“Adriel, open up. Hurry.” Pam’s voice sounded muffled and strange.
When the door swung open, it was easy to see why. A single eye skewered Adriel from behind an armload of paper grocery bags filled to overflowing. Pam staggered toward the kitchen area, only to find the passage too narrow to fit through. From too far away, Adriel watched one of the bags tilt, a carton of eggs sliding toward the edge of no return. She lunged but would have come up an inch short if, without a second thought, she hadn’t bent energy enough to pull the bag toward her through the air.
Even with the second bag partially obscuring her vision, Pam felt something odd. After dumping the bag on the table, she rested hands on her hips, tilted her head back, and eyed Adriel with suspicion.
“Close call.” Adriel turned her face away and called over her shoulder as she set the bag on the counter. Because it seemed prudent, she busied herself with sorting through its contents in order to avoid meeting Pam’s curious gaze. She was just putting a carton of eggs into the cabinet when Pam snatched it from her hand and deposited it in the refrigerator.
“Not had much experience in the kitchen?” There was a sardonic edge to the question, and Adriel had no defense.
“It shows?”
“A bit.” Pam nudged Adriel aside to rescue several other perishables from the cabinet shelf before relegating them to cold storage. “Good way to contract food poisoning. How did you get to be an adult and not know milk has to be kept cold?”
“I might have led a sheltered life, but that doesn’t make me a pampered twit.”
Embarrassment flamed Pam’s cheeks a vivid red. “I never said any such thing.”
“Well, you were thinking it,” Adriel snapped.
“So what? You read people’s thoughts now?”
Had she? Hamlin’s thoughts occasionally made it past the block, but only at random. Adriel paled and slapped a hand over her mouth. Above her hand, wide eyes turned to meet Pam’s openly curious gaze.
“All right, “ Pam said. “Out with it. Whatever it is you’re hiding, it can’t be worse than what I’ll imagine if you don’t tell me.”
“Oh, I think it can.” An intensely vivid image of being fitted for one of those lovely white coats with the sleeves that fastened in the back played through Adriel’s mind. “Trust me, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.”
“Try me.” Voice colder than a mud puddle in January, Pam deadpanned, “You might be surprised.”
Burdening Pam with such an enormous secret without counting the possible cost would be extremely irresponsible. Still, her history of telling alternate versions of the truth—okay, fine, outright lies if you want to be picky about it—had met with mixed success. Who knew what might come out of her mouth if she opened it.
Winston saved her from the attempt by choosing that precise moment to launch from his perch on top of the refrigerator to the counter and then, by way of Pam’s shoulder, to the table. His claws dug in long enough to leave angry red marks on tender flesh while she hurled several imaginative names at him. Being a typical cat, he ignored Pam as thoroughly as he groomed the back of his leg, and with the same amount of concentration.
By the time her ire was spent, Pam had forgotten all about whatever secret Adriel might be hiding, and Winston did not wink at Adriel. Probably not.
Chapter 6
Muscles bunching under sleek black fur, Winston leapt straight up to land heavily on the tallest stack of boxes. Adriel sucked in a breath when she saw the tower wobble. “Nooo,” her voice sounded loud in the room. “No. No. No.” Bad enough she had signed on to sort through this mess, she didn’t fancy cleaning up some domino pile of trash because of a crazy cat with no respect for the laws of gravity.
She wagged a finger in the cat’s face, “Cute will only get you so far with me, mister.” His sarcastic answer was to send his sandpaper tongue rasping across fur as he shot a hind leg into the air to clean it of dirt particles invisible to the naked eye. Once or twice, he paused to give her a look of disdain. “Just remember, I control the kibble.” Relenting, Adriel gave him a scratch under the chin.
Talking to animals was a pleasure Adriel missed. Their bright chatter charmed her every time. Either Winston was unnaturally quiet, or her ability to hear animals had gone the way of her wings. Sad thought.
“This one?” Adriel pointed to a medium-sized box and cocked her head toward Winston, who soundly ignored the question. “Fine, this one it is.” A steak knife made short work of the tape holding the box closed. “I hope there are no body parts in here.” Still talking to the cat, Adriel flipped the flaps open to sneak a peek inside. With a languid stretch, Winston slithered over to peer down from his perch and satisfy his own curiosity.
Dirty socks.
At least six months' worth. Their fragrance perfumed the air with a musty funk nasty enough to bring tears to her eyes. Not a dead body, though it smelled nearly as bad. Why in the world would someone fill a box with their filthy laundry? It defied logic.
Dumping them in the washer sounded like a good idea. Unless adding water might intensify the stench. Instead, Adriel rifled through the cupboards for tape to seal the box back up, and a pen to mark the contents on the outside. Pam’s instructions did not cover this particular contingency, and there was only so far Adriel was willing to go to ensure a roof over her head. Handling foul footwear went way over the line.
“Should we open another?” Again, Winston declined to answer, so Adriel pulled the next box from the pile and slit open the tape. When the flaps came free, she held her
