I had a big mouthful of Caffe Mocha and I nearly choked on it.
“Um…” I coughed, my eyes watering.
“You okay?” Rylee pounded me on the back. “You look like you saw a ghost. Coffee go down the wrong pipe?”
“Some…something like that,” I managed to say. “Look, Rylee, I really want to thank you for helping me out with this divorce.”
“No problem,” she said easily, taking another sip of her drink. “Your soon-to-be ex sounds like a real piece of work.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said darkly, taking another drink of my own coffee. Rylee had on blackberry colored lipstick and there were still a few traces on my straw. That didn’t bother me but for some reason, seeing her drink from the straw that I had drunk from did. Why? Something tickled at the back of my mind but I couldn’t quite remember it.
“Well, I hope you’re going to meet him in a public place to serve these papers,” Rylee said. “I’m not a lawyer so I’m not supposed to offer legal advice but this is just common sense. Some men can get ugly when you tell them you intend to leave their sorry ass.” She made a face. “I know my ex did.”
“I’m going to see him at his work place,” I said. I had called to check and spoken with Gerald’s secretary, who assured me that he still worked at the firm in Virginia. “That should stop him from getting handsy.”
“You sure this is how you want to do it?” She tapped the stack of papers in front of her. “You’re basically just giving him the house you two were both paying for. I know you want to get out quick, but if you take him to court you could at least get half the assets, if not some alimony.”
“I don’t want anything from him,” I said quickly. “Besides, if I take him to court, he’ll drag my name through the dirt and tell everyone I ran off with another guy.”
“Well, did you?” Rylee asked frankly, taking another sip.
“Sort of…” I shifted in my seat. “It’s complicated. It didn’t really, uh, work out.” Which was a massive understatement. My heart still felt shredded from the way things had ended between Grav and me. But what could I do?
“Sorry to hear that,” Rylee said neutrally. “At least it gave you the momentum to get out of a bad relationship.”
“It did.” I nodded—I could be grateful to Grav for that much at least. “It really did.” I reached for my Mocha but my hand slipped on the condensation that coated the icy plastic cup. Before I could get a better grip, it squirted right out of my hand. “Oh!” I gasped as my drink turned over, flooding the table.
“It’s okay.” Rylee rescued the divorcee paperwork with one hand and her own drink with the other. She jumped gracefully out of her chair just in time to save her expensive-looking black pencil-skirt from getting a coffee bath.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching for the napkin dispenser. “It’s just that I’ve been so distracted lately and I…”
My voice trailed off as I tilted the dispenser and saw Rylee’s face reflected in its silver side. Any reflective surface—the Commercians can see and transport any Earth girl through any reflective surface.
Wasn’t that the way the Alien Mate Index worked? The Commercians, those little blue bastards, picked out a female they thought was special and showed her to a prospective buyer. Grav had told me once that he knew I was special by my aura when he saw me on the AMI’s light screen.
And how do you get special?
This time my own words came back to me when Zoe and I had been having our most recent Girls’ Night. “Who knew you could catch special powers as easily as catching the common cold?”
And what had I just said to Rylee before we traded drinks?
“I don’t have a cold or anything.”
No, but I was a La-ti-zal…a trait that Zoe had told me was catching through sharing food and drinks.
Suddenly I realized why it had bothered me so much to see Rylee drink after me. I stood watching her in agony as she took another sip of her iced coffee. Should I knock it out of her hand? Tell her to wash her mouth out with soap or really strong mouthwash? Or was I overreacting? After all, just a few of my germs on the straw probably wasn’t enough to “infect” her with the La-ti-zal virus or whatever it was that made you special—was it?
“What’s wrong with you?” Rylee frowned at me. “You’re giving me that look like you saw a ghost again.”
“Uh…nothing.” I tried to laugh and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser to mop up my mess, which by this time was dripping all over the floor. “I’m just fine. Just…dreading giving my ex those papers, I guess.”
“Oh…” Her face softened. “I understand. It’s never easy, ending things.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, thinking of the stiff, awful ending between Grav and me. “Look, thank you so much for your help, Rylee, but I really ought to get going.”
“All right. You’ll need these, then.” She handed me the divorce papers and I gave up mopping at the table to take them. An employee was on the way over anyway, with a wet towel and a mop. He took over the cleaning process, allowing Rylee and me to move to the side and say our goodbyes.
“You take care.” Rylee gave me a spontaneous hug. “And anytime you need any legal help, just call me. Any friend of Zoe’s is a friend of mine.”
“Thank you.” I hugged her back, hoping that everything was going to be okay. “I really appreciate that, Rylee.”
“You’re welcome.” She pulled back, smiling and I couldn’t help thinking that she really was extremely pretty. And so nice too! Zoe had been right about her but then, she’s usually a pretty good judge of character—which was why she had never liked Gerald.
“I’ll see you later.” I smiled and collected my purse and keys, giving Rylee a little wave as I left.
On the way out the door, I turned back once more and saw her lovely image reflected in the plate-glass window of the Starbucks wall. The sight sent a chill through me and I felt my smile slip, just a little.
Surely not, I told myself firmly as I left the coffee shop. Come on, Leah—you’re just being paranoid. One little sip of contaminated coffee isn’t enough to bring out anybody’s latent La-ti-zal tendencies.
Was it?
The problem preoccupied me all the way back to my mom’s house. I was driving her spare car—an old one my sister had used in college until it was almost on its last legs—because I’d left my car up in Virginia with Gerald.
I hoped the old car, which my sister and I had nicknamed “Pinky” because of its faded pink paint job, would make it all the way to Virginia. My mom had offered to loan me hers, but I didn’t like to leave her without a dependable mode of transportation.
Still, as Pinky sputtered towards home, I thought I might have to take her up on it. The old car really was dilapidated. The chrome was dull and rusted and even the mirrors were coated in dust since it hadn’t been driven in so long. I had to rub my thumb over the rearview mirror to see anything in back of me at all.
The only shiny surface on the whole car was a part on the back bumper where my sister had put a bumper sticker. You Just Got Passed by a Girl! it proclaimed in purple block letters with a lipstick kiss at the end. It had been a joke when my sister put it on because Pinky couldn’t pass anything. Later the kiss and the Girl part of the sticker had peeled off, leaving a tiny, shiny patch that looked strange compared with the rest of the rusted bumper.
At least I would be driving over the weekend, so traffic wouldn’t be so bad, I reflected as I pulled into my mom’s garage and killed the engine. Pinky died with a choked, protesting splutter and I got out of the car as I considered my plan.
I intended to show up at Gerald’s work in the middle of work on Monday. I would talk to him quietly, but in full view of his coworkers. That way he wouldn’t dare to get violent with me.
I shivered as I remembered his last attack. I really thought he might have killed me if Grav hadn’t intervened. But the memory o
f the big, blue Alien made me so sad I wanted to cry so I tried to push the thought away.
I sighed as I locked the car and pushed the button to lower the garage door. It went down with a rattling clatter and I noticed that my mom’s car was gone—she was retired but she liked to stay active. Probably she was out with some friends having lunch or running errands.
Well, it would be nice to have the house to myself to pack. I loved my mom to pieces but she asked a lot of questions. About why I had left Gerald and where I had been and who I had been with and why I had been gone so long without telling her I was all right…the list went on and on.
Her questions were hard to answer. Especially since, as Zoe pointed out, I’m a terrible liar. I was surprised that Rylee had swallowed my story about Zoe running off with a secret fiancée. But then, she had probably been eager to have any plausible explanation as to why Zoe had disappeared so suddenly from her workplace. I knew, I certainly would have been, back when Charlotte and I were still looking for her…
As the door finally finished its noisy descent, I heard a soft, scuffling noise in the darkened garage.
What in the world? A slight prickling at the back of my neck sent goose bumps down my spine. The sound had come from behind that big, floor to ceiling tool case my dad used to take such pride in. Could it be a rat? We’d had a problem with them once before. Oh God, I didn’t want to deal with a rat right now! Or maybe it was a roach—one of those big Palmetto Bugs. They’re built like armored tanks so that rustling sound could absolutely be one of them getting ready to fly right at my face.
I started to back away and then I heard a low, familiar voice floating out of the darkness.
“Hello, darling,” it said, just a hint of menace in the honeyed tones. “I’m so glad you’re home—I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Grav
“I am sorry, but there is not enough light to show your female,” Char’noth informed me. “The area she is in is very dark and there are few reflective surfaces, which makes it difficult to see on the light screen.”
“What?” I growled, frowning. Teeny and I had come back to the AMI headquarters the minute I realized what a fool I had been. I needed to get back to Leah and apologize. And I also needed to fulfill my oath. Teeny’s dream had me really worried for some reason. In fact, even now I felt a creeping sense of dread and a flash of what Leah had always called “goose bumps” ran down my spine.
“Take a look for yourself.” Char’noth made a motion with one of his multiple, clawed hands and the AMI’s light screen winked into existence. He was right about Leah being in a dark place—I could scarcely see anything at all. Just some indistinct shapes in an enclosed area.
One of them, which might be Leah, was moving around another, which looked like it might be one of the little wheeled vehicles the Earthlings like to drive. I wondered if she had been out for the day and had just come home. This location was at her mother’s house—the same place she had asked to be transported when we said our goodbyes.
“I can hardly see anything,” I complained. “Just put me through to another part of the house and I’ll go find her.”
“Negative,” Char’noth shook his head. “You came to us during our bi-solar-weekly maintenance period. We are fine tuning the receptors of the AMI transporter at the moment.”
“Well what in the Frozen Hells does that mean?” I demanded.
“It means we are unable to lock onto a target outside the range of your specified female,” the little blue bastard explained. “We will be unable to send you to another spot in her domicile—the transporter can only lock in to her specific location. But as you can see…” He waved three of his hands. “We do not currently have enough light on the few reflective areas to get a good image, let alone attempt a transport.”
“So it would help if there was more light in there?” I asked, frowning. I didn’t think it was supposed to be nighttime on Leah’s part of the Earth just then. So maybe she was just in a dark room.
“Most assuredly. Light would pick up on our receptors and make it both easier to see the area and easier to transport you,” Char’noth agreed.
“Then let’s keep watching,” I said. “I think she’s just in a dark spot. The minute she gets someplace with some light, you send me through to her.”
“I will be ready,” the Commercian replied, in his high, squeaky voice.
Then I heard someone else speak, this time from the light screen—and it wasn’t Leah.
“Hello, darling,” said a male voice. It was soft but full of menace. “I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Leah
“Who is that? Who’s there?” I put my hand to my pounding heart and reached for the garage door button. But before I could touch it, someone stepped between me and it, blocking my access.
“Now, don’t do that,” he said. “Let’s keep it dark—the way you always wanted to keep it dark when we made love, so you could hide the fact that you weren’t enjoying yourself. Not with me, anyway. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed yourself with many other men, that way.”
“Gerald,” I said, my heart beating even harder. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Well my secretary told me you called, darling.” He stepped closer, a large, indistinct shape looming over me in the dark.
I frowned. “How did she know it was me? I didn’t leave my name.”
“You didn’t need to—she knew the sound of your voice. She was quite jealous of you—didn’t I ever tell you?” He laughed lightly, a sound so filled with malice it made my blood run cold.
“She…she did? I mean, she was?” I asked, my voice sounding more breathless than I liked.
“Oh yes—extremely jealous.” I couldn’t see his face in the dim light of the garage but I could tell that Gerald was smiling that ugly smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “She wanted to have an affair with me—did you know? But I refused her. I resisted her charms because I would never cheat on you, my darling.” His voice dropped to a snarl. “Too bad you couldn’t repay the favor in kind.”
“Gerald,” I said firmly. “I never cheated on you.”
“What about with that huge freak who was in our house that day you disappeared?” he demanded. “Did you cheat with him? Did you let him fuck you? Don’t lie to me—I know you did.”
“We did make love, yes,” I said, lifting my chin. “Once. But I don’t consider it cheating because that was after you and I went our separate ways.”
“You mean after you ran out on me,” he snapped.
“No, I mean after you tried to beat me to death and I left you.”
“I was only giving you what you deserved—you little whore,” he spat.
“Why did I deserve to be your punching bag?” I demanded, going for the garage door switch again—I didn’t like being trapped in the dark with him. “Because you were pathologically jealous?”
“Ah-ah-ah, darling.” He got between me and the switch once more before I could press it. “You deserved to be punished because you were bad—you’ve always been bad. From the minute I met you I knew you were, but I let myself love you anyway.”
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I exclaimed. “Let me out of here, Gerald!”
“I don’t think so. It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. Where did you go, anyway?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. “But now that I’m back, I have something to show you.”
I still had the divorce papers clutched in one hand like a weapon. Not that I thought they would do me much good but if I could just get him to turn on the light to look at them, I could have a better chance of seeing where I was going. Also, I didn’t know why but I had a very strong feeling that having a light on was important—maybe vital.
“And what might that be?” he demanded. “What do you have to show me that I haven’t already seen?”
> “These!” I flung the papers in his face and ran for the other side of the garage, back for my father’s old tool case where Gerald had been hiding when I first drove in. I might not be able to get out the door, but I would be damned if I’d let him get to me without a fight!
Fumbling in the dark case for a weapon, my fingers found a cool, smooth handle which tapered to a sharp point—a screwdriver! I would rather have had one of the big, heavy wrenches my dad had used but this would do. I pulled it out and held it in front of me but Gerald was still across the garage.
“What are these?” he demanded, rattling some of the papers at me. There was just the faintest trace of the bright Florida sunshine coming through the crack under the garage door and my eyes had gotten adjusted to the darkness now. I could see that he was staring at me with a frown on his face.
“Divorce papers,” I said, still holding the screwdriver like a knife.
“What?” He sounded incredulous. “You can’t divorce me.”
“The hell I can’t!” I snapped. “Turn on the light and take a look at them, Gerald—those are fair terms. I’m leaving you the house and everything in it. All I want is my car and my clothes and to never see you again.”
“Oh, no my darling…” His voice dropped to a snarl of menace. “We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. Because I’m not signing these.” He rattled the papers at me again. “You’re going to come with me back to Virginia and we will resume our happily married life. Only this time, you’re not leaving the house. I got a promotion at work, you see—so we won’t need your income.” He gave me that smile that didn’t reach his eyes again. “So I’ll be able to keep you under lock and key to be certain you don’t get into any more trouble.”
“What?” My stomach gave a sick lurch. “You want to take me back with you so you can keep me under house arrest? I don’t think so!”
“See, this is the attitude I can’t stand,” Gerald remarked, coming towards me. “This is the kind of thing that’s going to get you punished.”