Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(61)
Still, as they argued with one another in the backseat of my car over which one of them was going to get to tell the story for show-and-tell of how their aunt Suze and uncle Jesse had spent the night at their house, I checked out the girls’ reflections in my rearview mirror, and couldn’t help noticing how closely they resembled a certain mediator I happen to know.
They had the coloring—dark hair and blue eyes—and slim, tennis player build of both Jack and Paul Slater, instead of the sturdy, Nordic structure of the Ackermans (who, with the exception of redheaded David, were all blond).
Once I noticed this, I couldn’t unnotice it, no matter how much I wanted to. I could only wonder how I’d never seen it before.
Brad, I was certain, didn’t know. Did Debbie? She was shallow, and had occasionally followed her best friend Kelly’s lead in school and been nasty, even spiteful.
But I’d never seen her perform an act of outright cruelty—at least not so cruel as to force a man to unknowingly raise another man’s child . . . or children, as in this case.
Why then had she hung that photograph of Paul on her inspiration board? And why had Lucia pointed at it with a look of such solemn accusation on her face? She couldn’t have been accusing Paul of murder. Paul hadn’t even lived in Carmel at the time of her death.
And while I knew better than anyone how willing Paul was to commit murder—if you could call unleashing a demon curse murder—what interest would he have in killing a child?
None. That wasn’t his style.
I was halfway to the school when my phone rang. Normally I don’t even look at my phone when I’m driving—especially if the girls are in the car or I’m driving through early morning marine layer, like now.
But what if it was Jesse calling from the hospital because Father Dom had taken a turn for the worse? What if it was Shahbaz, the blogger, calling to tell me he knew how to break the curse?
What if it was Paul, calling to say he’d come to his senses and that he was sorry?
It wasn’t. It was my youngest stepbrother, David.
Something was wrong. David and I only talked on Sundays. I jabbed at the speakerphone.
“David? What is it? What’s happened?”
“Uncle David!” the girls screamed excitedly from the backseat. “Hi, Uncle David!”
“Uh, hi. Oh, great. The girls are with you.” Although he was fond of his nieces, there was a notable lack of enthusiasm in David’s voice. “Am I on speakerphone? I was hoping we could talk in private, Suze.”
“I stayed at Brad and Debbie’s last night, so I’m taking the girls to school with me. What’s wrong? Why are you calling? Today’s not Sunday.”
“I’m aware that today is not Sunday, Suze.” Doc’s tone suggested he suspected I might have been lobotomized since he’d last seen me. “I’m calling because I heard what happened to Father Dominic. Is he okay?”
I relaxed my grip on the wheel. “Oh. Yeah. Jesse’s on his way to see him now. He already talked to his doctor this morning, and Dr. Patel said Father Dom did well overnight, so everything should be—”
“What happened to him?”
“He fell. It happens.” I was conscious that the girls were listening, so I chose my words with care. “Old people fall down sometimes.”
“And break their hips and get pneumonia,” Mopsy added helpfully.
“Simmer down back there and watch your video,” I commanded, meaning the tablet I’d purchased for them to use in the car (as a means to keep them from pulling out one another’s hair, and me pulling out my own in frustration). “Or I’ll make you get out and walk to school.”
The girls laughed. I had to admit the threat had probably lost some of its punch since I used it every single time I drove them somewhere, but had yet actually to follow through.
“Well, what’s this weird thing your mom was talking about when I called her last night, about our old house getting bought by that Paul Slater guy?” David asked. “And does it have anything to do with that e-mail you sent to Shahbaz Effendi about some Egyptian curse?”
I nearly slammed on the brakes, and not just because the pickup in front of me, carrying crates full of freshly harvested pomegranates, had swerved suddenly to avoid hitting a cyclist.
“How the hell did you find out about that?”
“Because Shahbaz goes to my school, Suze,” David said in a patient voice as the triplets hooted in the backseat because I’d used a curse word. “He’s a grad student in NELC—that’s the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department here. After he got your e-mail, he looked you up on the Web to find out who you are. But of course you don’t have any social media accounts, so all he could find was some celebrity website that lists you as Andy Ackerman’s stepdaughter, and me as one of his sons. It also mentioned that I go here, so he got in touch with me through the school directory to ask if you’re really as mentally unstable as you sounded in your message to him—”
“Mentally unstable?” I interrupted, offended. “Where does he get off, accusing me of being mentally unstable? I’m not the one who sits around translating curses written in hieratic script all day so I can post them on the Internet where anyone can find them and—”
“And what, Suze?”