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But Rochelle was already nodding, like she'd done this a thousand times before. "Milk and ice cream, but no syrup, right, Rory?"
"Yup!" The girl grinned.
"No worries. I'll bring it all over when it's ready. I know where your table is," Rochelle said as she bustled about behind the counter.
Rory took Ben's hand and led him back to the table covered in art supplies. "Now you can teach me how to draw wings."
"And I want to hear everything you know about gargoyles," Ben replied.
Rory giggled. "Don't you know about gargoyles? They're from olden times, in Scotland, so they don't know much about electricity and TV and things. Wystan didn't even know how to turn on the light until I showed him the switch!"
"I'm from Scotland. We didn't have light switches in our house, either, when I was growing up," Ben said. "To turn off the light, we had to blow out a candle."
"Really?" Rory's eyes were wide with wonder.
"Yep, really." Ben reached up and pinned his latest drawing to the wall. "Now, wings."
He kept on talking, but Wystan stopped listening. Instead, he shifted position until he was in a place where he could see the gallery of pictures that he'd never paid much attention to before.
Most of them were sketches of staff and customers in the café. There were plenty of Rochelle, but the latest one stopped him in his tracks.
This sketch showed a table just like the one they sat at now, with a little girl intent on the paper in front of her. But instead of Ben sitting beside her, he'd drawn a gargoyle with his wings folded behind him, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other.
Wystan would have given anything for the picture to be true. To sit down with them, instead of watching from the walls. At least he could watch, though, for when the sandwiches arrived, she insisted on stealing all of Ben's tomatoes, and she refused to give them back. He'd never laughed so hard in his life.
Man or boy or whatever Ben actually was, he was no match for Tacey's wily six-year-old. A girl he intended to protect like she was his own, for as long as fate would allow it.
THIRTY-TWO
Tacey wasn't sure how she got from the lawyer's office back to the café, though she must have driven. All she could think about was how she was going to lose Rory, because of Matt and that arsehole lawyer and all fucked up old boys club networks and nepotism and...and...
"Look what Uncle Ben and me drew!" Rory squealed, holding up a picture that was mostly grey.
Tacey mumbled something that she hoped sounded admiring, before she dragged her feet to the store room to take inventory before she placed next week's order. The weekend's supplies would arrive in the morning, and they were particularly low after a busy couple of weeks. Between the busyness and those bloody cockroaches, the store room was almost empty. Next, she headed for the cool room, then the freezer.
She placed the order in a daze, having to go back twice to check she'd counted right. It wasn't until she stepped out of the freezer a second time that she heard the piercing beep that couldn't possibly be...
"Fire," she said dully, marching toward the fire extinguisher. She'd trained often enough. Pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire and squeeze...she just had to find the fire.
The café was full of wide-eyed people, staring at her and each other as they pressed their hands over their ears to drown out the noise.
"Make it stop, Mummy!" Rory wailed, barely audible over the din.
The kitchen was clear, with no sign of any smoke to set off the screeching alarm. Then why...???
She stomped toward the alarm, picking up a tea towel to swat the stupid thing. Only to find she was stirring eddies into a cloud of smoke.
Smoke coming from under the store room door...
For fuck's sake.
She grabbed the door knob, then recoiled as the bloody thing was red hot. Remembering the tea towel, she used that instead.
The room was full of smoke, with flames all over the floor. Which made no sense, because there'd been nothing to burn.
None of this made any sense.
A shadow came barrelling out of nowhere, shoving her aside and leaping into the flames.
