Page 39 of Ghostlighted
“I know.” I pulled a long-sleeved Henley over my head. “I’m shocked too. But what can I tell you? Things to do and fingernails to bite.” I grabbed the edge of the blankets and gave them a shake. “Coming?”
He made his opinion clear by engaging in the longest stretch in the history of cats, with all his claws extended, before he hopped onto the floor with a very sarcastic tail twitch and deigned to let me make the bed.
By the time I padded downstairs barefoot, Gil had recovered from his snit and galloped ahead of me, disappearing into the family room in a flash of ginger fur. I peered into the library before I followed him. The dim room seemed empty, but in this house, you never knew.
“Avi?”
No response, and I didn’t detect the telltale glimmer of Avi’s body on the window seat, where we’d sat last night debating where to keep Oren’s ring. Now that we knew it had more than sentimental value, we didn’t want to leave it anywhere it might be subject to accidental loss—aka Gil’s penchant for shiny things.
I wasn’t about to wear it on my finger—Avi and I both cringed at that notion.
We’d settled on threading it onto a short, sturdy stainless steel chain that one of my previous boyfriends had used to attach his water bottle to his backpack on his week-long wilderness hikes. Yeah, that relationship hadn’t lasted beyond the first time he’d convinced me to come with him. Even so, we’d parted on fairly good terms, acknowledging that our interests just didn’t align. He’d left me the water bottle though: “Just in case you ever want to give hiking another try.”
I had not.
That water bottle had gotten lost somewhere in the multiple moves after my parents died, but the chain had survived, passing from laptop bag to laptop bag through the years.
We’d then locked the ring in the desk drawer because we wanted to use itintentionally, rather than have me carry it around all the time. Besides, Gil didn’t present the only lossthreat, if you take my meaning. Remember the disappearing water bottle? Yeah, that.
We hadn’t conducted any more tests last night. Avi was more than a little overwhelmed by our discovery, so after we’d secured the ring, he’d vanished. This morning, though, we had plans. Big plans.
Plans that would be much more successful if I were fully awake and focused.
So I switched on the electric kettle and chose the tea withallthe caffeine. As I was waiting for the water to heat, my phone vibrated on the counter. I exhaled gustily when I saw it was a text from Ricky.Please be good news, please be good news.
R: Tia better this morning. Family’s still here.
Good news. Thank goodness.
M: All of them?
Ricky responded with a laugh emoji. Hunh. I’d never thought of Ricky as an emoji kind of guy, but even though my question hadn’t been a joke-—not intentionally, anyway—I took this as a good sign about Ricky’s state of mind, and therefore about Sofia’s prognosis. The tension I hadn’t lost overnight eased and my shoulders relaxed about ten percent.
R: The hospital is used to us.
M: Let me guess—you’ve got a cousin who works there.
Another laugh emoji.
R: Charge nurse. So they’re letting us in to see her a few at a time.
M: Any diagnosis yet?
R: Waiting on lab results. Could you do me a favor?
M: Sure.
R: Water Tia’s garden please?
M: No problem.
R: Thanks! Hose bib on the back of the garage.
Garage. Ha! I knew where that was now.
M: On it.
I waited a moment, but nothing else popped up on the screen, so I scooped a spoonful of loose tea out of the box, ready to dump it into the tea basket. The phone vibrated again, and I grinned as I leaned over to read the notification.
