Spore (24 page)

Cradling the scrapbook to her chest, she disappeared down the hall.

Mare jumped as the bedroom door slammed. “I guess we’ve been dismissed.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Driving up the interstate with Todd that afternoon, Mindy watched mushy cornfields blur past. Her mind was still reeling from meeting the attorney general and Todd’s sister, the ball-busting lawyer. Both had been incredibly nice and taken gobs of notes about Jeff, their marriage, and the recent threats, and both kept insisting they weren’t afraid of narcissistic shits and would stop him in his tracks. With a great lawyer and the state on her side, maybe things would turn out all right after all. Maybe, for once, Jeff’s cheating wouldn’t allow him to win.

She grinned.
Maybe he’ll even go to jail!
“Was a pretty good interview, don’t you think? I did all right?”

“You were great,” Todd said, going around a minivan which had slowed to a snail’s pace on the interstate as they approached. “The insurance investigator seemed especially pleased.”

Mindy laughed. “He was just shocked I remembered so many details about what happened when we bought the car, but it was just a few weeks ago to me.” She tilted her head as she heard his stomach grumble. They hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch and she was hungry, too.
I’d really love to cook tonight,
she thought around a happy sigh.
Cook something intricate and special. A celebration supper.

“I think it’s great how you’re standing up to your ex and taking control of your life,” he said. “If you don’t, who will?”

That’s true,
she thought, letting the concept stew in her mind as the miles rolled away behind them.
And no one’s here to tell me I can’t, or I’m not good enough. Not anymore.
“My whole life I’ve done what other people have told me to do,” she explained, watching him. “This independence is… Strange.”

“Okay,” he said, “right now, of all the things in all the world, what do you want to do?”

Can’t believe I’m considering this but he’s such a nice guy. I have to thank him somehow.
“I think I want to cook for you,” she said softly as he turned to gawk at her and nearly steered the SUV onto the gravel beside the highway.

“What?
Me?
”

“Or you and Hailey and your mom, if that’d be better.” She took a breath and moistened her lips. “Sean and Mare like my cooking all right, but you seem like a guy who appreciates a well cooked meal.”

Despite his scowl, she pressed on. “It’d be nice to cook for someone who could recognize the difference between pesto and verde, for example. To them it’s all yummy, but still just a green sauce. I bet you know how different they are. I noticed you have both in your kitchen cupboards.”

He mumbled for a moment, his eyes rooted on the road ahead. “Pesto and verde? Yeah, sure, one’s Mexican, one’s Italian, but—“

“What’s your favorite food?” she interrupted. “Of all of the meals you’ve ever had, what ranks at the top?”

“Um, I had some amazing chicken something once, years ago. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was really lemony, and had these weird salty pea things that just…” He pulled one hand off the wheel, brought his fingertips together and snapped them wide apart. “Pow!”

“Capers,” she said, nodding. “With pasta and a light sauce?”

He grinned and glanced at her. “Yes! You know the stuff?”

Definitely chicken piccata.
She grinned back. “I do, yes.”

“It was amazing,” he said. “I could have eaten myself into a coma over that sauce.”

She felt heat brighten her cheeks and flow down her throat.
You asked, so don’t chicken out now.
“Can we stop at the grocery store on the way back and see if I can cook it as well as you remember?”

Both hands white-knuckled on the wheel, he stared ahead as they barreled down the interstate. “Okay,” he said, glancing at her. “It’s going to get me in a lot of trouble, but okay.”

The house was still standing when Sean and Mare returned. Two zombie hunters sat on a car hood, drinking beer and eating tacos from a greasy fast food bag while they read GhoulBane back issues. Sean gave them a tired wave and they nodded back. The deputy spoke into his radio mic, but made no other indication he’d noticed their arrival. Otherwise, the yard was deserted.

Sean sighed and walked to the front steps. The lawn looked muddy, ratty, and overgrown. “I really need to mow.”

“Maybe it’ll be dry enough tomorrow?”

I doubt it.
They climbed the steps and Sean unlocked the door. “I saw online this morning they’ve found spore slime near Memphis.”

“Jesus,” Mare said, shaking her head as she entered the house. “So far, so fast.”

“It’s been raining a lot. Rivers are swollen. It’s going to spread quickly.”

Mare tossed her purse onto the couch on her way to the kitchen. “Do you think they’re picketing Elvis’s house now?”

“Heh. Probably.” Intending to resume inking spreads, he started toward the studio but paused, a cold sweat trickling down his spine. The bathroom door stood open and a grimy pair of jeans lay wadded on the floor just inside.

Paul was here. But we’d locked the doors. Fuck.

“Mare!” he called out, turning to rush to the kitchen.

She dropped the ice cube tray she was emptying and pressed a startled hand over her heart. “What? What’s wrong?”

“He was here,” Sean choked out. His mouth felt very, very dry. “Stay there. I’m gonna check the house.”

She nodded, her eyes wide, and he walked past her to their bedroom. It had been ransacked, their dressers opened and dragged across the room, and the mattress flipped against the wall.

Sean’s heart skittered and his hands clenched.
He was looking for something.

“Babe?” he choked out as he returned to the kitchen. “Where’d you hide the gun?”

She opened the freezer and pulled out a box of diet fudge bars. She upended the box and the .38 slid into her hand, sealed in a zipper bag with the air squeezed out. She tossed it to Sean. “As much as he bitched about missing fat and sugar, I figured he wouldn’t look in there.”

He nodded.
Smart girl.

Even in the bag, the gun was frigid cold yet a comforting weight in his hand. And it was loaded.

He returned it to Mare before pulling the flashlight from the drawer and stuffing it in his back pocket. “Watch the stairs. I’m going to check the studio and Mindy’s room first.”

Mare nodded and he grabbed the softball bat before continuing to the hall. No sign of Paul, but his spread for pages twelve and thirteen, a shadowy figure taunting terrified children in a dark alley, had been taped to the drawing board when they’d left the house. Only scraps of tape remained.
Goddammit. Now I have to do it again.

“He took an inked spread,” Sean said as he stomped to the stairs. “I swear, this comic will never get done.”

“Fucker.” Mare stood between the back door and the laundry room, her back to the corner and the gun pointed toward the floor. The metal had already begun to frost in the humidity.

Sean flicked on the stairwell light and thundered down. The mess looked diminished and rearranged, but Paul was nowhere to be seen, not even behind the furniture or under the stairs.

Muttering, he hoisted himself into the hole. Both puddles in the near corners held slime, and a third slime pocket had newly become visible in the back. The slime to the left had faint bubbles coming from its hazy surface. He’d seen the tiny bubbles before, when Betsy the dog and other animals spored in the back yard. In about ten, twelve hours the bubbles would turn to ooze and the slime would start to dissolve. The other nearby pocket remained fuzzy and bubble free.

He climbed out and glanced at his watch.
Maybe somewhere around three am for the first one. Whee.

He checked the windows while he was in the basement and locked the two he found unlatched. He saw no obvious grit or footprints beneath.

Once upstairs, he checked other windows. All but the laundry room were already latched, as they should have been. The washing machine had mud and grit in its otherwise empty drum so he examined the window closer.

“He came in that way?” Mare asked.

“I think so,” Sean replied, stretching to reach the latch. “Was the only one unlocked, but I know we locked it yesterday.” He flicked the lever over and pressed past Mare. “Gonna try something.”

Out in the backyard, he saw a few new critter-sized slimes but shrugged them off. No holes big enough to bury a person had yet been dug.
Probably tonight, then.
He strode the couple of steps to the laundry room window and tried to open it from the outside. A couple of jiggles later, the top frame bounced off the track, rendering the latch useless. “Tricky bastard,” he muttered, before trying other windows. They all remained in place.

Despite her initial nervousness, Mindy managed in Todd’s kitchen easily enough. He had a big skillet, a whisk, and adequate measuring tools. She had to pound the chicken with a can of baked beans and zest the lemon with a box grater, but she didn’t mind. It was so nice to cook for someone special. Todd had changed into jeans and a polo shirt, and he hovered in the living room, basking in the aroma but never getting in her way or interrupting.

She hummed as she worked her way through the recipe in her head. She couldn’t remember how much wine or lemon juice, so she modified the sauce by instinct until it tasted glorious.

“Can you get plates and silverware?” she asked as she carried the pot of pasta to the colander in the sink. “Maybe a couple of wine glasses?”

Todd leapt to be of service and took a deep, pleased breath as she arranged everything on a platter. “This is amazing,” he said, following her to the table.

“I hope it tastes as good as you remember,” she said as she placed a hearty portion on his plate. He poured the wine and insisted he was sure it would be ever better.

As they ate, she relished his blissful sighs and how he slowed down to savor and swoon over every bite.
Always nice to cook for a happy eater.

“So what made you decide to do this?” he asked as he placed another cutlet on his plate.

“I love to cook and, well, you’ve just been so nice to me,” she said, trying not to feel self conscious under his warm scrutiny. “Even that first day, when I came out of the trees, you were nice. I don’t think anyone else that day was, other than Sean. There’s not much I can do to say thanks for…for never treating me like a freak.”

“You’re not a freak. You’re just a person out of her time.”

She toyed with her pasta and sighed. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Hey,” he said, drawing her gaze to him. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get your ex. Make him pay.”

“It’s not him, not really,” she said. “It’s more I’ve never really had a chance to do anything before. But now…” She blushed and lowered her eyes. “I met with some really important people today, and I didn’t get nervous or screw up once. I have a couple hundred fans following me online. I’ve started my own business. All these things I never would have done, never could have done, if I hadn’t died.”

He reached for her hand and she let him grasp it as she met his quiet, concerned gaze. She felt tears sting. “I want Jeff to pay for being so rotten to my mother after my death. I want him to pay for the crap that’s happened these past couple of days. But, in a weird way, killing me was a gift. I’m a new, better person because of it. I just want him to leave me alone to live my life. Is that too much to ask?”

“No. It’s generous, actually. Considering.” He squeezed her hand then let it go. “You have every right to be angry, you know.”

“I was,” she admitted after a sip of wine. “I was hurt. Furious. But then I realized he hadn’t taken anything but time. I’m back. I’m still me. I still have my memories, my dreams. The only thing I don’t have is him and that’s just fine.”

“What about your family? Your mother and sister?”

She set down her wine. “Mom died a few days ago. Her heart just quit. Dani sent an email, told me not to come to the funeral. Said it was my fault Mom died so quickly after I came back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. Mare took me to the cemetery the day after the funeral to put flowers on her grave, so I got to say goodbye. I just hope Dani can forgive me.”

“For what? For coming back? For being given another chance?”

She looked at him and shrugged.

“She should have been thrilled.” Todd set aside his fork and stared into her eyes. “I understand fear. I do. I see it every day. But if I’d lost someone I loved like that, I can’t imagine being mad at them for coming back. Fear passes. Family remains.”

“It’s not that simple. She has her own family and it’s all over the news, the internet, that we’re making some people sick.”

“But, you’re not. That’s media hype,” he insisted, his voice firm and unyielding. “I’ve dealt with hysteria since the beginning and can assure you that you’re not the problem at all. It’s the crap in the water. It makes things…
More
. If you’re sick, you get sicker. If you’re fast you get faster. It’s made junkies more addicted and thugs angrier and assholes more assholier.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Scientists and medical people have been crawling all over this stuff these past two weeks. They don’t yet understand how, but it’s a weird fungal enhancer. It grows healthy cells, improves them, streamlines them, makes them more efficient throughout the body. They say it enhances brain activity in the front lobe. Creativity. Focus. Energy. Personality. That all gets stronger, even in non-spores. But, if there’s a problem, a mental dysfunction or a chronic disease, it’s enhanced, too.”

“So my mom’s heart disease…”

“It got worse. Fast. Not because of you, but because this stuff’s in the ground water, probably has been for a while. She’d been drinking it for weeks and, given this stuff’s potency, her death was inevitable. It’s not your fault. You’re a victim of this too. A lucky one, yes, but still helpless to prevent it.”

He took a sip of wine. “The CDC told us that’s why only otherwise healthy accident victims spored. For anyone who died from disease, sporing caused the disease to explode in the fungal bodies, taking over the healthy cells and killing them again before they’d fully formed. It’s a mixed bag. Some folks re-grew lost limbs, others dropped dead of a previously managed illness. Between all of the unexpected death calls, hyped up paranoia, and the missing kids, we’re getting run ragged at work.