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“After Mom died, he tried to take care of us, but he was messed up pretty bad, too. Emotionally, I mean. So Buela moved up from Miami. My grandfather had passed away the year before, so I guess taking care of us helped her overcome all that grief. At least, that’s what she said.”
“Where’s your dad now?”
Allie shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Neither of them said anything more. They sat there in his car, listening to the water lap gently on the shore. After a long time, Tom realized it had grown late. Way past Allie’s curfew. He didn’t want her to get in trouble, so he gently disentangled his stiff arm from around her shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Allie.” It sounded dumb, but he couldn’t think of anything better to say.
She nodded, then smiled. Her color looked normal again and the shaking had disappeared a long time ago. “Thanks,” she said simply.
*~*~*
At eighteen, he hadn’t been able to offer more than a mumbled “I’m sorry.” At thirty, he still didn’t know what to say. Watching your mother bleed to death… How had she overcome that?
He took another swig of the whiskey laced coffee and waited for her to continue.
“Well, you know I planned to go to law school after getting my BA in Journalism, but I don’t know,” she said, “Law school was something Buela always wanted for me but I never really saw myself in a suit working for some firm.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What about you? I thought you wanted to be an architect.”
“Construction Management was a more practical way to go at the time. I had a family to feed.” He shrugged. “It just made more sense.”
She glanced at him sideways. “What ever happened to that red Crown Victoria of yours? I thought you were going to drive it to the day you died.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I really loved that car. I traded it in for a SUV with enough room for a car seat and a pack and play and all the other stuff we used to haul around.”
“Henry seems…like a terrific kid.”
“He’s the best.”
She smiled.
He cleared his throat. “So this ghost story, it’s really important to you, huh?”
She took another sip of the coffee. “I know you think it’s all a bunch of bunk.” He began to protest but she waved a hand at him. “Don’t pop a blood vessel, I get it.” She looked at him over the top of her cup. “If you want to know the truth, I don’t believe in ghosts, either.”
“You’re kidding, right? Then what the hell is this all about?”
She sighed in an exaggerated way that made him think she’d already had a little too much of Mimi Grant’s special coffee. “I’m in competition with another journalist.” Then she told him all about the magazine and her editor and some jerkoff named Chris Dougal, who wanted the same job she did.
He took it all in, sipping his laced coffee, trying not to stare at her too much. But it was getting harder by the second. She leaned back on her elbows and stretched out those legs of hers and he tried not to imagine how they’d feel wrapped around his waist.
Concentrate, Donalan.
“So tell me about this famous story of yo
urs. Perky the Duck?”
She made a face. “Perky and I have a love-hate relationship. If you know what I mean.”
Yep. Definitely too much of Mimi’s coffee. Damn, but he liked talking to her. Always had. Probably always would.
She shifted around and pulled her legs together Indian style. The motion brought her closer to the mattress. Dangerous territory, for sure. He should probably move back some. But he didn’t.
“The only reason I got the story is because a friend from college volunteers at a wildlife sanctuary in Tallahassee. There was this hunter who’d put a bunch of ducks he’d killed in a freezer in his garage and later that night his wife was out there and heard a noise. So she opened the freezer and found one of the ducks still alive.”
Tom shook his head and laughed. “Crap.”
Allie grinned. “Yeah, I’d probably have a stroke. Anyway, she grabbed the duck and called the wildlife sanctuary and the rest is history. Thanks to the miracle of modern veterinary care, Perky made a miraculous recovery.”
He didn’t want to offend her but he was curious. “And that’s it? That’s the story that was picked up by the Associated Press?”
