Chloe scampered ahead of her and rounded the corner to the kitchen. With Max on her hip, Grace paused to tuck Cuelebre’s card carefully in her spiral-bound phone book in the living room then joined Chloe. Of course the kitchen was still a mess, and Khalil was nowhere in sight.
That surprised Grace. Not the mess—she had expected that he would ignore her cheeky order to clean up the kitchen, but she could have sworn she still sensed Khalil’s presence, and she had been geared up to continue their argument.
Frowning, she bathed the children with swift efficiency. She set Max on the clean floor afterward while Chloe skipped off to play in the living room.
Then she turned her attention to the kitchen table. There was quite a bit of food left over, and a lot of it would freeze well. She put it away, enjoying the thought of a few easy, delicious meals.
Had Ismat paid for all this food, or had she simply whisked into the restaurant and taken whatever dish she fancied? If Djinn went around stealing things all the time, they would be prosecuted like any other thief—but the trick would be to catch them.
And was Grace really going to look that gift horse in the mouth? She decided not to this time, especially since she had eaten and enjoyed so much of the evidence.
Apparently she also now owned several gleaming metal serving platters, complete with lids, along with four heavy linen napkins. Once the serving platters were clean, she stacked them and set them aside on the counter until she could figure out what to do with them. Maybe she could sell them or give them to somebody. Katherine would enjoy having them, but Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to explain how she got them in the first place.
Then she paused to assess the area. Damn, she could have sworn she still felt Khalil’s presence. Pretending to more confidence than she really had, she said telepathically, I know you’re here.
Did somebody just sigh in her ear? Khalil replied, I still wish to discuss your vision, but not in front of the children.
She hunched her shoulders. She didn’t want to think of what happened earlier or remember the voice from her vision. She would rather pick a fight with him and pretend everything was fine. Reluctantly, she said, Come back when they’re asleep.
Yes, said Khalil. His presence faded.
Grace expanded her awareness. She felt nothing unusual, either in the house or on the property, just the faded edges of the occasional ghost. This time she really was alone, except for the children. It had become just another normal summer morning.
She told herself she was all right with that as she listened to the silence.
Figuring out which bills to pay was a bit of a joke.
Grace put Max down for a morning nap, started a load of the never-ending pile of laundry and built Chloe a “castle” in the living room with a sheet spread over the back of the armchair and across one of the straight-backed chairs she brought in from the kitchen.
While Chloe played happily in her castle with Lala Whoopsie and several stuffed animals, Grace looked through the bills twice. She came up with the same answer both times. Keep the water, electric and phone bills paid. All the medical bills got stacked on top of a neat, growing pile. She put student loan deferment notices in another pile. Each one was like the ticking of a time bomb that would eventually blow up in her face. Then, her stomach in a clench, she spent a half hour calling around to bankruptcy lawyers. Fun times.
She folded laundry, looked through her unfinished senior history project and set it down again, fed the children lunch and found the note in her purse about calling Katherine to set up a time when Joey and Rachel could come over for a playdate. Feeling guilty about asking Katherine to babysit yet again, Grace picked up the phone and stepped into the kitchen so Chloe couldn’t hear the conversation. No point in getting Chloe excited if Katherine couldn’t take them. She hit Katherine’s number on speed dial.
Katherine picked up on the third ring. “Gotta love caller ID,” she said. “Hi, Grace, how are you doing?”
Grace could hear the cheerful shouts of children in the background. She said, “Hi, Katherine, we’re doing all right. I know you’re working, so I want to keep this brief. Is there any chance you could take Chloe and Max on Saturday? The second quarterly work day is coming up, and last time I had a hard time keeping track of them while I dealt with everybody’s questions about what needed to be done.”
“Of course,” said Katherine immediately. “You know how much I love them. Why don’t they spend the night as well? That way you can just crash when everybody leaves.”