CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

We made plans to have dinner together, with Dr. Martin acting like a referee as we negotiated all the details. I’d have called it a date, but Reggie called it just having dinner, so I didn’t say the D-word. But the excited, bubbly feeling I had in my stomach and chest felt like more than “just dinner.” I felt happy and stupid for feeling that way, but it’s how I felt. I tried to enjoy the feelings without thinking too hard about how I’d feel if the dinner was a disaster, or if Reggie backed out on it altogether. I pushed the thought away and tried to hold on to the happy excitement.

I got into my car and texted Charleston and Lila almost the same message: “Done with appointment. Do you need me at the house?” to her, and to him, “Done with appointment. Do you need me at the college?” Then I hesitated because I didn’t know where to drive. I’d give them five minutes, then call. Before the separation I’d have been hoping that they didn’t need me and I could go home. Now the last thing I wanted to do was go home to the tiny apartment I’d gotten after I moved out of the home that Reggie and I had made together. I’d let her stay in the house with the kiddo because what else could I do? I was supposed to take care of them; making them move out of the house didn’t feel like I’d be doing that, so Reggie and Connery stayed in the house and I found a tiny, reasonable apartment in El Segundo where the sound of airplanes going overhead almost never stopped. But there was a pool, and a big sycamore tree outside the window where a mockingbird sang all night. It almost drowned out the airplanes. Connery went back home to Reggie full of the pool and the landlady’s pug puppies. He thought sleeping in the big bed with me was an adventure. I’d put him on the couch one weekend, but he’d gotten up in the middle of the night and tried to make popcorn. He’d set off the smoke alarm, so he went in the bedroom and I didn’t fit on the couch. I barely fit in the queen-sized bed.

The thought of going back to the apartment drained away the excitement and the last adrenaline from the emergency at the hospital. I wanted to go home, and the apartment would never be that. I wanted to go home with my wife and be there when Connery got home from preschool, but I couldn’t have that today. There was a dinner planned, almost a date; we’d take it slow, because Reggie didn’t want to take it fast. I took a deep breath and squeezed my hands around the steering wheel until my scratched arm protested as if some of the nail marks had gone into the muscle. I hadn’t had stitches because the skin had peeled away underneath her nails; you can’t stitch a scrape, just bandage it and wait for it to heal.

I could chase after Reggie like an unwanted dog she’d dropped off at a shelter. I couldn’t face the thought of going to the tiny apartment, so what did that leave? Exercise; one of the reasons I was in the best shape of my life was that it was one thing I could do that I could control. I could always lift more weights, or run one more mile, or . . . but I was too hurt to hit the gym, or even run. You use your upper body a lot more than you think when you run. So, what next? What would I do if Charleston told me he didn’t need me and to go home, rest, and heal?

I wanted to go home and finish working on one of the dozen projects around the house that had gone on hold when I left. Again, I couldn’t do that unless Reggie allowed it, and that hurt more than any wound. I wanted to go home, and I couldn’t because it wasn’t home anymore. We had a dinner planned, I told myself again, but that pessimistic part of me that had been growing louder over the six-month separation was in my head now, telling me that I should figure out what home meant without Reggie. What would home mean if it was just me and Connery half the time and me alone the rest of the time? The thought made me want to put my head down on the steering wheel and weep. Where could I go? What could I do to keep the dark thoughts from eating up all the good ones? The only answer was work; I could go back to work, I could try to figure out why everything was different with this demon possession, if that was even the correct term for it. I could find the demon that had helped Mark Cookson rape and kill our victim, Megan Borowski. I could find the demon that either had killed Mark Cookson or was using his body to commit crimes, because unlike angels, demons didn’t just go back to Hell and get lost in the Infernal fires. They stayed up here until they were forced back to Hell. Angels enjoyed Heaven and being closer to God; no demon I’d met wanted to return to Hell.

A car stopped behind my parked one. It was blocking me in, and it took me a second to realize it was Reggie. She turned the engine off and got out of the car. I had a moment of my heart lifting in pure happiness; maybe she was going to say the date could be tonight, or maybe she wanted me to come home even to do some tool-using chore. I’d take it. I’d be her handyman with no benefits if I could just be in the house when Connery came home from school. Then I saw the tension in her body, the way she held her lips, and knew underneath the big sunglasses her eyes would be black dark with anger.

What in Heaven’s name had I done to piss her off now?