My cell phone rang, and I answered without pulling over. I usually obey the law, but I was late.
"Mercy?" It was Adam, and he wasn't happy with me. I guessed Samuel had told him about the vampires being responsible for the debacle at Uncle Mike's. I'd told him he could do it once I was safely out of town.
"Uh-huh." I pulled around an RV as we chugged up a small hill. It'd pass me on the downhill side, but I had to take my passing pleasures where I could - Vanagons are not speed demons. One of these days I was going to put a Subaru flat six in it and see what that would do. "Before you yell at me for not telling you about the vampires, you should know that I am risking a ticket by talking to you while I drive. Do you really want me to get a ticket for letting you yell at me?"
He gave a reluctant laugh, so I supposed he wasn't too upset. "You're still on the road? I thought you left this morning."
"Fixed a shift linkage in a Ford Focus at that rest stop near Connell," I told him. "Nice lady and her dog were stuck after having a clutch job done by her brother-in-law. He hadn't tightened down a few bolts, and one of them fell off. Took me an hour or so before we found someone who had a bolt and nut the right size." And I had the oil stains across my shoulders and the grit in my hair to prove it. In my Rabbit I kept a towel to put on the ground. I also kept a selection of useful car bits. It was going to be a while before my Rabbit was up and running.
"How is Mary Jo?"
"She's sleeping for real now."
"Bran helped?"
"Bran helped." I could hear the smile in his voice. "You be careful ghost hunting - and don't let Stefan bite you."
There was just a little edge to the last.
"Jealous?" I asked. Yep. The RV passed me on the downhill.
"Maybe a little," he said.
"Don't be. We'll be fine. Ghosts aren't as dangerous as crazy vampire ladies." I couldn't help the anxiety that crept into my voice.
"I'll be careful - and Mercy?"
"Uhm?"
"Consider yourself yelled at," he purred, then hung up.
I grinned at the phone and closed it.
AMBER'S DIRECTIONS TO HER HOUSE HAD BEEN CLEAR and easy to follow. The relief in her voice when I'd called that morning made me want to believe she really had a ghost problem and wasn't part of some secret vampire conspiracy to get me somewhere I'd be easier to kill. Despite Bran's assurances that it was unlikely Marsilia would ship me off to Spokane, I was still feeling... not paranoid, really. Cautious. I was feeling cautious.
Zee had agreed to work the shop while I was gone. I probably could have gotten him to work cheaper than usual because he was still feeling guilty about stuff that wasn't his fault. Cheaper would mean I could eat peanut butter instead of ramen noodles for the rest of the month, but I didn't think any of it was his fault.
He had talked to Uncle Mike about the crossed bones on my door. Definitely vampire work, he told me.
The bones meant that I had broken faith with the vampires and was no longer under their protection - and anyone offering me aid of any kind was likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the vampires as well. The broad interpretation of that was horrifying. It meant that people like Tony and Sensei Johanson were at risk, too.
It meant that it was probably a good thing that I get out of town for a few days and figure out how to limit the number of victims Marsilia could claim.
Amber lived in a Victorian mansion complete with a pair of towers. The brick porch had been freshly tuck-pointed, the gingerbread work around the roof edge and the windows bore a new coat of paint. Even the roses looked ready for magazine display.
Frowning at the leaded glass glistening in the sun, I wondered when I'd last cleaned the windows in my house. Had I ever cleaned the windows? Samuel might have.
I was still thinking about it when the door opened. A startled boy gawked at me, and I realized I hadn't rung the doorbell.
"Hey," I said. "Is your mom home?"
He recovered quickly and gave me a shy look out of a pair of misty green eyes under long, thick eyelashes, and turned to ring the bell I hadn't.
"I'm Mercy," I told him, while we waited for Amber to emerge from the depths of the house. "Your mom and I went to school together."
His wary look deepened, and he didn't say anything. So I guessed she hadn't told him anything. "Mercy, I was beginning to think you weren't coming." Amber sounded harassed and not at all grateful, and that was before she saw what I looked like - covered in old oil and parking-lot dirt.
Her son and I turned to look at her.
She still looked like a show dog, but her eyes were stressed. "Chad, this is my friend who is going to help us with the ghost." As she spoke, her hands flew in a graceful dance, and I remembered Charles had said her son had some sort of disability: he was deaf.
She turned her attention to me, but her hands still moved, letting her son know what she was saying.
"This is my son, Chad." She took a deep breath. "Mercy, I'm sorry. My husband has a client coming over for dinner tonight. He didn't tell me until just a few minutes ago. It's a formal dinner..."
She looked at me, and her voice trailed off.
"What?" I said letting sharpness creep into my voice at the insult. "Don't I look like I'm up to a formal dinner? Sorry, the stitches in my chin don't come out for at least a week."
Suddenly she laughed. "You haven't changed a bit. If you didn't bring anything suitable, you can borrow something of mine. The guy who's coming is actually pretty well house-trained for a cutthroat businessman. I think you'll like him. I've got to do some inventorying and run to the grocery store." She tilted her head so her son could see her mouth. "Chad, would you take Mercy to the guest room?"
He gave me another wary look, but nodded. As he went back inside the house and started up the stairs, Amber told me, "I'd better warn you, my husband is pretty unhappy about the ghost. He thinks Chad and I are making it up. If you could manage not to mention it at dinner in front of his client, I'd appreciate it."
THERE WAS A BATHROOM ACROSS FROM THE ROOM I WAS staying in. I took my suitcase and went in to scrub up. Before I stripped off my grimy shirt, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Sometimes ghosts only appear to one sense or another. Sometimes I can only hear them - sometimes I can smell them. But the bathroom smelled like soap and shampoo, water, and those stupid blue tablets some people who didn't have pets put in their toilets.
I didn't see anything or hear anything either. But that didn't keep the hair on the back of my neck from rising as I pulled off my shirt and stuffed it into the plastic compartment in my suitcase. I scoured my hands until they were mostly clean and brushed the dirt out of my hair and rebraided it. And all the while I could feel someone watching me.