Buttoned Up (16 page)
Authors: Kylie Logan
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #General
In the dream, I was standing in a place where the air was hot and damp. It was dark and I was alone and I wanted to run, though what I was trying to escape, I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I was so scared, my knees refused to hold me up.
I had to get out of that place, but I couldn’t move my feet. I could barely take a breath.
I gasped and fought for air, and when I recoiled from the fear and flinched, I stumbled out of the dream and into a not-quite-awake state where inky shadows lurked in every corner of my workroom and the high-intensity lamp attached to the side of the table loomed over me like a sneering face.
Startled, I sucked in a breath and thrashed my arms in an effort to make the face go away. Bad enough I missed by a mile. Worse, because waving my arms around like that threw me off balance. The tall stool I sat on tipped and, half-asleep and feeling like I was moving in slow motion, I compensated with too much oomph and too little in the way of coordination. With a screech against the tile floor, the stool went out from under me and the floor rose up to meet my nose.
I guess I yelped when I landed hard. That would explain how Gabriel knew where to find me.
“What the bloody hell . . .” I didn’t see him race into the workroom (nose to floor, after all) but I heard him. He paused in the doorway for maybe a half a second to assess the situation and then he was down on the floor on his knees beside me.
“What happened? Are you all right? Did someone—”
I waved a hand, but I didn’t dare sit up. How could I when I’d have to explain that all that happened was that I got carried away by a dream?
“You’re sure you aren’t hurt?” He looped an arm around my shoulders and like it or not, he forced me to sit up and eased me far enough back so that I could lean against the worktable. “Your nose is bleeding,” he said.
Now that he mentioned it, I could feel the moist heat and the stickiness under my nose, and when Gabriel went to the sink and came back with wet paper towels, I didn’t argue. I did as he told me and tipped back my head and he gently cleaned up the blood, then laid the towels across the bridge of my nose.
“You’re burning up.”
“Flu.” It must have been the way my head was tilted, because my voice sounded funny, even to me. Like there was a pillow over my face. “Don’t get close . . . I’ve . . . got . . . flu.”
“Then what are you doing here?” He dabbed at my nose and I guess it wasn’t gushing or anything because he finished up, grabbed another batch of paper towels he’d brought over from the sink with him, and whisked those over my cheeks. They were wonderfully cool and I sighed. “You should be home in bed.”
“Can’t. On account of . . . softball game.” The touch of the moist towels was heavenly, and I closed my eyes, sinking into the sensation. “If I was retired, I could work here.”
“Have you been drinking?”
I opened my eyes to find Gabriel’s nose about two inches from mine. His dark brows were low over his eyes and he was looking at me like I was some kind of lunatic.
“Not going to make a scrapbook,” I said. Those weren’t the words I meant to say, somehow I knew that instinctively, but that’s what came out. “I have too much tea.”
He put a hand to my forehead. “It must be the fever talking. I’ll call a cab and take you home.”
“No.” He already had his phone in his hands, and I plucked it away from him. My fingers were slick with sweat, and it slipped right out of my hand. “Have to . . .” What did I have to do? I thought about it for a moment. “Have to keep the shop open.”
Gabriel sat back on his heels. “I doubt if anyone’s going to come looking for buttons at this time of the night.”
Now I knew for sure that something was wrong, because he was talking nonsense. I sat up and when he put a hand on my arm to try to keep me from moving, I swatted it aside. If I scooted forward—I did, and on my butt, too—I could just see the clock that hung on the wall near the back door.
“Nine o’clock?” I was still dreaming. I must be. There was no way it could be—
“Nine o’clock.” I grabbed Gabriel’s hand. “No. Can’t be. I put my head down . . . for a minute.”
“How long ago?”
Why did he have to talk so loud? And be so demanding? I let go of Gabriel so I could put my hands over my ears.
He snatched them away and held on, his gaze riveted to mine. “Do you remember what happened, Josie? Do you know how long you’ve been asleep?”
“Before . . . noon. But how . . . ?”
“That’s what I want to know. Tell me everything that happened.”
“My head . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut. Nine o’clock explained the long, dark shadows here in the back room and the fact that from out in the shop, there was no sun streaming through the front window. “My head hurt. And I was so . . . so tired. I put my head . . . down. Just for a minute. That’s when I heard the drums.”
“Drums?” Gabriel didn’t have to stare at me like that. Like I was some sort of lunatic. “You heard drums? You mean outside? Or were the drums on the radio?”
I shook my head and decided instantly that it was not the best course of action. Even when I stopped, the room kept up a shimmy in front of my eyes. “Drums. In my dream.”
“What was the dream about?”
Did I shrug? I meant to, except it seemed like such an effort and I wasn’t sure I could muster up the energy. “Chasing. Running. And the loa.”
All the emotion washed out of Gabriel’s expression and in the weird half-light, his face looked as if it had been chipped from granite. Like a sculpture on a tombstone. His lips twitched. “You dreamed about a loa. Which one?”
I tried for another shrug and gave up halfway. My eyes drifted closed. “Dunno. He was chasing me, I think. He was behind me and I was . . .” My breath shuddered through my body. “I was scared.”
“Josie.”
I didn’t think I had time to drift off, but when I opened my eyes again, Gabriel’s hands were on my shoulders. He gave me a shake. “You need to wake up,” he said. “There’s something going on, and I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like . . . either. Flu . . . stinks.”
That morning when I got out of bed, I was so chilled to the bone that I’d put on a Chicago Bears sweatshirt along with my jeans. Gabriel pushed the sleeves of my sweatshirt up and turned my hands over, the better to see the insides of my arms. He grumbled a curse and got up long enough to snap on the high-intensity lamp and swivel its gooseneck over the side of the table to put me in the spotlight.
“This isn’t the flu.” He studied my arms again, and even though my eyes felt as if they were filled with sand, I looked, too. There were tiny pinpricks of red rash all over my arms.
“Measles?” I asked.
“I wish.” He pulled my sleeves back in place and brushed my hair back to take a look at my neck. Apparently, whatever he saw there wasn’t very encouraging because he jumped to his feet. “You need water. Plenty of water.” I knew there was some in the mini-fridge over near the coffeemaker and before I even had a chance to tell Gabriel about it, he was back with three bottles. “Drink them all,” he instructed. “Now.” When I didn’t move fast enough, he cracked one open and put it in my hands.
“Do you have a blanket?”
I shook my head.
“Then how about a coat? Or a raincoat? Or—”
“There’s a tablecloth.” I waved vaguely in the direction of the metal storage cabinet on the far wall. “I use it . . . it’s for . . . display.”
Though I didn’t remember seeing him leave to get it, Gabriel came back with the tablecloth, unfolded it, and draped it around me. He tucked it behind my shoulders to keep it in place and got down on his knees so he could look into my face. “Tell me, Josie, has anyone given you anything odd lately?”
“I got the flu.”
His smile was so quick, I wondered if I imagined it. “I was thinking of something more concrete. A gift of some sort.”
Even with the blanket around me, I shivered. “No. Nothing.”
“How about at home? Did anyone send anything to your apartment?”
“You brought lo mein.”
“Not me.” Gabriel got up and turned on the overhead lights, and I thought my head would burst. I pulled the tablecloth over my face and closed my eyes and I heard him rummage through the storage cabinet and comb through the refrigerator.
“Damn and double damn.” By the time I heard him grumble the curse, he was standing in front of me, his fists on his hips. He glanced around the workroom. “Are you feeling sicker here than you were at home?” he asked, then because I didn’t answer quickly enough, he raised his voice and asked again, “Are you sicker here than you were at home?”
Blame it on the flu. Or whatever it was I had. I am not the type who is easily intimidated, but when Gabriel’s baritone voice echoed through the workroom, I couldn’t help myself. I burst into tears.
He scraped his hands over his face and dropped down on his knees beside me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s OK. Really.” I sniffled. “I . . . just . . . can’t . . . help it.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “I know.” He was back on his feet and did another turn around the workroom. There were cabinets below the sink, and one by one he opened them, got down on his hands and knees, and looked inside.
It should come as no surprise that I am an orderly person, but apparently, even my system of a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place wasn’t enough for Gabriel. He scooped everything out of the first cupboard and piled it on the floor and when he didn’t find whatever it was he was looking for, he started in on the second cupboard.
“I can . . . help.” I pushed off from the floor with the intention of going around to the other side of the worktable, but my legs wouldn’t hold me.
“You stay put,” Gabriel said over his shoulder. “And I’ll—”
As if they’d been snipped with scissors, his words stopped cold and I heard him release a long, slow breath.
“I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong with you,” Gabriel said. He came around to my side of the table, looped his arm around my shoulders, and helped me to my feet. My knees were rubber, but Gabriel was a strong guy. He kept his arm around me and propped me against the table. Sweat beaded on my forehead and he used a corner of the tablecloth to blot it away.
“I’m calling a cab,” he said, and he did, and when he was done, he explained, “We’re going to go see a friend of mine. We’ve got to take care of this and we’ve got to take care of it now.”
“But what . . . Why . . . ?”
Gabriel pulled something out of the back pocket of his jeans. “I found this,” he said, “tucked away in the cupboard.” It was a fabric doll, about eight inches tall, and dressed in black, like I had been at the opening of Forbis’s art show. It was even wearing a string of pearls like I had. There were buttons where its eyes should have been, and another button directly in the center of a mouth that had been embroidered with red floss.
My mouth went dry. “Is that—”
“Yeah.” When I tried to take a step and nearly collapsed, Gabriel lifted me into his arms and carried me to the front door. “It’s a voodoo doll.”
I have absolutely no memory of the cab ride to Evanston, about twelve miles north of Chicago, and no idea how I ended up in Mambo Irma Delsoin’s apartment. I’d like to think I made it up the stairs and to the third floor on my own power, but I had this vague impression of being held close and carried, that silly tablecloth still wrapped around me. I hoped the one thing that seemed more real than the trip—me, resting my head against Gabriel’s chest and letting out a sigh—was part of some crazy, fevered dream, but I had a feeling I was wrong. I told myself I would feel embarrassed, apologetic, and completely mortified later—if my head ever stopped pounding and I lived that long.
I did know that it was dark by the time we walked into the apartment, and somewhere inside my fuzzy head, I realized that didn’t matter. There were dozens of candles lit on the end tables in the living room, and more flickering in the dining room where Gabriel deposited me on a chair and backed away. The soft, swaying light threw dancing shadows against walls that were awash with a vibrant palette of colors—soothing aqua, sizzling red, yellow as warm and as welcoming as the sun.
And I remember Mambo Irma’s face. She was a stick-thin Haitian woman and at least seventy, but her skin was as smooth a girl’s, and her brown eyes sparked when she looked into mine.
“How long?”
Her voice was soft, but strong, and somehow, I knew she wasn’t talking to me. Good thing since I didn’t have the energy to answer. My hunch was right; over Mambo Irma’s shoulder, I saw Gabriel zip through the room.
“Too long,” I heard him reply. His voice faded like he was on his way somewhere else. Or maybe that was just me drifting in and out of consciousness.
Mambo Irma sat down across from me and took my hands in hers. I think she was about to speak, but whatever Gabriel was up to, he was making a racket like he had when he rummaged through the cupboards back at the Button Box, and one corner of Mambo Irma’s mouth pulled tight. My fever was sky-high, my head felt like it was about to burst, my eyes ached, and my breaths came hard and fast. Still, I knew exactly what that expression meant: men!
“What you are doing, Gabriel?” When she turned in her seat, Mambo Irma didn’t let go of my hands. “Come over here and sit down and tell me what is happening.”
When Gabriel crossed into my line of vision, his arms were full. He set down a tall candle in a glass holder.
“For Eleggua,” he said, and I figured my hearing had been affected by my fever, that’s why what he said didn’t make any sense. “Light it, Mambo. You’ve told me so yourself, he has to be honored first at the ceremony and we have to get started. Now.”
“Yes. Yes.” There was no urgency in Mambo Irma’s voice, not like there was in Gabriel’s. I didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I did know that her steadiness and the gentle touch of her hands comforted me. I was in a good place, a safe place, and I closed my eyes. “We will get started when it is time to start,” I heard her say, and I might have been half out of it, but I still smiled. Gabriel Marsh was so cocksure. Leave it to a tiny woman wearing a blue turban and a long white dress to put him in his place!
“Here’s a candle for Chango.”
When Gabriel set something else on the table with a clatter, I flinched and my eyes flew open. He’d already put another candle down next to that first one, and now he added a third. “And another for Oggun.”
“Oggun, yes.” Mambo Irma smiled. She had a couple missing teeth. She patted my hands. “Oggun gives protection from harm. And we will call on him for his help.”
“I’ve got your firewand, too.” Gabriel set down what looked like a magic wand from a fairy tale, only this one was made of wood and painted red with yellow lettering along its handle. “And your dark stones.” He unloaded those on the table. “And your wish papers and—”
“Gabriel!” Mambo Irma didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to. One look from her pinned Gabriel in place. “It may be that the rest of the world dances to your tune,
mon chou
, but Mambo Irma does not work on Gabriel Marsh time. I work only on God’s time. Now . . .” She let go of me long enough to hold out her hand to Gabriel. “Give it to me.”
He handed over the voodoo doll he’d found back at the shop.
Her eyes closed, Mambo Irma cradled the doll in both her hands and after a minute, she lifted one hand and, keeping it an inch or so above the doll, ran it the length of the figure. She shook her head. She clicked her tongue.
“It is a strong trick performed by a powerful bokor.” Mambo Irma looked my way. “You know what this is,
cherie
?” It’s a good thing she didn’t wait for me to answer, because I couldn’t find the words. “A bokor is what you would call a sorcerer. A person who performs black magic. He has used the doll to put a spell on you.”
Yeah, right!
That was what I meant to say. What I wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come. They were blocked by the sudden knot in my throat that was just as painful as the claw that clutched my stomach.
I didn’t have time to consider it. Just then, the door opened and a tall, heavyset man walked in carrying a drum like the ones I’d seen in Forbis’s exhibit. He chose a seat in a corner of the dining room and Mambo Irma signaled him to begin. Slowly and ever so quietly, he started in on a rhythm.
Mambo Irma turned back to me. “The spirits will be liberated by his drumming hands,” she assured me. “First . . .” There was a brown glass bottle on the table and she opened it and wet her fingers, then dabbed them to my forehead. “First I anoint your third eye for peace of mind, for clarity and protection. Next, I will do a reading to understand what is happening with you. Then, only then, can I cleanse you of this curse. Gabriel!”
When she called him, Gabriel walked into my line of vision.
“You know what must be done,” she said. “Only those of clean spirit can be present for the ceremony.
Mon chou
, you must leave.”
• • •
Sunshine brushed my eyelids. It was wonderful and welcoming, and enjoying the sensation, I stretched and realized I was tucked in bed.
My eyes drifted open.
“My bed.” My voice was rough, my mouth was dry. “My bedroom.” I smiled and sunk back against the pillows. I don’t think I’d ever felt so content, not since I leaned my head against Gabriel’s chest and—
I sat up like a shot and my gaze ping-ponged through the familiar room all the way over to where Gabriel watched me from the wingchair in the corner.
That was the exact moment I realized I was wearing a yellow nightgown spotted with brightly colored polka dots.
“You didn’t . . .” I stammered. “You wouldn’t dare.”
A slow smile crossed his face and he stood up and sauntered over. “You don’t really think I’m that much of a freak, do you? Wait!” He put out a hand. “Don’t answer that. But just so you know . . .” He perched himself on the edge of the bed. “I talked to Stan and Stan talked to Adele Cruikshank.”
Adele was my next-door neighbor, and as nosy a woman as ever lived. I dropped my head in my hands. “And you and Stan had Adele come over here and get me dressed for bed. She’ll be talking about this from now until forever.”
“She’d be talking about it longer than that if we didn’t get her involved. She saw me carry you up the stairs and into the apartment on Monday night. If I hadn’t asked for her help, no doubt she would have filled in the blanks for herself. You can imagine the story.”
I could.
I did.
I turned away so Gabriel wouldn’t see my cheeks get pink, then cleared my throat and prayed I didn’t sound as breathless to him as I did to myself “What did you tell her?”
“That you had the flu, of course. Which is exactly what I told Stan, by the way. It seemed a better plan than explaining about the voodoo curse.”
The curse.
The memory of Monday evening’s events washed over me like a cold wave, and I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. It was all such a jumble! I remembered disjointed scenes: candles, colors, burning up. I remembered being afraid until I looked into Mambo Irma’s eyes and heard the drumming. The music was nothing like the unrelenting drumbeats that had haunted my dreams these past few weeks. This was more rhythmic, organic, like my heartbeat. Instead of causing my blood to boil, the sound gave me something to hang onto, something to concentrate on while Mambo Irma performed her ritual.
I shook out of the memory and this time when I spoke, I made sure to keep my eyes on Gabriel. I wanted to gauge his reaction. And his capacity for bullshit. “Do you think it really was a curse?” I asked him.
“I’ve seen stranger things.”
“Stranger things than vudon curses?”
“Yes.”
“And Mambo Irma?”
“I hope you’re not saying she’s a strange thing.” He leaned forward. “She’ll know if you talk about her,” he whispered. “And she won’t be happy.”
Startled, I sat back, and Gabriel laughed. “Only kidding,” he said. “Maybe. I wouldn’t put anything past her. Mambo Irma is a remarkable woman.”
“Then I didn’t dream the visit to her apartment? I didn’t dream her?”
“She’s as real as I am.”
“And how real are you, Gabriel?”
He considered this for a moment, and I actually thought he might answer. That is, until he smiled. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved.” I was, and hallelujah, my headache was gone. I swung my feet over the side of the bed. “I’ll make eggs.”
“Absolutely not.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “If Mambo Irma finds out you’ve been out of bed, she’ll have my head. And believe me, she will find out. Here.” There was a bottle of water on the table next to the bed, and he opened it and handed it to me. “She told me to make sure you drink plenty of water today.”
“And you always listen to Mambo Irma.”
“If I know what’s good for me.”
I took a few long sips, then breathed in deep and let the breath out slowly. I’d been feeling bad for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like to feel well. “Want to explain how you know her?”
“Mambo Irma?” Gabriel’s shrug was hardly noticeable. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and there was a shadow of dark beard on his chipped-from-granite jaw. “She’s a friend.”
“Who happens to know how to lift a vudon curse.”
“Technically, she knows how to lift a vudou curse, since she’s Haitian and that’s what they call the religion there. Good thing she’s ecumenical, eh? A full-service curse lifter.” He patted my knee. “I’ve got the coffeepot going and all the ingredients for a full English fry-up.” Before I could ask, he explained. “Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms. And toast. All the things we civilized Brits eat early in the morning.”
“Is it early?” Because of the way the sun streamed in through the bedroom window, I couldn’t see the numbers on the clock radio. “I’ve got to get dressed and get into the shop. Who knows how much business I missed yesterday when I fell asleep in the back room.”
“Just for the record, you weren’t exactly asleep. You were in more of a stupor. You know, because of the spell that had been put on you. It was magnified by the doll. Do you know how it got hidden at the shop?”
I combed my fingers through my hair. “I can’t imagine.”
“And also for the record . . .” Gabriel got up and I hoped he was headed into the kitchen to get me a cup of coffee because the aroma floated into the bedroom and it smelled divine. “You didn’t miss any business yesterday at the shop.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because yesterday was Tuesday,” he said.
“And today is—”
“Wednesday. You’ve been asleep for more than twenty-four hours.”
I threw my hands in the air. “I don’t need the Button Box to close down because some crazy person put a crazy voodoo doll in my shop. What about—”
“Not to worry. Stan was there all day yesterday. He took care of everything.” Gabriel disappeared down the hallway and called back to me, “One egg? Or two?”
• • •
I don’t own a wicker tray with legs suitable for serving breakfast in bed, so don’t ask me where Gabriel got the one he brought into the room a few minutes later. He helped me sit up and fluffed the pillows behind me, unfolded a linen napkin and handed it to me, and pulled over the wingchair so he could put his own plate of English fry-up on the bed.
Either he was an excellent cook or I was just incredibly hungry. I finished my bacon, toast, eggs, and mushrooms in record time and started in on the tomato. It had been cut in half and broiled with a pat of butter on the top and it, too, was delicious.