The Summer of Bells: The Essences Saga - Book #2

Summer: Chapter 24

She turned in her seat to look at him.  “Silas, promise me something.  If you see me getting all weird, like you say I do when I’m searching souls, grip my hand or something.  I don’t want to hurt her.  I just want to talk to her and find out what’s going on with her and Nicole.”

He palmed her cheek.  Her asking this of him meant a lot.  “I promise.”

They walked up to the house and pushed the doorbell again.  Linda McKay flung open the frosted glass door.  “Oh, it’s you again.  What do you want?”

Min breathed in and out, bristling by his side.  “Ms. McKay, my name is Min Meyer.  I’ve come to talk to you about your daughter, Nicole.”

Linda squinted at Min through her steely eyes.  “Who?  Oh, you mean Josephine.  So, she’s calling herself Nicole now, is it?  Ain’t that a kicker?”

Min found his hand and squeezed.  He stepped up closer and said, “May we come in?”

“And you are?” Linda directed that liquid steel at him.

“Silas Blake,” he answered calmly.  “I’m a state supervisor for foster care.”

“Foster care?  What the dickens are you talking about?”

“May we come in?” Silas asked again.  The pressure from Min’s fingers was cutting off his circulation.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, stepping aside.  She left them to close the door behind them, her heels clicking on the marble floor as she entered a room to the back of the house.

They followed her and she waved them to sit on a gold couch covered in raw silk.  Min stared at it, and Silas felt knocked back a few feet.  Who in their right mind buys a silk couch?

Linda perched on the end of a chair covered in the same fabric.  “Now what’s this all about?”

Min sat and answered, “Ms. McKay, your daughter, Nicole, has recently been brought into my care.  I run a Youth Care home in Kingston, which is about four hours north east of here.  Did you know where your daughter has been staying these last few weeks?”

Ms. McKay snorted delicately.  “Yeah, I have.  She called me.”

Min blinked.  “I’m sorry?  She called you?  When?”

“About the time she moved in with you.  I take it she didn’t tell you that?”  She didn’t wait for an answer.  “Yeah, well, that's Josephine.  I’m sure she told you that I kicked her out as well, huh?  Or that my phone was disconnected, or something?”

Min squeezed again.  “Yes, that was the story I was told.”

“Ha!  That little minx.  She’s a crafty little girl.  Blaming all this on me.”

As Min looked to begin hyperventilating and his fingers ached from the loss of blood, Silas jumped into the conversation.  “Ms. McKay, why don’t you tell us the reason Nicole is not living with you anymore?”

The woman brushed a strand of silver hair off her shoulder.  “Alright, I will.  A few months ago, it was just her and me, living in a shitty apartment in Knoxville.  I was working night and day at this software company, mopping floors and emptying trashcans for those sloppy nerds.  Working sixty hours a week to put food on the table and pay for Josephine’s gym time.  You know she was a gymnast, right?”

Min nodded.

“And a damn good one, too,” Linda continued.  “I made sure she worked for every medal she received.”  She pointed at a glass cabinet on the corner, grandly displaying medals and trophies with pirouetting, brass figures on top.  “Well, then I met Marty.  He owns the company, and I never knew that because he lives here in Nashville.  He came to Knoxville to check up on some problems and one night, he was up working late while I cleaned up the place.”  She smiled to herself.  “Well, after that, he worked a lot of nights.  He met Josephine, and was taken by her.  That was the sugar in the pot as far as I was concerned.