Roni’s eyes did not want to open. She could have used another hour of sleep — maybe two — but as she rubbed an itch out of her nose, she knew sleep would not return for the day. The stiffness in her back and the crick in her neck attested that she had fallen asleep sitting up. But she felt no weight on her chest. Her eyes snapped open.
Where was Darin?
She zipped down the hall and poked her head in his bedroom. Empty. The bed looked like a model display at a linen store. Nobody had slept here.
“Dar —” she tried to call out but her voice cracked under the strain. She tended to hold tension in her neck, so whenever she held a lot of tension for too long — such as sleeping tense for a few hours — losing her voice often followed. Though inconvenient, she had been through it many times before. If she took care not to talk too much, her voice would return later in the day. Of course, getting rid of the tension would be most helpful, but she did not see that happening anytime soon — especially if she couldn’t find Darin.
She walked back up the hall and stopped to check in the bathroom. Empty. And clean and well-appointed.
Back in the living room, she glimpsed the balcony. A terrible thought jumped into her head and she darted to the railing. Gazing over the ledge, she searched the sidewalk below — no blood, no corpse, nothing. Thank goodness. She would rather have been waterboarded than have to tell Jane Lander that her son had committed suicide.
Inside, she crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. Bingo. Darin stood in the center of the functional but minuscule kitchen. Slack-jawed and leaning over like a man determined to spend his later years hunched over with pain in his back, Darin faced a framed, artistic print of lions walking across an open plain. She guessed the Serengeti. He did not appear to notice anything around him.
Careful not to jar him or make any sudden loud noises, Roni stepped over to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. Then she inched into Darin’s field of vision, closed her eyes against the expectation of pain, and said, “Darin? Can you hear me?”
The words scratched her throat, but they came out clear and audible. She opened her eyes. Darin showed no reaction.
In the living room, Roni dug through her purse until she found her cellphone. She brought up Gram’s number, but her thumb hovered over the call button. Things were bad enough. Roni didn’t want to make it all worse and give Gram even more reasons to be against her.
Instead, she called Sully. He had made the Golem statue and Darin acted like a statue. Granted, the tenuous connection offered nothing to be hopeful about, but when she listened to the phone ring, hope sparked in her nonetheless. But Sully did not answer.
Perhaps Elliot’s healing ability would solve the problem. She called him, though no hope grew within her. After all, if Elliot had the power to heal whatever problem Darin had, surely he would have done so the moment Darin had returned from the book. The call went straight to voicemail.
Roni bumped the heel of her hand against the side of her head. Foolish. Sully and Elliot still recuperated from their ordeal. They wouldn’t be answering phone calls. She would have to drive out there and see them in person.
Gathering her things together, she wondered if Darin would be safe alone. Probably. In all likelihood, he would remain in the kitchen staring at the wall. Plus, she could be at In The Bind within twenty minutes, if she hit the traffic lights right. Thirty minutes, otherwise. A few words with Sully, and they would return. Less than an hour gone.
Convinced Darin would be fine, Roni sped down the stairwell, out onto the street, and into her car. Luck graced her with no traffic, no police, and all green lights. Seventeen minutes and twelve seconds later, she parked and walked up to the bookstore.
The front door had been set open which meant, at the least, Gram minded the store. It also meant that the electronic bell would be turned on. It rang a simple two-tone chime whenever somebody crossed the entranceway to alert Gram of a customer. If Roni intended to get to Sully and Elliot without encountering Gram — which she very much did — she had to wait.
Luck stayed with her — a young couple with a baby in a stroller approached the store. Roni didn’t want to consider how much good luck she had wasted on this trip already, and instead, she hoped it would last a bit longer. Staying close behind the couple, she walked into the store, letting the electronic bell ring out. Right away, she spotted Gram with another customer off to the left. Roni headed to the right and behind the first aisle of books.
“Welcome to In The Bind,” Gram said. “Browsing or can I help you find something?”
“We’re looking for a gift for a friend. He’s big into old histories and that kind of thing.”
“Come with me. I’ll show you what we have.”
The History section put Gram’s trajectory directly in Roni’s path. No problem, though. Roni grew up in this bookstore. Years of playing hide-n-seek would finally pay off — though, Roni had to admit that this particular round brought with it no sense of fun or play.
As Gram led the couple deeper into the store, Roni crouched behind a short shelf, and crossed to the left. She scurried to the end of the aisle and swiftly maneuvered her way to the back wall. Here she had to wait until Gram finished with the couple — the stairs and the elevator were both within easy sight lines of the History section.
Sitting on the floor, waiting, she remembered those years when playing like this would have been the height of fun. A miserable cloud followed her actions now — not just this day, with all the pressures of her recent awakening to reality, but most days. As a child, despite the tragedy of losing her parents, she had mostly happy memories.
Those that lasted. She had only a few.
At length, Roni heard Gram say what she had waited for — “I’ll take this up front and when you’re ready, it’ll be waiting for you.” She counted to ten, giving Gram enough time to walk away but not enough time to reach the counter. With Gram’s back to the stairs, Roni had a clear shot and she took it.
As fast and as silent as possible, she slipped across the aisles and up the stairs to the second floor. From there, she could relax as she traversed flight after flight until she reached the fifth floor. Elliot’s door had been propped open — he claimed to prefer the air circulation but Roni always suspected Elliot preferred being able to see who came and went.
She entered the apartment, rapping her knuckles on the door. “Hello? Elliot? Sully?”
“Back here,” Elliot called out.
Roni found both men sitting at the small kitchen table, each one concentrating hard on the cards fanned in their hands. “Good morning.”
“Uh-oh,” Sully said. “Your voice is all broken up. Rough night?”
Elliot tapped Sully’s arm. “Do you recall the time when she went on one of her first dates. A boy she really liked a lot and after waiting all day, she could barely talk.”
“Or the time she had to get up in front of the school and —”
“Okay, enough,” Roni said. “We all know that this happens to me. Not as often as it did, though. Keep that in mind.”
“Always,” Elliot said with a smirk.
“What are you playing?”
“Just some Gin,” Sully said. “And I’m not doing so well.”
Elliot pushed out a chair. “Care to join us?”
Both men wore their bedclothes beneath full-length robes. A glance downward revealed slippers on their feet. Sully caught her gaze. “Don’t worry about us. We’re feeling a million times better.”
“You’ve got Elliot here to take care of you, right?”
“As much as possible,” Elliot said.
Sully coughed — a hard, phlegm-filled sound that did not encourage the image of health. “What brings you up here?”
Elliot laid down his cards. “Gin.”
“Damn.” Sully tossed his cards on the table and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Not that we aren’t happy to see you for just a visit. Frankly, after your spat with your grandmother, I was afraid we might not get to see you for a long time. But here you are.”
“Here I am,” she said as she sat. “I doubt Gram would greet me with half the joy you fellows show me.”
Elliot shuffled the cards. “Oh, don’t look at it like that. Your grandmother is rough, you know that, but she’s good-hearted, too.”
“I know, but —”
“Let an old man speak. You might learn something. She has been through a lot.”
Sully snorted. “We all have.”
“Yeah, but she was doing this job long before us. She’s seen more. And fighting with you is not what she wants. But she loves this job. She loves it, respects it, and values it above all else. It’s not personal.”
“Of course, it is.” Roni crossed her arms. She caught her reflection in the glass of a photograph on the wall and saw a young version of Gram. Snapping her arms to her sides, she said, “I know you two have worked with her a long time, but remember that I’m no stranger here. I’ve known her my whole life. For her, everything is personal.”
With a begrudging nod, Elliot said, “All I’m trying to say is that when you agreed to join us and then changed your mind so fast, you sort of bruised the thing she holds most important. Understand?”
Sully said, “And I’m old, but not a fool. You’re not here on a social visit and you didn’t come for family relationship advice. What do you need?”
Roni checked her watch. She already had spent too much time trying to get up to the apartment and now wished she had taken the time and effort to have brought Darin along. But then Darin would be outside, sitting in a hot car — she couldn’t very well bring him inside with Gram running the store — and the chances of things getting worse would have grown exponentially. No, she had made the right choice. But getting back to him fast also needed to happen.
She launched into an abbreviated version of events culminating in Darin’s current state and her lack of solutions. When she finished, she said, “I thought that maybe you’d be willing to come out to Darin’s place and take a look at him. Maybe you could help.”
The men shared a mischievous twinkle. Sully then said, “I assume you don’t want your grandmother to know about this.”
“That might be best for now.”
Elliot chuckled. “We’ll absolutely help you.”
From a sideways glance, Roni said, “Why are you happy to do this behind Gram’s back?”
“Number one — we want to help you. Truly. Number two — it’s fun to do stuff in secret. That’s part of the allure of this job.”
Tapping his nose and pointing, Sully said, “Plus, at our age, any secretive fun that’s new is extra fun, and we want as much of that as we can get. We never know when our last day is coming, and I can’t expect Elliot to save me all the time.”
Checking her watch again, Roni said, “Fine, fine. But we need to go now. You boys take the elevator down and meet me out by my car. I’ll take the stairs and go out the back. If you run into Gram, stall her a little, please.”
Elliot rubbed his hands and laughed. “This is getting better every minute. Let’s go.”