Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“What?”
“I’m sorry telling your cop didn’t turn out like you wanted,” she said. “Normally, I’d suggest ice cream.”
“I’m not five, Shannon. He didn’t push me off the swing at the playground,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, you were honest with him and he ran away. After telling you he didn’t think you were evil. So, kind of a mixed bag, I guess. At least he’s not going to tell the cops about you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I couldn’t help but wonder why. Fae in San Amaro was exactly the information any good cop would want to make sure someone knew about, and Nick’s Paranormal Crimes captain was the perfect higher up to foist the information—and responsibility—on.
After having spent a few days—and a few memorable nights—together, I couldn’t imagine he’d changed who he was in his core. When we’d first met, I’d gotten the impression he wanted to be a captain someday, with his eyes set on being chief of police. He had that sort of upright energy.
Leaving my place, though, it was clear he had no intention of telling his superiors about me. In fact, he’d been trying to reassure me I was a good person. It was one thing to think the mantras of Humans Are Human were nonsense, but pretending the fae weren’t dangerous was downright suicidal.
I couldn’t parse out why I wasn’t grabbing my go bag and getting on the next bus for LA.
“It looks like you’re doing a lot of great reflection,” Shannon said.
“And maybe realizing you aren’t unlovable and not everyone is going to reject you and all that other stuff Marco and I tried to teach you.
And I hate to break up that life-altering realization, but, I really am afraid for my life. ”
“Tell me who’s trying to kill you.” I shook my head.
“They hired a new night nurse,” Shannon said. “She’s a little religious.”
The microwave beeped, and I grabbed a fork from the drawer before pulling out the TV dinner and stirring it all together. Rubbery vegetable pasta mix. Yum.
“At first I thought they’d changed my medication, because I’d be somewhere, and then I’d just kind of disappear,” Shannon said. “But one time I was in the room and I saw her inject me with something. Something not on my chart.”
“What does it have to do with her religion? She might just be an Angel of Death or something.” I spoke around the salty mass of food in my mouth. Despite how unappealing it was, I was starving and had already finished half the meal.
“I think she’s in one of those HAH cults,” Shannon said. “Her entire family does nightly prayers about preserving the purity of Earth for humans and her pastor does some frightening end-of-the-world sermons.”
“You followed her home?”
“She’s injecting me with something suspicious! What would you have done?” Shannon asked.
“Okay, so she’s a nut,” I said. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a medication change?”
“Parker.” Shannon’s voice was quiet. I looked up from the tray, trying to decide if I was so hungry that another two-thousand-calorie plate of food would be worth it. “I’m scared. I don’t know what happens if I die, if she kills me. What if this is it?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have Laurel look into it. Why don’t you want me to deal with it?”
“You’ve got enough on your plate, honey. And tomorrow you need to start figuring out where you’re going to live.”
My stomach tightened, and I dropped the empty TV dinner tray into the sink, the fork bouncing out with a metallic ring. Digging through my backpack, I was relieved to see my cellphone had survived the day’s events.
There were ten missed calls from Nick and five voicemails, I deleted all of them without listening and dialed up Laurel. She answered, her voice sleepy.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
On the other end of the phone, she shifted and clicked something on. “Tell me.”
“I’ve seen Shannon.”
“Yeah, I know,” she snapped. “I asked the facility, and this was the first time you’ve shown up in months.”
“No.” I cut her off before she could reprimand me more. “I mean that I’ve been seeing her. Her spirit, her ghost, whatever. She’s here, right now, in my kitchen.”
Silence echoed back on the other end of the phone.
“Whatever this is, Parker,” Laurel said, evenly. “It’s not funny. I already took our lawyer to Meadowhaven, and he says we have a good case for discrimination. Shannon’s not haunting you. She’s not dead.”
“I’m not joking.” For the second time that night, I was afraid someone I cared about would reject me after I told them the truth. “It started after I visited her at Meadowhaven. She followed me home, I guess. Either I’m going crazy or she’s here. Ask something I wouldn’t know.”
Laurel sighed and inhaled a long breath. “What happened when I turned eighteen?”
Glancing over to Shannon, she had her eyes narrowed and tapped her finger on her chin. Laurel would have turned eighteen while I was with the fae, and we hadn’t talked much about what happened while I was gone. It was too fresh, too hard for both of us.
“We went out to the islands, just the three of us. Marco insisted we go kayaking, but we didn’t know Laurel couldn’t swim.
We capsized, and she panicked.” Shannon frowned down at her hands.
There was more to the story, but, with all my secrets, if neither one of them wanted to tell me, I had no right to push.
“Shannon said you went out to the islands and Marco took you guys kayaking. You didn’t know how to swim and so when you capsized, you panicked,” I repeated.
With a gasp, Laurel said, “How did you know that?”
“I told you, Shannon is here. She has something she needs you to do. I can’t do it, because I’ve got a lot going on right now, but I think it has to happen soon.”
“What?” Laurel said.
“Her night nurse. She says the woman is injecting her with something dangerous, it’s going to kill her. She followed the woman home and the woman’s part of some Christian doomsday cult.”
“We have to get her out of there.” Laurel was moving on the other side of the phone, I could hear the clatter as she dropped something, and a soft swear as she picked it back up.
“Yeah, I agree. But where can we put her? Meadowhaven is going to warn anywhere else about her haunting everyone.”
Laurel groaned. “I was so rude to that woman. I called her a bigot. And Shannon actually was haunting everyone.”
“Well,” I sympathized. “You didn’t know.”
“You did.” I could hear Laurel’s eyes narrow over the line. “You would have let me walk around showing my ass—”
“Hey, she was bigoted. It could have been anyone else, but she thought it was Shannon. Anyway, where can we move her?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Laurel said. “Can she stay with you?”
“Uh…” I wouldn’t even have a place for me to live soon, much less my ghostly foster mother. “I don’t have any room. You’ve been to my place.”
“Yeah.” Laurel exhaled a long breath. “Okay. Is the nurse on shift tonight?”
I glanced at Shannon and she shook her head. “No.”
“So it’s something we can deal with tomorrow,” Laurel said. “I’m going to be up all night thinking about this.”
“It won’t help your reputation at the facility if you show up looking insane,” I informed her. “Try to get some rest.”
“Thanks.” There was a beat, like she was trying to find a way to politely ask why me, why the prodigal son rather than the dutiful daughter. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, sis.” I waited to hear the empty line when she ended the call. Looking at Shannon, I spun my phone between my thumb and forefinger. “You sticking around?”
“I’m going to go check on Laurel.” With a wave, she faded out, leaving me alone again.
Sighing, I headed for the bedroom, kicking off my shoes along the way. I collapsed face first onto the bed. Unlike Laurel, who I knew would stay up all night baking, worrying, or both at the same time, I fell asleep and didn’t dream of anything.
I woke up to someone pounding on my door. Groaning into my pillow, I checked my phone for the time, but it had died in the middle of the night, so I plugged it in. The knocking was joined by yelling.
“Ferro, I know you’re in there! Come out!”
Through the peephole, I saw my landlord and let out a sigh. Pushing back my shoulders, I opened the door.
“Jeffrey Jenkins. What can I do for you?”
“You Parker Ferro?” a short man standing next to Jeffrey asked.
“In the flesh,” I confirmed. He handed me an envelope, marking down some notes on a clipboard. “You’ve been served.”
“What is this, Jeffrey?” I asked.
“You’re going to get kicked out,” Jeffrey said, his mouth stretching into a joyous grin. “I’m not going to have to deal with you, or your dogs, or whatever other inhuman things you’re doing business with anymore.”
“Could you sign here?” the process server asked.
Taking his pen, I signed my name with a flourish.
“You have dogs?” the process server asked. “This building allows pets?”
He looked around and nodded his head like he’d have to consider it. Why anyone would take a look at Las Vistas and think, “Hey, I could live here” was beyond me. Desperation drove me, and cheap rent was all the neighbors mentioned when I asked.
“He means werewolves.” I jerked my thumb at the positively ecstatic Jeffrey.
“Oh, man,” the process server said. “No. That’s not cool. Werewolves aren’t dogs. That’s derogatory and a myth. Werewolves are just as human as you and me.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t human. But I don’t like crime around my buildings, and the type of people you work with aren’t on the legal side of the law.” Jeffrey’s lip twisted up. “It’s for the safety of my tenants.”
“Sure,” I said. “How about that black mold in the stairwell? That going to get fixed soon, then? For the ‘safety of your tenants’?”
“No one’s reported any mold to me.” Jeffrey narrowed his eyes. “You going to try to fight this with made-up accusations?”
I held up my hands. “What, you want me to bring video evidence of the living conditions here to the judge?”
“Yeah? And I’ll drag in all the CCTV of every one of your ‘guests’—”
“Anyway,” the process server said. “Sorry about your eviction, man. Good luck.”
He headed down the hallway and I waved at him. Showing my teeth to Jeffrey, I said, “Nice guy. You should use him again. Maybe he can be a witness to the death traps you’re running when everyone gets together and sues.”
“Where are you even going to go?” Jeffrey asked. “No one’s going to hire a PI with no office.”
Ignoring him, I looked at the information on the documents the process server had given me. “When did you even get these? Doesn’t the court only open at seven-thirty?”
“First one in line.” Jeffrey tapped his forefinger on his chest. “I wanted to make sure you got them as soon as possible.”
“I could have your money for you,” I said.
“Do you?” Jeffrey asked, both eyebrows going up.
“No. But I might have gotten the money.”
“Sure, and monkeys might fly.”
“I’m not going to miss seeing you around,” I said. “I always need to wash after we chat.”
Showily, I wiped my free hand on my jeans. He laughed, a quick grunt that made him sound more like a pig than a person. Raising his eyebrows, he pointed at the paperwork.
“Ten days to respond, Parker. Tick-tock.”
With the stack of paper, I saluted him and watched as he moved towards the elevator. I was reminded again of a slug.
Heading inside, I skimmed through the paperwork. Remembering how he’d tampered with the lease, I double-checked, but everything looked in order, which left me stuck. I had the two weeks to get in my rebuttal and then we had a court date. After that, things moved quickly.
At most, I’d get a month or two of respite. As long as he didn’t try something like turning off my water or electricity, I could live here until then. Still, it wasn’t a long-term solution.
I’d have to actually move somewhere else.
I checked my phone and decided there wasn’t any time like the present to go look at the video at the hotel. Nick had mentioned it was one of the ritzy places on the oceanfront, and I was pretty sure I’d seen a paystub from The Ala Mar hotel when I was searching Acacia’s place.
“Might as well look the part,” I said to no one.
When I left, I was wearing a suit jacket over a button-up shirt and nice slacks. It wouldn’t get me into any of the fancy country clubs in Montecito, but I’d pass for someone who should be allowed to see the video they were holding.
I sprung for another rideshare because the hotel was far enough away I didn’t want to walk, and I wasn’t sure when the cops would come to take the video into evidence.
The blue sedan deposited me in front of a hotel that cost more per night than any place I’d ever stayed.
Wondering what the daughter of the Summer Queen could find working here, I wandered inside.
Looking around, I realized exactly what she’d found.
People who thought money was no object wandered through the lobby, dogs or expensive handbags under their arms. I saw someone I recognized from the HAH flyer as a member of the Alchemists’ Society on the phone, his voice carrying to where I stood near the door.
“Don’t come here, I’ll come to you,” he said. “You know why. No. Fine, I’ll see you there.”
If there was one place information and secrets would flow, it’d be an expensive hotel in a vacation community. If she befriended some working girls that were there often, she’d have enough blackmail to take down a lot of people.
Now the question was, what did the Summer Queen want with human politics?
“Can I help you?”