Page 103 of Deja New
FORTY-NINE
It was a loooooooong drive. Angela sat with her arms crossed and her teeth clenched and her feet braced against the floor mat, mind whirling, peeking at Jason out of the corner of her eye.
A few miles in, she realized he was giving her the side-eye, too.This is insane. And this car ride might be the strangest part. No, my dad being alive is the strangest part.A snort escaped before she could lock it back. She crammed both hands over her mouth in a frantic attempt to block the noise, then made the mistake of glancing at Jason, whose eyes were watering with the effort of not laughing.
They lost it at the same time, each indulging in one of those full-body belly laughs that leave you gasping for breath. Jason had to pull over on a side street and park, and they both abandoned themselves. When they’d calmed down some, and Jason was wiping his eyes, she turned toward him, thinking she’d startwith “Can you believe this shit?” or “Bet you’re glad I broke it off last night” or “Will you hold my Mom down while I punch her in the throat?”
Instead, she started to cry. And somehow she was in his arms
(how long have I been able to teleport?)
and she was sniveling into his neck and rubbing her face against his stubble just a bit, just a little tiny bit so she wouldn’t get tears on his shirt because dammit, she was considerate that way.
“I’m so sorry,” he was murmuring into her hair. “I can’t imagine. Can’t imagine.”
“It’s a nightmare.” She sniffed. “An ongoing nightmare where, in between the horror reveals, I get laid, which I have to admit is a new one.” She pulled back to look at him. “How’d you know? How’d you figure it all out?”
So he told her about Kline and, in a way, it was the most infuriating thing of all: A random phone call had brought answers she’d been seeking for a decade. What were the odds of Klown retiring and Archer falling for Leah Nazir, setting in motion a cascade reaction that ended up with Dennis—withDonaldshrieking the truth at Intake Processing?
Wait.Think that over again.
“Jeez. Maybe the universe really did want this to happen. I thought Leah would solve it, or point us in a new direction, and in a way... But now I don’t know what to think.” She rested her forehead on his warm shoulder for a few seconds, then pulled back into her bucket seat. “Thank you for coming to the house. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“Devastating,” he said simply. “But in the interest of fulldisclosure, I was thrilled to finally have answers. I ran two red lights getting over there.”
“I can’t condone your rampant disregard for the law, but it’s an understandable reaction.” A line fromThe Silence of the Lambs—the book, not the movie—had always stuck with her: “‘Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.’” She knew exactly why he’d been compelled to race over.
He fished out some napkins and handed them over. She blew her nose and tidied up as best she could. Flipped down the visor, observed her reddened, weepy eyes. Groaned.
In the low tone of a man confessing his greatest, most humiliating sin, Jason leaned over and murmured: “I streamedPoltergeist.It was horrifying. They just left the bodies! They only moved the headstones!”
That nearly set her off again. “That movie ruined chicken legs and closet ghosts for me. I already hated clown dolls, so that was all fine. You watched it?”
“I said, didn’t I?”
“Ah. So I should always trust you will be a man of your word. Is that the message?”
“The message is, when a small round woman with a childlike voice declares the house is clean, it isn’t.”
“Point,” she conceded.
He had been smiling, but sobered and caught her gaze again. “Angela, I’ll take you wherever you wish, whenever you wish, but in terms of you and me, these new revelations are meaningless. They were not added to an imaginary column of negatives.”
He reallywasa witch! “How did you know I kept imaginary columns of— Never mind. Go on.”
“I still want to be with you, I want to give us a chance. You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know that your father being alive and your mother being an almost cartoonishly evil mastermind changes nothing. I’ll always want you.”
She could think of no reason why he would say such a thing unless it was the truth. But now wasn’t the time. “Thank you,” was all she said, becausecripes, what a week. “I heard everything you said. Can we please drive on?”
“Of course.”
Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into the cemetery parking lot. “There’s the truck,” Angela said with what she thought was a credible lack of surprise. It was Paul’s used Ford, the dark blue one Jack had learned the stick shift on. It was usually parked off to the side, and it blended so well into their suburban street that it was small wonder they didn’t notice it was missing at first.
“Could you stay here?”
He was already nodding. “For thirty minutes. Then I’ll come for you.”
“Okay?”
