What a Nunderful World Page 14

  Reaching up, I pressed my lips to his.

  As our kiss deepened, my heart sped up and my legs turned to butter. Higgs slowly pulled away and cleared his throat. He tipped my chin up with his index finger and whispered, “I’d better go, Ms. Lavender. But let’s finish this conversation soon.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard and managing a shaky smile. “Definitely. See you tomorrow.”

  I escaped while I could still move my legs, especially in these heels, zipping around the back pathway to the gate that led to our house. I jammed my key in the door and stepped inside as quickly as I could, my head in the clouds and my cheeks burning.

  Coop had made sure a fire was lit, and the warmth of it hit me instantly, crackling and leaping, reminding me how much I loved our little house and my life.

  And maybe even Higgs, too…

  Yes. I just admitted that.

  I decided not to dwell on all these feelings Higgs was stirring up in me and instead change, wash this gunk off my face—which felt as though it had twenty pounds of grease on it—and, if I still felt up to it, start scouring the Internet.

  I made my way to the bathroom, the quiet house making me sigh with happiness. I loved this time of night, when everyone was tucked safely in bed and we were all together.

  Padding to the bathroom, I used the makeup wipes Coop had given me and thoroughly cleansed my face, which she told me was very important after a night with full makeup on. Throwing on my pajamas, I snuck toward her room to check on her, grateful to find her sound asleep, her gorgeously shiny auburn hair spilling onto her pillow, her hand curled under her cheek.

  I tucked the covers around her, pressed a kiss to my fingers and dropped it on the top of her head, then went to find my laptop. I figured I had about an hour in me before I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, but I decided to put it to good use.

  I hunkered down on the soft recliner by the fireplace, pulled the blanket from the back of the chair and covered myself, placing my laptop on my knees, my eyes grainy and tired, and began the hunt for information on Kelly Leigh.

  And the next thing I remember is Coop shaking me.

  “Trixie! Trixie Lavender, wake up! Artur is at it again!”

  Chapter 15

  My eyes flew open wide, but my body felt limp and heavy. Coop grabbed my hand, her steel grip forcing me to let go of something, but I had no idea what.

  “Trixie, give this to me now, please. I won’t ask again.”

  I slumped forward against her, my head throbbing, my eyes grainy and sore. “What?” I asked, which of course, I always do.

  An attack is always followed by a one-word question, but it’s almost all I can manage due to how exhausted I am after a possession.

  “Artur,” Coop answered back. “Now look at me, Trixie. I need you to look at me and listen to the sound of my voice, please. Hand over the paintbrush.”

  I forced my eyes to focus, and when I did, I saw Coop, her perfect features gazing back at me, her blank expression comforting as she bracketed my face with her fingertips, and made me look at her.

  “Okay,” I murmured, blinking as the rest of the room came back into focus, and I let go of what Coop had said was a paintbrush.

  “Trixie girl,” Livingston called to me from somewhere in the room. “’Twas a doozy this time, me darlin’. There was no talkin’ ya down from this one. Now you listen to ol’ Quigley. Listen to the sound of my voice and come back to us.”

  Livingston had a beautiful singing voice, almost angelic in its purity, which he often joked was impossible, seeing as he’d landed in Hell. That leads me to this small confession. Since Artur made his appearance, I occasionally have nightmares about demons and all manner of hellish things. They feel quite real and very vivid.

  It’s happened a few times now and is most frequent after one of my particularly rough possessions. One night, when I’d wondered out here to the living room in quite a foggy state, still trying to shake a really rough one off, Livingston witnessed the after effects and in an effort to soothe me, he sang to me.

  Music soothes the savage beast they say, right?

  Anyway, since then, if he was awake when I had a bad dream, he’d taken on the responsibility of soothing me by singing anything he could think of to distract me. Knowing some of my favorite music consists of, among many artists, Celine Dion and Disney songs, he’d learned every single soundtrack from each of my favorite movies and every Celine song in order to have an arsenal of music to combat my terror, and it had worked. Just the way it was working now.

  It pulled me from wherever I went when the demons took over my dreams and gently dragged me back to the here and now. When Livingston sang, the descent didn’t feel as much like a hangover.

  As he landed on my shoulder, draping his wing across my cheek to caress my skin he sang “The Prayer” by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, his gentle, perfectly pitched voice swelled in my ears and I floated back to the present.

  “Tell me,” I demanded of Coop, inhaling deeply, hearing the notes of “The Prayer” rise and fall.

  She knew what I meant when I asked, and as my muscles contracted and released, she said, “Open your eyes and see for yourself. But if I let you go, you have to promise to stay still, Trixie. Understood?”

  Sometimes, Artur would play games as he left my body, and he’d have me reassure Coop I was depleted, only to rise up again for one last prank.

  “Okay,” I promised as Coop let go of my wrist and brushed the hair from my eyes.

  She took her place behind me, wrapping her arms around me in a light but purposeful embrace, letting me know she was prepared to restrain me if need be.

  “It’s okay now, Trixie. Everything’s okay. I’m here. Livingston’s here. We’re both here, and it’s okay.”

  As I took deeper breaths and began to feel my limbs tingle back to life, I looked around for the first time. Really looked around.

  And holy graffiti, had I ever done it this time.

  Somehow, I’d gotten my hands on some paintbrushes and paint and I’d created a mural on the dining room wall.

  As Quigley’s voice faded, I struggled to stand until Coop helped me up. Still in her thermal pink pajamas, she planted her hands on her hips and looked at me. “I know this is probably the wrong thing to say in this moment, but you’re an amazing artist, Trixie. You aren’t just a sketch artist, either. You can paint.”

  Yeah, I thought as my mouth fell open, I sure could paint. But what in all of Heaven and Earth had I painted?

  Moving toward the wall, my hand outstretched, I noted the can of paint on the floor. A can of black paint I’d used to coat some planters out on our small deck over the summer—which meant I’d had to go out to the shed to get it.

  My eyes flew to the sliders that opened to the deck, and I noted muddy footprints on our wood flooring. Obviously, I had, indeed, gone to the shed. I shook my head as I looked at what I’d done to the wall—and then I also decided I was going to give Artur hell for going outside without shoes on. It had been quite chilly last night and those footprints were definitely of the bare variety.

  Looking over the wall, I shook my head. To my eye, it appeared as though I’d sketched a scene, just using a paintbrush instead of a pencil. But what had I sketched? Right now, I wasn’t able to process the entirety of it.

  But as I grew closer, I gasped.

  Clearly, it was a picture of a hospital. A hospital with only four stories and revolving doors to the entrance.

  Once I recognized it, the rest of it instantly fell into place. There was an ambulance parked in front of the building on the circular drive, with a scribble of a name across it that was unidentifiable.

  However, the number “2000” written under the scrawl on the ambulance door was quite clear—it just didn’t make any sense. I’d also scribbled the letters “ER” above an entrance to the right, where someone on a gurney waited to be wheeled inside by a paramedic. The detail, especially considering the brush I’d used, was u
ncanny.

  The hospital didn’t have a name, but it was surrounded by what I thought—from the shape of them—were red maples. Benches were beneath them and people sat upon them, eating their lunches. There was even a small paper bag with some additional crumpled paper next to one man.

  “I don’t understand…” I mumbled, running my hand through my hair. “Why would I draw a picture of a hospital?”

  “Correction. Why would Artur draw a picture of a hospital?” Coop said, fighting a yawn by covering her mouth. “This is the work of Artur.”

  Dawn was just breaking over the horizon, purples and blues streaked the foggy sky when I looked outside of our sliders, making me wonder something.

  How long had I been painting? The last thing I remembered, it was one-thirty in the morning and I’d curled up by the fire to look up this business with Mitzy and Kelly Leigh that Margot had told me about the night before. The plan had been to find Kelly on Facebook, with the hope no one had deleted her page after she’d passed. I’d also planned to look up family members.

  But a glance at the clock told me it was almost six now.

  “Must be a clue, Trixie. Isn’t it always a clue when he paints through you?” Livingston asked, still settled on my shoulder.

  “Did you see me do this, Livingston?” I squeaked out the question, my eyes still roaming over the landscape of the wall, mystified by the detail.

  I was an okay sketch artist, but I was nowhere near this good. And I’m not being humble. It’s the truth.

  “You were quiet as a church mouse. Didn’t hear a ting until about ten minutes ago, when you started howlin’ like a banshee at a séance,” he offered softly.

  Scrubbing my hands over my grainy eyes, I sighed. I couldn’t leave the wall like this. I’d have to paint it over and cover it up so Knuckles wouldn’t see what I’d done.

  He’d think I’d lost my mind.

  Coop, who clearly read my thoughts, squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll take care of it, Trixie. I don’t have any clients today, and I need something to distract me. It won’t take me but maybe an hour. But first, we should take pictures.”

  “And look at my laptop,” I muttered with a shiver.

  “Is that what you were doing before you woke up? Researching something?” Coop asked, crossing the room to grab my laptop from the chair by the fire.

  “Yes. I was preparing to search some stuff about…about Mitzy.”

  She handed me the laptop. “What stuff?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to see her fall back into the doldrums. She sounded more like herself today than she had since this whole thing started.

  “Nothing that’s all that big of a deal.”

  Coop’s eyes glittered in the early morning gloom. “I think you’re not telling me the truth, Trixie Lavender. It’s wrong to lie. You said so yourself. I know you’re doing it for my own good, because you know how sad I am, but I read in an article about losing someone you admired but don’t necessarily know, and it said this, too, shall pass. It’s a phase. I’m an adult, and I’m going to try to behave like one from now on. So, I’ll make you some coffee and squeeze myself some orange juice while you shower and dress. Then we’ll meet back here at the table so you can tell me everything you learned last night. Agreed?”

  Coop’s insight to herself and what she was going through astounded me. She was so intuitive.

  “Are you makin’ me some brekkie, too, lass?” Livingston chirped, flying to land on his perch in the kitchen. “I’m famished. A poached egg on avocado toast sounds dee-lightful, don’t you agree?”

  Coop stuck her tongue out at him. “So does cereal, don’t you agree?”

  Livingston groaned. “I’m an owl, Coopie. Do ya have any idea how hard ’tis to eat cereal when ya have to peck at it like a hen peckin’ at her scratch?”

  “Why do I always have to make you breakfast?” she groused.

  “Because I don’t have opposable thumbs, chippie,” he teased.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. Trixie, please go shower, and then we’ll talk. I’ll make you some scrambled eggs and toast. I imagine you’re going to need your energy after this outburst.”

  She was right. I felt like I’d been run over by a big rig. All my muscles ached and my head hurt. So a shower and two aspirin it would be. I had a coffee date with Susie later this afternoon for a check-in, anyway. I wanted to be sure she was okay.

  “Thanks, Coop.”

  I gave her hand a quick squeeze before I left the kitchen to go shower, my legs feeling like lead as I went. I hadn’t had an Artur sneak attack in a while, but then, I also hadn’t felt terribly stressed about much either.

  Financially, we were really doing well. We had a nice house and a new car and the shop was thriving, as were my relationships, both personal and community.

  Still, I wasn’t sure if what he drew had anything to do with Mitzy’s death—the last time he’d possessed me and drawn something, it had nothing to do with anything—but I can tell you, knowing Coop was so upset did stress me out.

  And maybe that’s why Artur had made an appearance.

  I just wish he could have done it in my sketch pad and not on my daggone dining room wall.

  While we ate the lunch he’d promised me, I showed Higgs the pictures we’d taken of what I’d drawn before Coop painted over it to hide my bizarre behavior from Knuckles and Goose, who were bound to see it if we weren’t careful.

  “Man, Trix, the detail on this is amazing.”

  “Right? And I say that with no conceit. Not an ounce. Artur’s an amazing artist. I just don’t understand what this is. Even if I googled a million hospitals, I could be here for the next millennia trying to match this to whatever he drew. Assuming he was drawing this as a clue. For all I know, it could be nothing more than a whim.”

  “You know what I find really curious? That all the letters are abstract, like the actual name of the hospital or the ambulance, but the letters for the ER and the number 2000 are distinct and crisp.”

  I looked at the picture again and frowned. “That is curious, but again, how do I know it means anything at all? Maybe it’s just Artur scribbling to scribble.”

  He looked at me across our table at this cute little rustic café he’d taken me to, near the hotel we’d almost had dinner at the other night, his eyes sparkling. “Has Artur ever just scribbled, Trix? And if so, why a hospital, of all things?”

  “That is very fair. Still, I have no idea how this could possibly tie into Mitzy’s death. Unless maybe she’s been in the hospital because of her allergy. And so what if she has? Did she offend someone there? Someone who came to her meet and greet and killed her because she was so offensive?”

  “Well, you did say everyone you’ve come into contact with who knows Mitzy thinks she’s horrible. It’s quite possible.”

  I slowly nodded my head. That was also true. I couldn’t find many people who knew her personally and actually liked her. No one had anything nice to say about her.

  I also looked up Sally from Mixin’ Vixen, and watched the video where she’d kowtowed to Mitzy about her eyeshadow palette, and it made me cringe. But she was a no-go as far as suspects. She hadn’t arrived in Portland until three hours after the event, due to a flight delay.

  Our waitress brought us our lunch, a watercress salad and soup for me, and the closest thing Higgs could get to grease in a place that served healthy food—a grilled brie sandwich on whole wheat with crispy kale chips.

  He held up a chip and made a face. “You do know these taste like dirt, don’t you?”

  I giggled and rubbed my belly. “But it’s good dirt. Think of how your arteries will thank you when they’re not clogged.”

  He popped a chip into his mouth and wrinkled his nose before he said, “Okay, confession time.”

  “Are we role-playing here, buddy?” I teased, sipping at my vegetable soup. “Nuns don’t take confession.”

  “Always funny,” he muttered with a roll of hi
s eyes. “No, I meant I’m going to confess to you why I brought you to this specific place.”

  Cocking my head, I gave him a strange look. “Confess? I thought it was because you were finally getting on the healthy train with me. Toot-toot! Next stop, No Heart Attack Way.”

  “Hah! Um, no.” He shook his dark head and toyed with his kale chips. “I brought you here because a little birdie told me…” He cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth. “Okay, it was the bartender at the hotel. He said the other two volunteers who were part of Mitzy’s team come here every day for lunch, while they wait for permission from Tansy to go home.”

  My eyes widened and excitement coursed through my veins. “Shut the front door, Higgs! You’re my prince charming, and I don’t even care if you have clogged arteries and turn to stone because you eat so much red meat. I’ll stay by your side until your bitter end by quadruple bypass.”

  He chuckled, his eyes gleaming as he looked to the door. “Speak of the devil, they’re right on time,” he whispered, hitching his jaw to the hostess booth where, lo and behold, Nikki and another very young woman in a hoodie and yoga pants, along with a young man in a gray and black track suit, were waiting for a table.

  I knew I was beaming, but I didn’t care. Higgs knew the way directly to my amateur sleuth’s heart.

  The moment I thought that, was the same moment I remembered how lightly I’d have to tread around Nikki. She’d been skittish at the very thought of the police. If she’d told Sophie and Mickey to be wary of me, essentially, I was screwed.

  Watching as they were seated, I sank low in my chair, trying to make myself as small as possible and hoping for the best. I figured maybe I could catch them off guard.

  “I can still see you,” Higgs said on a laugh.

  I threw a finger over my mouth. “Shhh. Pretend you don’t. I told you what happened with Nikki. I don’t need her to spook the other two off.”

  “Do you really think they can be of any help, Trixie? I mean, Julie did tell you they didn’t see anything. Much the way she didn’t.”