The Dirt on Ninth Grave(100)

His brows slid together. "I don't -"



"It doesn't matter right now. I'm just glad your family is okay."



He wrapped long, thin arms around me. I motioned Angel over. I wanted him to be a part of this. Without him, I could never have done what I did. I took Angel's hand, pulled it to my mouth, and kissed it. He lowered his head, suddenly bashful.



"My daughter was right," Mr. V whispered into my ear. "You're an angel." He set me at arm's length. "She saw you outside the window. Said you were an angel and you had come to save us. And she was right."



I shook my head. "She must have me confused with someone else."



He shook his, too. "Seriously, where do you keep your wings?"



Bobert and Cookie followed me all the way back to Sleepy Hollow. Like right-on-my-tail followed. Like they expected me to do something crazy. Like they didn't trust me. So weird. I drove straight to the café, and they followed me there, too. It was becoming an issue.



They'd told me Cookie ran out of the café, screaming like a banshee, with no explanation and no forwarding address when Bobert called her. She needed to explain to Dixie what happened. I needed to explain why I missed lunch with Reyes. And to see if he wanted to have sex with me again later. I could pencil him in.



We stormed into the place as if we worked there, and even though it was well past Cookie's scheduled shift, Dixie put her to work. She was apparently short-handed.



Reyes gave me odd glances, and I wondered if he knew about the Vandenbergs. Or was upset I'd missed lunch with him. I would have called if I hadn't crushed my phone.



Drawing in a lungful of air, I started toward the back. Shayla stepped in front of me before I got too far.



"Hey, sweetie," I said before I really looked at her. When I did, I kept the smile on my face because I didn't know where else to put it.



She gazed at me wide-eyed. Her cute, freckled nose and huge, almost colorless irises made her look utterly fairylike, but now she had a grace she didn't have before. A gentleness that enraptured me.



Still, in the grand scheme of things, I'd rather have had her as she was. Sweet, caring, and full of life.



I stumbled back a step.



She held out a hand. "It's okay. I'm okay. I promise."



She blurred as my vision became flooded with wetness. This wasn't possible. I'd just seen her the day before, and she was the picture of health. She was happy and vibrant. She fairly glowed. How could that change so fast? How could she become one of the transparent gray departed?



I turned from her and leaned against the checkout counter. Fought to breathe. Struggled for an explanation. After Erin's baby. After the Vandenberg children. This? Now? Was life really so meaningless? So fragile? So easily lost?



She touched my arm. "Janey, I just stayed for him. For Lewis. Can you get a message to him?"



A tear pushed past my lashes when I looked at her again. Did death really target the innocent? Did it zero in on the purest, most radiant souls?



"Can you please tell him I've had the best two days of my life?"





 

 


"I don't understand," I said at last.



A few of the customers had turned toward me. Dixie stepped out from behind the prep station, wiping her hands on a towel, her expression curious. Cookie stopped what she was doing and stilled.



"I had asthma and severe allergies. It was no one's fault. I ate a corn dog from Whips. I've eaten a hundred. They must've switched to peanut oil."



A soft cry wrenched from my throat, and I sank onto my elbows. If not for the desk, I would've crumpled like the three men earlier today. This was not happening.



"I just want Lewis to know how wonderful a person he is. He really has no idea. He needs to know, Janey. And he needs to know how much I loved him." She stepped closer.



I couldn't look at her. In spite of all the bravado today, I was a coward after all.



"Promise me," she said, her tone harder than before, probably to get me to focus.



It was one thing to see the departed as being other. As almost not being real. It was another thing to know on a visceral level that they were once alive and dynamic and worthy of all that life had to offer.



I nodded, agreeing at last, and she smiled. "Thank you." Without another word, she slipped to the other side.



I clutched the counter, digging in my nails as her life flashed before my eyes. I saw the first time Lewis noticed her. Or kind of noticed her. She'd dropped her books in high school, and as a group of kids beside her laughed, he hurried over, picked them up, handed them to her, then kept jogging as he tried to catch up to his friends. It was the everydayness that captured her. He didn't do it for accolades. He just did it. It was simply in his nature. She was invisible until that day. That day, that very minute, she decided to be seen.