I went into Ms. Diaz’s office and grabbed the first-aid kit. Since the Junípero Serra Mission Academy lacks not only a full-time (paid) administrative assistant but a school nurse, I’ve been filling in as both.
My cell phone chimed again. I knew without looking that this time it wasn’t Paul, but Jesse calling from St. Francis, the newly renovated medical center in Monterey where he’d been lucky enough to win his fellowship . . . although I sometimes wondered, in spite of Jesse’s being a brilliant medical student, how much luck had to do with it. St. Francis had at one time been a Catholic hospital, and Father Dominic’s influence over the local archdiocese is considerable.
The ringtone I’d assigned Jesse was Elton John’s oldie but still goodie “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” Jesse had saved my life so many times—and I his—that it was pretty much a no-brainer that this was our song, especially given the line about butterflies being free to fly away. We’d given each other the freedom to fly away, but we’d chosen instead to stay together, despite what had seemed, at times, like insurmountable odds against us.
Now, even though Jesse and I no longer shared a mediator/non-compliant-deceased-person bond, he still always seemed to know when my life needed saving, or even when I was merely feeling uneasy . . . like because there were a couple of very distressed girls—one living, one not so much—standing in my office.
I told myself that’s why he was calling, anyway, and not because he’d sensed, from a half dozen miles away, that Paul Slater was trying to sextort me.
“Hi,” I whispered into the phone. “I can’t talk right now. Things here at work are a little crazy. Can I call you back?”
“Of course, querida.”
Simply hearing that deep, smooth tone made the tight muscles in the back of my neck loosen, my shattered nerves begin to heal. Jesse’s voice was a soothing elixir, whipped cream floating on rich steaming cocoa on a cold winter morning.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said. “I got the strangest feeling a few minutes ago that something was wrong. I’d have called then, but I was with a patient.”
“Wrong? Nope, everything’s fine.”
What was I doing? Jesse and I were engaged. We were supposed to be completely honest with each other.
Except I couldn’t afford to be honest with Jesse. Not about one thing. Well, one person, anyway.
“Sister E brought a student in here who’s a little banged up, that’s all,” I said. “Everything else is totally copacetic.”
Don’t let him sense I’m lying, don’t let him sense I’m lying, don’t let him sense I’m lying . . .
“I see,” Jesse said. “Well, you know where you can bring her if it gets to be too much for you to handle. Not that there’s much you can’t handle, Susannah.”
Jesse’s always insisted my nickname, Suze, is too ugly and diminutive for a girl of my strength and beauty. With Jesse it’s always been Susannah or—later, when he got to know me better—querida, which means sweetheart or my darling. It still sends a thrill through me when he says it, just like when he says my name.
Let’s face it, I’m warm for the boy’s form. Which is good, since I fully intend to marry that form. I don’t care how many Egyptian curses I have to break in order to do it.
“I think I’ve got things under control for now,” I said. “I’ll call you later when I can talk more.”
“Yes, you will. Because there is very definitely something going on that you’re not telling me. Am I right, Susannah?”
“Damn, Jesse,” I said, hoping my lighthearted tone would disguise the fact that I really was unsettled by his seeing through my lie. “You may not be a ghost yourself anymore, but you sure as hell can sense when one’s around. How do you do that?”
“A ghost? Is that all? I thought at the very least you’d found out you’d won the Powerball.”
“Ha! I wish. I’d buy you that cool new PET scanner you’ve been wanting.”
I knew Jesse was only acting as if he wasn’t concerned. He’s protective by nature, and when it came to the supernatural, he’s more than simply protective. He was what we call in the counseling trade hypervigilant.
Considering what he’d been through, however, this was only natural.
“Look out for yourself, then, all right, querida? The last thing I want is my fiancée being brought in to the ER as a patient.”
“You know that’s never going to happen. I can’t stand doctors, remember? They think they know everything.”
“Because we do know everything, actually. Te amo, querida.”
Thankfully he hung up before he could do any more extrasensory percepting (or turn me into a puddle of desire right there on the phone).
I hung up, too. There was no way on earth I was going to tell Jesse about Paul’s threat, let alone his proposition. It would only make him angry.