Many Blessings

Chapter Fourteen

After getting back from Libbie’s, Mandaline fought the urge to strip and dance skyclad in the parking lot behind the store. Her rented trailer had been old and crappy, but at least it’d been out in the middle of nowhere, with no close neighbors and plenty of trees around it.

She wasn’t a nudist, but there were few things more satisfying to her soul than twirling around naked under a summer rainstorm.

Instead, she went to the office and dug through the boxes of things brought back from the Corey house after Julie’s death. Most of the equipment she’d use for the investigation at Ellis and Brad’s was there. She needed to recharge the batteries on a couple of items, but the rest were ready to go.

A wave of nostalgia washed through her. She’d performed dozens of investigations with Julie over the years. Many times they were able to debunk what was going on and discover nonmystical origins for phenomenon.

Rarely did they deal with intelligent, much less malevolent spirits. In the past, the few like that they’d dealt with hadn’t been able to do anything more than scare residents of a house. They’d also easily been dispelled by a thorough house cleansing ritual with the help of the residents.

It figured that with the worst-case scenario Julie had gone out to tackle it alone.

She grabbed her phone and called Sachi.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Are you busy this evening?”

“No. Skeet’s a wash with all the rain. Whyyyy?”

She sat at the desk and looked at the boxes of equipment. “Want to go check out a house with me?”

“Um, what house?”

She closed her eyes, preparing for what she suspected would follow. “Ellis and Brad’s house.”

There was a moment of silence. When she next spoke, Sachi’s voice sounded serious, devoid of snark or teasing. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She let out a sigh. “Nothing’s happened. I just thought maybe I should have…you know, backup.”

“Armed backup?” Sachi asked with a hopeful tone.

“You don’t have a concealed carry permit, so no.”

“I don’t need a concealed carry permit for a 12-gauge skeet gun. So sayeth the mighty State of Florida.”

“I sayeth no. I don’t think we’re going to have any problems. I just think it might be better to have backup.”

Sachi’s tone turned serious again. “I could go do it with Mina or Makenzie, if you’d prefer.”

“No, I want to be the one to do it. I promised Brad I’d go through the house. I’m going to bring a home blessing kit, too. You can help me with the ritual.”

“What time you want me at the shop?”

“Can you be here a little after five? I told them I’d be there about six.”

“We’re not going to walk in on them having prepared some sort of romantic, sexy evening for three, are we?”

She snorted. “I doubt it.”

“Oh. Damn. Too bad. I’m guessing you slept alone last night?”

“Yes. As tired as I was, I needed to go to sleep. I had breakfast with Libbie, though.”

“Well, that’s good. I was worried about you but I didn’t want to call early and wake you up if you were…you know…busy.”

Mandaline smiled. “Nope. Just busy eating pancakes with Libbie.”

“Any special instructions for the investigation?”

“I’m charging up batteries now and getting stuff ready. Just bring with you the voodoo that you do so well, kiddo.”

Sachi laughed, a clear, ringing sound that always made Mandaline smile. “Will do.”

When Sachi arrived, Mandaline had everything just inside the back door and ready to load in the Element. She stopped short when she saw Sachi pull a padded gun case out of the trunk of her car in addition to a duffel bag containing stuff she referred to as her “road witch kit.”

“I was serious when I said no to the guns.”

Sachi slid the gun case behind the Element’s front seats. “And I was serious when I said I was bringing it.” She turned to Mandaline and grabbed her by the arms. “Look, I’ve lost one friend. I’m not about to lose another. Either it goes with us, or I’m getting on the phone and calling those two and telling them tonight’s off.”

She’d never seen Sachi look or sound so intense. “This means that much to you?”

“Yes. Dammit, I can’t…” She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before looking at Mandaline again. “I can’t lose someone else. Not now, and dammit, not like we lost Julie.” She sniffled. “Hey, I showed restraint. I only brought one box of shells with me.”

Mandaline pulled her in for a hug. “Okay. Fine. But it stays in the car.”

“And you give me the keys when we’re there in case I need to get to it.”

“I’ll give you the spare set to carry.”

Sachi broadly grinned. “Deal.”

Ellis stayed out of Brad’s way. He considered leaving the house altogether, but he wanted to see Mandaline again. He also wanted to be there if or when she really found a cause for Brad’s behavior.

Today, he suspected he could safely add darkening mood swings and behavioral changes to the list of symptoms. No mind reader, still he sadly predicted a trip to the VA hospital in Tampa loomed on the horizon. Especially if Brad’s behavior continued to deteriorate.

He also thought it might not be a bad idea for him to be there with Brad, just in case. He’d never believe Brad would ever willingly hurt someone if he was in his right mind.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t ignore the stories he’d read about Steven Corey and what happened to Julie. He refused to take risks. He suspected Corey’s wife and best friend never thought he would snap, either.

Julie certainly hadn’t, and it had cost her her life.

He couldn’t live with that kind of guilt.

The rain didn’t let up all afternoon. The house felt dark inside despite the lights being on and the blinds open.

Upstairs in the attic, he heard Brad muttering to himself, pacing, moving around. He hadn’t stayed downstairs very long. Just long enough to take his meds, eat something, and grab a shower.

Occasionally, he came down to the bathroom before heading up again. They had plumbing stubbed out in one corner of the attic to add a bathroom for him so he wouldn’t have to interrupt his work. But on a day like today, he was glad Brad had to come out of the attic.

When he heard Mandaline’s Element pull up at a quarter ’til six, he called up to Brad. “She’s here.”

It sounded like a herd of wildebeests thundering across the attic. Brad threw the attic door open and pounded down the stairs, a wild look in his eyes as he flew past Ellis and downstairs into the kitchen.

Oh…crap.

He followed Brad into the kitchen, where his friend had thrown the door open and now anxiously danced from foot to foot like a little kid in desperate need of a potty break.

As he walked up behind Brad he also realized Mandaline hadn’t come alone. Sachi, from her store, climbed out of the passenger seat.

Brad trotted down the steps and across the wet grass through the rain to Mandaline and engulfed her in a bear hug. He apparently said something to her because she smiled and said something back. Ellis grabbed the umbrella from next to the door and headed out into the rain to help them.

Ten minutes later, everything was inside and Brad wore a silly grin on his face.

Well, that’s better than his bad mood, I guess.

Brad was also soaked to the skin.

“Buddy, why don’t you go change clothes? You’re wet.”

“I’m okay!”

Ellis caught Mandaline’s eye and arched an eyebrow at her. Fortunately, she seemed to understand. She nodded before turning to Brad and taking his hands in hers.

“Sweetie, it’s okay. We’ll wait on you. Go change.”

“Okay!”

He ran out of the kitchen.

Mandaline cocked her head, listening as he pounded up the stairs. When she heard the door of Brad’s room open, she leaned in, a scowl on her features. “What the hell’s going on with him?” she whispered.

He shook his head and kept his voice low. “He’s been like this all day. He spent all night cooped up in the attic working. I’m really worried about him.”

Sachi spun toward the door but Mandaline caught her arm. “No,” Mandaline firmly said.

Sachi looked enraged. Or maybe scared.

Perhaps both.

“You said!” she hissed at Mandaline. “I’m getting it!”

“No, it’s okay.” She nodded to Ellis. “We have him here.” Sachi tried to jerk free, but Mandaline wouldn’t let go of her arm.

“I don’t care what you say, I’m getting it.”

“Getting what?” Ellis asked.

“Sachi brought her peacemaker,” Mandaline explained. “Her skeet gun.”

It didn’t take much for him to board her train of thought after what they’d just been through with Julie. He glanced up at the ceiling. They heard Brad opening and closing dresser drawers. “I have a concealed carry permit. I’ll go grab my .38 from my gun safe. Will that relax you? And I won’t leave him alone with either of you.”

Sachi frowned, looking from Mandaline to Ellis and back again. She hooked a thumb at him. “Is he acting normal?”

She shrugged. “He seems to be.”

Sachi leaned in close to look at him. “Then what the hell are you waiting for? Move your ass.”

He couldn’t suppress his smile as he took off. Despite her prickly nature, Sachi was fiercely loyal to and protective of Mandaline, of that there was no doubt. Maybe if he could win her over, he could win back Mandaline’s trust.

Mandaline watched Ellis hurry from the room. She released Sachi. “Happy?”

“No. Not until we’re done and out of here. Do you not feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“There is something super funky going on with Brad, and I’m not talking funky town, funky chicken, or play that funky music, white boy.”

“I don’t feel anything wrong with the house.”

“I didn’t say the house.” She tapped Mandaline on the forehead, between the eyes. “Open your ears, boss. I said with Brad. Even you noticed it.”

They both looked up as they heard Brad open his bedroom door again. Then the sound of muffled voices as Ellis said something to him. Followed by the sound of Brad moving around and even going up to the attic.

Ellis quickly returned, slightly winded and now wearing a baggy T-shirt over his jeans. “I sent him to turn on all the lights upstairs for us to delay him getting back down here.”

“You packing, chief?” Sachi asked.

He turned and lifted the hem of his shirt, exposing the holster clipped to his belt in the small of his back. He dropped his shirt and turned around to face them again. “Good enough?”

She nodded, satisfied. “Allrighty then.”

Brad returned a moment later, wearing a goofy grin. “All set!” He rushed over to Mandaline again and gave her another hug. She looked at Ellis, who shrugged at her what the fuck expression. This was the less-there side of Brad, for sure. But something did feel off, now that Sachi mentioned it. Not…well, not bad off, just…off.

Disconcerting, sure, but nothing dangerous or dark the way Julie had sensed with Steven Corey, according to what Matt and Sami had told her.

They put Brad to work stringing extension cords throughout the house, since he knew where all the working outlets were located. It also kept him out of their way and allowed Mandaline, Sachi, and Ellis to talk in low tones without Brad hearing.

Still, even in the deepening gloom due to the weather, Mandaline didn’t feel anything…negative. Not about the house. She felt no fear, not even the slightest bit of trepidation.

Nothing set her witchy senses off in the slightest.

She almost didn’t want to start with the EMF sensors. She suspected they wouldn’t find anything out of the ordinary in that department, either. Usually she was hypersensitive to high EMF levels. So was Sachi. Even an initial walk-through, first floor to the attic, didn’t ping any of Sachi’s internal warnings.

Mandaline desperately didn’t want the issue to be Brad’s already traumatized brain. She wanted something she could grab, hold on to, produce as evidence that they could fix.

Because I love him.

Hell, as crazy and irrational as she knew it was, she loved both of them. She also remembered how she thought she loved Carl, and the world of hurt that gave her. Until she felt for sure Ellis wouldn’t end up demanding changes she couldn’t make, that he would be able to fully accept all of her the way she was, and that he wouldn’t throw another hurtful hissy fit, she didn’t feel safe letting go of her heart to them.

As the evening wore on, she noted how Brad’s attitude and demeanor deteriorated as they focused on the attic.

Their equipment showed nothing. Yes, they’d have tape and digital audio to go through, but Mandaline knew deep in her heart that they wouldn’t produce anything but hours of zilch.

At eight they stopped for a break and Ellis called out for a pizza. Sachi got Mandaline alone in a corner in the living room on the pretense of needing help adjusting the infrared camera settings.

“The only thing I can see,” she whispered to Mandaline, “is that Brad is worse when upstairs in the attic.”

Mandaline slowly nodded, pretending to look at the camera. “I think you’re right. I don’t understand it.”

“I’m not feeling anything here.” She touched Mandaline’s hand and waited until she met her gaze. “I really think it’s something wrong with him. And…” She took a deep breath. “I think it’s medical, not supernatural.”

Mandaline pressed her lips together. “I know.” Even Sachi had relaxed as the evening progressed. While she stayed close to Ellis, she’d stopped acting flighty and on edge as it was obvious Brad’s behavior wasn’t violent or dangerous.

She’d also stopped asking Mandaline to let her get her gun.

“Do you still want to do the house blessing?” Sachi asked.

Mandaline curtly nodded.

They ate downstairs in the kitchen on folding chairs gathered around a card table. Mandaline took her time, not wanting dinner to end, knowing the closer they drew to the end of their evening, the closer they drew to sentencing Brad to another trip to the VA.

Closer to Mandaline being forced to admit she couldn’t help him.

By ten o’clock they’d done every scan, every test, used every piece of equipment in every room of the house. Brad had gone quiet, his expression dark as they finished in the attic.

“Well, Sachi and I are going to go ahead and perform the house cleansing ritual, if that’s okay?”

Ellis nodded. They all looked at Brad, who now sat on his sofa.

He didn’t speak.

“Are you all right, buddy?” Ellis asked him.

“Fine.” He stared at all of them, his arms crossed in front of them. “I’m not crazy!”

Mandaline’s heart wanted to break for him. She got up and walked over to him. “I know you’re not. No one’s saying you are.”

“There’s something in this house,” he insisted. “It’s the house doing it to me. I know we can find it. You’re just not trying hard enough!”

His words threatened to unleash her tears. She already felt helpless. She grabbed his hands and squeezed them. “We’re doing everything we can,” she said. “And we have a lot of video and audio footage to go through. Please, sweetie, you have to understand, there’s only so much we can do.”

He yanked his hands away and walked over to the window on the western end of the attic where he stared out at the dark.

Above them, another band of rain pounded harder on the roof.

Mandaline stood and returned to Sachi and Ellis on the other end of the attic. “Let’s get this done,” she quietly said.

Brad refused to come down from the attic to say good-bye. Ellis helped them pack their gear and load it in the Element. Once they were finished with all that by a little after eleven, they walked back to the kitchen for one final check to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.

Sachi patted Mandaline’s shoulder.

“I’ll wait in the car,” she said. “Take your time.”

“Okay, thanks.”

She stared up into Ellis’ blue eyes, which now looked as sad as she felt in her soul. Heartsick.

“Thank you for trying,” he said, sounding choked up. “You have no idea how much it means to me. How much I appreciate it.”

She didn’t know how to answer that. Instead, she stepped closer and put her arms around his neck, glad to feel his encircle her waist.

“What happens now?” she asked. “With Brad.”

He sighed. “I’m going to get his doctor on the phone in the morning and see about getting him admitted immediately. In-patient. They might decide they need to put him on different meds and have to keep him until they get him stabilized. I can’t put this off any longer and wait until he does something like hurt himself.”

“Or someone else.”

He slowly nodded. “He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body, but after…” He let out a sad sigh that sounded from the depths of his soul.

He didn’t have to finish his statement. She knew he meant after what happened to Julie.

Her fingers brushed through his hair, soft, silky strands she’d love to feel pressed against other parts of her anatomy.

But Brad’s well-being had to come first.

She rose up on her toes and kissed him. Not a chaste, brushing glance, and not a deep, tongue-sucking passionate affair, either.

A real one. A serious one. One to let him know.

She felt tears prickle her eyes. “I know he has to come first. I get it. I want that, too. I promise whatever you need from me, I’m there for you and for him. I’m not walking away from you two. But I have issues of my own and it’s going to take me some time to wade through those for us to make this work.”

He nodded and reached up to gently brush away her tears with his thumbs. “I know. I’m sorry I hurt you.” He leaned in and kissed her again. “I’m willing to take the time to make it right between us. I do love you. I don’t know how or why or when I fell in love with you, but I am. I also know that he’s right, that it won’t work until we’re all on the same page.”

Her heart already felt a little lighter with that. “So we’re in agreement? We get Brad through this, figure out what’s going on with him, and take things from there once he’s stable again?”

He even managed a sad smile. “You said ‘we.’”

“Yes?”

He hugged her tightly, his face buried in her hair. “That sounded so good. Thank you.”

She closed her eyes and imagined falling asleep in his embrace. Better, sandwiched between both their warm bodies. Hopefully that would happen one day. Tonight she knew it wasn’t the right time.

She stepped away and gave him a smile. “Love you.”

He sounded relieved. “Love you, too.”

She hurried through a fresh spate of rain to the Element. Sachi didn’t say a word, she just looked at Mandaline with her head cocked to the side.

“What?” Mandaline finally asked as she was heading down the driveway.

“You…” She hesitated. “You’re at peace. Yet you’re not with them. But you’re not sad. Your aura looks somewhat clearer now than it did when we started. And you’re sort of…happy? Okay, I’m confused. What’s up?”

She let out a deep breath. “We cleared the air. Me and Ellis. I’m willing to stick by them while we get Brad stabilized. Ellis is willing to wait me out until I can trust him not to hurt me again.”

Sachi slowly nodded, but even in the light from the dashboard Mandaline could make out her pleased grin.

“What?”

Sachi rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, boss.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” She settled back in her seat. “Nothing at all. Lucky bitch.”