Broken Heart 7.5 - The Adventures of Zombie Larry (4 page)

Larry Stotten stood underneath the oak tree and watched Jenny scrabble up the wood slats that had been nailed into it, forming a ladder up to the tree house above.

“Daddy built it for us,” said Jenny. She paused. “Not Patrick.
My real dad.
He died.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m lucky I got two good daddies. Some kids don’t even get one.”

Larry’s newly beating heart stuttered. He’d once believed himself to be a good daddy, too. After his wife died, he’d moved the girls to Broken Heart. He’d thought
,
much to his everlasting regret, living in a small town would be safer. He hadn’t counted on his wife’s gem bringing trouble to their door. On her death bed, Lila made him promise to never give it to her step-brother. Ean wasn’t a nice man, she’d said.
A big understatement.
He was a kidnapper.
And a murderer.
But at least he’d never gotten the gem.

There were so many things he hadn’t known about Lila or her family. It hadn’t been her fault that her mother’s second marriage had been to a man without moral character. It was Lila’s mother who stole the gem and gave her to her daughter for safekeeping. Larry hadn’t known his wife’s secret, not until she gave him the stone and told him to protect it, and their girls.

He hadn’t known the gem’s powers. He hadn’t known Ean was an honest-to-God mage. He hadn’t known there was no way to ever keep his daughters safe.

“Larry?”

Jenny’s voice filtered down from the tree house. He shook off the memories, and began the climb. His thick fingers and sneakered feet didn’t do well on the thin strips of wood. He slipped a few times, but finally, he managed to get to the square hole cut in the bottom of the tree house. It was at least a decade old, and the floor creaked ominously as he crawled onto it.

Jenny was prepared. She had two battery-powered lanterns, a stockpile of energy bars, chocolate, and bottled water. She even had pillows and a sleeping bag. “I figure you can hang out here until… well, we figure out what to do next.”

“Thank you, Jenny. You’re a good friend.”

She beamed at him.

He remembered that his daughters used to smile at him like that, especially if he’d said yes to candy or to an extra bedtime story.
Fifty years.
He could never, ever get those years back. His life had been stolen.

“Why are you… you know, alive?” Jenny was studying him, her smile giving way to a frown.

“This.” He pulled the gem out of his pocket. “It’s a wishing stone.”

“Wishing stone?” She looked skeptical, which made him laugh. The child lived in a town with vampires, dragons, werewolves, and zombies, but the idea of a gem that granted wishes seemed unbelievable to her. He tucked it back into his pocket.

“A long time ago a mage named Merlin made it. It’s dangerous, Jenny. A lot of people would like to get their hands on it.
People who aren’t very nice.”

“Why don’t you wish it away?”

“I can’t. There are rules.
Especially for the guardian.”
One wish per person.
He’d never made a wish on it. He hadn’t known what it was until after Lila died. She’d transferred guardianship to him the day before she passed away, and told him what it did mere minutes before she breathed her last. He would never know why she didn’t wish away her disease. Had she already made a wish? Or did she want so badly to be free of the gem, she preferred to die? He wanted to believe enough in her love, in her loyalty, to think she would’ve never left him and their daughters alone unless she felt as though she had no choice.

The day his girls disappeared, he’d intended on going to the stone’s hiding place and wishing for their return, but Ean had found him first.
And killed him.

After he died, he had no idea where he’d gone. He didn’t remember. Not heaven, not hell. Not even limbo.

One night, he’d woken up in his desiccated body fighting in a battle right out of an Orson Welles screenplay. It turned out that Queen Patsy had called forth the dead in the Broken Heart cemetery to fight demons and vampires trying to destroy the town.

After the fighting was over, and they had won, he could only think about staying out of the grave. He knew there was something he was supposed to do, but not what. And he hadn’t known his name, or even what he was. There was only that insistent, driving urge to remain upright and moving.

Then he’d found the gem in Stan and Linda’s backyard.

The moment he touched it, everything instantly came back, and he’d made the wish to live again. He’d felt the heat and the power of the magic—and then… well, he’d woken up in a snowdrift, then in Ralph’s Honda, and finally in the bed at Queen Patsy’s house.

“I have to find my daughters.”

“No problem,” said Jenny. “I’ve been Googling all the over the place.” She pulled out a small laptop.

Larry understood that technology had made many leaps since his demise. He’d seen enough computers on his ramblings to know what they were—even if he wasn’t sure how they worked. Curious, he watched Jenny flip open the machine and start tapping on the keys.

“Their names are Beatrice Alice and Catherine Laverna, right?”

“Yes,” said Larry. “How’d you know?”

“Tamara and I looked up their school records.”
Tap, tap,
tap
.
“You filed a missing
persons
report a couple hours before
you
disappeared.”

“Did they… were they…” He swallowed the knot his in throat. “Found?”

“You mean dead?” She looked at him, sympathy in her gaze. “Not here. But…” She turned the laptop around and showed him the screen. “Adoption records for Beatrice Alice and Catherine Laverna, both with the last name of Stotten. They grew up in Tulsa, and still live there. They got married, had kids, and grandkids.”

“Adopted?” Bea had been six, and Cathy eight. Now his own children were older than he was. He’d been returned to the age he’d died, which made him thirty-two.

Jenny shrugged. “There’s nothing about them being found in town.
Or how they ended up getting adopted.”

Had Lila’s brother kidnapped them, and then somehow grown a conscious, allowing them to return to Tulsa to be adopted? His stomach squeezed.
Had Ean adopted them?

“Who raised my girls?”

“Leticia and Ernest Mortimer,” said Jenny.

Larry frowned. He’d never heard of them.

“Is it really important to know how they got there?” asked Jenny. “You wanted to know what happened to ’em, and now you do. Bea’s an accountant and Cathy’s a doctor.”

Larry looked away, his eyes hot with tears. His daughters were alive, and apparently doing well. And what could he do? Show up and say, “Hey, I’m your dead father?”

“I’d like to see them,” he said. He just needed to make sure they were okay. “Can you find out about Ean Whittaker?”

Jenny nodded. While she worked, he ate one of the energy bars. It wasn’t too bad, but the chocolate bar was much better. He’d forgotten how great food could taste.

“Dead.”

Larry blinked. “What?”

Once again, she turned the computer around and handed it to Larry. On the screen was an article from the
Tulsa Tribune
. It was dated the same day he’d died.

Three men and two little girls had been in a car accident. Apparently the car had stalled on a train track and been broadsided. Only the girls had escaped unscathed.

“My daughters lived,” said Larry as he returned the laptop. “And Ean and his goons died.”

Maybe Lila had made a wish, after all. It would be just like her to plan ahead like that, and very much like her to give up her own life for their girls. He felt oddly at ends. The driving force behind his re-animation, and his own wish to live again, seemed to be moot.

“What now?” asked
Jenny.

“I don’t know.” He
unwrapped
another chocolate bar. “I’ll go to Tulsa and see the girls, and then… well, I guess I could live in Broken Heart.”

“Your house is kinda falling down,” said Jenny. She chewed on her bottom lip. “They’re gonna want to test you and stuff.”

“Who?”

“Doctor Stan.”

Larry shrugged. “That’s okay. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.”

He reached over and chucked her under the chin. “You’re a good kid, Jenny.”

“What-ev-er.”
She rolled her eyes, but he could see that she was pleased by his compliment.

“I guess we don’t have to hide out then,” said Jenny. “I can take you home. Mom and Dad will help you.”

“Okay,” said Larry. He was still the guardian of the gem’s power even though he couldn’t wield it. He’d used his wish. But maybe it could be used to help Broken Heart and the people who lived here.

“C’mon,” said Jenny. She shut the laptop and shoved it into a backpack. Then she grabbed one of the lanterns. “If I’m not back for breakfast, Mom’ll flip her sh—
er
, stuff.”

“Flip her stuff?”

“Yeah,” she said, blushing. “It’s one of the crazy things us teens say.”

“Uh-huh.”

She scurried to the hole and made her way down the trunk. Then Larry
followed,
a little more sure-footed this time.

Jenny waited for him, and then turned to make her way through the woods toward her house on Sanderson Street. Larry paused and looked up into the night sky. In his pocket, the wishing stone pulsed warmly, just like a heartbeat.

DEAD YOU HEAR THAT?

“Where the hell is that damned box?”
I paused and looked over my shoulder. I don’t know why I bothered. We were in the attic of the house on Sanderson Street, which was where I’d lived with my kids while I was alive, and for a little while as a vampire. It’s a long story. Anyway, my family and I had moved back into the house after vacating the Silverstone mansion. I wasn’t too sorry about leaving there—it was huge, dusty, and a bitch to clean. Also, I got a lost.
A lot.

“She’s not here, Jessica,” said my husband. My sexy Irish vampire bent over a trunk and dug through the contents. “And quit lookin’ at my ass.”

“I wasn’t,” I protested, moving my gaze away from his butt. (P.S. Fantastic
view,
peeps. Better naked, but hey, I’ll take it where I can get it.) As for the “she” Patrick was talking about—that was my daughter, Jenny aka She Who Rules the Bad Words. My inability to stop cursing had put enough money in the Cussing Jar to pay for a Wii. Needless to say, I was paranoid. Jenny popped up out of nowhere with that damned jar. I think she’s saving up for a PlayStation 3.
Or college.

Patrick straightened. Cobwebs clung to his longish black hair. He plucked them out and sighed. “You know we’re rich, right?
Wealthy beyond measure.
I could buy you new decorations. I could buy you an entire factory that made decorations.”

“But these are family decorations,” I whined. “Stuff the kids made. Like that Frankenstein Bryan made from a coffee can… and that pumpkin candle thingie that Jenny painted in 2nd grade.”

“I can buy you new children.”

“Patrick!”

He grinned; and lust zipped through me as hot and quick as lightning. He knew it, too, because his smile went all sexy. “Screamin’ is traditional on Halloween, isn’t it?”