When the call for the job comes in just past midnight, there aren’t many details—a teenager, an accidental drowning, and an address. The street name tells me the place will be colossal, so I expect the columned entryway over the shoulder of the girl who answers the door, the expertly lighted canvases on the walls. Even the grand piano in the great room doesn’t come as a surprise.
I don’t even need you to collect any payment, Aunt Sarah had said. Come on, Allie, it’s a huge favor. If there’s no payment, I’m guessing there’s some sort of way back favor owed between my aunt and the girl’s mom. One of those ‘If you’re ever in trouble’ things. Or maybe Sarah knows not to push the issue of the money with me.
“Time of death?” I say as I slide past the weeping girl who answered the door.
When the rare person who knows about us makes the call for help, I’m sure they half expect some gothic voodoo priestess to show up on their doorstep. An eighteen-year-old in shorts and a tank top, blond hair in a messy bun, tends to throw them off. I’m used to being met with hesitation.
Right now though, I don’t have time to set her at ease. “We’re on a deadline. You called about a boy. How long ago did he die?”
“A few minutes,” the girl stutters, and begins wringing her already reddened hands. “An hour? It couldn’t have been more than an hour before I called Sarah.” She closes the door. Her tears appear to have tapered for now. I wonder if they were mostly theatrics. A straggling hiccup escapes as she eyes me. “She said she was sending a guy.”
“Yeah, well you got me.” I tug my burner phone from the pocket of my jeans and check the time. Dead an hour, plus the thirty minutes it took me to get here means we’re halfway to the point of no return. Every passing minute risks another complication. “Where’s the body?”
“S…Simon,” she says. “His name is Simon.”
“Right. Simon.” I scan the scene. Beer bottles and a few red cups line the kitchen table. Abandoned on one of the bar stools are an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a trio of shot glasses, tipped over. “And this Simon’s your boyfriend?” I ask.
I’m only making small talk to keep the girl calm. She shakes her head.
“He lives down the street. I didn’t even know he came,” she says, already leading the way through the house, toward the rear door.
“He’s here,” the girl whispers, opening a sliding glass door to a patio. Beside the water of the pool lies a boy a couple years younger than me, about sixteen from first look. A wet puddle darkens the concrete around him.
At the shallow end of the pool, I spot the blurred brown splotch of a sunken bottle. The filter gurgles. A Styrofoam noodle floats languidly in the water.
Aside from the dead body, nothing seems amiss. The glow from the pool lights is poor, which is actually a plus. We don’t need any witnesses. “Anybody else see him like this?” I ask. “Neighbors?”
“No. Just me. I found him. My mom knows Sarah.”
“Yeah,” I say, slipping my messenger bag off my shoulder. “Sarah and my mom knew each other, too.”
‘Knew’, past tense. I don’t know why I say it at all. Sarah’s my aunt. I could have bypassed the mention of my mom altogether. The girl’s expression shifts from nervous to confused the moment the word registers.
I focus on unzipping my bag with a vague hope she won’t have the balls to ask why I didn’t bother to save my own mother. There’s a pause where she waits for me to fill in the blanks. Another when I don’t. “You are a resurrectionist, though, right?” she says finally with newfound skepticism.
“I can go if you want,” I snap. I’ll take any excuse to pack up and get out of here. This isn’t exactly my idea of a fun Saturday night. Three months ago I’d told myself I was walking away from this life for good once I made it to Fissure’s Whipp.
But I couldn’t walk away from blood. Not when Sarah was all I had left as far as family.
In my head, her voice reverberates. We demand payment for a damned reason, Allie. And then quieter, It’s more important to be owed than collect. The shame keeps them from talking about us.
I sink to the concrete and start setting up, digging into