“It’s you,” she said, clearly just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She put the mug and book on the table, apparently planning to stay a while.
Why did she seem so fragile now, when I would’ve sworn she was seconds away from chopping me to pieces with a battle axe an hour ago? Why were her features so much more delicate? Her eyes so much more expressive? And blue. The smooth, cobalt blue of a ceramic bowl. Had they been this blue before? Or did they change with her moods?
Either way, her father was right. She would choose a period over a pause, though not for a few months. Only this time, she would succeed. I saw her last moment—chewed nails, limp hands, wrists open—in a bathtub soaked with blood, her bent knees protruding out of the water. November 12th. 8:28 p.m.
For the love of God, Eric, don’t fucking do it. If you fail, and you will fail…
No. Just no. There was nothing I could do. I could not take this on. I would not take this on. I’d text Jason the details of her death so her father could stop it and be on my merry way before anyone—namely, my friend—even knew I’d left.
I shook out of my thoughts, nodded a greeting that served as both hello and goodbye, and started to rise. But before I could take my leave, the tinny voice of an elderly woman drifted toward me—one who’d died in her sixties sometime in the sixties.
“I like her,” she said, beaming at the oblivious blonde.
With a heavy sigh, I sank back into the seat and cast a sideways glance at my boss’s aunt, always impressed with how much her blue hair glowed, even in the afterlife. At some point before her death, Aunt Lillian—as she’d insisted I call her—had been swallowed whole by one of those floral tents. She wore an impressive array of love beads and had a brown leather strap tied around her wrist.
I’d asked her once how she died. She’d mentioned a hippie commune, a love affair with a bona fide shaman, and a bad batch of LSD. My only disappointment when I first met her was that she didn’t have a peace sign painted on her cheek.
“She seems sad, though,” Aunt Lil continued.
“How did you recognize me?” I asked Halle, ignoring the woman who’d followed me all the way from Santa Fe. “I was wearing a helmet.”
Halle pointed. “The New Mexico shirt with the Breaking Bad RV is hard to forget.”
“Right.”
She dropped her gaze, denying me the pleasure of looking into her blue irises for a few painful seconds. “I’m sorry. About the convenience store. I thought my houseboat was on fire and didn’t have enough gas to make it to the marina.”
“Why?”
She looked up, and the air fled from my lungs. “Because my truck was on empty.”
“What? No. I meant why did you think your houseboat was on fire?”
“Oh, I got an alert on my phone. I panicked and took it out on you. I just want you to know I’ve never done anything like that before. Not ever,” she added when I eyed her doubtfully. “I swear.”
I studied the dark circles under her eyes, her chapped lips, her nails that had been chewed raw, and fought the concern inching up my chest.
“Not once.” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and reopened a small cut that had been healing before adding, “In my life.”
“I know what never means,” I said, pretending to be unmoved and wondering if I should apologize for revving my engine every time she tried to talk.
“I believe her,” Aunt Lil said. She nudged me. Or she would have if she weren’t incorporeal. Instead, her elbow slid across my arm like a shadow. “I think we should take her case, Constantine.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Halle grabbed her book and mug and started to leave.
“What kind of security system alerts you that your house is on fire?” I asked, interrupting her departure.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve never heard of a home security app doing that.”
She sat down again. “Oh, yeah.” She pulled her phone out of a small bag slung over one shoulder and started to show me but then seemed to change her mind. “Well, it’s supposed to. But mine… Security systems don’t like me in general, but this was a first. I’ve never gotten a fire alert.”
“Then your houseboat wasn’t on fire?”
“No. And let me tell you, the firefighters who showed up were not happy.”
“Firemen!” Aunt Lillian said, perking up. “I wonder if they were hot.”
I laughed softly for Halle’s benefit, not Aunt Lillian’s. I didn’t dare encourage the woman. “You would think they’d be happy—”
“Ask her if they were hot.”
“—not having to fight a fire and all.”
“You’d think,” Halle said. “You’re Jason’s friend?”
“The one and only,” I said, offering her a grin.
She smiled, just barely, and the Earth stopped spinning on its axis for several precious seconds. A thousand years from now, all the clocks would be wrong, thanks to that hiccup. This would throw everything off.
“My dad told me about you. Jason has him convinced you’re the real deal.”
“The real deal?”
“That you can see into the supernatural world.”
“Oh!” Aunt Lil said, squirming in a chair that just happened to be pulled out enough for her to pretend to squeeze into it. “Tell her about me!”
“Jason’s a pathological liar.”
A dimple appeared at one corner of her mouth. Amazing how something so small could shake me so hard. “I’ve heard that about him.” She wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip of tea as though bracing herself for her next words. “You helped me,” she said after swallowing hard. “At the gas station, you helped me get that pump, even after I treated you so horrendously. Why?”
“I’m a member of the Knights in Shining Armor Club. It’s mandatory that we help one maiden in distress a day or we lose our parking privileges.”
She pursed her lips, trying to keep a wayward grin at bay. “You don’t say.”
“We also get a ten-percent discount at Cracker Barrel.”
This time, she laughed—a beautiful, lyrical sound that…
Holy fuck, I had to stop. This was getting ridiculous. I needed to get out of here before I dropped to one knee and proposed. I scanned the bar. Wasn’t there a redhead around here somewhere? Someone, anyone to take my mind off Halle Nordstrom.
“Do you really have experience with all that stuff?”
I refocused on her and absently lifted a shoulder. “There are few people on the planet with more.” Besides some of my closest friends, but that was a story for another day.
The heat from Aunt Lil’s glare almost seared the flesh off my face. “You’re not going to tell her about me, are you?”
“Jason says you can even see when people are going to die.”
I rolled my eyes. Did that asshole spill all my secrets?
“You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you?” Aunt Lil pouted, crossing her arms over her muumuu-clad chest.
“So, what?” Halle asked with a soft laugh to lighten her next question. “You’re like…the grim reaper?”