay? Is there a reason you’re both in the office today?”
Dottie beamed at me, total excitement in her eyes. “Dawna’s teaching me how to do billing.” Awesome! I’d worried that Dawna would take Dottie’s hiring as a condemnation of her mental state. Looking at her now, I didn’t think the smile on Dawna’s face was fake, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I could meet with her privately to dance around the subject.
“Great. I have several bills to go out this month.” Because I damned well was going to send a bill to a certain monarch of Rusland for at least the cost of my friend Bubba’s boat. Bubba had helped me out so that King Dahlmar could meet with my ever-so-great grandmother, the queen of the sirens. The boat was destroyed in a very ugly way (think big chunks of it sinking slowly into the ocean) and I owed him a new one. Not that he’d asked for it, but our relationship was a little more … tense than it had been.
I put my hands out and made little waving motions. “Okay, shoo. Give me five minutes to talk to Gwen. Get Alex some coffee or something.”
“Already taken care of. Gwen’s on two.” Dawna shut the door. I waited until I heard Dottie’s walker on the stairs before I sat at my desk. I would rather she didn’t climb the stairs with her bad hips, but there’s no stopping her. God knows I’ve tried. She just said, I’m old enough to know my own mind, dear, and I’ll deal with my own consequences.
I stared at the desk and tried to think where I’d left off with Gwen the last time we’d spoken. She’d refused to take me back as a client, and that had hurt. Years ago, she’d helped me keep my sanity after my kidnapping and Ivy’s death. Then Gwen had fallen ill and had to struggle with her own sense of mortality. She’d let her license lapse. For a while I’d been seeing Dr. Scott and Dr. Hubbard at the Birchwoods sanitarium, where Vicki had once lived. But now Dr. Scott had his own problems to face and Dr. Hubbard … well, she was nice enough, but she wasn’t Gwen.
Why she was calling now? Perhaps she’d changed her mind and was willing to work with me again. I hoped she wasn’t going to say that she was disappointed with me after my latest appearances in the tabloids. Disappointing her would be second only to making my gran cry on my scale of “worst days ever.” Just the thought of harsh words from Gwen made my stomach hurt and a burning like bile rise in my throat.
You’re allowed to expect good things, Celia. Just the memory of her quiet but forceful affirmations made the tension in my shoulders release a little. I took a deep breath and pressed the button.
“Hi, Gwen. Sorry to keep you waiting.” I went for brisk and businesslike despite the fact that my hand was trembling. “What can I do for you?”
“Good morning, Celia.” Her voice was calm and collected. Not angry or excited. That could mean anything. Damn. “I hope I didn’t call at a bad time.”
Hmm. Let’s see … how to field that. Bad is such a relative thing. “No. Not at all. I do have someone waiting, but I have a few minutes.”
“Great. I’m hoping you can stop by my office to talk. There are a few things I’ve just been told that affect you directly.”
Her office? Yay! My shoulders dropped to nearly normal. “Sure. When were you thinking?” Lord knew when I could fit it in. I grabbed my flip calendar and started turning pages. Ouch. Not looking so good. I had meetings with potential clients every morning this week, plus jobs every afternoon and evening until Christmas. December is a busy time of year for bodyguards. There are holiday parties and benefits nearly every day where celebrities want to mingle and be seen—but not let certain fans, the ones who adore them far too much, get close. “I have an hour or so next Monday morning. Nine o’clock?”
There was a pregnant pause before Gwen sighed. “I was hoping it could be today. It’s rather urgent.”
Urgent? “What kind of urgent? I’m not doing too badly right this second.” It was true, though I knew I was blithely ignoring most of the problems in my life, hoping that the holidays would be a blur of only mild discomfort. I’m not a holiday person despite Gran’s best efforts. I save Christmas morning for her—fresh biscuits and coffee around the tree—but other than that, I leave the season to people who enjoy it. Like Dawna. And Emma. They’re so into sugary goodwill it makes my teeth hurt.
There was a second, deeper sigh in my ear. “It’s not about you, Celia, although I do want to hear about what’s really going on with you.” I knew she’d catch me.… “This is about a friend of yours. I’d rather not say any more on the phone. Do you have time to drop by today?”
A friend? There aren’t many people in my life who fit that description, but the ones I have are important. “Um, sure. Do I need to set a time or should I just drop by?”
“You can drop by.” She paused briefly, then said, “I’m working at Birchwoods.” I started in surprise.
“What? Why?” There was probably a note of horror in my voice. I’d been kicked out of Birchwoods by Dr. Scott. I got why … he’d rightly objected to one of my siren cousins walking through security without a single person stopping her and then psychically manipulating him into giving her information about me. But … damn it!
Her voice sounded surprised when she spoke: “I thought you knew. I’m the new administrator. The announcement was in the papers last week. Of course, I can’t do full sessions with patients until my license is renewed, but the center needed a new chief after Dr. Scott became a patient and I’m well qualified for that.”
Ah. That would explain it. I’ve been avoiding the press lately nearly as carefully as a movie star involved in a scandal. “Sorry, I don’t read the paper much. But congratulations!” I meant it. A new chief meant new rules and my being eighty-sixed from the facility could be swept away with the stroke of a pen.
I did know that Jeff Scott needed therapy. I’d suggested it to him myself, very sincerely. He’d been traumatized by a mental attack magical kidnappers had inflicted. From his description it had been the mental equivalent of rape. They’d tortured him because it was fun. I’d killed or disabled most of those responsible, but he couldn’t seem to get past it. That I understood only too well. It becomes disabling and therapy is really the only way out of the maze in your own brain.
“Thank you. So I’ll see you sometime today? I’ll let the gate know to pass you through.”
She might have to insist. The gate guard, Gerry, had once been a friendly acquaintance—before I’d saved a stadiumful of baseball fans by manipulating him and a bunch of cops. Then he turned into an anti-siren crusader. I still didn’t know if it was by his own will or the result of another manipulation by Eirene.
