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She’s already shaking her head. “Josie knew about Mom. Plus, I talked to Mom last night, and she said she hadn’t made the decision about going to Europe until yesterday afternoon. So there’s no way Josie could have learned about it from someone else. She knows things she can’t.”
It’s definitely a weird coincidence, and I have a feeling of uneasiness, even though it’s only a pale reflection of the tingle down my spine from when that woman was watching me.
“So it was a lucky guess,” I admit, leaning on the side of the island. “I don’t like you worrying, Delia.”
“So let me do this,” she says, trying to corral the spilled salt. I’m still unclear on what she’s setting up, but there’s only one thing I can say.
“Hand me the salt, and let’s get hexing.”
“We’re supposed to break the hex,” she says, giving me a worried look.
“I’ve never been good at following directions.”
ChapterSeventeen
Danny
“Well, what do you think?” Ruthie asks, her eyes bright. Her hair is styled in two braids, which makes her look like she did when she was seven or maybe eight. I can see little Ruthie in my mind’s eye, looking up at me for approval after she finished some school project or other, because she could already tell that our parents didn’t give a shit.
She asked me over to her apartment this morning, saying she had something to show me, and I’d braced myself for a reveal of the next incarnation of Vanny. What’d it be this time? Used shoes? Up-market tampons? I said yes, of course, because I always say yes on the rare occasions when she asks me for something.
Even though what I really wanted to do was wait for Mira to wake up.
Ruthie arranged for Izzy to stay with a friend for an hour or two so she could do her grand unveiling, so it’s just the two of us in the parking lot of her apartment building. Well, the two of us and an assortment of random strangers walking to and from their homes or messing with their cars.
Her van’s been painted with a mural of books and baby animals. Someone’s anchored shelves inside, and they’re stacked with children’s books. Hundreds of them. There are furry poofs and floor pillows and fairy lights anchored around the ceiling.
It’s an improvement on the sex toys idea.
I know she mustn’t have done the majority of the work out here. Her best friend Tank has an autoshop, and he usually lets her fix up Vanny in his garage, where there’s also a lounge area for Izzy to hang out and do her art or watch TV.
“Where’d you get all the books?” I ask, because she didn’t ask me for money or help. There’s an ache in my chest, because we could have done this for her—me and Shane, Burke and Leonard. I would love to have done this for her.
“I’ve had this in the back of my mind for a while,” she says excitedly. “I’ve been making a collection. Free libraries. The book bundler. That kind of thing. Plus, I went to this estate sale with Izzy last weekend, and they sold hundreds of them to me for less than a hundred bucks.”
“I wish you’d asked me for help,” I say. “The guys and I could have rigged up those shelves for you.” I wave at the mural. “Leonard’s girlfriend’s an artist.” I swallow the rest of what I want to say—they wouldn’t have charged you any money.
Her lips are firm. “You think I’m going to ask you for any favors? You—”
“I’d do it again,” I tell her. “I’d do anything for you and Izzy. You know that.”
“Which is exactly why I need to protect you from yourself.”
This again. She thinks I ruined my life for her, so now she won’t even take a stick of gum from me, unless I give it to Izzy and encourage Izzy to give it to her.
“I’m an adult man, perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I was then too.”
“And I am and was an adult woman, perfectly capable of making my own mistakes.”
I could argue with her—she’d been eighteen, a teenager, and he’d been thirty-seven and married. Jarrod Travis is a predator, a pest, and a loathsome human being. He’s a man who deserves to face the great mysteries of life—the void—alone and with no love to cushion him.
He has also, for the last ten years, been my boss.
The day I get to quit Safe-T Net, I’ll throw a party.
Metaphorically, of course.
But Ruthie and I have said all that, and then said it again. She knows my stance, and I know hers.
