The Awakening: A Sisterhood of Spirits Novel (2 page)

“Sunny to base.”

“Yo.”

“See anything else on the monitor?”

“That’s a negative, but I think I caught it on video.”

“Okay.” Sunny felt the absence of
other
and called to her third team member. “Tiff?”

“Here.”

“What’s going on down there?”

“A couple of knocking sounds. Nothing on the thermal to indicate animal presence.”

Static pierced Sunny’s ears and she held the radio at arm’s length. “Tiff?” Concerned, she started toward the basement stairs. She hadn’t quite reached the door when a scream pierced the darkness.

Sunny snapped on her flashlight before hitting the landing. She found Tiffany doing her I-hate-spiders-dance at the bottom of the stairs. It was kind of cute actually. Her arms were up in the air, and she wriggled around in a circle before brushing off her skin maniacally. “Damn, Tiff. You scared the hell out of me.”

“Check now!”

“Hold still, then.” Sunny ran the routine of checking Tiffany’s hair, moving down in a smoothing motion. “Shush, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“You know I hate the basements.”

Sunny bit back her laughter. Tiffany really was scared of spiders, unnaturally so. “It was your turn, remember?”

Tiffany shuddered dramatically before Sunny called base. “False alarm.”

Shade’s laughter seemed to burst through the tiny speaker. “I know. You should have seen the look on her face.”

“Laugh it up, funny girl. It’s your turn next investigation.” Sunny turned her attention to the left, seeing a small movement out of the corner of her eye. “I just saw a shadow duck behind the boxes.” She flipped off the light and turned her camera back on. “Hello?”

Sunny didn’t care how many investigations she went on, the thrill was there every time she saw, felt, or heard something from the other side. She moved carefully across the concrete floor, making sure not to trip over the usual detritus found in a basement, wondering as she often did why people had so much clutter and why they didn’t bother to clean some of it up before they called her team in. Standing still for a few moments, she closed her eyes to listen with her senses but heard only the sound of Tiffany’s soft breathing behind her. She’d just taken another tentative step when she was shoved violently from behind. “What the—”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Tiffany reached down to help Sunny up from her sprawled position on the ground. “I stepped on a skateboard.”

Sunny cupped the elbow she’d landed on, and her hand came away sticky. Great. She was bleeding and it was filthy down here. “S’okay, Tiff.” She made the decision to wrap the investigation for the night. “Let’s pack it up.”

*

Jordan Lawson stared at the small stack of boxes lined up against the wall in her new apartment, thinking it was a sad state of affairs when thirty-one years of living could be packed up and moved in one small truckload. The meager belongings she’d brought along mocked her, showing her how much the last ten years of her life had actually been lived for her job rather than her home life.

Other than the new bed, couch, and desk she’d had delivered, the apartment in the old brick building was empty. Like her.

Her boot heels echoed off the newly refurbished hardwood floors as she walked to the naked window, reminding her she would have to buy an area rug as well as curtains. Where the hell did someone buy curtains, anyway? Every shithole she’d ever lived in had those ugly gold monstrosities with the white rubber backs, turned gray over time and older than she was. She assumed the lack of window dressing was due to the recent remodel of her apartment. Jordan sighed and cut open the box labeled DESK. She’d just pulled out a stack of manila files when a loud knock at the door startled her into dropping them onto the floor. She hadn’t met any of her neighbors yet, and truthfully, it wasn’t high on her list of priorities. She didn’t want to be bothered, and she sure as shit didn’t want anyone coming to borrow anything they had no intention of replacing. Other than the landlord, the only person she’d met in Bremerton so far was the sergeant who’d done her interview after her transfer from Seattle.

Jordan peeked out the security hole; she didn’t see anyone but opened the door anyway. The hallway was empty and the door across from hers was shut. Puzzled and a little irked at what she thought might be a prank, she went back to the box she was unpacking.

One of the files lay open and scattered on the floor. The article written by her friend, Katerina Volchosky, on three missing teenagers caught her eye. Jordan ran a finger down the face of one of the girls. The picture of Gina Brayden had been taken when she was still in high school. When Jordan had met the girl, there was little trace left of this innocence caught on film. By that time, she’d been on the street for a year, and months of prostitution and drugs had exacted its toll.

She picked up the poem that Gina had given to her on a piece of dirty notepaper and read it.

Throwaway girl

Curled up in the gutter

Dirty and scared

What are you crying for?

No one here cares

What happens to you.

Throwaway girl

Everything’s for sale.

Your innocence,

Your trust, your body,

And your mind.

Past, present,

And future.

Throwaway girl

Let me set you straight.

You don’t need.

You can’t feel.

Forbidden to want.

You’ll do what I say

When I say it.

Throwaway girl

Shut your mouth.

There’s a hundred

More behind you

To take your place.

Unwanted, unloved,

Forgettable and lost.

Throwaway girl

Get back in line.

You’re just doing time

On this blood-soaked street.

The last line still gave Jordan chills. It hurt her to know that someone so young knew so much about pain and violence. Gina reminded her so much of herself at that age.

When she went missing along with two other kids, Jordan had questioned every teenager in the pack that ran together near Pike Place Market, but she never uncovered a single lead. Gina Brayden disappeared without a trace. Jordan tried not to think of the
if onlys
and carefully put the file into her desk and shut the drawer before standing. New town, new job, and she couldn’t save them all. But damn, how she wanted to.

Putting the empty box next to the front door, Jordan decided to call it a night. Tomorrow was her first day at the Bremerton Police Department and the first day back on the job since she’d been shot several months earlier. She hated the thought of having to start over, but it wasn’t as though she’d left anything important behind in Seattle.

A memory intruded of brown hair and cold green eyes almost as if to argue with her. She ignored it. She wouldn’t give the betraying bitch any more time than she’d already stolen.

Jordan walked into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face and stopped short in the doorway. The bathroom box was sitting in the middle of the white tile floor. She could have sworn she already unpacked it. Yet there it was, a full carton staring back at her, and the medicine cabinet door stood open.

She quickly put the items away, irritated that it was so cold in the small room.

Jordan switched off the overhead light and climbed into her new bed. Her apartment was on the third floor, and the streetlight outside her window illuminated her bedroom with an almost dirty yellow glow. She added blackout curtains to her mental list. She guessed they’d sell those wherever the hell they sold ugly drapes.

She punched the pillow and turned away from the windows to stare at the closed bedroom and closet doors and prepared herself for a restless night. She hated going to sleep in unfamiliar places. She’d learned as a child that the worst dangers came at night. Jordan was on the verge of falling asleep when she heard a loud crash outside the bedroom. She was instantly alert and aware. When she caught herself pulling the comforter up to hide under, she was disgusted at the reaction. What was she doing? She was a cop, not a helpless, terrified child waiting for her junkie mother’s latest conquest to find her. Since she’d been shot, the memories seemed to surface at sudden noises. It made her sick that the wall she’d built around the horror of her childhood seemed to be crumbling.

Jordan swore when her feet hit the icy floor. She didn’t need to turn on a lamp; she could see perfectly by the sickly light coming in the window.

She heard laughter and a car door slam shut in the parking lot outside. Jordan glanced at the clock and saw that it was three in the morning. Inconsiderate assholes. With a heavy sigh, she threw herself under the covers and pulled them up over her head to block out the light. For good measure, she also pressed the extra pillow over her ear in an attempt to muffle the sound.

*

The sky was clear and sharp, which was somewhat unusual for Bremerton. This time of the year was usually overcast and gray. Sunny sat in the front seat of the van, bracing her feet on the wide dashboard. Laying her head back on the seat, she closed her eyes and imagined all the remnant energy of the night flying out the window. As far as investigations went, this one was pretty normal. It wasn’t all evil, all the time, as some television programs would have people believe.

She opened her eyes again when Shade pulled the van into Tiffany’s driveway to drop her off.

Tiffany gathered her purse and opened the side door. “Good night. See you around noon.”

Sunny turned to look at her. Tiffany’s freckled and fine features appeared washed out in the harsh, overhead light. “I’m sorry about the whole spider and skateboard fiasco.”

Sunny smiled. “All part of the job.”

Shade waited until the porch light went off before backing out slowly. “I worry about her.”

Sunny turned. “Why? Have you seen something?”

“No, not like that.” Shade ran her fingers through her choppy brown hair and paused. “Life just seems so hard for her, you know?”

“Is that asshole ex-husband of hers hassling her again?”

“Not that I know of. We could handle that. She just looks so tired all the time.”

“Well, we do work odd hours. You know how much energy it takes out of us. Tiffany had three back-to-back healing sessions this afternoon before we left, and you know how much that takes out of her. I tried to get her to reschedule, but she said she needed the money.”

“Being a single mom is tough.”

It was beyond frustrating that Tiffany wouldn’t accept any help. Sunny was comfortable financially, but what good did it do if she couldn’t help the people that she loved? The ghost investigations didn’t bring in much, and she never took money from people who couldn’t afford to pay. It was the individual readings in their own specialties for clients that paid the bills for all three of them. Each felt a personal responsibility to help others with her gifts in her own way. The investigations were an integral part of that. To assist people and spirits on both sides of the veil. They rode in silence for the last few miles, and after Shade stopped the van, she turned to Sunny and put a gentle hand on her leg.

Sunny felt the blast of hormones fill the space between them and winced internally. She loved Shade, she really did, but they’d gone down this road. She knew the best thing to do would be act normal and friendly to defuse the tension. “It’s late.”

A wicked grin spread on Shade’s face. “Want me to stay?”

Sunny heard the hope in her voice before she shut the mental door in her mind. “You can sleep in the guest room.”

“Nah, I have a hot date.”

“At four a.m.?” Sunny knew that Shade would break that date for her in a second, and it made her sad. She pulled the evidence box from the backseat to bring inside with her, careful not to touch Shade while doing it. Shade pulled her shoulders back.

“Yeah. You know me. Anytime, anyplace.”

Sunny did know. Shade’s androgynous beauty turned heads all the time, male and female. There was something so edgy about the bad girl with her dark Cleopatra eyes who always wore black leather. “Lucky girl,” she said.

Sunny heard the whispered response before she closed the door, but walked away as though she hadn’t.

“But she’s not you.”

*

Sunny’s house was a once-grand Victorian that had been converted into apartments in the sixties and then renovated back into a single residence by her parents in the early eighties. When they remodeled, they turned three of the four bedrooms on the second floor into comfortable sitting rooms for clients and left the tiny kitchenette.

Sunny appreciated the setup. She didn’t have to go downstairs to fetch water or tea either for herself or a client. It was also a great place to hide the junk food her mother protested against. Sunny loved the game. She hid cookies and potato chips, and her mother pretended not to notice.

Three years after her father died, her mother retired and turned her client list, and the large house over to Sunny before buying a nearby condominium that overlooked Puget Sound near the ferry terminal. But she hadn’t been able to stay away and insisted on being the receptionist for Sunny’s new business, Sisters of Spirits. The idea had been born fifteen years previously after she met Shade and Tiffany during the filming of her father’s documentary. Sunny thought the abbreviation S.O.S. was clever.

She paused in the spacious foyer. From where she stood, the client reception area was to her left and a sitting room with a large fireplace was on her right. The reception area was a circular wall of bay windows with lush potted foliage and a window seat with colorful cushions. Her mother’s pretty carved desk was positioned so she could easily see who was coming and going, and there were even more plants on her desk. In keeping with the house’s era, table and floor lamps with their elegant stained-glass shades were present in each room. Sunny always left them on before she left for the evening; she loved coming home to the soft colored light they emitted.