She led them past a sunny living room and up the stairs, walked to the end of the hallway, rapped softly on a closed door, then opened it. “Hey, Sam,” she called softly. “Your friends are here.”
Annette opened her mouth, then at a look from Oz, shrugged and closed it. They filed into a small, nondescript bedroom that might as well have had “guest room” stenciled on the wallpaper: pale blue carpet, cream wallpaper, an end table with a lamp. One kitchen chair on the left side of the bed for a visitor. A lonely chair in a lonely room.
A painfully thin man with Sally’s dark hair and eyes was tucked into the double bed. His skin was greenish-pale—too much time indoors—and he was wearing black wire rims with a cracked right lens. His left leg and right wrist were in casts, his face a rainbow (if rainbows were mostly yellow and green) of fading bruises. He smiled at Berne’s pained gasp.
“There you are, Maggie. I’ve been waiting all week here.”
“There was some confusion over whether or not you were dead, Sam.” Berne crossed the room and shook the hand that wasn’t in a cast. “My God, how are you?”
“You should see what’s under the pajamas. I’m a walking rainbow.”
“I’m so sorry about Sue.”
“I know you are,” he replied, clasping Berne’s hand. “Thank you for coming for me. Introduce me to your friends.” His tone was friendly, but as he looked at the others, he flared his nostrils, and his eyes narrowed when he zeroed in on Lila. “What’s this?”
“Yeah, sorry. I don’t have an ‘other self.’ There’s just me.” So it was rude to ask a Shifter what kind of werebeast they were, but a Shifter could smell out a Stable and comment? Bogus. Eh, give the guy a break. Tough week. “Your daughter’s wonderful, by the way.”
Sam smiled. “Takes after her mother, thank all the gods. How is she?”
“Stubborn. Strong-willed…”
“What’d I tell you?”
“…never believed you were dead…wouldn’t give up your phone number until evil was mostly vanquished…” Which had been yesterday. Once Oz, Garsea, and Lila had sat down with Sally and explained that the men who hurt her parents had been caught, she turned over the last piece of info they needed to solve the puzzle.
Sam’s smile faded. “I don’t look forward to telling her about Sue.”
“I never got a chance to tell her,” Berne confessed. “By which I mean Oz told her when your plane went down that you were both dead, but I wasna able to update her after I identified Sue at the morgue. Oh, Christ, Dr. Gulo and the morgue—I have so many things to tell you—everything went to shite so quickly—”
“I know having to ID her was difficult. Thank you.” Pause. “Dr. Gulo and the morgue?”
“What I’m sayin’ is, your bairn knows her mother is dead, but she doesn’t know, d’you understand?”
“Yes. Poor cub, she’s got a tough road ahead. I know you—all of you—faced danger for me and mine. I’m more grateful than I can say.” Then to Lila: “I’m sorry you got hauled into this, miss.”
“I’m not sorry I got hauled into it.”
“You’re very kind, miss.”
“Lila.”
“Miss Lila.”
“Ugh.”
Garsea let out a small sound very like a snort, and Lila raised an eyebrow at her. Oz had crossed the room and was looking out the south-facing window. “Don’t worry,” Sam said. “Wendy made sure to put me in a room where, if I hobbled to the window, I wouldn’t see my wife’s tomb.”
“You were right here the entire time,” Berne marveled. “I should have checked the house. Stupid. Stupid.”
“Give yourself a break, Maggie. No one could have predicted any of the last month’s insanity. But you helped my daughter when she was at her most vulnerable. It’s all I could have asked of you.”
Berne shook his head. “Nae, Sam. Don’t misunderstand, I’m liking that ye finally appreciate my stellar qualities—”
“Ha!”
“—but I didn’t do much of anything. Oz and Annette deserve most of the credit. And Lila here did far more to keep Sally safe than I did.”
“I gave her honey and pizza.”
Sam chuckled. “Her favorites.”
“So what happened?” Berne asked. “I heard Oz’s theory. Now I’d like to hear the rest.”
“Someone fucked with your plane, Maggie. And then they fucked with us. Sue put it together, but not fast enough to save herself. Can you believe how long those SAS pricks held a grudge?”
“Well, now,” Berne admitted, and Sam laughed. It was weak and thready, but it was something. “Sally knows her mother was sick. But the wee lass didn’t have any details, o’course. If you could… would you mind…?”
“Yes. Leukemia. Sue’s white cells went into overdrive. We tried to keep it from Sally as long as we could, but Sue was already looking at hospice care options. The cancer… It was like a grass fire in a drought month.” To Lila: “Our kind can fight off a lot of pathogens, but cancer isn’t one of them. It kills us like it does anything else.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you, Lila. My wife knew she was destined to die in a hospital room with the smell of her own shit in her nose. She wanted to stick it out for Sally’s sake, while at the same time she was torn about letting Sally watch her deteriorate. In a completely stupid and unexpected way, SAS gave her a third option and she didn’t hesitate.” Sam lapsed into silence and just lay there, struggling for the right words to describe the thing that tried to devour his wife and the people who tried to devour his daughter.
“She made you jump,” Lila guessed. “It’s why they only found one parachute. It’s unbelievable to me that you survived. The fall should have killed you.”
“It should have killed a Stable,” he corrected gently. “Still, I’m not exactly unscathed,
