Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(33)
“Not that,” he interrupted. “Though that was a very comical speech, and I quite enjoyed it. I meant the devil child.”
“Oh, her. She’s the very protective ghost of that girl at the mission I was telling you about—who happens to be Kelly Prescott’s stepdaughter, by the way. I didn’t think she’d follow me all the way out here from school. It was my fault, really. I should have been more watchful.”
“Your fault? None of this was your fault.” Jesse’s normally warm brown eyes no longer looked particularly warm, and it was easy to tell there might be a gap in his résumé where Spent a century and a half haunting a home as a spectral presence ought to have been. “Why is it that whenever Kelly Prescott’s name comes up, trouble seems to follow?”
“Because she’s a total bitch?”
The corner of Jesse’s lips twitched upward. The darkness was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He stood, then held out a hand to me.
“I can see you’re feeling better. Which is just as well, since I need to go back. I told them I was running out to buy cigarettes, and I’ve been gone way too long.”
“Cigarettes?” I slipped my hand into his and allowed him to pull me to my feet. “Jesse, you don’t smoke.”
“No, but a lot of the nurses do. I needed them to cover for me, so my plan was to bribe them with cigarettes. But now I’m going to be even longer if I need to wait for you to get your things together, then follow you out to Snail Crossing.”
“Snail Crossing? Why would you follow me out to Snail Crossing?”
I was confused. Snail Crossing was the name of the ranch house Jake had bought in Carmel Valley, then convinced Jesse to move into with him after Jesse got his fellowship at St. Francis (thank God, because I’m not sure how much longer even someone as religious as Jesse is could have taken living with Father Dominic, who’d supported him—with the help of the church—in the first year Jesse had found himself suddenly alive, before getting accepted to medical school).
Dubbed Snail Crossing because the front yard was so deeply tree shaded that snails crept across the pavers at all hours of the day and night, Jake’s house had become our primary social hangout, the sight of many an epic barbecue, pool party, and deep intellectual conversation around the backyard fire pit.
But that didn’t mean I had any intention of going there tonight. I’d ignored Jake’s text about “brews and za” and his current crush, Gina, for a reason.
“You need to go there for your own safety, Susannah,” Jesse said. “I know you’ve taken every precaution with your place, and it’s probably one hundred percent secure against paranormal attack. But Jake’s is even more secure right now, because that little hellion hasn’t figured out where it is. And you know the kind of security system Jake has.”
Did I ever. As soon as medical marijuana had become legal in the state of California, Jake—whom I’d always referred to in my head as Sleepy, because he’d seemed so out of it—stunned us all by revealing he’d parlayed his pizza-delivery earnings into the purchase of a plot of land in Salinas and modest storefront in Carmel Valley.
The result—Pot-Ential—does amazing numbers. A national newspaper recently named Jake one of the top business owners in the Monterey Bay area.
But just because marijuana was legal at the state level didn’t mean banks were allowed to accept transactions involving the drug. This caused Jake to have, at any given time, hundreds of thousands dollars of cash sitting around in the safe at his house, because he didn’t want to risk the lives of his employees by keeping it at the shop. He’d been forced to install a state-of-the-art security system—and purchase a large number of firearms—in order to fend off individuals who might mistakenly think that a hippy-dippy dispensary owner didn’t know how to protect himself and his cash.
So in addition to having a large swimming pool, fire pit, and terrestrial mollusks, Snail Crossing was almost as impregnable as Fort Knox.
“It’s better for you and Gina to stay there,” Jesse said, “until we get this thing sorted.”
I dropped his hand. “What?”
“I know you don’t like it, but—”
“Don’t like it? Jesse, I thought we agreed you were going to cut out the overprotective nineteenth-century macho man bullshit.”
“That was before I saw that devil child coming after you tonight. Don’t try to pretend that what happened didn’t frighten you, Susannah. If I hadn’t come along when I did—”
“Fine, she frightened me,” I interrupted, shrugging loose from the arm he’d lain across my shoulders. This was not a good development. How was I going to get to Home Depot before closing to buy salt if I had to pack up and go to the Crossing? Especially with Jesse following me. “But not enough to drive me from my own home. For God’s sake, Jesse, she knows where I work, too. What am I supposed to do, not show up to school tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow Father Dominic will be there,” Jesse said. “He’ll know how to handle her.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, right! Jesse, no offense, but Father Dominic is the one who failed to notice her in the first place, and allowed all this to happen.”
“Please.” He laid both hands on my shoulders. “Susannah. How am I supposed to be able to work knowing you’re here alone with that thing looking to harm you? And I know you would never allow Gina to risk her life for you. At least at the Crossing, there’s Max.”