“Sleeping,” I insisted. “There’s a reporter outside taking pics of the warehouse,” I warned, watching out the window. Fortunately, I hadn’t had time to hang a shingle in front of my new office. I was thinking maybe I wouldn’t. I didn’t have a lot of friends in the media.
“We have people working overtime on faking them out,” Cora assured me. “Apparently gas explosions happen all the time on chemically enhanced ground. The road cracks are settling back to potholes.”
“Might work for reporters, but what is Paddy telling the police?”
“Leo and Paddy have them convinced Bergdorff committed suicide when the sprinkler systems malfunctioned and ruined his big, bad machine. The police think Ferguson may have sabotaged it. They haven’t found him yet.”
Even Cora didn’t know I’d turned Ferguson and the nasty security guards into frogs. I doubted that anyone cared. I occasionally gave the frogs a worried thought, but it wasn’t as if I’d figured out how to reverse my curses. I sure as hell wasn’t kissing any goon-frogs.
I was feeling a little lonely and depressed, with no one to talk to about my fears and no means of alleviating them. Andre was the only one who had any real clue about me. Maybe I should call Sarah. At least she understood, even if her reactions weren’t necessarily rational. She might try killing frogs to see if she was rewarded with longer legs.
“I’ll let you know if anything changes,” I assured Cora, knowing it was Andre she fretted over. “He has a court appointment next week. I’ll have to get a postponement. We can’t wheel him in like this.”
I’d slept all morning on Andre’s couch and prayed a miracle would have taken place by the time I woke up. Hadn’t happened. Of course, it had been after midnight when I’d damned Bergdorff to Hades, so maybe I had another twenty-four hours to wait.
Outside, a physically fit man with poker-straight posture pushed a twin baby stroller past the warehouse. If that was one of the soldiers I’d condemned to nursery duty, did I have to lift the punishment or did it eventually wear off? Didn’t I give them a week? Their time wasn’t up yet.
I’d lose track of all the asshats I’d visualized out of my way if I did it too often. I needed to remember to give them term limits when I cursed them. For now, I was hoping that once they learned their lessons, they’d work themselves out of whatever I’d thrown them into. Or maybe they’d make radical changes in their lifestyles and the world would be a better place. Not sure the frogs had minds enough to do that, though. That had been fun at the time, but a major big boo-boo on my part now that reality had set in. Maybe I ought to gather the frogs and take care of them until I figured out how to fix things.
Tim jogged down the stairs, saw me in the front parlor, and came in jiggling my car keys. “Thanks, Tina,” he said diffidently, handing them back. “Pearl wouldn’t get in the car with an invisible driver, but we did okay.”
Milo leapt down to say hi to Tim, and I dropped the keys in my bag. “You’ll learn to control it eventually,” I assured him. “Guess I need to give you driving lessons, though.”
He shrugged. I’d taken him to Goodwill a few months ago to help him pick out clothes since Pearl had thrown all his out when he’d first turned invisible. He was outgrowing them already, thank goodness. He was wearing a tie-dyed pink wife-beater and lemon-green mini-shorts today. And his shaggy, nondescript hair needed a cut. I thought he could be one of the good guys that the Zone made into good men—like Bill.
“It’s like having family, y’know?” he said cryptically.
I smiled as I took his meaning. “Pearl can be your grandmother, but Nancy Rose has to be your mother, not me. I’m just the annoying older sister. And you’re my bratty baby brother.” I’d never particularly wanted siblings, but Tim was a good kid.
He nodded solemnly. “Can you make Andre better?”
“I would if I could, but I’m no doctor. I guess we wait to see what happens.” I hated that. I’d already tried visualizing our patients out of their comas, but apparently fixing things wasn’t in the interest of justice. It hadn’t worked. I should run over to my place and grab my tablet now that I was awake, see if Fat Chick or someone knew the answer.
“Can I have the keys back to visit Nancy Rose at the hospital?”
I pointed at the kitchen. “You can go make us some sandwiches. You need a driver’s permit and lessons before I let you in my car outside of an emergency.”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.” He ambled off toward the back of the house.
I returned to petting Milo and watching out the window. I could go in and check on Andre, but I wasn’t much of a nurse. The baby docs had all gone home now that their patients had been taken from them. Maybe I should hire one to help out Julius. Like I had any money to do that.
I was hurting bad and needed to do something.
I’d almost convinced myself that talking things out with Sarah was worth the risk when a familiar male voice jarred me out of my reverie.
“Any chance of getting food around here?”
I swung my legs back to the floor and stared at the doorway. Andre leaned against the doorjamb, wearing impeccably draped dark trousers, a blue silk shirt open at the neck, and a hungry gaze that had my insides performing acrobatics.
27
I’m not ashamed to say that I flung myself into Andre’s arms and kissed him. It was one hell of a good kiss, if I do say so myself. Andre might make me crazy, but man, he had some major mojo happening. He hauled me off the floor, flattened my breasts into his solid chest, grabbed my ass, and applied a whole lot of tongue until my head reeled. And other parts south. All those hormones mixed with ecstatic joy—combustible. I might even have been crying while I ran my hands through his silky hair.
Julius’s coming down the stairs interrupted us. Andre muttered an expletive and reluctantly lowered me to the floor, taking full frontal advantage while he was at it. I wasn’t averse to some titillating body contact and a good whiff of unshaved male. I needed to make certain he was solid and real and all there. I didn’t even want to punch him out for a change.
He was still my client, though, so I shoved away as my senior partner hurried in, his face alight with delight and relief.
“I’ll help Tim fix lunch,” I muttered, leaving the two of them alone.
“I’ll go with you.” Andre caught my arm, not letting me escape that easily. I’m not much on succumbing to alpha males, but I made an exception this time.
Andre’s kitchen was even fancier than Julius’s: larger, with more granite and stainless steel and fancy machinery that had probably never been touched. I was amazed Andre allowed Tim anywhere near it. I pried myself away from Andre’s grasp to examine the refrigerator’s contents.
“I am not going through this hell ever again,” I warned as I removed goodies. “I need explanations. You can’t just rise from the dead when no one else can and pretend everything is normal. That’s the stuff of zombie movies.”
The echoing silence even had Tim glancing up from the array of food I’d spread on the counter.
“Why don’t Tim and I make some nice sandwiches?” Julius said politely. “The two of you can go in the other room and catch up.”
That sounded ominous. Tim scowled when Andre grabbed my arm, but he had even less authority than me around here.
Andre dragged me out of the kitchen instead of snarking, and I tensed with anxiety. Andre treating one of my questions seriously meant the answer had to be bad, indeed. Might as well clear the air while I had a chance of him listening. “How come the gas made me go ballistic and not comatose, but you, the macho man, went the other way? How can you wake up and the others can’t?”