Under Suspicion

Chapter Ten

A hot cucumber-melon–scented bath and half a bottle of Chardonnay later, I was home on my couch, staring at my cell phone. Alex hadn’t answered when I called earlier, and I didn’t bother to leave a message. Still, I hoped—it was minuscule, but it was a hope—that he would see my missed call or feel my crushed-spirit Spidey sense and come running.

No such luck.

I was about to punch the speed dial again when there was a light knock on the front door. I rolled up on my tiptoes and stared through the peephole, where Will’s head, giant and misshapen, greeted me. He grinned and held up a coffee mug.

“Just need a little sugar, love.”

I undid the dead bolt and the chain—you can never be too careful, even if you did live with a fashionista vampire and an eight-inch hound of Hell—and opened the door.

“Sorry it’s so late. Did I wake you?”

I pulled my bathrobe tighter across my chest and wagged my head. “No. Nina just got in. I’m too antsy to go to sleep. Any word on Kale?”

“Nothing new.” Will followed me into the kitchen and I began opening cabinets. “Do you just need white sugar?”

“Please. And a tea bag, if you’ve got one.”

I thunked half a bag of sugar on the dining-room table, where Will was making himself comfortable, and glared at him. “You came over for some sugar and a tea bag.”

“I fancied a cup of tea.”

“Can I get you some hot water, too?”

Will leaned back in his chair and grinned. “That would be capital.”

I put the kettle on the stove and set out a cup for myself, plus a plastic bear filled with honey.

“So what’s the fits about, then?”

“Fits?”

Will squirmed in his chair. “You said you were antsy, right?”

“Oh, fits. Yeah. I just”—I used my fingernail to dislodge a prehistoric piece of Hang Chow fried rice stuck to the table’s fake wood veneer—“I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Didn’t we have this conversation? You said you were forgetting something. I told you it was the files, and you showered me with thanks and biscuits?”

“Where are the files, then?”

“Where are my biscuits, then?”

“Anyway,” I said, my patience wearing thin, “I know that what happened to Kale wasn’t a coincidence. I know that this wasn’t just some guy tearing through an intersection. Ditto with Bettina”—I swallowed thinly—“and Mrs. Henderson.”

“And you.” Will reached out toward me, his finger tracing what still remained of the bruise and scratch on my collarbone.

Whether it was his gentle touch or the tenderness of the injury, I wasn’t sure, but my skin immediately broke out into a sheath of gooseflesh, every fiber of my being on high alert.

“You’re worried,” he commented.

I gave him my “duh” look and poured boiling water from the kettle.

“But you know you’ve got your Guardian right there across the hall.” Will patted his chest smugly.

“And you’re going to defend me with what? You don’t even own a tea bag.”

Will cocked an eyebrow. “With all due respect, Miss Ungrateful, I wasn’t planning on killing anyone with a tea bag. And you certainly didn’t mind my interference during your run-in with the idiot vampire slayer.”

I chuckled despite myself. “Imagine someone thinking I’m a vampire.”

“Well, you could use a bit of sun, love.”

I shot Will a withering look. “Tanning advice from the sun-kissed Brit.”

Will rolled his eyes and dunked his tea bag, then squeezed it against the side of his mug. “Anyway, who said I wasn’t going to outsmart your projected assailant?” He tapped a finger to his temple. “Brain can be stronger than brawn.”

“And you’re all brain?”

“Cunning, even.” Will sat back in his chair and sipped his tea. “So cunning that I have an entire cupboard full of tea and yet here I am, drinking yours.”

“Well, now that you’ve said that, I feel ever so foolish.” I batted my eyelashes and sipped my tea.

“So tell me what you’re so worried about.”

“I’m not that worried,” I said.

“So you shredded that napkin for the sadistic pleasure?”

I looked down at the heap of napkin shreds and sighed. “I think there might be another fallen angel.”

“Do you think another one is possible?”

I shrugged. “Why not? There was Ophelia, and then Adam and his band of goons. Why wouldn’t there be another fallen angel taking their place?”

Will was playing with the handle of his mug and avoided my gaze.

“What aren’t you telling me, Will? What do you know?”

“I was just thinking ...” His words trailed off.

“What were you thinking?”

“Maybe it’s not another angel after you. Maybe it’s the one that’s always around.”

I spat my tea in a mammoth shower. “Alex? You can’t be serious!”

“Look”—Will’s hazel eyes glittered, the light from our chandelier catching the gold flecks in them—“you said yourself that fallen angels are unrepentant. You said yourself that they would keep coming until the Vessel of Souls is theirs, right?”

I rubbed a napkin shred between my forefinger and thumb. “That’s what Alex told me. But he was helping me. He was protecting me from Ophelia.”

“Or he was protecting the Vessel from Ophelia.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said there is something more to all this demon-gone-missing stuff.” He sipped his tea, looking at me over the brim. “No need to shoot the ruggedly good-looking messenger.”

I chewed my bottom lip, considering. “Yeah, but if this was about me, why mess with my demons?” I forced a chuckle and then stopped. “My demons.” My heart did a double thump. “All the missing demons are my clients.”

“And?”

“And maybe someone is trying to distract me, to get me focused on something else.”

Will bobbed his head. “Okay, I’ll bite. Now what about Kale?”

“She works with me.”

“Directly?”

“No, she’s in finance. But she’s out at the front desk a lot and—and we’re friends.”

Suddenly the hot honeyed tea burned in my stomach. My saliva went bitter and my throat felt dry.

“Sophie?”

“It was me, Will.”

“What, now?”

“The person who hit Kale. He thought he was hitting me.” I slammed my palm to my forehead. “Oh God. I set her up. She was wearing my coat. I told her to wear my coat. Think about it. We’re about the same size, and in my jacket—especially with the collar cocked up like I had it—Kale would have looked like any other townie heading across the street. If whoever did this watched us walk into the diner, he must have thought that he was hitting me. Oh God. Oh God. Ohgodohgod.” I rested my forehead on the table. “It’s happening again. Alex said it was just a matter of time before another group of angels found out about me, and now they have.”

Will rested his chin on the table so he could look at me. “We’re not sure of that, love.”

“Not sure?” I sprang up. “Someone tried to kill me, Will. They tried to smear me on the asphalt—only it wasn’t me.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I should never have let Kale wear my jacket. I should have known better! Of course it was personal. Of course it was! I’m Sophie Lawson—supernatural Vessel of Souls—and everyone wants to kill me.” I felt my eyes tear. “You’ve got to get out of here, Will. You’re not safe. You’re not safe around me. No one is.” My voice had reached a high-pitched squeak, and the sob that I refused to release ached in my chest.

Will stood up and wrapped his arms around me, and I fell into his hug, slumped against his chest.

“Anyone around me is going to be in danger,” I said. “I can’t do that to my friends.”

Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” thundered through my head, my own personal hair band soundtrack. I sniffed. My miserable existence didn’t even warrant Bon Jovi.

Will gently rested his chin on the top of my head. “Well, you’re stuck with me, love. Protecting you is exactly what I’m here for.”

He pressed his lips into my hair, and I couldn’t hold back the sob any longer. I pinched my eyes shut and felt the tears rush over my cheeks. My mind filled with pictures of the intersection, of Kale, crumpled and battered, her head resting in Will’s hands.

That was supposed to be me.

“We have to find out who’s doing this, Will,” I said. “We have to find out before anyone else gets hurt.” I pulled away from Will. “Mrs. Henderson, Bettina—and now Kale!”

“Do you think they mistook her for the dragon and the—what’s the bird again?”

I frowned. “A banshee. And I don’t see how they would. Bettina was leaving her apartment. It’s across town, by the ballpark. And she looks nothing like me.”

Will nodded thoughtfully as though this all made perfect sense. “Right. No one would mistake you for a banshee.”

I knew he was playing with me, but he pulled me back toward his chest, enfolding me in his arms. I felt remarkably, unexpectedly safe. His heart thumping against my chest was a comfort, as were the little puffs of his moist breath against the part in my hair. Standing there wrapped in Will’s arms, I almost felt safe. Almost allowed myself to feel comfortable. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought of Kale, and Bettina—and Alex.

I stepped away, completely out of Will’s reach this time. “You should probably go.”

Will’s hand was on the doorknob when the car alarm went off. Its wailing siren was insistent and annoying, and the side of Will’s lip curled in disgust.

“Did you know in Australia that’s the sound the tropical birds make?” He shook his head. “I don’t see why people don’t do away with those bloody things. No one listens to them, anyway.”

I clenched my teeth together in a forced smile and grabbed my purse from the peg by the door. “That one’s mine.”

Will cocked an eyebrow.

“I parked on the street. There was parking right out front and I was a little too creeped out for the underground.”

Will opened the door and ushered me out. “Let’s go turn it off.”

I stepped out into the hallway, a sudden prick of fear sending gooseflesh all over. “Do you think it’s something bad?”

Will snorted. “It’s a car alarm, love. A heavy breeze probably came by and set the thing off.”

I pushed through the vestibule door, with keys in hand, trying to soak in Will’s nonchalance. “You’re probably right.”

“Maybe someone thought your car was a werewolf,” Will said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes at his stab at humor.

Though my rent includes an underground parking space, the cavernous darkness of the parking garage gives me the heebie-jeebies. So on the rare occasion that I can find aboveground parking in my zip code, it’s too good to pass up. Today the parking gods and Gavin Newsom must have been smiling down on me because I caught a cherry spot almost directly across the street. Sure, I had to shoehorn my little Accord into the space and make a forty-seven-point turn in the process, but kicking open the car door and having sunlight—or the graying drizzle that passed for sunlight in San Francisco—was wonderful.

I really wish I had given the underground spot a second thought.

“Oh no.”

I didn’t realize I was standing in the middle of the street until a Muni bus came barreling past me. The driver was laying on the horn that wailed like a dying duck. I jumped out of the way and tried to press myself flat against my car door, but my car door wasn’t flat.

Also, it wasn’t attached to my car.

I felt my lower lip start to wobble; I felt the moist heat of tears behind my eyes. The hood of my car was bashed so solidly that the metal roof undulated like hard green ocean waves. Every window was smashed out and the car seemed to sink under its own destitution. I sniffed, trying to blink away tears, but I was still able to see that every single tire had been slashed repeatedly until the rubber flopped out in jaunty ribbons. I took a second step closer and felt the crunch of a car window underneath my sneaker. I tried to take a step closer, to run my hands over the puckered metal, but something was pinning me back. When I turned to look, I realized that a hunk of headlight—the size of my fist—had snagged my shoelace. I shook it off and rounded the car, somehow hoping the damage might not be so severe on the sidewalk side.

That so wasn’t the case.

“Wow, lady, looks like you really pissed someone off,” a kid said as he wandered by. His baggy pants pooled at the ankles and he walked with the kind of exaggerated limp that was meant to call up images of Snoop Dogg and original gangsters. Instead, he just looked like he was trying to keep his pants up.

A low whistle from the other side of the car caught my attention. I peered through the broken-out passenger-side window and met Will’s gaze as he smiled at me through the driver’s-side window.

“Good thing your car alarm went off,” he told me.

“Oh God, Will. What am I going to do?”

“You’ve got insurance, don’t you?”

I sighed and leaned against the battered car door as Will came around to join me. “Yeah, but this car was new. Or sort of new. And now I have to report once again that my car got mysteriously bashed in.”

“Did they take anything?”

I yanked on the door handle and the door swung open easily, leaving a confetti-like spray of broken glass in its wake. I was about to slide into the car when Will grabbed me by the shoulder, slipped out of his sweatshirt, and laid it on the car seat.

“There’s glass everywhere. You don’t want your arse to look like—”

“My tires?” We shared a small smile and I crawled onto Will’s sweatshirt, taking inventory of my front seat.

“Bad news,” I said, pushing my head out. “They got my American Idol CD.”

I could see the smile in Will’s eyes. “That’s rather good news, actually.”

I turned in my seat—the selection of broken window glass crunching loudly underneath me—and felt my eyes go wide. “Wow.”

Scrawled on the inside of the battered windshield was the word freak.

I swallowed slowly, my own saliva choking me, crawling up the back of my neck. “I have to get out of here.” I pushed past Will and edged out of the car. I stumbled on the sidewalk and doubled over, taking little short breaths of cold night air.

From the corner of my eye I saw Will’s head disappear into the cab of the car; he pulled out again, looking slightly confused. I expected at some point I should fill him in on me and why a five-letter word would spur me to nausea.

Though I comfortably live with a vampire, have spent a good chunk of time talking to my dead grandmother through a hunk of fruit, and share an office wall with a hobgoblin who has to use a slobber tray, the freak thing is something that, to this day, still cuts to the spine.

Like every other teenager in the world, I had only wanted two things: to be popular or to be invisible. The invisibility thing was pretty much a lock all through junior high. I never made many friends and the school bus (thankfully) dropped me off a full seven blocks from the little stuccoed house that I shared with my grandmother and the four-foot-high neon hand that flashed PALM READING ... PALM READING ... PALM READING through the front window.

Without knowing about my grandmother’s occupation, and every day, clad in a rotating collection of Guess? jeans and oversized B.U.M. sweatshirts, I looked just like any other anonymous mid-1990s high schooler.

Until they came to my house.

They were the popular girls who had scrunchies that matched everything they owned, and they drove enviable cars, like the Geo Storm. On one Saturday in May they thought it would be hilarious to have their futures foretold. Of all the days of the year for the Psychic Friends Network to go on hiatus.

The knock came at three o’clock in the afternoon, and my world went crashing down two days later. On Monday morning, at nine o’clock sharp, “Special Sophie, the Freak of Nineteenth Street” was born, illustrated, and pasted to my locker.

From then on, it was stupid mentions of my crystal ball and a constant inner begging to suddenly get powers—preferably, powers that could blow up perky blond cheerleaders who had smooth ponytails and grandmothers who baked banana bread rather than herbal elixirs.

I was leaning against what would have to pass as my new car door when Will came around the side.

“They know who I am,” I whispered, starting to cry.

“That doesn’t matter,” Will said, his accent warm and familiar, “because they will never get to you. Not as long as I’m around.”

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to put my hand in his and snuggle up on the couch, putting all of this behind me.

“It’s only going to get worse, Will. It’s only going to get worse, and no one is listening to me.”

Will held me closer and I sank into his arms. I felt my body curve into his. He pushed a thick lock of hair behind my ear and kissed the lobe gently.

“I’m listening to you,” he whispered, “and I promise to keep you safe, Sophie Lawson.”