“Yeah. It’s an evil incarnate thing. And, trust me, he wears it well.”
I couldn’t imagine him wearing anything badly.
We stepped into the night air, thick with a syrupy darkness, and yet it didn’t hinder my eyesight at all, besides perhaps muting the colors. But again, the streetlamps darkened the area directly below them. The effect was surreal.
“This,” Charley said, gesturing toward a red Jeep Wrangler, “is Misery. I’m in love with her, but don’t tell my sister. She’s a psychiatrist and would psychoanalyze the crap out of that.”
We climbed in and Charley brought the Jeep to life, turning on the heater with a shiver. That’s when I realized I wasn’t cold. Or hot. Or anything. Temperature, like taste and texture, was apparently lost on me. As we drove down a street I didn’t recognize, I clasped my hands in my lap and asked her reluctantly, “Was he there for me?”
She raised her brows in question.
“The son of Satan. Was he there to take me to Hell?”
After turning into a convenience store, Charley pulled to a stop and shut off the Jeep to give me her full attention. “Listen to me. I promise you, if you were scheduled for the southbound flight, you would already be there and we would not be having this conversation.”
“But, I’ve so obviously sinned.”
“No kidding?” she asked, a teasing smile lighting her face. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve sinned a few times myself. And according to some religions, I’m about to sin again.”
I blinked and looked around, trying to figure out what she was talking about.
“I’m going to march in there and make myself a mocha latte with whipped cream. Caffeine.
Calories.” She leaned in and whispered, “Unabashed pleasure.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Didn’t you just drink a cup of coffee?”
“Well, yeah, coffee. This is a latte. A mocha latte. With whipped cream. So not the same thing.”
She winked then jumped out of the Jeep.
I decided to go in as well.
“And besides, I finished that coffee off”—she looked at her watch—“minutes ago.”
“You make me laugh.”
“And you’re in a convenience store at five in the morning in a nightgown and bunny slippers,”
she said, keeping her voice low.
She was right. I should have had the decency to feel self-conscious. “So, what’s the story with you and that guy?”
“Reyes?” she asked, taking out her cell phone as the machine filled her cup. She opened it and actually pretended to talk into it, I guess in case anyone was watching. “Well, besides being the hottest thing this side of Mercury—I mean, he was forged in the fires of Hell,” she said with a waggle of her brows as she filled a second cup, “he’s something of a pain in the ass.”
“But you like him.”
She put a lid on both cups, stuffed one in the crook of her arm so she could still hold the phone, then headed for the cashier. “If you’re talking about the fact that he makes my innards mushy and my knees weak, then, yeah, I like him.” She pulled the phone to her chest to indicate a break in her conversation and said to the clerk, “We have to stop meeting like this.”
He smiled shyly as he handed over her change. “See you tomorrow night?”
“If you’re lucky,” she said with a flirty wink. She could give lessons.
“You come here a lot?” I asked.
With a shrug, she climbed back into her Jeep. I crawled through the door into the passenger’s seat. “Only every night or so. They have really good lattes. But again, he’s a pain in the ass.”
“The store clerk?”
“Reyes.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t help but wonder what Charley’s life was like. I mean, what kind of being glows in the dark and hangs out with the son of Satan? “So, do you have super powers?”
Turning onto Central Avenue, she offered me a questioning gaze. “You mean, like, can I fly?”
I laughed. “No. Wait,” I said, rethinking. “Can you?”
She laughed that time. “Not unless I’m on some very powerful painkillers.”
“Then, besides being very shimmery, what does a grim reaper do?”
“You know, everyone says I’m really bright. I don’t see it.” She studied a hand, turning it over and over. “Neither do the living, thankfully. But I pretty much just hang out and help the departed with their unfinished business, for lack of a better phrase, those who didn’t cross initially and are wandering the Earth. And when they’re ready, they can cross through me.”
“Through you?” I asked, a little stunned. “Literally?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I mention that?” When I shook my head, she said, “I hope that doesn’t scare you.
You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She burst out laughing, and I was slowly drifting back to my three-legged horse paradigm. After a moment, she sobered and said, “Okay, too soon. Newbies don’t have the best sense of humor.”
“Sorry. I’m a little dead right now.”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s good. You’re catching on.”
I smiled, too, but I turned away so she wouldn’t see. I didn’t want to get too comfortable here, in this place of void, of loneliness.
We pulled into the parking lot of a Presbyterian hospital and made our way up to the maternity ward. That was when I realized what she was doing, checking to see if anyone died in labor or something like that. Shame consumed me. I’d made the decision to die. I felt it. I would never have made it to the delivery ward.
“Are you really going to drink both of those?” I asked her.
“Oh, no. This stuff is currency ’round these parts.”
As we got closer to the ward, she turned to me, unwrapped an index finger from one of the cups and placed it over her mouth, shushing me.
“Why do I have to be quiet? I thought no one could hear.”
“Because you’ll ruin the mood.”
I frowned as she flew to a sidewall and flattened herself against it. After checking up and down the hall, she eased to her right, closing the distance from us to the maternity ward. She almost slipped—on nothing, absolutely nothing—caught herself with a soft gasp then plastered herself to the wall again, a long sigh of relief escaping her.
Oh yeah. She was nuts.
A female voice echoed against the walls, originating from a speaker by the locked entry door.
“Davidson, what are you doing?”
Charley gave up the pretense and pushed the button. “Nothing. Over.”
“This isn’t a walkie-talkie, Charley.”
“Got it. Over.”
After a soft chuckle, the voice asked, “Would you like to come in?”
“Would you like a mocha latte?”
No other words were spoken. The doors opened. Charley offered me a satisfied grin and raised the cup. “Told you. Better than gold.”
We ended up at a nurse’s station where two nurses sat filling out charts.
“Not that I’ve actually tried gold,” Charley added, whispering over her shoulder.
One of the nurses looked up, a gorgeous Hispanic woman with a short bob and almond shaped eyes. The hunger on her face said it all. She grabbed the coffee and took a hesitant sip, blowing into the opening on the lid first.
“It’s been ages. To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked, a dreamy countenance coming over her after she swallowed. Then she chuckled, stepped around the desk and gave Charley a bear-like hug.
“Well—”
“Your hair is wet,” she said, interrupting. “Charley, I swear. It’s, like, seven degrees out.”
“No way. It’s nine at the lowest.”
I looked around as Charley and her friend caught up on the everyday goings on of life. The rooms around us were dark, but of course I could see tiny beds and massive machines and I realized we were on the preemie ward. Just being there seemed to reawaken something within me. A longing. A desire. A blinding ne
ed to create and protect, so powerful that it almost hurt. I clawed past it, pushed it back down and steeled myself against its talons.
“So you’ll call around?” Charley asked as I turned to head back. I stopped short a moment, stunned once again by her beckoning light, the glittering aura that encompassed her.
“Absolutely. I know several nurses at each hospital. I’ll find out.”
“What is she looking for?” I asked Charley, retracing my steps.
“Oh, excuse me one minute,” she said to her friend and opened her phone again. Apparently her friend didn’t know about me. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Um, okay, what is she loo—”
“Right, Nancy’s looking now. Keep your panties on, Uncle Bob. We’ll figure this out.”
I thought she might actually have a call this time, then she looked directly at me and winked.
“Uh-huh, she’s looking for anything like that. A pregnant woman in her late twenties who might have died recently. She’s checking all the hospitals in the city.”
I glanced at the floor. “But if I took my own life—”
“We don’t know that.” She touched my hand to bring me back. “We don’t know what happened.”
Just then, her brows bunched together and she looked past me, her expression suddenly annoyed.
Turning, I saw it too. Him. Reyes. In all his glory. He stood down the hall from the nurse’s station, gazing through a glass panel into one of the rooms with all the big machines and tiny beds. I got a better look this time at his corded arms, thick chest, shadowed jaw that outlined his mouth to perfection.
After a quick glance at her friend, Charley strolled closer to him, keeping the phone at her ear.
Her friend offered her a quick glance, but she clearly could no more see Reyes than she could see me.
“You’re not still mad about that putting-a-knife-to-your-throat thing, are you?” he asked without taking his eyes off the glass. “That was days ago, and not entirely my fault.”
“What part of I have a case are you not understanding?” Charley said into the phone.
He didn’t answer. With a smile that would charm the fur off a fox, he said, “Babies are cool.”
Charley smiled too and looked into the room. “They don’t even look real,” she agreed, squinting inside, her face full of admiration. “They look like dolls. Well, dolls with lots of wires and breathing apparatuses. Poor little things.”
He touched the glass with an index finger, pointing. “That one’s going to be professional football player.”
At first Charley laughed, but when he didn’t join in, she aimed a wary expression at him. “Do you really know that?”
Again, without taking his eyes off the infant, he said, “I really know that.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She looked at the baby with a new purpose. “But he’s so small.”
Reyes shrugged. “He gets over it.”
Charley gave a soft chuckle. “I hope so.”
I couldn’t look. I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge what I’d done, the life I’d destroyed. The life I had to have destroyed.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” Reyes asked after a moment. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and focused his sultry gaze on Charley.
“Nope.”
Taking a miniscule step toward her, he said, “Would you put that ridiculous phone down?”
“Nope again.” As she studied the tiny being behind the glass, Reyes lifted a hand and ran a finger over her jaw and down her neck, leaving trail of dark smoke to caress her skin. Charley took a deep breath, inhaling his essence, before shaking her head and stepping away. “Stop.”
He eased closer. “Stop me.”
She put a hand on his chest and he covered it with one of his own, a beseeching look in his eye, as though begging her. But she pushed him away and he vanished once again with a devilish grin, leaving a shadowy fog in his wake.
“What are you doing?” Charley’s friend asked. She was walking down the hallway toward us, a piece of paper in her hand.
“Oh,” Charley said, recovering, “I was... There was a bug.”
The nurse looked around. “And you were nudging it away?” When Charley just shrugged and closed her phone, her friend handed her the paper. “A woman died last night at St. Joseph’s hospital. She was pregnant.”
My heartbeat skyrocketed as Charley studied the paper. Or I think it did. Did I have a heartbeat?
“Do you have a time of death?” Charley asked.
“Nothing exact. Sometime early this morning.”
“Got it.” After scanning the paper again, Charley said, “Well, I guess I’m off to St. Joseph’s.
Thanks for the help.”
“Thanks for the mocha latte,” the nurse replied, pulling Charley into a hug. “And someday you are going to tell me what all this was about.”
“Someday,” she agreed, grinning at me over the woman’s shoulder.
We made our way across town to St. Joseph’s, neither of us saying much. The parking lot was deserted as light was just now cresting the horizon. But it was a light I could see, colorful and magnificent. Natural. We went inside and found the nurse’s contact, an RN named Jillian Lightfoot. Charley introduced herself and asked about me, claiming she’d been a friend of mine and had been worried sick.
“I’m not sure if it’s the same woman. What’s your friend’s name?”
Crap. I hadn’t thought of that. I looked over at Charley as she clenched the paper in her hand and cast a furtive glance my way before saying, “Jo. Jo Montgomery.”
That was my name! I recognized it instantly. I touched my chest, my face in remembrance. I was Jo Anne Montgomery.
Charley looked over at me and smiled sadly.
“That’s her,” the nurse said. “I’m so sorry for you loss. The family is here as well.”
“Can I see them?” Charley asked.
“Well,” she hedged, not sure what to do. “It’s still early. I don’t think anyone will mind that you’re not related, but I’ll have to ask them first. They’re with the baby.”
I stilled as everything came crashing back like a title wave of emotion.
Charley seemed to sense my distress. “I would appreciate that,” she said to the nurse, then laced a hand into mine and coaxed me into a nearby bathroom. “I’ll be right out,” she called before closing the door. Then she turned to me as I sank to the floor, knelt beside me as I could no longer hold my own weight, sparse as it was.
“Are you okay, hon?” she asked, her voice soft and soothing.
“I was falling,” I said, piecing together the last minutes of my life. “I knew something was wrong and I reached out for my phone, but I fell, blacked out. I don’t remember anything else.”
“Someone must have found you,” she said. “Were you at home?”
“Yes. Wait, no. I’d moved in with my parents. My mother!” I shouted, worry flooding every ghostly molecule of my being. “She’ll be so upset.”
I started crying, sobbing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. Good thing I didn’t need to. Charley wrapped her arms around me, and I felt her light seep into me, warming me and healing me like a salve of illumination. I lost track of time as my mind revisited the last few months of my life, the pregnancy, the hope, the decision I’d made, knowing I might not survive.
When I next looked up, Charley had led me somewhere else. We were in a hospital room with my mother cooing to a tiny bundle in her arms.
“What’s her name?” Charley asked.
My mother—my beautiful, strong mother who had worried so hard for so long—handed her a baby girl. “Her name is Melody Jo Anne,” she said, her red-rimmed eyes sparkling with pride.
“Wait,” I said to Charley, “we’d decided on Melody Ruth, after her.”
Charley tore her gaze away from Melody and asked my mother, “I thought Jo decided on Melody Ruth.”
My mother laughed, tears sparkling in her eyes. “We did, but
I thought it much more fitting that this child be named after the woman who gave up her life to give her one.”
“May I ask what happened?” Charley said.
With heartbroken eyes, my mother explained. “I’m not sure how well you knew Jo, but she had type one diabetes.”
“I didn’t know that,” Charley replied, offering my mother a sympathetic gaze while swaying with the baby.
“We figured it out when she was seven. It almost killed her, and the damage it did to her kidneys was irreparable. We’d struggled her whole life just to keep her alive. So many hospitals. So many close calls.” She touched a tiny hand that had escaped the tight folds of the blanket. My baby’s hand. It was terrifying.
“Just like her mother,” a male voice said.
Surprised, I glanced up as my father walked in carrying two cups of coffee.
“Always escaping,” he added, gesturing toward the hand of the infant, “always defiant.”
“To the end,” my mother said, choking on a sob.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Montgomery, Mr. Montgomery,” Charley said.
“She just came home pregnant one day,” Mom said. Dad handed her a coffee and squeezed her shoulder for support. “The doctor told her if she went through with it she would be risking her life, but it was all she’d ever wanted. The one thing that would kill her.”
My mother melted into a sea of sobs as my father held her tight. I remembered everything now.
The one night my boyfriend and I weren’t careful. That same boyfriend then opted out of Melody’s life. Quitting my job and moving back home with my parents when I’d fallen too ill to care for myself. Everything I’d done was just to keep Melody alive.
I finally worked up the courage to move closer to Charley, to get a look at this being that had taken up residence inside me for so long. Charley instantly angled the baby so I could see her face, and both my hands flew up to cover my mouth. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Absolutely perfect.
“Look at her eyes,” I said.
Charley nodded. “And her long fingers.”
“Babies are cool.”
Startled, we both looked up at Reyes. He’d materialized from a sea of black smoke. It drifted off him like fog off dry ice. I thought Charley would be upset, but she didn’t seem to mind his presence. She refocused on Melody, her only concern my baby.