Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(80)

Callie shuffled the police documents Ford had provided. She recited the access code to the server room, and then peeked at her cheat sheet. This morning, on her way back from the handoff with Benny, she’d remembered the code correctly for the first time, and now she had the numbers down pat.

Three quick raps at her door echoed in her empty apartment. Why was Derek back so soon?

“You forget something—” Speaking while opening the door turned out to be a rookie move. Her hands began to cool immediately.

“Tell me what you did.” Zara shoved past Callie, clocking her shoulder hard enough a bruise would develop by morning.

“Nice to see you, too.” She didn’t bother rubbing at her stinging shoulder. Zara didn’t deserve the satisfaction, and it wouldn’t ease her pain or warm her hands. She gave her mom enough space to keep the icy sensation in check.

Zara’s fingers were curled into little fists that she slammed on her hips. The move might have frightened ten-year-old Callie, but she’d had a decade to get past her mom’s scare tactics. Zara’s blouse—a peasant top whirled with mish-mashed colors—fluttered as she huffed. As though an angry sigh would explain anything to Callie.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Mom.” Josh wouldn’t have divulged about CPS. No way. Not when he was still on the chopping block, damn near literally.

“I went to get my … relief today, and my masseuse was missing. Tess. I guess you know her, and ran her off with some thug.”

A cartoon anvil could have dropped on Callie’s head right then. She locked her jaw and counted to ten before responding. “You know Tess?” Her words were shaky, but the underlining fury rang clear.

“Yes!” Zara was a petite woman under normal circumstances, but as she threw her hands skyward she morphed into a colossus in the one-bedroom apartment. “She helps relieve my stress, and now I can’t get her help because of you.”

Callie shook her head. Tess hadn’t lied. It’d be damn dangerous for Zara to start telling people about Tess and Bianca’s underhanded dealings or their rocky relationship with the Soul Charmer. “What makes you think I have a thing to do with you not being able to get a massage?”

“Her assistant said to talk to you.” The accusation was empty. So she didn’t know as much as Callie had feared. Zara no longer overwhelmed the room. In fact, from the few inches Callie stood taller than her mother, she spied Zara’s roots beginning to show.

If her mother knew, who else might have details about Callie’s involvement in Tess’s capture?

“Mhm, and what else did her assistant say?” Years of playing it cool around her mother paid off.

Zara’s nostrils flared. Funny how calm confidence could make the bullies quake. “She said you knew where Tess was.” Her voice trailed off, her power diminishing.

“You can throw a rock in Gem City and hit a massage therapist. Get a new one.”

Zara took a seat on the couch. Not that she’d been invited to make herself comfortable. Or steal Derek’s spot. Callie clenched her jaw, but parried her blows for what mattered: getting Zara the hell out of her house.

“Tess is so much more.” The ethereal allegiance in Zara’s words was too much.

Callie cut her off. “She’s not good for you.”

“She helps me!”

So that’s where Josh got it. “Lots of people can help you.”

“You’ve never understood. Not everyone is as well-adjusted as you. We can’t just be okay.”

Be. Okay. Was that even a thing? “Are you new? Since when am I living the choice life?”

“Please. You lord your stability over us and then have the audacity to bitch about your bills.”

“I haven’t said shit about bills to you since I was fourteen and you decided the gas bill was less important than a bar night with the girls.” Callie needed to be in a Zen state of mind to pull off this bullshit for Ford tonight, and Zara was not fucking helping.

“Josh told me about how you couldn’t help your own brother out because you owed money.”

“I don’t ‘owe money,’ Mom. I have bills, and, yeah, I don’t have a bunch of cash for him because I’ve already given my savings to him twice. I’m wiped. He’s been using us for years.”

“He’s getting clean. He called me earlier. Said he’s detoxing.”

No, no, no. “Josh called you today?”

“He did, and he asked for my help. He cares about his mama.”

Callie was breaking more laws than she cared to count, working double shifts—first at the home, and then for the Charmer—and to Josh it still wasn’t enough. “What did he ask for?”

“He’ll need a place to stay when he gets out.”

Callie would have provided that, without the added anxiety of some weird reverse Oedipus shit. “And?”

She waved away the question, but still answered under her breath. “A little cash, to get him back on his feet.”

Pretending big favors were little wasn’t about ego with Zara. Guilt filled the bones of every member of the Delgado family. Zara atoned for her self-loathing and shame with her son. In sitcoms the baby was always spoiled, but in Callie’s house it had always been the boy. Josh was where Zara found redemption. There and, apparently, a soul-siphoning masseuse/crazy cult lady.