“Always looking on the bright side, aren’t you, Melina?”
I decided to ignore that crack since it came from someone who would die an immediate and painful death if he ever decided to actually walk on the sunny side of the street, and shifted toward the wall to let the traffic in the hallway move past us. “About the other night . . .”
“There’s nothing to discuss about the other night.” His face looked a little grim.
I pressed on anyway. I mean, what was he going to do? Throw me over his arm and suck my blood in the middle of the hallway? I didn’t think so. “I did a little research on the, um, special people we were discussing.” It didn’t seem wise to actually say
kiang shi
or
Chinese vampire
or whatever with people walking by us. No one was really trying to eavesdrop, but people did seem to look whenever Alex was around. It can’t be helped. I’d like to say it’s another one of those vampire things, like the voice and all that. It isn’t. Alex has a certain charisma. Watching him walk through a crowd is like watching a magnet being passed over iron filings. Things just gravitate toward him.
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, looking like a
GQ
ad for scrubs. The man could totally rock a pair of drawstrings. “Those special people are none of my business, as you know, and they are certainly none of yours.”
Fine, fine. Aldo had been dismissive and now Alex had his undies in a bunch. I knew that. I knew Alex wasn’t any happier with the situation than I was, but that’s why we needed to figure out on whom to dump it. “That’s the thing, though. Who exactly was it driving those special people around? Do you know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. What’s more, I suspect that caring could get a person in a lot of trouble.” He leaned toward me now, looking into my eyes as if he could make his point better by staring it into me.
He might be right about that. I suddenly had to swallow really hard. “But someone should care, right? Then we wouldn’t have to. If we figured out who that person, or persons, is, then we wouldn’t have to worry about caring.”
“I’m not worried about caring, Melina,” he said softly. “I’m getting a little worried about you caring. You need to drop this. It’s not safe.”
“Who’s going to know? I’m nobody. I’ll just poke around a little and figure out who needs a message about it. Then I’ll deliver the message. That is my job, you know.” It was a mistake to stare into his eyes. I felt a little dizzy, and the sounds of the hallway around me seemed distant.
His hand touched my arm, steadying me. His touch, cool on my skin, made me shiver. He cocked his head. I swallowed hard again, trying to get the hammering of my heart under control, trying to work up the ability to tell him to back away. That’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? I was sure it was what I wanted. Except that I felt as though I were about to burst into flames.
“Leave this alone, Melina. Walk away and leave it alone. Either it will go away on its own or it will come to the attention of someone who will deal with it.”
“And how many kids will end up in our emergency room by the time that happens? How many people will die?” Damn it. Tears were welling in my eyes. I hated that, but that parade of wounded young men kept marching by in my mind. And Maricela. Don’t forget Maricela. “How many babies, Alex? How many of them will be shot?”
He shrugged and backed away, breaking the spell. “I don’t know. Another ten. Another one hundred. What difference does it make?”
I knew he didn’t mean it. I’d seen the way he’d raced through the ER, cradling Maricela to him. It still pissed me off, though. I wrenched my arm from him. “It makes a difference. It makes a difference to me.”
He chucked me under the chin. “You’re so cute when you’re mad!”
Now I knew he was just trying to piss me off. I hated that condescending bullshit. I knocked his hand away. “You don’t know the half of it. And while we’re talking about cute, stay out of my damn dreams, will you?”
“Your dreams?” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You dreamed about me? One of
those
dreams?”
I felt the flush spread from my neck all the way up to my hairline. “You didn’t do it on purpose?”
“Do what?” He was laughing now. “Make you have some kind of hot sex dream about me?”
“Forget it.” I pushed off from the wall and walked down the hall, followed all the way to the cafeteria by the sound of his laughter.
I STOPPED IN TO SEE TO MARICELA. THEY’D MOVED HER TO THE regular pediatrics ward from the ICU. I figured that was a good sign. I peeked into the room. There was no one with her. She looked so small in the crib, so tiny. She barely made a bump under the sheet. It took a second for me to be sure her chest was rising and falling as it should. Then I could focus in on the whisper of her breath going in and out over all the other hospital noises, the buzzers and beeps and clicks and whirrs that filled the halls day and night.
I sniffed. The smell of decay and blood was gone from her. She smelled like talcum powder and lotion and antiseptic.
I didn’t come in from the hallway. I just peered around the corner. Frankly, I couldn’t bear to get any closer. The sight of her tiny fist curled in on itself on the sheet was enough to undo me. I didn’t know what getting close would do.
I did know that despite the smell of decay I’d gotten from her the previous night, there was something I hadn’t smelled from Maricela. I hadn’t smelled evil. I hadn’t smelled sin.
In the typical goings-on of my not-so-typical life, I try to keep myself on the straight and narrow, but it’s hard to do. Since becoming a grown-up, I’ve discovered there are a lot more gray areas in the world than there seemed to be when I was a kid. Sometimes, no matter how I try to keep my feet on the right path, they stray. Some of it’s temptation. Some of it’s ignorance.
Some of it is my job.
But as I stood in that doorway, I knew that whatever might have clung to my shoes when I’d wandered in the wrong direction, I didn’t want to track it anywhere near that little baby. Enough evil had come into her life without her doing anything to deserve it. I wouldn’t be the bearer of any more.
“Keep breathing,” I whispered, and then I went home.
10
I FELL INTO BED WITHOUT TAKING A SHOWER FIRST. USUALLY I can’t stand the idea of rubbing whatever’s clung to me at the hospital onto my own sheets, but I was beyond caring. The past few days had been a gauntlet, physically and emotionally. I closed my eyes and wondered if there was some special incantation a person could do to keep a certain vampire out of their dreams. The fact that the source of the dreams seemed to be internal rather than external made the incantation idea seem even less likely. Apparently, I didn’t need to worry. My sleep was black and dreamless.
I woke up in the early afternoon, disgusted with the smell of my own skin. I almost ran into the shower. I didn’t see the message from Aunt Kitty until I’d gotten out. I braced myself for the phone squeal and dialed her digits.
“Hey, Aunt Kitty, what’s the haps?”
“I don’t know, dear. What is the haps?”
I smiled. She knew perfectly well what I meant. Sometimes she plays clueless just for my entertainment. “Did you find out anything more about the houses that your friend sold in Elk Grove?”
“I found out a little. To be honest, Melina, I’m not sure what’s going on. I have a funny feeling about it.”
That was hardly a surprise. There had to be something hinky going on. Whatever was happening at those houses wasn’t a typical real estate deal. “What kind of funny feeling?”
“The kind of funny feeling that tells me there’s something not quite kosher going on with my buddy Winston. He hasn’t done more than a deal or two every few months for several years. I think he steps in for friends who need someone to deal with the paperwork, now and then. Nothing more than that. Now, all of the sudden he’s brokered seven deals in Elk Grove in a period of a few weeks, and they’re all financed by the United Bank of Hong Kong in San Francisco through the same mortgage broker. I can’t find any record of him ever having worked with that bank before.”
“How close are the other houses to the one I asked you about?” Were they all in a cluster? Maybe a whole family wanted to buy houses near each other. It was definitely a buyer’s market in Elk Grove these days. The foreclosure wave had washed through that area like a tsunami.
“Not that close. Not that far.”
That was informative. “Can you give me the addresses?” Maybe I’d stop by a few of them tonight before I left for work and see if I could see anything else that connected them besides an aging real estate agent.
“Sure. I’ll give you the names of the new owners, too.” Aunt Kitty paused for a second. “They’re all Asian, you know.”
I hadn’t known. “Hmm.”
“It’s not that unusual. Winston has an in with the Asian community and he uses it. We all do things like that. I make a lot of deals because of people I’ve met at temple. I’d say half my clients are Jewish.”
“I wasn’t judging, Aunt Kitty.”
“I know, sweetheart. I just know it looks odd. I wanted you to understand.”
I understood better than she did, apparently. “Got it. Nothing weird about all the deals for these houses going to people with Asian names and being financed by the United Bank of Hong Kong in San Francisco with the same mortgage broker.”
“When you say it like that it sounds suspicious.” Aunt Kitty didn’t sound suspicious. She sounded troubled.
There are few things worse than a troubled aunt. Troubled aunts sometimes become meddlesome aunts. I didn’t need that. “That’s just my voice, Aunt Kitty. I can make ‘Old McDonald’ sound suspicious. I mean, why did he need that many different animals anyway?”
Aunt Kitty laughed, but I could tell she was still a little anxious. “Fine. Here’s the addresses and the names.” She rattled off seven addresses, then paused again. “That’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“Meet me for coffee this week and we can talk about it more.”
I could recognize an aunt angling for some niece time. We set a date and a time. “See you then,” I said.
I SAT IN THE BUICK, THE MAPS I’D PRINTED OUT FROM THE Internet splayed out on the front seat next to me. Aunt Kitty was right. The houses weren’t too close and they weren’t too far. None of them were in the same subdivision, but all the subdivisions were in the same area. I had parked a few blocks away from the first one. I’d put on nylon shorts, a Dri-Fit tank top and sneakers. I popped my iPod earbuds into my ears, got out of the car and jogged away, looking like any other suburban jogger, I hoped.
The house was essentially a cookie-cutter copy of every other house on the street: a pinkish beige stucco with a red-tiled roof. The grass was green and mowed. The curtains were drawn, but lots of people didn’t want everyone walking by to be able to see into their living room.
I stopped to tie my shoe so I could take a longer look.
Nope. Nothing strange that I could see from the sidewalk. There was kind of a smell, though. It was strong, almost skunklike, and I thought I could hear a humming noise.
I glanced around. The sidewalks were empty. No one was out mowing their lawn or gardening. I stood up, brushed off my knees and sauntered up the driveway to the side of the house.
The smell grew stronger. So did the humming noise. I didn’t get very far. Entry into the backyard was blocked by a big metal fence. It’s not so strange for backyards in California to be gated, especially backyards in decent subdivisions. A lot of people have pools around here and pools mean gates. I’m all for it, most of the time. I’m sensitive to the whole little-kid-drowning-in-backyard-pool thing for obvious reasons. This gate, however, looked extra solid. And the lock? I’m not exactly the world’s best at picking locks, but I’ve jimmied a few in my day. No way was I getting past this one. Well, at least not by picking it.
It wouldn’t have taken much for me to climb the fence. All I’d have to do was back up a couple steps and get a running start. I jump way better than most. The idea made me nervous, though. Who knew what was on the other side?
There could be a dog, and that simply would not do. I sniffed. I didn’t smell a dog, but then that skunky smell masked pretty much any other smell that might be there. It was enough to make my head swim.
I jogged down the driveway and the few blocks back to my car.
I repeated the process at four of the other houses. I was starting to get nervous. There was more traffic coming in and out of the neighborhoods. People were getting home from work. Kids were coming home from school and activities. It was that time of day. So far, all I had was five houses that smelled funny and hummed more than their neighboring houses and had fairly intense security gates. On the last house, I decided to hop the gate.
I listened for a long time. I didn’t hear any growls or snufflings or clicking nails or any other doggie noises. I didn’t hear people either or feel the presence of anything supernatural. It was now or never. I took my running start and was over the fence in one bounce.
I landed in a crouch and immediately backed into the corner. It might make it difficult to maneuver if something came at me, but at least I knew what was at my back. I stayed there for a second or two, getting my bearings.
The skunklike smell had grown stronger, making my nose twitch. It was starting to smell familiar, but I still hadn’t placed it. The humming noise had grown louder, too. That was familiar as well, and even better, I knew what it was. The hum of electricity. Somewhere around here a generator was running. The hospital had several that came on whenever there was a power interruption, so I recognized the sound. Temporary power outages simply won’t do in a hospital. Apparently, they wouldn’t do at certain houses in Elk Grove either.
