That lack of trust kind of stung. Okay, not kind of. It did sting, almost as much as the distrust I’d gotten from Paige when I’d looked after her in the ghost world. Did I blame them for not trusting me? No. I’d earned it, if not by doing anything to them personally, at least through my reputation. And I guess if you count that broken arm I gave Lucas when he tried to take my grimoires, I had done something to them personally. But, still, I would have thought rescuing them from the ghost world would have counted for something. Maybe it did. If not for that, I suspected I’d be sitting in this chair, not with a game of solitaire thoughtfully set up for me, but tied down and awaiting an exorcist.
So I played solitaire and tried very, very hard not to hear my daughter’s voice downstairs, not to think about her down there, finally within reach—physically within reach, that I could go down there and hug her and tell her—But I wasn’t thinking about that.
Forty minutes passed, and the back door banged shut downstairs. I looked out the rear window, but no one stepped outside. I tugged open the window and listened. After a moment, I caught two voices: Lucas and Jaime.
I strained to hear what they were saying.
“…really a beautiful bike,” Jaime said. “And you restored it yourself. That is so amazing.”
Lucas answered as easily as if he really was talking to Jaime. It didn’t take long to realize the Nix had initiated the trip outside. Was she going to kill him in the lean-to? But how did that set up Savannah? And what about me? Maybe we weren’t the only ones “going with the flow.” Maybe with me—Paige—locked away in the office, the Nix was taking advantage of our separation, and striking at Lucas first. I had to get down there—
The phone rang.
I froze, halfway across the room. Okay, Lucas, I’m sure you can hear the phone. This is the perfect excuse to come back inside—
The phone stopped ringing. Good. Now—
“Paige!” Savannah screamed.
Shit! Now what? No, wait, Lucas told her to leave me—Paige—alone, so she’ll take a message and—
Footsteps banged up the steps. I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
The door swung open, and there stood my daughter. My beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter. Standing there. Looking right at me. At me—not glancing at a spot just to the left of her mother’s invisible ghost—but actually at me, seeing me—
“The phone,” she said, waggling it in front of my nose.
“What are you? Deaf? Geez.”
I willed my hand up. She lifted the phone over her head, out of my reach, a mischievous grin darting across her face. Then she handed it to me, mouthed, “Shorty,” sailed across the room, and plunked herself down on the other chair.
I stared at her for a moment, then wrenched my gaze away and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Paige Winterbourne.”
“Oh, thank God you’re home,” a woman’s voice said. “Liza didn’t know what to do and I said, ‘Let me call Paige. She’ll figure something out.’”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m awfully busy right now. Could I call you—”
“Oh, it’ll just take a second. It’s about the EMRAW.”
“Em…?”
“The Elliott Memorial Run and Walk?” The woman laughed. “Guess all your charity events must run together after a while.”
“Uh, right.”
“Bottles or cups?”
“Huh?”
“The water. We need to have water for the participants. If we bought jugs and poured it into cups, we’d save a lot of money. But it might make us look cheap.”
“Cheap…”
“Right. So should we go with individual bottles instead?”
For a second, I could only sit there, a “what the hell?” expression on my face.
“Cups, obviously,” I said. “It’s a charity event. If they expect bottled water, they can damned well go jog at the country club instead.”
More silence, then a shaky, “Right. I, uh, thought that’s what you’d choose, but—”
“Then why call?”
I hung up. Unbelievable. Donating time to charity is all very fine and noble, but how the hell could Paige find the patience for crap like that? She’s running around trying to save the world from the forces of evil, and has to deal with idiots who think “what kind of water should we serve?” is a life-or-death dilemma. You ask me, that crossed the line from goodness to martyrdom.
“Lucas was right. You are in a strange mood,” Savannah said, still twisting the