Blood & Spirits (5 page)

Tonight, Julie has asked for some personal time. Her brother is in from Louisville, and she’s taking him out for dinner and drinks.

Leslie is on a ten thousand dollar ‘out call’ to Will Planton, a member of the wealthiest and most politically connected family in Pekin. He’s certainly connected, but not the brightest or best looking. He’s into some heavy kink, likes to be punished, so Leslie is in full on Dominatrix mode this evening. She almost didn’t even wear a coat to cover the latex and spiked straps. I’m sure she’s had a blast.

Now she needs a pick up, though. Since Julie is out for the night, I call Frank and let him know I’m going to get her and ask him to run by the house to check up on things while I’m gone.

I duck into the basement and see Rachel reading a book. She’s so lost in the pages that she doesn’t even notice me at first.

How did I get to be parental? It’s not like I changed who I was to adjust to her being here. It’s more like I simply incorporated things into myself that I never knew I could. Caring for her has become a part of my routine, and it’s so much better than the burden I’d assumed it would be.

She fills a void in me that I didn’t know I could have. Like somehow by caring for her and helping her grow, I’m redeeming a few of the sins I commit nightly. I guess there really is a heart left in me.

When she sees me looking in at her, she gives me her best devious grin, like she’s caught me up to something, and mouths ‘I love you’ before looking back down.

“I’ve got to go pick Aunt Leslie up. Are you going to be okay down here until I get back, troublemaker?”

“Yes,” she says without looking back up at me.

“Okay. Aunt Piper will be up stairs if you need anything. I’ll be back soon. And please! Stop being so loud!”

I can hear her giggling as I close the basement door.

I ask Piper to watch the house. She informs me there are only three girls ‘working’ at the moment so there really isn’t much to watch, but she’d be more than happy to manage things until I get back.

We have twelve girls, fifteen counting Julie, Piper, and Leslie. Only three working means tonight must be a ‘home with the wife’ night for the wealthy and corrupt. We’ll have to do something to pick those numbers up.

I’m mulling over ideas as I jump into the Mercedes for the long drive out into the county. The privileged community the big fish in this tiny pond call home sits well outside the city limits, comfortably abutting the new golf course. It’s the kind of place I can only imagine wanting to escape from.

A girl’s got to go where there money is, though.

***

The smell of burning cedar fills my nose as Leslie and I step out of the car. The Jefferson House is surrounded by fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

Frank’s car is in the driveway. I can only hope he has some answers, because I have more than a few questions and I’m in no mood to try to pull information out of one of these municipal breathers.

I tell Leslie to stay with the car and I start trying to make my way around to the side yard, to get under the yellow tape unnoticed.

“It’s only in the basement, the mud room, and the kitchen. The damage, that is,” Frank says from behind me. “Piper is burned pretty good. I’ve got people on it. Thank God it was a slow night, huh?”

“The basement? My God, where’s Rachel?” I turn to face him and see from his clothes that he was in the fire himself. It strikes me as odd for a moment that somehow he makes the ‘burned in a fire’ look work, before the gravity of possibly losing him hits me. “Oh shit, are you…?”

“No. I’m fine. A tad bit crispy, but nothing bad.” He looks back at the field of flashing lights. “I haven’t seen Rachel, but I’ll keep an eye out for her. You should seriously be somewhere else though, before someone decides to start asking you all the wrong questions.”

I nod to him a bit vacantly and look back to the smoke still rising from my house. “Yeah…wow. I guess I’ll head to the ranch house with Leslie.”

“That sounds like a good plan, but take a scenic route.” There’s an odd tone of concern in his voice I’m not used to.

Confused, I look back to him as I start toward the car. “Why?”

“It was set, V,” he says flatly. “The house was set to burn. I have a bad feeling about this. I can’t give you exact reasons, but I do.”

I nod to him and turn. Walking back to the car I can think of nothing but potential enemies that might have wanted to torch my house. In fact, that’s almost all that’s on my mind for the whole of the drive to my other house, or even as I ready myself for bed. I’ve hurt a lot of feelings and peed in a lot of cereal bowls over the years, but who would be this pissed or this bold?

I lay back heavily into my pillows as the first lights of dawn break over the horizon and take in all that happened this evening. I can see all the moments where a different choice could have made a difference in the outcome. The ones where I was forced into choices that I’d normally never make. How my actions or lack of them brought things about that I’d never considered being a possibility. I can’t help but wish I could wake up and have the whole night to do over, knowing what I know now, like that Bill Murray flick.

Someone’s gonna die for this. A simple fact. I’ve just got to make sure it’s not me.

***

“We know it was arson. No question, right?” He pauses dramatically and raises an eyebrow before continuing.

“The cameras on the rear of the property were taken out and half the backside of the house was coated in kerosene. Like, a fuckload. It’s a damn good thing Piper has a good nose for smoke or I don’t think I’d have had a chance of putting out as much as I did.”

Frank‘s reports, even of bad news, are animated enough to keep me from wanting to break things. Well, usually, they are.

He nods at me for emphasis before continuing, “I’ve got a crew set to work on the house starting tomorrow night, no questions asked. Full restoration and remodeling. I’ve got Piper set up at my loft on Broadway with a doctor treating her burns. Completely off the books. I’ve even ordered replacement furniture and tracked down a copy, more than seventy years old I might add, of the painting that got toasty.”

He paces back and forth, obviously not as at home in my basement office at the ranch as in my cindered-out office in town. “The only thing I haven’t been able to locate is your insubstantial china doll.”

He says it like she isn’t really a person.

“Her name is Rachel.” I can’t hold back my anger at his disregard for her, as though she were a thing to be replaced.

“For serious? Boss lady, I know you’re dealing with a lot of shit right now, but maybe mine’s not the head to bite off? I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

His tone is flippant, but I know that I can’t afford to ride any harder on him. He really is putting in the overtime for me.

“Thank you, Frank. I just need some time and space to think. Figure this out. Calm down and take stock, ya know? It’d be a lot easier if I knew where she was.” I roll my eyes and bob my head slightly, trying to make as light of the situation as I can. Looks like he appreciates the gesture.

“I gotcha, no worries. I’ll keep you informed. I’m gonna give Lewis a ring, maybe convince him that he and I need to get to the bottom of our little in-house campfire together.” He turns and strides to the door before turning and adding, “Take your timeout. Remember that you work with the best. Let Julie handle the girls, and let me do what I do best. Don’t get all stressed out trying to do everything yourself. We can do it, that’s what you pay us for, we have that technology. Get some rest. It’ll make you feel better… and sweetie, you need it.”

The door closes and I fall onto the couch in a heap; so much to deal with and so little time. I know on some level that he’s right, and I’m lucky to have him, but I’ve never been the kind of girl to sit back and just let things happen.

“Veronica, I believe we should speak.” The silky melodious voice comes moments before Lucy is even visibly present in the room and has an urgency I’m not accustomed to hearing from her.

Clearly, relaxing is not what the world has for me to do at the moment. I must have done something truly horrible in a past life to earn this kind of karma. Wait, that was this life.

“What is it, Lucy? What do you know?” I look around and see a shimmer behind my desk that precedes the ripping sound, heralding Lucy’s apparition. She gives off a natural glow, and her clothes shine brighter than the lights I can comfortably keep in the house.

Practically two centuries dead and she looks better than me, damn it. She seems more vital and alive, and in her flowing white gown, with its ornate beadwork, she is a vision. She has a beauty and moves with a grace that none I’ve ever known could match. She’s my friend, and I genuinely care about her, but I sometimes wish that spirits had bad hair days.

“The fire was set to drive Rachel out. I’m almost certain of it.” She says it calmly, but I can see the confusion in her eyes. Even the dead don’t do a good job of masking their emotions all of the time.

“What would fire have to do with driving Rachel out? Fire can’t hurt spirits.”

“No, it can’t. But that’s how her aunt and uncle died. She barely made it out alive. She has an incredible fear of fire, and I believe whoever set the blaze knows that.”

“What are you suggesting?” I don’t really want to know the answer.

“I’m not completely sure yet, but I intend to find out. In the meantime, just be careful and keep an eye out for her.”

There’s another ripping sound and she’s gone.

She’s succeeded in making me worry more about Rachel. Worse, though, she’s made me nervous. I don’t do nervous well.

Lucy has places to be and people who count on her, spirits who count on her, anyway. I get that. She has a lot more counting on her than I do on me. We have that and a lot more in common. So I understand that she can’t hold my hand, but she’s always given me a bit more than she is now. It worries me.

I walk to the window and look down at Frank talking in the driveway to Julie and notice there’s a black cat sitting at Julie’s feet. Not in itself an odd thing out here in the country, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s staring at me. Staring into me.

Thanks, Lucy. See what you’ve done. Now I’m paranoid about cats.

FRANK STROLLS LEISURELY UP
to the front desk of the Sheriff’s department, sets his sunglasses down, and smiles broadly at Bonita, the bleach blonde dispatcher. “Hi there, gorgeous. Guess why I’m here.”

There’s a momentary pause for both of them as they stare at each other adrift in a sea of cheap perfume and contempt, each inviting the other to step over the line that would get more than just the two of them involved.

“Lewis is on a call, but I’ll let him know you’re here, Francis.” She sneers over her bifocals.

“Thanks.” He exhales the word more than he actually says it, gives her his best plastic smile, and turns away. “Bitch.” He says it quietly under his breath, just loud enough to be sure she could hear him.

The bright vivid blue of his two hundred dollar shirt stands out harshly from the brown vinyl and orange plastic furniture in the waiting room. The fact that he had to come here was just another part of his job, but that didn’t mean he’d ever like it.

He closes his eyes in a vain attempt to find his ‘happy place.’ The clicking of the plastic oscillating fan circulating the stagnant air in the office was just enough to keep him well grounded in his present personal hell.

Looking down at the table, he saw the same collection of magazines about race cars, hunting, and firearms that had been here since his first visit to the waiting room back in 2003.

He begins to curse his decision to leave his mp3 player in the car when a voice calls from the door, “Hey, Frank. Good to see ya. Is this about the fire?”

Detective David Lewis is far from a stranger to Frank, but he’s dumbstruck for a moment at the sight of him. Frank’s not sure he’s ever seen Lewis in a tie before.

Slowly, he stands with one eyebrow raised, smiling at Lewis. He over dramatizes the slow look down to Lewis’ neck and makes a shocked face. To punctuate it, he actually points.

“What?” Lewis looks down and suddenly realizes the reason for the theatrics. “Oh, the tie. Right. I had to talk to the press this morning and I knew if I took it off, I’d lose it,” he explains, before asking again, “The fire, right?”

“Yeah. The singed hair gave me away, didn’t it?” He waves to Bonita, who is unimpressed with the gesture. “That woman needs to get laid. Badly.”

Laughing at himself, he walks past Lewis into the walkway behind the small sea of cubicles.

All eyes are on them, and Frank knows it. He waits patiently at the door to Lewis’ office for him to go in and then turns to face the gawkers, giving a faux curtsey and bow. He slams the door behind him and sits down with a deep sigh.

“They’ll never get used to us meeting like this. Have you really given thought to how our relationship will affect the children?” He gets louder and more dramatic. “When will it be the right time to proclaim our love to the world?”

Lewis chuckles as he opens a folder and begins to skim the papers inside.

The office is an homage to disarray. It’s covered wall to wall in more than a decade’s worth of open case files and notes on evidence and persons of interest intermingled with Styrofoam cups, napkins, and partially eaten junk food.

Lewis himself was a stark contrast to his office. He had perfected the scruffy hero look. He had the strong chin, but he was never completely shaved at any hour of the day, and his hair was always styled to look like it wasn’t styled at all. He was as beautiful as a scruffy man can be.

Frank gets lost admiring him for a moment then catches himself, and decides he needs conversation to take his mind in a different direction.

“I’m pretty sure this is why I quit and went to work for myself.” Frank says. He moves half a bagel off a pile of file folders and relocates it to the trash can.

Lewis shoots a quick look at him and glances back at his paperwork. “I thought it was all about your self-importance and the significant pay increase you got going to work for Veronica Fischer.”