does.”
Birdie wheezed. I knew it was a laugh, but it sounded bad. “Yausssss, hoooooooookaaah dieeah foooor yooouah.”
I leaned in close and kissed her partially missing cheek. “Can I hug you, Birdie?”
“Yausssss,” she replied, raising her middle finger at me.
“No,” Gideon said. “It’s far too dangerous.”
Glancing up at Gideon, I smiled. “While I love and appreciate your concern, it’s more dangerous for all of us if I don’t.”
“Please give me a better explanation than that,” Gideon said, wanting to trust me, but terrified to do so.
“I have to trust you just as much as you have to trust me,” I told him. “I’m not reliving Birdie’s death. She died of a heart attack after… well, that part isn’t relevant. However, I believe she knows how to find my mother’s soul.”
“Why do you believe this?” Charlie inquired.
“The bullshit,” I told him. “There was a clue in the bullshit.”
Gideon raised a brow. “You’re sounding cryptically like an Immortal,” he pointed out.
I laughed. He was correct. “You win,” I said. “Clarissa called my mother a whore, which earned her a severely broken nose. However, she also said a whore helped the whore get away.”
“I’m following none of this,” John Travolta said. “If this is dangerous for you, I’m with Gideon.”
My father’s concern delighted me, but I wasn’t caving when I knew I was right. “Birdie was a lady of the evening in life. The clues have been in front of me for a while, but I needed Clarissa’s to piece it all together. Birdie is the whore who helped the whore get away.”
“Yausssss, hoooooooookaaah.”
“Birdie, when you told me someone died for me, you meant my mother, yes?”
“Yausssss.”
“Are you the one who helped Alana get away?”
“Yausssss.”
“Need more proof?” I asked the men.
“No,” Gideon said with great reluctance. “No more proof needed.”
I nodded and smiled at him. “I love you, Grim Reaper.”
“I love you, Death Counselor.”
Looking to my father, he nodded as well.
“Would you touch me while I go into Birdie?” I asked him. “I want to make sure I don’t miss anything important.”
He sat down next to me and put his hand on my back. “It would be my great honor to assist you.”
“Thank you… Dad.” The word felt odd rolling off my tongue, but it also felt incredibly right.
The Archangel’s answering smile was blinding.
My decision was correct.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The cold. The cold went all the way to my bones and tore through my body like sharp, frozen daggers made of ice. Trying to catch my breath, I gasped for air but stayed calm.
My head pounded violently and every single cell in my body screamed for oxygen. I knew it was momentary, but it still sucked.
My mind went numb and my limbs felt like jelly.
Closing my eyes, I welcomed the icy chill that permeated my skin and seeped into my blood. It was proof that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I would never enjoy the sensation, but I’d become accustomed to it.
“Birdie?” I called out.
“Hooker?” she replied with a cackle.
“Nope, you’re the dang hooker,” I said, opening my eyes. “Oh my God. You’re so pretty.”
Birdie stood about five foot five and had black curly ringlets and beautiful dark skin. She was curvy in all the right places and had a killer smile that lit her lovely face… and fantastic boobs.
“Damn straight I am, sweetie,” she replied. “I was very successful in my line of work. The knockers are the real deal. Wanna touch them?”
“No,” I said, with a laugh. “However, they’re terrific knockers.”
“Thank you, Daisy,” she said, adjusting her ample bosom with pride.
“Welcome, Birdie,” I said, reaching out to hug her. “You’ve been a pain in my ass.”
“It’s my specialty,” she informed me with a delightfully naughty grin. “Well, that and blow jobs.”
“TMI,” I told her, hugging her tight. “You really like being called Birdie?”
“Way better than Ethel,” she said, cupping my cheek in her hand.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I figure you have a lot of questions, child,” she said.
Birdie and I stood opposite each other in a cavernous room of emptiness. There was no floor. No walls to speak of—more of a vast landscape of nothing. We floated in a silvery mist.
“Why did you call me a hooker all the time?” I asked.
Birdie shrugged and smiled. “Two-fold, darlin’. I was trying to let you know what I did and it just tickled me to see the shock on your face every time I called you a hooker. And by the way, I wasn’t a hooker. I was a highly paid escort.”
“Was