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Danny gets up and looks through the spyglass, then opens the door. I can see Burke and Delia, Leonard and Shauna, and Shane in that slick suit of his.
“Sorry,” Burke says. “I realize I should have used the buzzer, but I still have my key.”
“Come in,” Danny tells him, glancing back at me. “Mira’s been making drinks for everyone, and she’s threatened to order pizza.”
“I don’t make empty threats,” I say as I grab my crutches and slowly get vertical. Delia comes running toward me as if I’m a character on the Oregon Trail who just contracted cholera and has thirty seconds to live.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I say, laughing as she wraps her arms around me.
I don’t mind much, to be honest. Usually I don’t like to be fussed over, but the day has rattled me. This talk of dead people and stalkers and undercover police officers.
“I’m worried about the hex,” she says in an undertone as if she doesn’t want the others to hear her. She looks small and innocent, and I have a flash of memory of her as a kid. I wasn’t much older, but I always felt older. Like I needed to protect her from the world.
“You shouldn’t be,” I say, even as I think,me too. “We did the whole salt thing. Evil couldn’t survive such a thorough salting.”
“You think I’m being silly.”
“No. Never.”
She pulls away, smiling. “Now, I know you’re lying.”
“But Iamokay,” I insist. “Danny said we’re putting another deadbolt in.”
Leonard, who’s still standing between us and the door, lifts up a bag, creating a loud metallic clang. “No time like the present, am I right?”
“Don’t we have to run that by the building management?” I ask, glancing at Danny, who’s still standing by the door, his hand wrapped around its width—almost like he’s testing it to see what kind of barrier it would serve should someone choose to test it.
“Probably,” he says firmly. “But we’re not going to.”
Leonard grins at him. “My man.”
Then Burke, who just got done greeting Deacon, introduces him to the people he doesn’t already know.
“What do you say we get this party started?” Leonard asks.
I turn to look at Danny, who’s watching me. The way his lips are upturned at the corners tells me he already knows what I’m going to say. “I told you it was going to be a party.”
* * *
The guys areall gathered around the door, Deacon included, as if changing a lock is an operation that requires four adult males rather than one. It looks like Leonard’s the one doing the actual work, but Burke, Shane, and Deacon are watching and messing around with different parts. It’s like another one of those dick-measuring contests—you either laugh or you cry, there’s no in-between.
Danny’s standing a bit to the side, watching the charade but not participating in it. Although he’s messing with the ridge of his jeans pocket, I can tell his resources haven’t been totally drained yet.
In a mimicry of their setup, Delia and Shauna are with me in the kitchen area, where I’m the one doing the work of making cocktails while they watch.
“You know, Deacon is kind of a silver fox,” Shauna says contemplatively, watching the guys.
“Are youinterestedin him?” my sister asks with such shock and horror that I almost laugh. “I thought you and Leonard—”
“He’s got to be in his seventies, Delia,” Shauna says dryly. “I’m a very satisfied woman, but Leonard and I want to find someone for my grandmother. We think it might be fun for her if she has someone to…” She shrugs. “Date. Fornicate with. You know.”
I burst out laughing at her use of “fornicate,” because I will never be able to hear that word without thinking about Officer Dunkins. Never. I will hear it in forty years, and still be transported back to the back of his smelly car.
“What?” Shauna says. “Old people still fornicate. I’m not going to stop having sex just because I reach a certain age. Where’s the fun in that?”
Delia shrugs, watching as I add different ingredients to my cocktail shaker. “You’re right. I work with a lot of elderly people, and the ones who are happiest have active sex lives.” She scrunches her nose. “Except for Mr. Kortya. I think he’s had chlamydia four times. He keeps asking me to pick up his prescription.”
“Exactly,” Shauna says, waving a hand at her. “So…”
