My eyes move to the window where there’s a large crack forming in it, some people ducking beneath their tables, others peering outside.
I quickly look back at the woman, but she’s gone.
There’s no one at her table at all.
“What the hell was that?” someone yells out, pointing to the window.
“A seagull,” a man says in horror as he presses against the glass, looking down onto the sidewalk. “A damn seagull just flew into the window. Broke its neck.”
Fucking hell, that’s disturbing. I love birds and absolutely hate window strikes. A seagull flying into a glass, this fast and this low, in the city? Almost unheard of, and yet not the most alarming thing to happen here in the last five minutes.
While the commotion at the window continues, I look back to Rebecca and Lucinda. “The woman is gone, isn’t she?” I ask Lucinda.
She nods. “Yes. She disappeared. The monster did too.”
“Did you get a look at the monster?” I whisper to her.
“Perry,” Rebecca says sharply. “Please don’t scare my child.”
“I’m not scaring her,” I tell her, though it does make me pause. Maybe I don’t have a right to be talking about this with her. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I just…it looked familiar.”
“Familiar?”
I lower my voice. “The woman was holding a leash that went under the table. You know where we last saw that, don’t you?”
The one time in her life when Rebecca Sims saw a ghost was when we were investigating a haunted school on the Oregon coast, which was also an ex-sanatorium where hundreds of children died from TB, as well as from the hands of their evil caregivers. There was a monster there that the children called “the bad thing,” that one devious ghost girl kept on a leash. The bad thing was a demon, and once it was off the leash, it terrorized the three of us. I’ll never forget the look in Rebecca’s eyes the moment she finally saw what we were all so scared of. It didn’t help that the demon was probably the most demented, disturbing creature of all.
And from the look on Rebecca’s face, she’s reliving that fear right now.
“Wow, that was pretty awful,” the waitress says, making us flinch in our seats as she comes back over. “I’ve never seen a seagull do that before. Can I take your plates?”
We absently nod, while Lucinda asks Rebecca if they can go home.
“Sorry this birthday lunch ended this way,” Rebecca says as she pays the bill. She glances at the empty wine bottle. “I have to say, I wouldn’t mind finishing another one of these right now. Want to come back to our place?”
I shake my head. “I would but I have to help Dex with some production stuff.”
I can tell Rebecca doesn’t want to be alone though so I add, “Why don’t you and Lucinda come over? We can pick up another bottle of wine, and I can get it done pretty fast. It’s such a short walk and the sunshine will do us some good.”
She agrees to that, giving me a grateful smile, and though Lucinda puts up a minor fuss at the change of plans, that all changes when I promise her she can play with Fat Rabbit.
The three of us leave the restaurant, the outside feeling so free and bright compared to the restaurant that seemed to turn on us all of a sudden.
But the moment I see that dead seagull, still lying on the pavement with its neck bent at an impossible angle, blood spilling from its beak, the despair comes back. We walk to the apartment, trying to leave it all behind us, but I can’t help but think about the woman at the table, and the broken bird.
Wondering if that was a one-time thing.
Wondering what it means.
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask Rebecca a few minutes later as we step inside the shop across from the apartment to get a bottle of wine.
“Anything, love,” she says to me as she peruses the scant selection of cold whites.
I lean in close, getting a whiff of her tobacco and vanilla perfume. “Let’s not mention anything to Dex about what Lucinda and I saw,” I whisper into her ear.
She frowns. “Really?”
“I don’t want him to worry,” I tell her. And that’s the truth. Just as I didn’t want to tell Dex who I saw at the window in the house, just as I’ve kept other ghosts close to my chest, I don’t want him to think I’m being haunted again.
Especially if I’m going to broach the whole baby subject with him. If I thought he was overprotective now, what’s he going to be like when I’m pregnant?
“Well, I won’t say anything,” Rebecca says, her eyes going to Lucinda who is holding on to her hand and looking around the store. “Can’t say the same for her.”
Thankfully, when we step inside the apartment, Radiohead’s OK Computer blaring from the stereo, Lucinda is immediately attacked by Fat Rabbit, who scampers right to us and jumps all over her in a flurry of licks and kisses.
“I’m jealous,” Dex says to us, sauntering into the kitchen with a mug in his hands. “Smelly bastard doesn’t even lift his head when I come home.”
He’s wearing his day-off clothes, black sweatpants and a tight white undershirt, obviously not expecting company, but also not caring just the same. I have to say, Dex on his day off is one of his sexiest versions, probably because he’s all messy hair, muscles, and tanned skin, tattoos on display. The cut of his tank makes his shoulders look broader than ever, tapering down to a narrow waist, his sweatpants barely staying on his hips. He meets my eye as he walks past me, his lips curving into a smile as he leans in and kisses me on the cheek. He knows when I’m ogling him.
“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Rebecca says, looking him up and down, seemingly unimpressed. “We thought we would have a few drinks here.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” he says with a yawn, putting his mug beside the sink and pulling his sweats up higher. He turns and looks at Lucinda. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite niece.”
I roll my eyes. He’s got a silly habit where he insists that Lucinda call him Uncle Dex, even when she politely points out that he’s not her uncle.
“I’m not your niece,” Lucinda tells him matter-of-factly. I have to bite back my smile. “And you’re not my Uncle Roger.”
“I know I’m not your Uncle Roger,” Dex says. “I am much, much cooler. Would your Uncle Roger do this?”
Dex comes at her with the most mischievous smile on his face, grabbing Lucinda by the waist and hoisting her up in the air effortlessly. Lucinda squeals with joy as he spins her around the room like she weighs nothing at all.
Oh my god.
I know I’ve seen Dex do this with her before, but this time it hits completely different. It hits deep. How happy he looks, laughing along with Lucinda, totally in his element. I press my hands to my chest, feeling like my heart is growing too fast, too soon.
I glance over at Rebecca who is watching me so gleefully I swear there are tears in her eyes.
Jesus. My ovaries aren’t exploding, they’re fucking detonating.
Dex eventually turns Lucinda into an airplane, swooping her up and down past us until he’s about to put her on the couch.
“We’re coming in for a landing,” Dex says to her, making his voice sound like a crackly mouthpiece as he starts to lower her. “Hopefully there won’t be any beasts on Planet Vogsphere and…oh no.”