Charley Davidson 01Bis For I Have Sinned (2 page)

“We do. I think your gown is new.” She gestured toward it with a nod. “I remembered seeing it at Target when I was in the shower.”

I looked toward her bathroom. “You must have a really big shower.”

“You’re funny. I saw it recently, which means you died recently. Probably very.”

“Really?” I looked down at my gown. It did look new.

She slapped the sticky note onto the coffee pot. “Give her my message, lover,” she said, winking at the pot before grabbing her bag and heading for the door.

I studied the pot a long moment, long enough to realize she was kidding, a little relieved when it didn’t answer her. But all of this was new to me. Who was to say what was alive and what wasn’t in this world? On this plane?

“Wait ’til you meet Misery,” she said over her shoulder, then stopped short when she opened the door and a tall man stood blocking her path. Or at least I thought it was a man. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed over a wide chest, a breathtaking grin tilting one corner of his mouth. But he was different. Dark. Fierce. The air around him seemed to stir as though he were turbulence itself. And he seemed to be made only partially of flesh and blood. The rest of him was smoke and shadows, and the mere sight of him, the magnificence of him, weakened my knees.

Charley put one hand on a hip. “Where have you been?” she asked, clearly annoyed.

“Miss me?”

“Not even,” she said, adding a snort to emphasize her apparent distaste. She didn’t fool either of us.

“You’re such a bad liar.” His grin widened to reveal a set of white teeth, and I doubted I could’ve torn my gaze away if someone had paid me. Simply put, he was stunning. Thick black hair. Full mouth. Piercingly dark eyes with long, inky lashes. And quite possibly the most devilish grin I’d ever seen.

“I’ve told you before, I’m a wonderful liar. You’re just really astute. And I have a case, if you don’t mind.” She tried to sidestep him, but he braced an arm on the other side of the doorjamb and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“What?” she asked, her voice thin and airy. He was getting to her. “Nothing. I have a case.”

He pressed his lips together and studied her a long moment. When she gestured for him to move, he looked over her head and asked, “Who’s the dead chick?”

“Reyes…” She looked at me apologetically then turned back to him. “That is horridly rude.”

“Um, son of Satan?” he said, apparently referring to himself. “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?”

“No.”

Wait, did he say son of Satan?

“I have every intention of kneeing you in the groin if you don’t move,” Charley said, squaring her shoulders.

Reyes leaned in until his mouth was at her ear. “I’m incorporeal at the moment, Dutch.”

She kneed anyway, and at once he was gone. Vanished into thin air. Dark smoke lingered, along with a deep chuckle that faded into silence almost instantly. Charley turned back to me. “Sorry about that. We have a few things to work out. Respect for my clients, for one thing.” She said the last through gritted teeth before heading out the door.

I followed. “Did he say ‘son of Satan’?”

“Yeah. It’s an evil incarnate thing. And, trust me, he wears it well.”

I couldn’t imagine him wearing anything badly.

We stepped into the night air, thick with a syrupy darkness, and yet it didn’t hinder my eyesight at all, besides perhaps muting the colors. But again, the streetlamps darkened the area directly below them. The effect was surreal.

“This,” Charley said, gesturing toward a red Jeep Wrangler, “is Misery. I’m in love with her, but don’t tell my sister. She’s a psychiatrist and would psychoanalyze the crap out of that.”

We climbed in and Charley brought the Jeep to life, turning on the heater with a shiver. That’s when I realized I wasn’t cold. Or hot. Or anything. Temperature, like taste and texture, was apparently lost on me. As we drove down a street I didn’t recognize, I clasped my hands in my lap and asked her reluctantly, “Was he there for me?”

She raised her brows in question.

“The son of Satan. Was he there to take me to Hell?”

After turning into a convenience store, Charley pulled to a stop and shut off the Jeep to give me her full attention. “Listen to me. I promise you, if you were scheduled for the southbound flight, you would already be there and we would not be having this conversation.”

“But, I’ve so obviously sinned.”

“No kidding?” she asked, a teasing smile lighting her face. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve sinned a few times myself. And according to some religions, I’m about to sin again.”

I blinked and looked around, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

“I’m going to march in there and make myself a mocha latte with whipped cream. Caffeine. Calories.” She leaned in and whispered, “Unabashed pleasure.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. “Didn’t you just drink a cup of coffee?”

“Well, yeah, coffee. This is a
latte
. A
mocha
latte. With whipped cream.
So
not the same thing.” She winked then jumped out of the Jeep.

I decided to go in as well.

“And besides, I finished that coffee off”—she looked at her watch—“minutes ago.”

“You make me laugh.”

“And you’re in a convenience store at five in the morning in a nightgown and bunny slippers,” she said, keeping her voice low.

She was right. I should have had the decency to feel self-conscious. “So, what’s the story with you and that guy?”

“Reyes?” she asked, taking out her cell phone as the machine filled her cup. She opened it and actually pretended to talk into it, I guess in case anyone was watching. “Well, besides being the hottest thing this side of Mercury—I mean, he
was
forged in the fires of Hell,” she said with a waggle of her brows as she filled a second cup, “he’s something of a pain in the ass.”

“But you like him.”

She put a lid on both cups, stuffed one in the crook of her arm so she could still hold the phone, then headed for the cashier. “If you’re talking about the fact that he makes my innards mushy and my knees weak, then, yeah, I like him.” She pulled the phone to her chest to indicate a break in her conversation and said to the clerk, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

He smiled shyly as he handed over her change. “See you tomorrow night?”

“If you’re lucky,” she said with a flirty wink. She could give lessons.

“You come here a lot?” I asked.

With a shrug, she climbed back into her Jeep. I crawled through the door into the passenger’s seat. “Only every night or so. They have really good lattes. But again, he’s a pain in the ass.”

“The store clerk?”

“Reyes.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t help but wonder what Charley’s life was like. I mean, what kind of being glows in the dark and hangs out with the son of Satan? “So, do you have super powers?”

Turning onto Central Avenue, she offered me a questioning gaze. “You mean, like, can I fly?”

I laughed. “No. Wait,” I said, rethinking. “Can you?”

She laughed that time. “Not unless I’m on some very powerful painkillers.”

“Then, besides being very shimmery, what does a grim reaper do?”

“You know, everyone says I’m really bright. I don’t see it.” She studied a hand, turning it over and over. “Neither do the living, thankfully. But I pretty much just hang out and help the departed with their unfinished business, for lack of a better phrase, those who didn’t cross initially and are wandering the Earth. And when they’re ready, they can cross through me.”

“Through you?” I asked, a little stunned. “Literally?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I mention that?” When I shook my head, she said, “I hope that doesn’t scare you. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She burst out laughing, and I was slowly drifting back to my three-legged horse paradigm. After a moment, she sobered and said, “Okay, too soon. Newbies don’t have the best sense of humor.”

“Sorry. I’m a little dead right now.”

She smiled and nodded. “That’s good. You’re catching on.”

I smiled, too, but I turned away so she wouldn’t see. I didn’t want to get too comfortable here, in this place of void, of loneliness.

We pulled into the parking lot of a Presbyterian hospital and made our way up to the maternity ward. That was when I realized what she was doing, checking to see if anyone died in labor or something like that. Shame consumed me. I’d made the decision to die. I felt it. I would never have made it to the delivery ward.

“Are you really going to drink both of those?” I asked her.

“Oh, no. This stuff is currency ’round these parts.”

As we got closer to the ward, she turned to me, unwrapped an index finger from one of the cups and placed it over her mouth, shushing me.

“Why do I have to be quiet? I thought no one could hear.”

“Because you’ll ruin the mood.”

I frowned as she flew to a sidewall and flattened herself against it. After checking up and down the hall, she eased to her right, closing the distance from us to the maternity ward. She almost slipped—on nothing, absolutely nothing—caught herself with a soft gasp then plastered herself to the wall again, a long sigh of relief escaping her.

Oh yeah. She was nuts.

A female voice echoed against the walls, originating from a speaker by the locked entry door. “Davidson, what are you doing?”

Charley gave up the pretense and pushed the button. “Nothing. Over.”

“This isn’t a walkie-talkie, Charley.”

“Got it. Over.”

After a soft chuckle, the voice asked, “Would you like to come in?”

“Would you like a mocha latte?”

No other words were spoken. The doors opened. Charley offered me a satisfied grin and raised the cup. “Told you. Better than gold.”

We ended up at a nurse’s station where two nurses sat filling out charts.

“Not that I’ve actually tried gold,” Charley added, whispering over her shoulder.

One of the nurses looked up, a gorgeous Hispanic woman with a short bob and almond shaped eyes. The hunger on her face said it all. She grabbed the coffee and took a hesitant sip, blowing into the opening on the lid first.

“It’s been ages. To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked, a dreamy countenance coming over her after she swallowed. Then she chuckled, stepped around the desk and gave Charley a bear-like hug.

“Well—”

“Your hair is wet,” she said, interrupting. “Charley, I swear. It’s, like, seven degrees out.”

“No way. It’s nine at the lowest.”

I looked around as Charley and her friend caught up on the everyday goings on of life. The rooms around us were dark, but of course I could see tiny beds and massive machines and I realized we were on the preemie ward. Just being there seemed to reawaken something within me. A longing. A desire. A blinding need to create and protect, so powerful that it almost hurt. I clawed past it, pushed it back down and steeled myself against its talons.

“So you’ll call around?” Charley asked as I turned to head back. I stopped short a moment, stunned once again by her beckoning light, the glittering aura that encompassed her.

“Absolutely. I know several nurses at each hospital. I’ll find out.”

“What is she looking for?” I asked Charley, retracing my steps.

“Oh, excuse me one minute,” she said to her friend and opened her phone again. Apparently her friend didn’t know about me. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Um, okay, what is she loo—”

“Right, Nancy’s looking now. Keep your panties on, Uncle Bob. We’ll figure this out.”

I thought she might actually have a call this time, then she looked directly at me and winked.

“Uh-huh, she’s looking for anything like that. A pregnant woman in her late twenties who might have died recently. She’s checking all the hospitals in the city.”

I glanced at the floor. “But if I took my own life—”

“We don’t know that.” She touched my hand to bring me back. “We don’t know what happened.” Just then, her brows bunched together and she looked past me, her expression suddenly annoyed.

Turning, I saw it too. Him. Reyes. In all his glory. He stood down the hall from the nurse’s station, gazing through a glass panel into one of the rooms with all the big machines and tiny beds. I got a better look this time at his corded arms, thick chest, shadowed jaw that outlined his mouth to perfection.

After a quick glance at her friend, Charley strolled closer to him, keeping the phone at her ear. Her friend offered her a quick glance, but she clearly could no more see Reyes than she could see me.

“You’re not still mad about that putting-a-knife-to-your-throat thing, are you?” he asked without taking his eyes off the glass. “That was days ago, and not entirely my fault.”

“What part of
I have a case
are you not understanding?” Charley said into the phone.

He didn’t answer. With a smile that would charm the fur off a fox, he said, “Babies are cool.”

Charley smiled too and looked into the room. “They don’t even look real,” she agreed, squinting inside, her face full of admiration. “They look like dolls. Well, dolls with lots of wires and breathing apparatuses. Poor little things.”

He touched the glass with an index finger, pointing. “That one’s going to be professional football player.”

At first Charley laughed, but when he didn’t join in, she aimed a wary expression at him. “Do you really know that?”

Again, without taking his eyes off the infant, he said, “I really know that.”

“Oh, my gosh.” She looked at the baby with a new purpose. “But he’s so small.”

Reyes shrugged. “He gets over it.”

Charley gave a soft chuckle. “I hope so.”

I couldn’t look. I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge what I’d done, the life I’d destroyed. The life I had to have destroyed.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” Reyes asked after a moment. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and focused his sultry gaze on Charley.

“Nope.”

Taking a miniscule step toward her, he said, “Would you put that ridiculous phone down?”

“Nope again.” As she studied the tiny being behind the glass, Reyes lifted a hand and ran a finger over her jaw and down her neck, leaving trail of dark smoke to caress her skin. Charley took a deep breath, inhaling his essence, before shaking her head and stepping away. “Stop.”