72 St. Margaret’s Way Chapter 17
Not only were they working the case without James, they were doing all of the work, including taking care of him. After he showered and shaved a little while later (with Amelia in the room so he managed not to scream the entire time), he went back to the gray bedroom, where he noticed that the sheets were changed on the bed. James almost cried as he laid back down. He hadn’t been able to force himself to eat, not even the chicken salad Gabriella had brought back for him. And while he consciously knew that that was why he felt so weak, he also couldn’t bring himself to do it.
But meanwhile, work was going on just like always. The others continued to peek in on him, but he apparently didn’t need a full-time babysitter anymore. Gabriella came in later during her lunch break and sat with him for a while, telling him about the swearing ghost she’d dealt with that morning while out with Graham. She didn’t mention anything about his freakout over the house key or anything else. Instead she brought him a bowl of soup that she left on the bedside table while she ate her own. It smelled good, but he hesitated when she offered it up.
“At least have some water,” she said.
James took a few sips of the water bottle she’d brought him. It didn’t cure the headache, but he felt a little better. He looked over at Gabs, who nodded toward the soup with raised eyebrows. James went to reach for it, then froze.
“It’s from Samuelson’s?” he asked.
He had no idea who made it, in that case. Anyone could have dropped anything in there and he’d have no idea. Just like he’d picked up the wallet and dismissed the control compound as spilled soda.
“No,” Gabriella said. “Their soups aren’t very good. I made that one in my crockpot the other day. It’s tomato and parmesan.”
Gabriella made it. He could see her in her little kitchenette, carefully measuring cheese as she stirred it in. Some music that made James feel incredibly old playing on her laptop at the tiny table she’d stuck in the center of the room. Nothing scary. Just Gabs making food.
He picked up the bowl of soup and the spoon and carefully took a small sip. That first sip of something safe, something that wasn’t strawberry, unlocked something in him and he took another spoonful. Then another.
It took a little time, but he finished all of it. As he set the empty bowl down on the table, Gabriella looked satisfied. He realized she’d finished her food a while before him and had been in here waiting for him to finish eating. “Thanks,” he said, looking just beyond her at the door.
“Of course.”
James slept a little after that and was surprised when he woke up. The bedroom door was open and he realized he’d been woken up by the sound of Amelia talking down the hall.
“-three or four days to do. It looks open and shut, but we should allocate a little extra time.”
They were having a staff meeting. James wasn’t sure what compelled him to stand up, probably mostly guilt. He looked in the mirror, only recoiling slightly, and smoothed down his hair the best he could. As he walked out, nobody noticed him as he headed into the bathroom.
Brushing his teeth went smoothly, even though he shuddered at the feeling of the toothpaste in his mouth. As he walked out, Amelia looked over and saw him. “Hi!” she called with a wave.
Now everyone turned to him. “Hi,” James said awkwardly.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay? I guess.”
There was a stack of case files on the coffee table and on the screen beside Amelia, he saw a burnt out house in the woods. Had that all piled up while they were dealing with him?
“Is there anything I can help with?” James asked, just as awkwardly as before.
“No, it’s fine,” Amelia said, still smiling. “No, take a few more days. You need to recover before you do anything else.”
This had to be the protocol everyone kept mentioning. “Right,” James said, his face on fire. How had he had the fucking audacity to even ask that after what he’d done? “No, that makes sense. Sorry, I should have realized they’d be worried I might bring information back to her.”
He shuddered as he turned to go back to the bedroom, regretting everything that had happened in the past thirty minutes. The entire recent past, really. But specifically thinking that maybe he was doing a little better.
“There was a fire in an abandoned house out in Winchendon,” Amelia said. “The O’Roarke family owns the property and, at first, they thought it was a lightning strike. Which seemed likely until a second O’Roarke building went up in flames, this one the home of Mary O’Roarke in Worcester. We have the case because Winchendon was first, but we’re in communication with South County.”
James stayed where he was. He turned around to see Amelia looking directly at him. She locked her eyes on his. “I’ll tell you everything about the next few cases in a minute if you want,” she continued. “But first, my name is Amelia Esther Cohen and I’m the acting captain of the North Worcester County branch until you feel well enough to return to the job. I’m twenty-six years old and if someone wanted to kill the person who currently has the most power on the team, that would be me. I live in Leominster, at Forty-Eight Central Street, Apartment Two-Ten. You know that part. What you don’t already know, James, is that there’s a spare key to my apartment in your office drawer. Second one down. I sleep in the front bedroom.”
James took a shuddering breath, but Amelia kept looking at him. “If you want to join us, we want you here, no one thinks you’re going to do anything to hurt us. But I mean it, I want you to take a few more days to recover. You’re not doing any work. Got it?”
James nodded. Part of him wanted to go hide again, but no, he had to start moving forward. Even if he couldn’t meet anyone else’s eye right now.
He walked back into the living room and sat down next to Graham, who smiled and patted James’s knee before looking back at the slideshow.
“That’s that one,” Amelia said, looking a little self-conscious now. “Bradley, do you have Beaver Creek?”
“Unfortunately.”
He opened the slideshow on his computer with a quick glance at James before going back to it. Amelia shooed Fang away from the screen and the cat ran off. James brushed his fingers over her back as she rushed by him.
***
Jolene came by that afternoon. After examining James, she sat down on the other bed with her hands folded in her lap.
“You’re going to be fine,” she said. “Stay here one more night, then you’ll be fine to leave tomorrow. I’d say take a couple days off before you come back to work, though. Is there anything I can do for you?”
James shook his head, his throat tight as he tried and failed to look her in the eye. “None of this was your fault,” she said gently.
Like Amelia, she went to touch his hand, then clearly thought better of it. He appreciated that. “It’s over,” Jolene continued. “The control compound is out of your system, she has no pull over you now.”
James still couldn’t keep her gaze. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“This happens,” Jolene said, and the empathy in her expression was too much, he wanted her to leave. “More than you might think. It was weaponized against you, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Not true, but he nodded. “Thank you,” he said again.
“I hear I’m going to be moved out to the central and western counties permanently, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing you,” Jolene said with a hopeful smile.
Saying he hoped not would be rude and James liked her. So he tried to smile back, but said nothing.
A little while after Jolene left, Gabriella came in. “You have a visitor,” she said.
“Is it McGovern telling me I’m fired?”
“You’re not fired,” she said. “And no, Amelia’s handling things with McGovern.”
Who could possibly be visiting? And more, who would they let in? James was about to say he didn’t want to see anyone, but then he heard a voice behind Gabriella.
“I heard you’ve had a tough week.”
Father McEnerney was standing in the doorway, wearing a familiar purple windbreaker over his black clothes and Roman collar. His voice was light, but there was a strong thread of concern beneath it as Gabriella slipped out of the room and closed the door.
“Um, yeah,” James said, his eyes burning. “Yeah, I guess I have.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Maybe someday. But I don’t think I can yet.”
“I get it. Can I come in?”
The door was already closed behind him, so maybe the question was unnecessary. But James nodded and Father McEnerney came over and sat down on the other bed.
“I don’t know what to do,” James said through an impossibly dry throat.
“That’s okay.”
It wasn’t. But James didn’t have an alternative right now.
“Has anyone seen her?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Father McEnerney admitted. “Nobody has mentioned it to me, but there wouldn’t be a reason they would.”
“Everyone knows what happened, don’t they?”
Father McEnerney was silent. James turned to look at him and he was very clearly trying to find the correct words to say.
“I know already,” James said. “Nobody here would’ve said anything. And if someone told you in confession, you wouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t take confessions anymore,” Father McEnerney said. “I did hear that a captain got hit with a control compound, but not who it was. And then I saw that Bradley and Jolene both had disciplinary write-ups on the same day, so I put that brain that got me through the seminary to use and figured it out. Then, when I asked Amelia if I could stop by and see you, she said she was fine with it if you were.”
Fuck, they both got in trouble for him. He’d have to try to get that fixed, not that the process seemed to work at all. James’s own disciplinary action he’d attempted to have expunged almost two years ago was still in progress.
“I won’t stay long,” Father McEnerney said. “But I was passing through the area and wanted to make sure you were okay. Do you mind if I give you a couple blessings before I go?”
James wasn’t particularly religious, but some of the Father’s usual blessings were not ones that were officially sanctioned by any church. He nodded, then paused. “Can you just not touch me?”
If that threw Father McEnerney off, he didn’t show it. “Of course.”
James sat still as Father McEnerney prayed under his breath and went through some of the familiar blessings from both a childhood in the Catholic Church and years of investigating and cleaning up the remnants of demonic activity. Unlike most of these blessings, where James ended up with a forehead full of holy oil, Father McEnerney did all of the motions several inches away from him. James closed his eyes and tried his best not to think about anything else, to grip onto words he’d known his whole life from a religion both of them no longer practiced. Then the words stopped and he opened his eyes as Father McEnerney put his crucifix back in his pocket.
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?” he asked. “I’ll be dealing with a few cases out this way for the next couple days, so I won’t be far. Do you live nearby?”
“Right down the street.”
“James, are you kidding me?”
He almost laughed at the disapproving look. “I’m fine, thanks,” he said finally, the words sticking.
“You know where to find me,” Father McEnerney said, patting the bed gently, about five inches from James’s hand. “But I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
He wasn’t. He definitely wasn’t alright. But maybe he was getting better? “I’m getting there,” he said, unsure if it was a lie.
After Father McEnerney left, James still wondered how much word was getting out in the Foundation about what had happened. Those had clearly been Foundation representatives here however many days ago when he’d heard Bradley and Jolene yelling in the living room. And while there was confidentiality involved in internal investigations, he knew that wasn’t going to actually stop anyone from telling stories.
But that was all assuming they weren’t going to fire him the second he could get out of the building. And he didn’t know if that was the case yet, so he’d have to wait and see.
For now he just wanted to be alone.
