Page 70 of Midnight Valentine
are at them through the nursery window, pounding my fists on the glass, screaming so loudly, it could rouse all the ghosts within miles from their graves.
I dream of Denver omelets and key lime pie, of lightning strikes in an empty desert, of black muscle cars roaring past me at top speed.
And, as I often do, I dream of blood.
Leaching into spiderweb cracks on asphalt, slick on the palms of my hands, sliding silently down my naked thighs as I sob, knowing what I’ve lost even before the gynecologist murmurs her apologies.
I wake panting and drenched in sweat, feeling as if something vitally important hovers just out of my reach. When the phone rings, I’m still disoriented. I answer without looking to see who’s calling. “Hello?”
“Hey, Megan, it’s Suzanne!”
“Oh. Hi.” I scrub a hand over my face and squint into the bright morning sun pouring through the bedroom windows.
“Geez, don’t get too excited to hear from me, you’ll give me a big head,” she says drily.
“Sorry. I just woke up. What time is it?”
“Seven thirty.”
“Why are you calling me at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning, Suzanne?” I yawn, flipping off the covers to shuffle toward the bathroom.
“I wanted to see if you’d like to go to church with me.”
“No.”
She laughs. “You want to think about that for half a millisecond?”
“God and I have our differences.” It’s impossible to stay friends with someone after he kills the love of your life. “My mother once said if the shadow of the cross fell on me, I’d turn to ashes. I don’t think she was joking.”
“C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
“Fun? Church and fun have never gone together in the entire history of religion. I think it’s actually against the law for church to be anything but total misery.”
She laughs again. For some reason, my foul mood seems to delight her. “Whoa, there’s some major baggage behind that statement! But this church is different, I promise.”
“Pfft. Do they hand out joints on your way in the door?”
“Ha. We should be so lucky. No, they’re just cool.”
I make a noise that indicates how much I believe her church is anywhere near the vicinity of cool.
Suzanne giggles. “Are you living with some kind of large, disgruntled animal? Because that sounded a lot like a warthog.”
“How would a sophisticated urbanite like you know what a warthog sounds like?”
“You’d be surprised by the things I know,” she says, sounding mysterious.
I can tell that’s a loaded statement. “Okay, I’ll play. Like what?”
“Like Theo Valentine put Coop in charge of Hillrise Construction…” She pauses dramatically. “And left town.”
My surprise is so total, I almost drop the phone. “Left? When?”
“Friday night, according to what I heard.”
“Where did he go?” My voice is so loud, it echoes off the walls.
“Like Coop would tell anyone.” She chuffs in annoyance. “He’s almost as tight-lipped as Theo. Those two are like brothers. But from what I hear, Coop held an emergency meeting with Hillrise’s crew yesterday and told them not to expect Theo back anytime soon.”
