Chapter One

 

Celeste stood in her late sister’s living room, trying not to breathe through her nose. The apartment stank like a pile of used jockstraps and looked as if it had been worked over by a team of Tasmanian devils. On crack.

Well, she’d definitely broken into the right rathole.

She stood there awkwardly, trying to decide what to do next. Why had she even come here? As a sort of final goodbye, she guessed. To make it real. Maybe to grab a picture or a memento of Jennifer to remember her by.

She held a pile of newspapers in her hand. She’d picked them up off Jennifer’s doorstep. The headline on the top one blared “Werewolf Fever Sweeps the Nation!” There was a blurry picture of a huge wolf-like creature, taken near a popular camping spot in Idaho. Supposedly, there had been several other recent sightings of “werewolves” around the country over the past few months, and a couple of people had managed to get pictures with their smartphones. Werewolves were the new Bigfoot.

Any other time, she would have found that hilarious. Today, she was moving in a haze of sorrow and anger at her twin sister’s wasted life. Yes, she’d been estranged from her sister for years, and she’d been expecting this, bracing for it, for as long as she could remember, but now that it had finally happened, it still hurt.

Mechanically, she pulled a trash bag out of her pocketbook and stuffed the newspapers in. Then she started moving through the house, filling the bag as she went.

Why was she even bothering? No logical reason, but she detested squalor to the same level that her late sister had wallowed in it. Celeste hadn’t seen her twin in six years, but clearly nothing had changed.

Décor consisting of mountains of empty beer bottles on the floor and piles of pizza boxes stacked up on a coffee table with a broken leg. Check.

The reek of rotting food wafting in from the tiny kitchenette. Check.

Dirty clothes strewn across the floor as if they were trying to crawl out the door and escape. Check.

Small, dirty little boy crouched in the corner of the living room, watching her from under a thick mop of brown curls. Che— What the hell?

She choked back a startled yelp.

“Oh. Uh, hello,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

He met her gaze steadily. “That’s because I was hiding.”

Who the heck was this kid? Why was he in Jennifer’s house? This was no place for a child. Or a mammal. “Well, you’re very good at it.”

“What happened to your face?” he asked. She self-consciously touched the thick scar that slashed down from her left cheekbone, angling towards her mouth. She covered it with thick makeup whenever she was working her job as a security tester, because she needed to blend in, but the rest of the time she didn’t bother. It was just one of the things that she did to put a wall between herself and other people.

She brushed a lock of her thick, straight brown hair in front of the scar. “Long story,” she murmured.

He kept staring at her. What should she do now? Celeste had next to no experience with small children, other than having been one herself once. But then, she and Jennifer had never really experienced much of a childhood.

Food. Children liked food. God knows she’d have given her left kidney for regular meals when she was a child, if she’d known what a kidney was back then.

“Uh,” she said. “You hungry?” She fished in her purse.

“Yes.”

She produced a granola bar, unwrapping it for him. He came over and grabbed it and scarfed it down in three big, hungry bites. She knew how that felt.

He looked at her expectantly. Crud. She didn’t have any more food with her. “I’ll go check in the kitchen and see if there’s anything I can cook for you.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, in a voice that was far too adult.

“Okay. Can you last ten minutes? I drove by a pizza place just up the road that said it delivers in ten minutes or less. Greasy Gus.”

He lit up. “I love Greasy Gus!”

“Me too!” she said, oddly pleased that he had the same terrible taste in fast food. “I’ll order us some.”

“Sure. Get the Kitchen Sink. That has all the stuff on it. So you have money now?” He gave her a reproachful look. “You were gone for a long time, Mom. I don’t like it when you leave me at night. In the day is okay, but not at night.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest. This was Jennifer’s son. Jennifer had a son. She’d sent Celeste postcards with no return address a few times over the last few years, texted her from “unknown number” burner phones a couple of times…and never once mentioned a child.

And now he had mistaken her for his mother. Never mind that Jennifer had obviously been a suck mother, she’d been his mother, and he would have loved her with his whole heart, no matter how little Jennifer deserved it.

“Honey,” she said gently. “I’m not your mom. I’m your aunt. Jennifer and I…we were twins.”

“Sure.” He rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Pizza? Someone said something about pizza?”

“Yes. Of course.” She pulled out her cell phone and made the call.

Then she glanced at him as she kept stuffing things into garbage bags. “Honey, I’m really, really sorry. But it’s true. I’m your Aunt Celeste.”

“Okay. Your name is Celeste.” He brightened. “Remember when we were in Nevada, hiding out from the bad man, and your name was Bambi? I like Celeste better. Bambi was a boy deer.”

Flipping great. Jennifer had dragged her son through a childhood exactly like hers and Celeste’s. This was why Celeste was never, ever having children. The Hennessy women were just not meant to be mothers.

“Honey. I’m not your mother, honest. I’m your Aunt Celeste. Your mother is… I got a phone call and…” She blinked hard and tried not to cry.

Woman up, Celeste. Why should she even cry? After a lifetime of Jennifer drinking, taking drugs, lying, stealing, and dragging down everyone who got close to her, she was gone. Celeste had always known this day would come.

But her throat was so tight she could hardly breathe, and her eyes were burning. She turned her back on the little boy and wiped at her eyes with her sleeves.

He grabbed an empty pizza box and started stuffing it into the bag she was holding.

“What’s my new name going to be?” He was avoiding her gaze now. Worried. Afraid she’d insist that she wasn’t his mother.

“What name do you want?”

“Oh, I get to pick?” He finished ramming the pizza box in the bag and brushed his hair out of his face. “My name was Jeffrey when I was born. I liked that name. Can I have it again?”

“Of course you can. But really, Jeffrey, we need to talk. Your mother—”

He dropped the beer can he’d just picked up, clapped his hands over his ears, and said “La, la, la, la”, very loudly. His smile had vanished, and he was glaring at her.

Okay. She wouldn’t push it, because he wasn’t going to believe her. Not surprising. If history was any indicator, Jennifer had probably lied to her son all the time. Some people hummed or fidgeted or compulsively tapped their fingers; Jennifer lied. It was a reflex.

What to do now? She didn’t know how to deal with a normal child, much less a damaged, heart-broken one.

Well, first things first.

An hour later, he was full of pizza, and she’d cleaned the living room and kitchen with his help and her box of cleaning supplies. The air reeked of lemon Pledge and Comet, but it was better than the stink of rotting food. All the trash was sitting in bags outside the back door. She’d scrubbed Jeffrey’s dirty face and hands before he ate.

That was one good thing about Jennifer living in tiny crud-boxes; it hadn’t taken long to clean. Garbage tossed out back, laundry in the washing machine…

Jeffrey was looking at her with a critical eye. “You have pizza sauce on your face.”

“Well, silly me!” She ducked into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. There were no towels. She blotted her face with the hem of her T-shirt.

A scream from the kitchen sent her running. A woman’s scream.

The front door was open. A short, stout woman with glasses was clutching her bleeding hand and backing away from Jeffrey with a look of horror on her face. The woman wore a gray pantsuit and was clutching a big black purse in front of her like a shield. Celeste looked at Jeffrey.

His teeth were long and pointy. Like fangs.

Vampire? There was no such thing as vampires, but there was also no denying those fangs.

Through his thick mop of uncut hair, she saw pointy ears tufted with fur. Not a vampire, then. Something else.

Jeffrey ran and hid behind Celeste. “Mom! That lady tried to take me! She tried to carry me out the door!”

“He bit me!” the woman shrieked, pointing at him. “I’m with Child Protective Services, and he bit me! And he growled at me! Like a dog!”

“Hey, if you don’t want to get bitten, don’t trespass on my property and don’t try to take my kid!” Celeste shouted, furious. Now she’d just made it worse, implying that she was Jeffrey’s mom. How badly was she messing him up for life?

But she didn’t want to give this woman any excuse to take Jeffrey. Apparently CPS hadn’t heard about the fatal car accident yet. They didn’t know Jennifer was dead. Celeste had no legal claim on him, not without going to court, and in the meantime he’d be in foster care. That was not going to happen.

The woman glared at her. “My name is Rhona Millhouse. I have a right to be here. I received complaints from the neighbors that this child was being left alone and the house was so dirty it was a hazard.”

Celeste gave the woman a menacing smile and gestured around the room. “I’m right here; he’s not alone. The house is clean, which you can see. We just had pizza for dinner. The box is sitting on the table, right in front of your face. So you tried to kidnap my child with no justification whatsoever. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out, and you’ll think twice before you try to kidnap anyone else’s children.”

Rhona gave an indignant huff. “I’ll be back, with the police and a court order. If you don’t want to be arrested, you’ll give him to me now.”

“If you don’t want to wear your nose on the other side of your face, you’ll walk out that door now.” Celeste pointed at the front door.

“Hmph. Threats of violence. Inappropriate atmosphere for a child.” Rhona looked her up and down dismissively. Her haughty gaze took in the knife scar on Celeste’s face, the cheap leather jacket, the scuffed shoes.

“This isn’t over. We are taking the boy into custody, for his own good.” And she turned and flounced out.

“Mom,” Jeffrey said, his voice choked with panic.

Celeste put her hand on his head, stroking his hair. His ears were normal now. “She isn’t taking you.”

“We’re leaving, right? Can we go? Right now?” His voice rose with every syllable. His fingers dug into her arm, surprisingly strong. He’d leave bruises.

What is he? She didn’t know a lot about kids, but she knew grown men whose grip wasn’t that strong. She ran into them from time to time when she was breaking into places for the security firm that employed her.

Jeffrey was something…special.

It didn’t matter. He was her nephew. Her flesh and blood. He was a scared little boy. She would do whatever it took to keep him safe.

She heaved a sigh. She only had one option, and she really, really hated to do it. But she would do anything rather than let CPS take Jeffrey. She’d been in and out of the system her whole life, and all her experiences with Child Protective Services had been bad. This little boy was looking at her with love and trust and hope. He’d run to her for protection, and she wouldn’t let him down.

“Jeffrey,” she said. “We need to pack up your stuff fast. We’re going for a ride.”

He shrugged. “What stuff? All I have is what I’m wearing.”

Celeste felt anger bubbling up inside her. Jennifer, I swear to God, I wish you could come back to life so I could kill you all over again.