The Reaping (The Reapers Book 1) (22 page)

“Good-looking and fun aren’t your type?”

She laughed again. “You’ve got a lot to learn about Caleb. He’s charming, that’s for sure, but he’s not my idea of fun and not my type of good-looking, either. I like ’em a little more rough around the edges and free-spirited.” She laughed again.

I didn’t know what to say to that, and I realized how little I actually knew about Caleb. “So what created the animosity between you two?”

She smiled slowly. “Let’s just say he has a habit of spoiling my fun. He’s very good at appearing to be the happy life of the party, but when you really get to know him…he’s just not that interesting. He’s a bit of a one-track record.”

I thought about what I knew of Caleb, and I just didn’t see her version of him at all.

Cat’s gaze was on me when I looked her way, but she quickly smiled. “Don’t worry about Caleb. He’s not one to carry a grudge, but he’s also not a big risk taker. If he thinks you’re angry at him and don’t want him around, I doubt he’ll try so very hard to get into your good graces.”

“Really? So you’re saying I need to apologize first?” She obviously didn’t know he’d been over here already to apologize and that I’d only made things worse.

“Look, Caleb’s not my favorite person, obviously. But he’s sensitive,” she said the word like it was the worst insult. “If you want him to continue to be your friend, you need to pretty much flat out tell him that. He’s a guy, right? He doesn’t do nuance.”

I really wasn’t sure about her analysis of Caleb. She wasn’t exactly the first person I’d go to for advice, but right now, she was the only person I had, and she knew Caleb better than anyone else I knew. Plus, the tactic she was suggesting sounded pretty good to me. I should have thought of it before.
“Caleb, I really want us to be friends, but right now I am ugly with bruises, so could we just not hang out for a couple of weeks until I get this psycho ghost and scary cop off my case?”
Yeah, that would fix everything.

“What was your job at the last place?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to get a job, Kelsey, I swear. I’ve been to, like, sixteen different places today.”

I laughed. “No, I was just curious. Just trying to get to know you better. How about, where are you from originally, is that better?”

Before she could answer, there was a loud knock at the door. I stood and walked over, careful to check the peephole before I opened it. Caleb was pacing in front of the door. I opened it and smiled at him, trying to look as friendly and apologetic as possible.

He pushed past me and stormed into the kitchen. “What the hell is going on, Kelsey?”

I shut the door before turning to face him. I had a pretty good idea what he was upset about, and I had no idea how I was going to get out of this one. “Well, hello, Caleb. It’s good to see you. How are you?”

His hands were in hard fists at his side. “Please tell me that you didn’t go to the police and tell them Reid didn’t hit you?”

I considered doing just what he asked, but that would be not at all funny. “I’m not sure he did,” I said honestly.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Kelsey? I was there. I saw him hit you.”

Oh, shit. I had considered this possibility and dismissed it. I guess I just wanted to believe that Caleb and Jed had shown up after Reid had hit me the second time. “I just…I wasn’t sure…with the head injury, everything was mixed up, and I didn’t want the wrong guy…”

“Jesus, Kelsey, are you really this dumb? Or has that asshole—”

“Caleb, you might want to shut the hell up before you say something you regret,” Cat said as she walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “Reid threatened her.”

That got Caleb’s attention, but he didn’t take his eyes off me. “Is that true?”

I didn’t say anything. If I admitted Reid threatened me, there was no way Caleb wouldn’t go back to the police and make things worse for Reid and me. If I lied and said that Reid hadn’t threatened me, then I had to come up with a better reason for going to the police.

“Caleb, I tell you all the time that the truth is in the small details and you never get it. Have you noticed anything different about Kelsey today?” Cat asked calmly.

His hands relaxed as he studied me and he calmed himself enough to see past his anger. “You’re wearing a lot more make-up than I’ve seen on you before.” He paused and his fists clenched again. “That son-of-a-bitch hit you?”

“No, Reid didn’t hit me. He might have told me that he was innocent and that I should really think about what happened that night, and… You know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s under control and I will handle it. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“What do you want me to do? Go back to the police and lie for you? Tell them I didn’t see him hit you?”

“They didn’t waste any time calling you, did they, Caleb?” Cat asked.

He glared at her. “I was on the same block when they called, so I stopped in.”

“Hmmm, that was lucky,” Cat said.

“Stay out of this, Cat,” he said, looking at me.

Cat sighed. “Why don’t you both have a seat at the table, and we can discuss this rationally?”

He sat as far from Cat as possible, and I sat across from Caleb, who was doing his best not to look at me or Cat.

“You should tell them the truth,” a small voice said from the hall. I turned to see Angelica in her pajamas. She must have already been here asleep when Cat got home.

“Angelica,” I said, shaking my head. I had worked too hard for a normal life to throw it away now. If it was just Caleb, I might be okay with it, but I doubted Cat would keep such a good story to herself. “Please.” My chest felt tight and I was sure that I was on the verge of crying.

“Kelsey, it’s not right for Reid to be in trouble for something he didn’t do. You have to tell them,” Angelica said. “I’m sorry.”

“You promised,” I said, somehow hoping I could convince her to unsay what she said and make them unhear what they’d heard.

“I’m sorry, Kelsey. But I’m scared for you.”

I looked at Caleb, and he was looking at me with something like fear in his eyes. I knew that, after I told this story, I would never see him again. Before I started, I checked the room to make sure Landon wasn’t lurking somewhere, listening, but we were alone. “I’ve been able to see and speak to ghosts since I was a little, little girl,” I said, my heart racing. “After Landon died, he used Reid’s body to attack me.”

“Tell them the rest,” Angelica urged.

“He claimed that he wanted to take over my body, permanently, but that he needed my permission. Basically, he was trying to scare me into giving him that permission.”

“Shit,” Caleb breathed.

“How the fuck did you not see that, Caleb? You were right there,” Cat said, her voice hard with real anger for the first time since I’d known her.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Jed didn’t see it, either.” He looked at me. “I’m so sorry, Kelsey. I should have known.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “How could you have possibly known?”

“Because it’s my job to know,” he said. “Look, we can explain everything to you, but Angelica can’t be here for this. The less she knows…”

“She should stay,” Cat said gently. “She can see auras.”

“That’s what she claims, but we have no way to prove that,” he said.

“She and Jed played a little game one night in a bar, and he told me that she got everyone right,” Cat said.

“Why didn’t he tell me that?”

Cat shrugged. “Said he tried, but you were…”

“My temper. Right. That’s another issue for another night. Has she been cleared?”

Cat rolled her eyes. “By my people. The ever-loyal, idiot Jed hasn’t gone to your people about her.”

“Convenient for you,” he said.

“Not really the issue now, is it, Caleb?”

He sighed. “Right.” He looked at Angelica. “If you stay, you’re going to hear some things that may upset you. Once you hear them, you’re going to be expected to keep them to yourself. You may even be called upon to use your skill of reading auras and it will be very difficult for you to say no.”

I was trying to follow the conversation, but was failing miserably. I couldn’t even understand enough to ask what they were talking about.

Angelica looked a bit shaky, but she seemed less confused than me. “I want to help Kelsey.”

“That’s what Cat and I are here to do. If you stay, it will be unlikely that you will be placed in any position to help Kelsey.”

“The truth is that I’m scared,” Angelica said. “But if I don’t stay, I’ll always wonder. If there’s some use for me, some way I can help…anybody. I want to know about it.”

Caleb nodded. “Okay, Angelica can stay. How do you want to do this, Cat?”

“Deferring to me already, Caleb? Without a fight? Sure you want to do that so early in the game?”

“She’s already pissed at me. She might be more willing to listen to you and, if I’m lucky, you’ll say something to make her mad at you.”

“If you insist,” Cat said. “Kelsey, there are several different planes of existence as we understand it. Tonight, we’re only concerned about the plane of the living and the plane of the dead who have chosen to stay close to the living. You call them ghosts; we call them reapers, and they call themselves guardians.” Cat took a drink and shook her head. “Sorry, Caleb, I can’t do this.”

Caleb studied her for a long moment. “I thought…”

“Doesn’t matter what you think. I don’t have the clearance.”

Caleb leaned forward and smiled gently at me. “I know that I’m not your favorite person right now—”

“I don’t know who you are right now,” I said.

His face closed and he leaned back in his chair. Wrong thing to say, but it was the truth. I’d been silent while they acted unsurprised about my ability to see ghosts, while they’d debated Angelica’s right to hear what they had to say, because I had been a bit stunned. Now, Caleb was looking at me and acting like the biggest problem in his life was that I might be mad at him. All of this was just a bit too surreal even for me. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just… You and Cat aren’t just accidently in my life, are you?”

Caleb shook his head. “No, we’re here because of you. Cat is actually here on a different job and, when she saw me, she figured out why I was here and asked to help me look out for you. Cat and I work for two different corporate groups who make it their job to take care of people who have the sort of skills you have.”

Everything suddenly fell into place. Caleb was working and he probably wasn’t supposed to kiss the clients, or whatever I was. That’s why he’d been acting so weird. “So your concern about the bruise had to do with your job?”

“I was worried about you, Kelsey.” He frowned.

“Maybe you should just tell them what’s been happening to you?” Angelica suggested.

“I think that’s an excellent idea, Angelica,” Cat said, and I noticed for the first time that she sounded different, her voice clipped and business-like.

“Um, okay.” I quickly detailed the highlights of the past several days, many of which were surprises to Angelica, but she managed to hide her reaction, a mixture of shock and fear, every time Cat or Caleb looked her way. When I’d finished, both Cat and Caleb were silent.

“That’s not possible,” Caleb breathed. “He shouldn’t be able to get inside your head like that.”

“He’s not getting inside her head,” Cat said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice. “He’s taking her to the other side. Weren’t you listening? He’s controlling everything over there, and he’s doing physical damage to her.”

“Shit,” Caleb swore. Then he looked sharply at Cat. “Have you heard of anything like this before?”

She considered for a long moment. “I’ve heard talk, but I’ve never heard of it succeeding.”

“So this Landon, he’s…”

“He’s nothing. He’s only been dead, what? A couple of weeks? It’s Kelsey.”

“How… She hasn’t been trained, and even if she had—”

“You know what Len believed, and you know what he could do. Looks like he was right.”

My heart froze at the sound of the name. I don’t know why; they could have been talking about a woman or any one of a million other Lens in the world, but I had to check, anyway. Despite all my rationalizations and my disgust at my mother’s unrelenting hope, I had to ask. “Len?”

Cat swore under her breath, but Caleb didn’t look at her. He was looking at me. His expression was gentle, a crease of worry between his brows. “Yes, Kelsey. She’s talking about your father.”

“Wow, Caleb, don’t hold anything back,” Cat said.

He looked at her, opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head. “She deserves to know everything, after what she’s been through. We were supposed to be protecting her.”

I had so many questions. I had thought that Landon was a rogue ghost with unusual abilities, but from the way they were talking, the idea of a ghost taking over the body of a living person was nothing new. I wanted to know what that meant about me and how I could escape Landon, but more than anything else, I needed to know about my dad. “You know where he is? What happened to him?”

“Happened to him?” Caleb asked. “I don’t know that anything happened to him. Do you know what she’s talking about, Cat?”

“Why don’t you ask her, Caleb?” Cat said, her face revealing nothing.

He turned slightly red. “I’m sorry, Kelsey, I just…I understand this is very difficult for you, and I’m trying…”

“Stop sucking up to her, Caleb. We’re not trying to recruit her yet.”

Caleb threw her a look that I hoped I was never on the receiving end of. I had never seen him like this before, so uncomfortable and worried. In any case, I was tired of being talked about like I wasn’t in the room. “My dad disappeared when I was just a kid. It was never clear to my mother or me if he was killed or if he had just run off or if he was kidnapped. He left me. Do either of you know anything about that?”

Caleb looked like he wanted to punch somebody. Cat just laughed. “That sounds like Len. He’s always hated goodbyes.”

He pushed back his chair and stood. He offered me a hand, and I took it before I understood what he was doing. He gently pulled me to my feet. “Kelsey and I are going somewhere to talk alone for a while.”