“A ghost hired us.” He shook his head, bemused. “Really?”
“Yup.”
He chortled, his eyes sparkling with real mirth. “Well, one thing about working for you. It isn’t boring.”
I found myself snickering. It was a little funny, now that I thought about it. I asked Kevin if he wanted to take a quick break, maybe take Paulie outside, then grab something from the cafeteria.
He agreed and left just as the nurse came out of the room. I settled farther into the chair, using the quiet time to think.
Kevin needed backup. It was tempting to stay here and help stand guard. It was familiar duty and I was good at it. But I remembered those pictures from my college textbooks. Standing watch at a door wasn’t going to protect the woman in the room from that kind of attack. It wouldn’t keep her alive.
Connor Finn had taken drastic preemptive measures to keep me from taking this case. Clairvoyants had seen the possibility of my stopping whatever the hell he was doing. That meant I could.
That was encouraging. I needed encouragement at the moment. I was feeling particularly stupid and frustrated.
All right, one thing at a time. One of the reasons for my success at my job—even though until relatively recently I had been fully human, even though I’m a woman in a male-dominated field—is my ability to plan, and plan well. Good planning is flexible and thorough, taking into account many likely contingencies.
The attack that had put me in the hospital had spooked me, thrown me off my game. I’d been running frantically around in reaction ever since. Now that I had a minute, I needed to take a deep breath and logically and calmly think things through.
What were my strengths? I’m good at tactics and I’m great in a crisis. I know weapons. I can do violence and physical mayhem as well as anyone I know. I can be physically intimidating.
I’m not good at investigating things. I’m not nearly patient enough. Dawna is. In fact, I’m blessed in having surrounded myself with people who are some of the best in the world at what they do.
“So, Graves,” I asked myself, “why aren’t you using them?”
Okay, the first thing I needed to do was get someone here to relieve Kevin, a couple of people, actually. If we were going to cover Michelle 24/7, it would be better to have a minimum of three people, each on an eight-hour shift. Six—two on each shift—would be better, but I didn’t think I had the personnel resources for that just yet.
Dawna could do research, see what she could find about blocking blood curses. In the meantime, I could start figuring out what we were going to do with our client once she got out of the hospital.
Kevin came back to find me writing notes on a scrap of paper I’d begged from the duty nurse. Both he and Paulie looked relieved as they resumed their positions.
Signs all through the hospital let me know that cell phone use was forbidden, so I had to wait until I was walking into the parking garage to call Dawna. She picked up on the first ring. “Graves Personal Protection. Can I help you?”
“Hey, Dawna, it’s me.”
“Oh, hi! I’ve got the business phones forwarded to my cell while I look at some of the office space we talked about. One place looked pretty good, but when they heard it was us, they said no.”
Damn it, that was frustrating. These landlords weren’t the first and, sadly, probably wouldn’t be the last to turn us down. I needed a real office soonest, but after the destruction of my last place played multiple times on every news channel, nobody seemed to want to let me rent from them. I couldn’t blame them. In their shoes I’d have felt the same way, but it sucked. I fumed silently for a few seconds, wondering what, if anything, I was going to be able to do about it.
“So,” Dawna asked, “you obviously called for a reason. What’s up?”
“We need more people to cover Michelle in the hospital. Did you get a chance to check out your cousin’s references?”
“Yeah, they were all good.”
“Cool. Call her. Tell her that her eight-hour shift starts tonight at six. She can meet up with you to do the official paperwork tomorrow sometime. And if you’ve got Bubba’s number, give him a call. See if he wants to do some pickup work. If he does, his shift starts when Talia’s ends. The client’s in room 305 at St. Joe’s.”
“We’re hiring Bubba?” Dawna didn’t even try to hide her delight. Bubba had been a friend of ours for years. We’d met when he moved his bail bonding office into the third floor of our office building, just down the hall from my office. He’d had to close his doors awhile back when his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. I’d wanted to stay in touch, but somehow I’d lost track of him. He’s big, tough, smart, and utterly loyal. I’ve trusted him with my back more than once and never regretted it. I could only hope he didn’t.
“If he’ll take the job. I don’t know that he will.”
“He might,” Dawna answered. “He’s been working as a bouncer and as a roadie for his brother-in-law’s band. I’m sure he’d rather have something that pays better. They had to sell the house to pay Mona’s medical bills so he’s living with Mona and Sherry on the boat King Dahlmar bought him to replace Mona’s Rival. I’ve got the number.”
I’d known about the house, had even offered to lend Bubba some money. I’d have given it to him outright, but I knew he wouldn’t take it. He was much too proud. As it happened, he wouldn’t even accept a loan. “Dahlmar replaced his boat?” I hadn’t known that. I was really, really glad. One of the things that had weighed on my conscience was the fact that Bubba’s precious boat had been destroyed during one of our previous adventures.
“I told you that. I know I did.”
“Nope. All you said was that Mona was better.”
“Oh. Oops. Well, he did and she is. Full remission. No sign of the cancer returning so far.”
I smiled. That was the best news of all. I knew that Bubba wouldn’t begrudge having lost his business, the house, or anything else, as long as Mona was going to be okay. I’ve known a lot of couples. Very few are as crazy about each other as Mona and Bubba. They’ve been together more than fifteen years and they still act like newlyweds.
“Awesome. I may just head down to the marina.”
“Oh, can I call, please? I’d love to be the one to offer him the job—and Mona likes me better.”
That was so true it wasn’t even funny. “Fine, you do the honors. Call me and let me know whether he takes it.”
“I hope he does. It would be awesome, having Kevin and Bubba both on staff.”
“Then all we’d need is Ron,” I teased her. Ron, an attorney, had had an office on the first floor of our old building. He was a monumental ass and he’d treated Dawna like slave labor.
Her voice grew hard. “Not funny, Celia. Don’t even joke about it.”
“Aw, come on, Dawna. You know you miss him,” I teased.
“About as much as a case of the clap,” she snapped.
I decided not to push it, mostly because she wasn’t taking it well. I wasn’t sure what had happened between the two of them, but obviously something had. It was time to change the subject. “So, any good prospects for office space?”
“Nada. It’s getting depressing. I’m beginning to wonder if it would be better to build something from scratch.”
“Too expensive,” I assured her.
“I know. I know. Uh-oh. Call waiting just beeped. Could be a client. Before I forget, Dottie wants you to call her. Talk to you later.”
“Later,” I agreed.
20