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bathroom. Since I figured that my husband wouldn't be seeing the inside of a Home Depot until well after the election, I could get away with hiding the body under the tarps. At least until I could come up with a better plan. I'd just hooked my hands under the dead demon's armpits when Allie's cry of "Mom!" rang out through the house. "Hang on!" I dropped the body, letting the head land on my foot so as to not make too much noise, then hustled into the living room. No Allie. "What do you need?" I shouted up the stairs. Her head appeared around the corner, her forehead creased. "What was that noise?" "Noise?" I repeated, utterly unimpressed with my daughter's reaction time. "Yeah. I heard something. A minute or so ago." She started down the stairs. "You didn't hear it?" "Oh!" I held a hand out, motioning for her to stop. "Right. That. No big deal. I just dropped a cookie sheet. Makes an awful clatter on the tile floor." "You're making cookies? Mom! You know I'm not eating anything with trans fat!" "I was just moving some things around," I lied. "And you ate pancakes this morning, smothered in butter and syrup." "Extenuating circumstances." "Mmmm." She held on to the banister and half hung there, swinging a little. "So, like, you don't need help then, right?" "Nope," I said, cheerily. "Totally under control." "So I can go back up?" "Far be it for me to keep a girl from her iPod." She rolled her eyes, then pounded back up the stairs. I gave her enough time to get settled, then moved back into the kitchen. The demon was still there, staring blindly at me with the one intact eye. I looked away. I've done this countless times and I get a nice little buzz of satisfaction every time a demon bites the dust but there's still a definite ick factor involved. Once again, I got a grip on the demon, and once again, I was interrupted. This time by the shrill ring of the telephone. I left the demon where I'd dragged her halfway into the garage, the door banging up against her shoulders and ran to snatch up the handset. "Hello?" "It's me," Laura said. "I was starting to get worried." "Everything's fine now," I said. Then I looked at the body. "Although, there is one little thing you could help me with& " "You're sure about this?" I asked, as we bent down to grab the tarp-wrapped body, me at the head and Laura hoisting the feet. "Oh yeah," Laura said. "I'm positive." She and Tim had come over about fifteen minutes ago. After we'd settled the munchkin in the living room with a box of Legos and a Dora the Explorer video, I'd dragged Laura into the garage, where I'd left the demon in a heap in front of our stand-alone freezer. "I need to get her to the cathedral," I'd said, pointing to the body. Father Ben might be new, but he'd already proved his worth by coming up with a workable demon disposal plan. And now the crypts beneath the cathedral were being put to good use hiding demon carcasses. The trouble with that system was that the families of the truly dead person (the one who'd had the body the demon had invaded) were left believing their loved one had up and disappeared. Unfortunately, we didn't have much choice. We could dump the body somewhere, true. But there wasn't any way to repair the damage from a spike to the eye. And cops tend to get all antsy about things like that. They'd investigate. And if their questions led back to me well, what could I do then? I really didn't want Christmas with my kids spent in the visiting room at San Quentin. And I didn't want Mindy visiting Laura there, either. Which was why I reiterated my original proposition. "We can put her in the Odyssey." But Laura shook her head. "No. Without a trunk, it's too obvious." "She's wrapped up," I said, but Laura just looked at me. I shrugged. She was right. A body wrapped in a tarp pretty much resembles a body wrapped in a tarp. "We'll shove her in Paul's trunk, and we can drive over to the cathedral after dark." "What if Paul wants his car?" She made a face. "He won't. He took his new Thunder-bird to San Diego. He's got some sort of conference for all his franchisees. He won't be home until late tomorrow." "It's still a risk," I said. "We've wrapped her up tight, but there's no way we can be sure there won't be trace evidence in the trunk." Did I sound like a CSI buff or what? The truth is, once I realized that I was going to be responsible for demon disposal for the greater San Diablo metropolitan area, I'd started doing a little research on crimes and forensics and all that. "Honestly, Kate," Laura said. "Just pick her up already. If Paul ends up nailed for murder, at least I'll know where he's sleeping at night." She had a point. And since one of my strongest rules is to never argue with a pissed-off wife, I grabbed the demon's head. Laura hoisted the feet, and we shuffle-walked the body the short distance to the Lexus's trunk. Laura had pulled in backwards and popped it open, so all we had to do was squeeze between the front of the Odyssey and the stack of Christmas boxes Stuart had retrieved from the attic last week, but which I had yet to unpack. "On three," I said, as soon as we were in position. "One& two& three!" We swung our demon inside, where she landed with a thump. At the same time, the door between the kitchen and the garage opened. "Mom?" Yikes! As Laura screamed, I slammed the trunk shut, then whipped around to face my daughter. "Jeez, Mom! You guys scared me to death!" "Scared you! What are you doing sneaking up on people like that?" I pointed to Laura. "You just took ten years off her life!" Allie looked at me like I'd gone insane, not an unreasonable expression under the circumstances. "I wasn't sneaking. I was looking for you." She squinted at Laura's car, her brow furrowing. "What are you guys doing, anyway?" She took a step forward, and I moved quickly in to intercept. "Nothing." "Nothing?" She raised an eyebrow, a challenge in her voice. "Doesn't look like nothing to me. And what's Mrs. Dupont's car doing in our garage anyway." She took another step, craning her neck as if she were trying to see into Laura's trunk. I turned back around quickly, just in case. Yup, closed tight. "You're as bad as when you were six," I said. "Remember when you found the Barbie playhouse?" She glanced again at Laura's car, comprehension playing across her face. "You went Christmas shopping!" "Inside," I said, making shooing noises. "And stay in there, or I'll take everything back to the store." "Yes, ma'am," she said, and I laughed. Allie only remembered to say "ma'am" when she wanted something. She opened the door to the kitchen and then paused, turning back to face me. "I completely forgot why I came looking for you in the first place. Someone left you a present, too." "What?" "A package," she said. "I found it on the front porch when Stuart dropped me off. I forgot to tell you earlier. You didn't see it? I left it on the breakfast bar for you." Laura and I followed her back inside. Sure enough, among all the detritus, there was a small package, wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a juice box. "Gee," I said, glancing at the schoolbooks, CDs, Post-it notes, action figures, and Play-Doh sculptures scattered about. "I wonder why I didn't see it." "Dunno," Allie said, apparently not recognizing my sarcasm. "It's been here all along." She peered over my shoulder at it. "Who's it from?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |