Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel) (33 page)

“Just a year of probation,” I said, knocking a crouton off my plate. Ally nudged me gently, trying to get me to at least eat the tiramisu. “The judge said it was to encourage me to stay out of trouble.”

Everyone laughed. Why was that funny?

Everyone else was well into their salad and bread when the oven dinged, and Gloria removed a huge dish of lasagna from the oven. She sat the glass dish on a pot holder and cut through the melty cheese in one steaming slice. I continued to push salad around on my plate.

“I thought you were going to have to pay that huge fine,” Umbri said. She had so much food in her mouth that her cheeks bulged on either side.

“The fine was waived,” Ally said.

“Garrison did that,” Kyra said willing to take up the fight again. “Garrison.”

“If Bobkins had his way, I’d go to prison indefinitely.” I took a drink of tea, something to distract me from the full dinner plate churning my stomach. Before I could set the glass down, the doorbell rang again.

“It’s probably him,” I said, standing. “I’ll get it.”

It wasn’t Garrison—but it was enough to stop my heart.

Brinkley, my supposedly dead handler, stood on the porch, looking like his usual demanding self. Yet I barely noticed him holding Winston to his chest, cradled like a baby on account that my eyes fixated on just one thing.

Lane.

Lane stood beside him on my porch in a gorgeous suit tailored to his body, perfect down to sparkly cufflinks and shiny shoes. His hair was cut, expertly styled, and in his arms he held a large bouquet of sunflowers, tulips and pink-purple roses. I’d never seen him grin so big.

“Oh my god,” I said. “First angels and now ghosts.”

“If I come back from the dead, I’ve got to come back looking great, don’t I?” he said.

It wasn’t until I heard this narcissistic assessment that I realized it really was Lane.

“But you—” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Are you—”

“Statistically, speaking,” Brinkley broke in, keeping his voice low. “Everyone’s met at least two Necronites who are unaware of their NRD condition.”

“Are you a Necronite too?” I asked him. Winston, now on his feet and within smelling distance of the feast, waddled past my feet into the kitchen.

“No, just lucky,” Brinkley answered. “And that agent Garrison is a good man who can keep a secret.”

“So what the hell was in your coffin?” I demanded to know.

Brinkley only smiled.

Lane couldn’t wait any longer. He crossed the threshold completely and lifted me up into his arms. My feet came off the floor as he squeezed me against his neck. The smell of him was just enough to make me start crying again.

“Aren’t you coming in?” I asked Brinkley over Lane’s shoulder.

“I’ll meet you in the back,” Brinkley said. “I’m dead, remember?”

Lane gently placed me on my feet and shut the door. My reaction was nothing compared to the faces around the dinner table. Everyone’s mouth hung open as we came into the kitchen. Ally, who’d been pouring a glass of tea at the time, was now pouring half the pitcher into Umbri’s lap.

“Hey!” Umbri yelped.

“I’m sorry,” Ally said absentmindedly, and handed Kyra the towel.

“My funeral’s been cancelled for obvious reasons,” Lane said. “But everyone looks great.”

A general murmur of disbelief circled the table. Kyra flashed me a double thumbs-up and I just knew she saw his newfound condition as another reason why I should be with Lane. My senses were coming back to me. The flowers Lane gave me still wrapped in cellophane hung limply at my side. Then I pointed the bouquet accusingly at him.

“You’ve been gone almost two weeks. With stab wounds like that, you would’ve been dead two days tops and that’s only if he’d managed to cut up some important organs,” I said.

Lane slid in amongst the guests, not hesitating to make himself a plate. “Post-death evaluations and new status processing take forever. Surely you remember how lengthy death-replacement agent enlistment is. The interviews, the paperwork. Garrison’s doing, by the way. He says Nashville is understaffed and could use me.”

“So you let me think you were dead this whole time?” I said. “You couldn’t pick up a phone and call me?”

“With rigor mortis, no, and you never told me how horribly painful that is. You complained, but Jesus, you were underplaying it,” he said and leaned over the table for a piece of garlic bread. “And what is it with women and getting a phone call?”

I smacked him with the flowers, raining petals everywhere, and sending the garlic bread en route to his mouth sailing through the air. Someone gasped.

“How could you?” I said, tears streaming. “How could you just walk in here and pretend like it’s fine?” More flower bashing. “Nessa is dead. She’ll never wake up and you come in making jokes.”

He came up cradling his jaw with a fire in his eyes that most men get when hit by a girl. Men don’t, at least on a biological level, like a subverted patriarchy. Like that was going to stop me.

“If I had a gun I’d shoot you in the heart and when you wake up from that I bet your ass, you’d call.” I absolutely meant this threat. To drive it home, I smacked him with the bouquet a few times more calling him everything from motherf-ing d-bag to son of a b. Kyra turned as white as the table cloth.

Lane’s face was red and he had a cut on his cheek when I finished. But his voice was soft. “I’m sorry. I would have called you if I could.”

I threw my destroyed flowers on the floor.

“I need some air,” I said and excused myself.

Gabriel appeared against the back door, watching us. I barely flinched. I was getting scary good at not reacting to his sudden appearances. He was scratching his wing, raining little feathers onto the floor. Did he have lice or something? Why must he always groom himself? I couldn’t exit unless I walked through him, so I had to pretend he wasn’t there. I was glad that he didn’t choose that moment to turn solid.

The back deck now lit up with little tiki-torches to give an island-at-night glow. Gabriel followed me in that creepy immaterial way of his. I offered Brinkley a lawn chair. He preferred to lean against the deck railing and I did the same. The air was cooling fast, curling itself around my bare legs. It would be winter soon enough.

“Let me guess. You really do have NRD but just never told me,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I don’t have NRD. Only a trusted few know I survived and we have to keep it that way. Of course, that won’t stop you from telling Alice.”

“Probably not.”

I moved further away from the door so that Brinkley would be hidden from view. “What’s to be gained by faking your death?”

Brinkley leaned over the rail and took a moment to think about what he said. “This situation with Martin using prostitutes to kill replacement agents, it is just the beginning. I’ve known since St. Louis that something is wrong. I knew by the sloppy way the FBRD handled those murders in Atlanta.”

An idea popped into my head. “Are you the anonymous caller who reported the murders?”

Brinkley smirked. “You’re smarter than I give you credit for, kid.”

I feigned a curtsey. “So what do we know now that we didn’t know then?”

“FBRD has been bought and paid for,” Brinkley said. He spoke through his teeth like it still pained him. I thought of Boston and Swede, the two jerks that Brinkley had called in to help him when things got ugly. God, it must’ve sucked when he realized they were on the other side. I don’t know what I’d do if someone I trusted turned on me—someone like Ally or Lane.

“The FBRD is providing the information to the Church—your father—and the Church is doing the executing.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Caldwell could be unaware of—” My voice trailed off when I saw Brinkley’s sad expression.

“Martin contacted Caldwell directly on a private line numerous times,” he said, gently. Gracefully, he shifted the conversation. “From what I can tell, only a limited number of those FBRD agents are involved.”

I couldn’t believe that a legal organization established for the sole purpose of protecting us would turn us over to the bad guys. “Why would they do that?”

Brinkley searched my face. “I don’t know. It is either Caldwell’s agenda or the FBRD’s. But Martin was reporting to Caldwell, not the other way around.”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes and for some stupid reason my throat was uncomfortably tight. “I’m sorry about your friends, the jerks that betrayed you. At least they’re in custody.”

Brinkley grinned. “Not anymore.”

“They escaped?” I was so looking forward to a break from homicidal maniacs.

“Don’t worry about running into them,” he said with a malicious grin. “I took care of it.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Is that what was in your coffin?”

His smile faltered. “The truth is, this is not the first time they came after you.”

I was so tired of hearing about people trying to kill me. “Are you saying they’ve been trying to kill me for seven years?”

“I need you to understand something,” he said, seriously. “It is extremely important.”

“O-
kay
, is that a yes?”

“I know Garrison told you about Caldwell being your father.”

“Do you really think he is?”

“I haven’t been able to prove it, but yes I think so,” he said.

“Why would he want to kill Necronites, if he is one?” I couldn’t put these pieces together.

“I don’t care about that as much as I want to know why he is targeting you,” he said. “His own daughter.”

Brinkley ran his hands through his hair. It was wonderfully reminiscent of times when he found me exhausting, weeks ago before my life got even more complicated than usual. “Why make you a priority?”

“How do you know I’m a priority? Maybe he doesn’t even know about me.”

Brinkley spared me another sad smile. “The pattern suggests otherwise. It is like they choose their cities based on your location and they take greater risks when trying to catch you. They make mistakes.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about it—the idea that my father was hunting me down and trying to kill me, for reasons I didn’t understand.

“So where does that leave us?” I asked. “What are we going to do now?”

“I’m dead,” he repeated. “If I want to go any deeper with this, I can’t be a law-abiding federal agent anymore. James Brinkley is officially off the books.”

“Okay, you want to be dead so you can find out more, but what about me?” I demanded. “I’m not dead and they know I’m not dead.”

He lowered his voice. “If you remain a death replacement agent,” he began in a slow, cautious tone. “You can use your replacements and skills to get inside information.”

“I’m not trained to be a spy.”

“Who said I wouldn’t train you? Don’t underestimate what you can do.” His tone softened. “I believe in you, Jesse. I always have.”

“Very motivational, chief,” I said and a sense of dèjá vu washed over me. And I remembered something. “When I saw Caldwell at the funeral, he didn’t look older than thirty or thirty-five. You know what that means, right?”

Brinkley’s eyes narrowed. “He’s been dying.”

“Yeah, but for who?” I asked. “And why hasn’t anyone noticed.”

“One of the many questions we’ll have to answer,” he said. And he turned to leave.

“That’s it?” I called after him. “That’s how you’re going to leave me?”

“Wait, no.” He stopped, then pulled a stack of comment cards out of his pocket and handed them to me. “I almost forgot.”

Every single one of them was between 8-10 points. I found it way easier to be furious now. “What the hell! You’ve been holding out on me!”

“In the military, we push our soldiers hard to make them strong. It’s the only tactic I know.”

I smacked his shoulder with the stack, secretly glowing from all the compliments I’d been denied.

“Haven’t you heard of positive reinforcement, man?”

“You have to stay with me in this,” Brinkley said and he looked worried that I might back out. “I’m giving you these cards now because I want you to know that what you do matters. Not just to me.”

Damn. He got me.

“I’m sorry I always made it hard,” his voice was as close to gentle as I’d ever heard it.

“You’re killing me with kindness, man,” I said.

An eruption of laughter from the kitchen caught my attention. Through the doors I saw Lane holding Umbri and Kyra over his shoulders like a barbarian conquest. He’d clearly picked them up and turned them away from the door so they wouldn’t see him.

Brinkley grinned and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be hard to reach for a few weeks, but they won’t make a move until it all quiets down. Rest up until I get back. And Garrison is your contact if you need anything. He’s been assigned as your temporary handler.”

“You’re dead and you still get to boss me around?” I asked.

“Of course.” He descended the steps heading for the driveway.

“Wait,” I yelled, leaning over the railings. “Are you the one that found Lane?”