“How the hell did you find out about that?”
“Because Shahbaz goes to my school, Suze,” David said in a patient voice as the triplets hooted in the backseat because I’d used a curse word. “He’s a grad student in NELC—that’s the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department here. After he got your e-mail, he looked you up on the Web to find out who you are. But of course you don’t have any social media accounts, so all he could find was some celebrity website that lists you as Andy Ackerman’s stepdaughter, and me as one of his sons. It also mentioned that I go here, so he got in touch with me through the school directory to ask if you’re really as mentally unstable as you sounded in your message to him—”
“Mentally unstable?” I interrupted, offended. “Where does he get off, accusing me of being mentally unstable? I’m not the one who sits around translating curses written in hieratic script all day so I can post them on the Internet where anyone can find them and—”
“And what, Suze?”
Well, okay. Maybe I might have sounded a little mentally unstable to someone who goes to an Ivy League school and isn’t entirely familiar with my side job.
A nervous glance in the rearview mirror showed me that the triplets’ dark heads were bent over the tablet. I wasn’t fooled, however. I knew them. They were completely eavesdropping.
I took David off speaker and lifted the phone to my ear, risking a penalty if I got caught talking on a non-hands-free mobile device while driving. But I decided the risk of allowing the girls to overhear David’s side of this conversation would be worse.
“Look, David, it’s nothing. I contacted Shahbaz for a client I’m working with.”
“Suze, don’t even try. I went to Shahbaz’s blog and looked up that curse you asked him about.”
Crap.
“It specifically references the darkness that will be unleashed upon anyone who dares to resurrect a departed soul, and what can happen if the dwelling place of that soul is destroyed. Your ‘client’ is obviously you and Jesse is the soul you resurrected and this has something to do with Paul tearing down our old house. So don’t tell me not to be silly. I’m not a child anymore. And I want to help.”
Wow. I was starting to think that the photo David had sent of himself wearing women’s clothing hadn’t been for fun—or a class on gender studies—after all. David was no longer the awkward nerdy kid I’d privately nicknamed Doc. He was all grown up now, and he wanted to let me know it.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “But, David, there’s nothing you can do. I have it all under control.”
“Oh, do you? Then why did you spend last night at Brad and Debbie’s? You can’t stand Debbie. Last time we had dinner together, you called her a self-centered harpy and said you hope she gets nail fungus under her gel manicure.”
Yikes. I really needed to cool it on the wine. “Okay, well, I might have been having a moment of—”
“Clearly you think the girls are in some kind of danger.”
“They were,” I admitted. “But not anymore. And that had nothing to do with—”
“Does Jesse know Paul bought the house?”
Wow. David was good. Too good. “No, but only because Jesse’s got a lot on his plate right now. He’s still waiting to hear about that grant. I really don’t want to stress him out or bother him right now with inane little—”
“Okay, that’s it,” David said firmly. “I’m changing my ticket and coming home tomorrow instead of next week.”
“What?” I nearly hit the back of the pomegranate truck. “David, no! That’s a terrible idea. It’s totally unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary? Father Dominic is in the hospital.”
“Yes, and being well taken care of. So please don’t—”
“It’s okay. I already turned in all my papers for this semester. I can tell my instructors I have a family emergency.”
Of course he’d already turned in all his papers. He may be a grown-up now, but he hadn’t changed that much.
“David, there’s no emergency. Father Dominic is going to be fine. What happened to him had nothing to do with that, uh, other thing.” I glanced at the girls. Still watching their video, except for Mopsy. I caught her gaze in the rearview mirror as she looked up, realized I was watching her, then glanced away again, ever so quickly. The little faker. “And there’s nothing we can do about that other thing, unless your friend Shahbaz mentioned something?”
“No, Suze, Shahbaz says he’s never heard of a way to break the Curse of the Dead because curses aren’t real.” David sounded exasperated. “They were written to scare away grave robbers, not because high priests in ancient religions actually had the ability to put curses on people.”