Sweet Reckoning(23)

Crap. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation over the phone. I felt certain that creepy Caterina had left the area, but anyone could be listening. Even coming to see Jay one last time wasn’t smart.

“Okay, don’t panic. She couldn’t have gone far. She wouldn’t leave you.”

“D’you think she was taken? Oh, God—” She let out a sob.

“No . . . I don’t think that.” My mind went straight to the one person in the world Ginger cared for other than Marna. “What about . . . ?”

California. Blake.

Marna got quiet. “That would be royally stupid.”

Now we were both quiet. It would be dangerous for Ginger to abandon work to see Blake, especially when he was right in the middle of one of his biggest assignments—planning a grand-scale wedding with the gorgeous Michelle to provoke the envy of many.

“Oh, no.” Marna whispered my exact thoughts.

That was exactly where Ginger had gone.

“I have to go get her!” Marna said.

“No,” I told her. “You get back to work. She probably just needs a day or two to get past this and she’ll come back.”

“What if she doesn’t?” she whispered.

“Then we’ll have to intervene. But I think between the two of them they have enough sense of self-preservation to work it out.”

Blake wouldn’t let her stay long. We had to trust them to be smart. I’d get ahold of Kai and ask him to drag Ginger away if I had to, although I really didn’t want him involved.

We hung up and Jay bear-hugged me. As we released, a dark blotch appeared on his wall and slowly grew. I felt paralyzed as the dark spirit flew into the room, an ugly face I didn’t recognize. It looked back and forth between us. Jay’s angel moved between him and the spirit.

A million thoughts ran through my head—the notes we’d written to each other were sitting right on the desk, and there were freaking baby carriers on his computer. Thankfully Jay was blocking it, but I needed to get the whisperer away. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, handing it to Jay.

“Use this toward the keg,” I told him.

His eyebrows went together and I smiled big.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Bless him for playing along.

“See you at the party!” I said, before turning to leave. Just as I’d hoped, the spirit followed me into the hall, and I was so relieved I winked at the ugly thing. It gave me a suspicious look before flying ahead of me, gruesome wings spanning through the walls of the hallway, until it was out of sight.

At the car I texted Jay. Destroy notes. Delete msg. Get P and go. Stuff in mailbox.

Hopefully he’d have a chance to say good-bye to his parents, though I had no clue how he’d explain such a sudden move. He’d figure it out. Poor Jay. I deleted the message from my phone’s memory and pulled Patti’s new housing information from the backpack. With a quick scan of the skies, I stuffed the fat envelope into Jay’s mailbox, then got into my car, kicking up gravel as I got the heck out of town.





When you start to live outside yourself,

it’s all dangerous.


—Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden





CHAPTER EIGHT





TAKING THE INITIATIVE



I drove up the interstate feeling tired of hiding and evading—tired of doing nothing.

Dad was nowhere to be found. The fact that he hadn’t responded or shown his face was bad news. He could be chained in hell for all I knew—a thought that made all my confidence and hope threaten to slip away.

I’d always relied on his advice. His inside knowledge. Now I just felt useless and timid. So, what would Dad want me to do if he were here?

It was time to take the initiative. The first thing that came to mind was Marek, the son of Shax. Was he or was he not an ally? With a sense of resolve, I decided it was time to find out.

He could still be in the U.S., or he could be back in Europe. Was I willing to fly to the Czech Republic to find him?

Yes.

What I needed was more information. An address or phone number to reach him. Who had Neph or Duke contacts that I could trust?

Kopano. His brothers still lived in Africa with Duke Alocer. Maybe they could get their hands on some information for me.

I pulled into a rest area in North Carolina, parking as far as possible from the other people—families traveling on their summer vacations.