“Did you know I was going to be here?”
“What? I can't go shopping for some fruits and vegetables without looking suspect?” He smelled the tomatoes and then placed them in a bag. “Ripe tomatoes smell like the plant near their stem.”
“Who exactly are you?”
“I'm Paddy, a recruiter. I thought we'd covered this.” He moved over to the pineapples. “Now with these, you have to pull a leaf from their stem to check for ripeness.”
I ignored his fruit ripeness course and got to the subject. “A recruiter no one knows?”
“I can't help it if all the young kids are too self obsessed to be bothered with an old man.”
“Okay, well, it was nice to see you.” I pushed my carriage over to the next aisle. I really didn't need apples that badly and I couldn't handle any more complications or lies at the moment. I didn't know who Paddy really was, and it was probably for the best he wasn't going to tell me.
Except it didn't look like he was done with me.
“So, what have you and Fate been up to?” he asked as he followed behind me. I turned around to go get apples. If I was going to be stuck with him, I might as well get what I intended.
“You mean the Fate that doesn't know who you are?” Granny Smith apples, bingo. I grabbed a few and turned to head toward the shampoos, hoping he would disappear like he had the first time I'd met him.
“If you want to find your man, perhaps it would be wise to target someone he wants on the grid.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked, not surprised in the least that he did know. Recruiter my ass. “Just be straight with me, are you the guy in charge or something? If you are, I've got a serious bone to pick with you.”
I looked up from the Pantene and he was gone. If I wanted him to stay, he left. Wanted him gone? He stayed. This Paddy guy was pissing me off. I was tired of this existence of riddles and non-answers. People who treated me badly and then turned around and sweet-talked whack jobs who threatened blizzards in the middle of spring.
Losing the mood to shop, I grabbed a tube of toothpaste, a rotisserie chicken and checked out. I loaded up my Honda and headed back to the condo with his words “On the grid,” repeating in my head.
I managed to get a few hours of peace before Fate barged in at eleven.
Without so much as a single rap on the door, he came in and planted himself right in front of the T.V., so all I could see was a sliver of poor Jimmy's suit.
“What are you doing?” He motioned to my reclined state on the couch.
“Watching Jimmy Kimmel?”
“You know what I'm talking about.”
“I was going to come over after this was done.” If I leaned my head against my palm, I could almost make out Jimmy's mouth.
“Bullshit.”
“You're right. I was coming over after I watched Craig Ferguson. But, I would have left the minute it was done. Well, I mean, unless something else good came on after that.” I looked up from the spots of TV to him and shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“Get up.”
He stepped closer to the couch and loomed over it. I, in turn, sank deeper into the cushions, not wanting to relinquish my comfy spot.
“Can't we take a night off?” There was a whiny quality to my voice that was cringe worthy. I felt like a dog, begging for mercy as I lay on my side and stared up at him.
“No.”
“You don't want to be glued to me, either. I think it's for the best. Maybe every other night is a better idea?”
“You agreed. Get up or I stay here and there's a lot less room here to pretend.”
He decided to demonstrate this by squeezing next to me on the couch, his hands picking up my outstretched legs so he could shimmy underneath.
I jumped up. I was not having any more moments with Fate. It was much easier to forget he was there in his larger home. Grabbing my stuff I walked to the door and he followed me out.
“Where's my car? Someone stole my car!”
Fate laughed where he stood next to me. “No self respecting car thief would touch your Honda. The Jinxes are driving it over to my place.”
“They're eleven. Why would you do that? Why not just let me follow you?”
“They aren't eleven. They just look it and I didn't expect you to come willingly.”
“So you were going to kidnap me, if necessary?” I said as I followed him to his car.
“It's not kidnapping if you previously agreed,” he said as he opened my car door. “Get in.”
“It would still have been kidnapping. You’d never find a jury that would agree with you.”
He shut my door and got in his side before he continued the conversation. “There's one huge problem with your logic—there is no jury system anymore. Not for us. If I say it's not kidnapping, who's to say differently?”
I hugged my purse to me. “What about Harold? What if I told on you?”
He looked my way, smiled and shook his head before he started driving.
A lifetime spent learning and working the legal system, all for nothing. There were no laws for me here. I was living in the Wild West.
I leaned my head back on the seat and sighed. “We need to talk.”
“I thought that's what we were doing.”
“I don't have a lot of time left. I don't like you, you don't like me, but it would be nice to get through this experience without being miserable every second of the day. Getting along with you, who I spend so much time with, would help.”
I watched his face, expressionless as far as I could tell. “You're positive you aren't going to stay on?”
There was something odd about the way he asked, but the day had already been too long. I couldn’t rouse my brain enough to try and figure out what Fate was thinking or why he wanted me gone so badly. I’d just accept it for what it was. “There is nothing about this existence that I find even the least bit desirable.”
It was true. An eternity of doling out justice to the dregs of society was at the bottom of my list of must dos. There was only one murder left in me before I moved on and the target was most deserving.
In my human life, I'd wanted to become a judge. Maybe it was a good thing I'd never gotten to realize that dream. It probably wouldn't have been that much different.
“Okay. Truce.”
Some of the tension of the day left me as he said that. I had too many other issues. I needed to save what fight I had left in me to take out the man that had killed me.
As we drove the rest of the way to his house, I kept thinking about what Paddy had said. “As far as figuring out who Bad Guy is, would it be easier to focus on one of his human targets? You know, someone on the grid, so to speak?”
He pulled into the garage and then paused. I went to open the door and he clicked it locked. “On the grid? Why'd you choose that term?”
“I don't know.” I opened the lock but before I could open the door, he locked it again.
“That's an odd choice of words.”
“And locking me in a car in the garage is an odd action. I don't know why I chose those words, now let me out of the car, psycho. We have a truce, remember? Bullying is not a healthy start.”
“You, bullied? Sure, like that could ever happen.”
He made a flourish of his hand toward the car door and I opened it and got out. I followed him out of the garage into his kitchen.
“A mortal would be a lot easier to track. Only problem with that plan is, we don't know who he wants.”
He tossed his keys on the counter, poured himself a drink and headed to the deck without another glance at me. I grabbed my purse and then paused.
“Don't forget not to come in—”
“Got it,” he yelled right before the door to the deck shut.
What a dick. I couldn't believe I found him attractive. I was an embarrassment to all self-respecting dead girls everywhere.
Chapter Eighteen
“Bob, it's great to see you!” I watched my father greet a friend who used to be in the service with him. The man entered our house, a gift bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. “How long are you going to be in town?”
“Just a few days. I've got some appointments on the West Coast this Friday.”