Depart the Darkness Read online

Chapter 9

  “Here it is,” said Miles, as he carefully carried the shallow, oblong baking dish into the puppy nursery.

  I scooted over to make room.

  “There you go, kids,” said Miles, setting it down.

  They didn’t wait for a formal invitation, they went for the food! All twelve fat little golden puppies eagerly explored moistened puppy food for the first time.

  “Oh my goodness, if they weren’t so roly-poly, I’d think they were half starved!” I said.

  “No kidding,” Miles laughed softly, as he picked up Ed, and made room for him between Lacey and Spaz. “I’m glad the closet isn’t carpeted.”

  “Me too! They’re making a mess.”

  The puppies put their front paws in the dish, some put all their paws in the dish. They got mush all over themselves, the floor, and—it was a mess! But it was a cute mess.

  After the puppies were finished, we loaded them into the old-fashioned baby buggy and covered it with a heavy wool blanket. It was perfect for now. It held them all, and they couldn’t get over the sides. It also had wheels.

  “I’m so glad John and Annette found this while they were visiting his family over the weekend,” I said, as Miles wheeled it into the elevator. “I’m glad the women in his family like visiting antique stores.”

  “I’m glad they found a way to fit it in their vehicle, too,” said Miles.

  We reached the ground floor. Instead of heading toward the front doors, we headed for the back.

  The outdoor world was white, as it always is this time of year. Not the best season out of the four, for house-training puppies, but, you do what you have to.

  Miles followed the sidewalk, then wheeled over the hard-packed snow to the temporary structure that was our destination. Inside, the floor was soft earth. The heaters all along the base of the walls warmed the ground and the air, which kept our puppies comfortable. As soon as a puppy relieved itself, we praised it and put it back in the buggy.

  “So what do you think?” Miles asked.

  “I think this is way better than setting them out there in the snow, or letting them think our suite is one great big puppy litter box. I’m glad you thought of this.”

  “For the next five weeks, we’re going to be kept busy carting puppies outside. What do you say we enlist our friends to help, I’m pretty sure we’ll need to leave the Lodge on occasion, and I don’t want to be inconsistent in their training.”

  “An excellent idea. Good girl, Fidget! What a good girl!” I praised her, then picked her up and cuddled her. Miles put his arm around me, and pet Fidget also.

  “I’m relieved we made it out here in time. And surprised,” Miles said. He was looking at the baby buggy beside us, so I looked too.

  “What do you mean?” I wondered.

  “After what I read, I expected to have a buggy to clean and several blankets to sanitize.”

  “You didn’t think they could make it out here?”

  “No. I didn’t. I was mentally preparing to move to the ground floor and as close to the backdoor, as possible. I thought we’d have to, or else go the way of Xander’s aunt, and buy puppy pads and throw rugs in bulk.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to do either of those things,” I said, shuddering at the thought. “I love our suite. I love our throw rugs, too. And cleanliness. I wouldn’t want to give up any of that! Are you sure you weren’t on one of those websites where they make everything look way worse than it actually is? Because our puppies didn’t have any trouble at all.”

  “No, I don’t think the things I read are exaggerations. Not unless all the puppy house-training web designers and bloggers got together, and coordinated their exaggerating. According to every source available, what goes in, goes right out, with very little time in between.”

  “Well, they’re Trixie’s puppies, after all,” I said, for lack of a better explanation.

  “Good boy, Ed,” Miles praised him.

  “Good boy, Spaz!” I said right after, and Miles quickly scooped up both puppies and gave them a good petting before returning them to the buggy. I’d help, but… my arms were full, and Fidget was asleep. Spaz and Ed weren’t, though. They were wrestling in the buggy now, disturbing their drowsy siblings.

  “Settle down, guys,” Miles said, separating the two rambunctious pups. “At this rate, you’ll find a way to fling yourselves out of there.”

  “I guess they didn’t hear from the experts that they’re supposed to sleep now,” I commented.

  “I’m not sure how much help the experts are going to be after all,” Miles replied, praising one of our service dog trainees before returning him to the buggy. “We need to name these seven, if Trix doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, we do. Do you think this is a sign that Trixie’s puppies are different… like really different?” I wondered.

  “They don’t have an ordinary mother,” he said, adding another puppy to the buggy. “Dogs are smart, but I expect these pups will have an… I don’t know, understanding, that isn’t common. Trix wouldn’t assign seven of them to be future service dogs, if she didn’t know they’re exceptional. As for supernatural abilities… that, I don’t know.”

  Miles put his arm around me again, and we both pet Fidget as she lay asleep in my arms.

  “Has Trixie said anything about her yet?” I asked.

  “Not a word. Do you want me to come right out and ask?”

  “No,” I sighed. “I’m too afraid she’ll say Fidget is going to go live somewhere else, when she’s old enough.”

  “You’d rather wait until the last second to find out for sure,” he said.

  “Yeah, otherwise I’ll be pre-grieving her loss.”

  “Aren’t you doing that now? You’re pre-grieving a loss that may not even happen.”

  “I guess…”

  “You’re not sparing yourself anything,” Miles said gently. I wasn’t thinking about puppies anymore, and I don’t think he was either. “If we experience loss, we won’t experience it any less by anticipating and dreading it. We did a good job of putting to good use every second we had, those last two weeks together before you set me free. We were both sad, we had good reason to think we knew what the outcome would be. I was absolutely sure I wouldn’t see you again outside of heaven, and I know you were too. But we did an excellent job of appreciating our time together while we still had it. Would you have been better off during the time we were apart, if we spent those last two weeks grieving? I don’t think so. After I was gone, you would have regretted the loss of that time, and wish we spent it making good memories together while we still had the chance.”

  “Yeah, I would’ve,” I said, brushing away a few tears. “So would you.”

  “No… I would’ve spent it exactly the same way,” he disagreed. “Worrying myself sick that you were out with some other guy.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. Of all the things to worry about! As if that would ever happen.

  “Laugh at my suffering,” he said, but there was laughter in his eyes, too. “I was afraid you’d start to notice Nate. Spring was coming, after all. I knew he and his crew would be at the estate practically every day. I thought about telling Grandma Polly I wanted the garden to grow wild again, like it did before you took over and changed everything…”

  I laughed so hard, I was surprised Fidget didn’t wake up. I tucked her back in the buggy with the rest, and hugged Miles. He let me laugh until I was through, then grew serious and picked up the conversation again.

  “When it comes to having kids together, let’s not grieve a loss that may never come. We have no reason to believe that it will.”

  “I’m so scared of that, I’m sure that’s what’s going to happen…” I said, then stopped in surprise as I listened to the truth.

  I suddenly felt better.

  “It’s just a feeling, though! It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s true and what isn’t, and I don’t know what the future will hold. Fear is the only reason to believe we
can’t, and that’s not a reason at all.”

  “That is an excellent point. Here’s another. Grieving a loss that may never come, won’t spare us grief if it does. But it will rob us of the joy we could have today.”

  “I don’t want to do that. And you’re right, we managed to make the most of our time when we had every reason to believe grief and loss was coming. I don’t have a reason to believe that we won’t have kids when the time is right.”

  We hugged each other, and Miles kissed me. Then he glanced over my shoulder, then back at me, and smiled.

  “When the time is right, we will,” Miles said with certainty.

  “You’re telling the truth,” I said in amazement, as I looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “Trix just told me,” he replied, and I whipped around. Trixie was sitting there.

  “Do you know everything?” I exclaimed.

  Trixie looked to the side and thought for a second, then looked back and shook her head.

  “Well you know more than anyone else I know!” I said. “I can’t believe this! Do you know everything about the future?”

  Trixie shook her head again, and looked at Miles.

  “She knows what she needs to know… and tells us what we need to hear.”

  “And that’s about all, huh,” I laughed, and dropped to my knees so I could hug her. “Thank you, Trixie, for telling Miles what you did.”

  Trixie put her paw on one of my shoulders and her chin on the other, and hugged me too. I pet her for a minute, then stood and put my arms around Miles again. Trixie smiled at us both.

  “Thank you, Trix,” Miles said, leaning over a little to pet her. She looked happy, and proud. Then she looked surprised, and shot me a look. I looked back, then looked at Miles as he smiled.

  “What?”

  “She’s surprised you didn’t already know Fidget’s home is with us. After all, she named her after you.”

  I laughed with relief.

  “So you asked her?”

  “Of course. I wanted to know.”

  “Would you have told me if she said no?”

  “I have no idea, and you know that’s the truth,” he replied, and I laughed again. “I probably would’ve discouraged becoming too attached. Not that it would do any good.”

  “It wouldn’t,” I said happily, carefully lifting Fidget out of the buggy so I could cuddle her some more. “I’m so glad she’s staying!”

  “So am I,” Miles smiled. “Today’s full of good news. We need to get these kids back to the nursery though, or we’ll be late for lunch.”

  “We don’t want that,” I said. I kissed Fidget’s forehead, then gently set her back in the buggy. “John and Annette have waited long enough to hear the details of this weekend, and I feel the need to process what we learned. We’ve barely had a minute to do that.”

  I looked around, and saw that Trixie was no longer with us. As well as she hid her abilities before, she wasn’t hiding them at all now. Not from us, anyway. She often popped in and out.

  Covering the buggy with the blanket once again, we left the warm structure for the cold, snow covered outdoors. We returned to the warmth of the Lodge, and I breathed deeply as we passed through the lobby. The scent of alligator juniper filled the room, as it crackled in the fireplace. There were harder woods which would burn longer, but they wouldn’t smell this good.

  After carefully depositing our mostly sleeping puppies in the puppy nursery, we quietly closed the door behind us, and proceeded to Elizabeth’s.

  Our Lodge’s restaurant was packed today, and judging by the number of guests seated inside the double doors, there was a wait for tables.

  “Maybe we should have lunch in our suite today,” I said quietly. “It would free up our private dining room.”

  “You may be right,” Miles answered.

  The maître de saw us coming, and gestured for a server.

  Miles held up his hand to stop him. Not in a supernatural, superpower sort of way, but in a “wait” sort of motion.

  “Looks like a lot of hungry people here today,” Miles greeted him, as he shook the man’s hand.

  “Yes, quite a crowd,” our maître de replied, glancing around with concern.

  “Is this all one group? They appear to know each other,” Miles noticed.

  “Yes, it is. They did not see the benefit of making reservations ahead of time,” our maître de said, and made a strong effort not to sound disapproving. “We shall fit them in, but not as soon as they would like, I am certain.”

  “Have our friends arrived for lunch yet?” Miles asked, and I leaned to the side and tried to get a good look through the window of our private dining room. It was impossible to see from this distance, especially with so many diners, waiters, and a baby grand piano in the way.

  “Not yet,” the man said hopefully, anticipating Miles’ instructions.

  “Then make use of our dining room for today,” he said. “We’ll order in, and have our friends join us.”

  “Very good, sir,” the man said. He looked relieved.

  “It’s just as well,” I pointed out, as we turned and walked back out into the lobby. “We can talk more freely without having to stop for tea refills every few minutes.”

  We saw our friends enter the lobby together, and met them halfway.

  “We’re having lunch in our suite today,” Miles said, and our friends looked past us at Elizabeth’s.

  “Good idea,” said Annette, impressed by the crowd. “What’s the occasion?”

  “It’s a little early to be celebrating Valentine’s Day…” John said, wondering.

  “That’s going to be a busy weekend,” Jenny realized, noticing the Valentine themed merchandise in the Lodge’s gift shop, as we passed by on our way to the elevator.

  “Will you have to work that evening?” Xander asked. He looked concerned.

  “I shouldn’t…” Jenny said, thinking.

  “You won’t,” I contributed. Xander looked relieved. He wasn’t planning to propose, but whatever he was planning, it wouldn’t be derailed by that.

  The elevator arrived, and carried us to our suite.

  Chip, Night, and Pandora were all sprawled in front of the fireplace, waiting hopefully. Miles obliged them and started a fire burning, while Xander put the leaf in the dining room table, and John retrieved the two extra chairs. I placed our orders, and Jenny and Annette set the table. Trixie appeared and joined the rest of the kids in front of the warm fire, and shortly after, lunch arrived.

  “The buggy worked out great,” I remembered, as I removed dish covers and passed around the food.

  “Oh, good!” Annette said. “That was the neatest antique shop. It’s called Leighton’s Antiques. You should go if you get a chance.”

  She was serious, so I didn’t laugh, but Xander did. Annette looked at him, puzzled at first, then she laughed too.

  “That’s right, when you go antiquing, you go from one storage room to the next in your enormous castle.”

  “Yeah, and there is a baby buggy or two or ten,” I replied. “But neither of us thought of using one to cart puppies, and if we did, it would’ve required a trip back to the estate to get it. So thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” John said. “Feel free to mention what you found out this weekend, though. We want more than the gist of it.”

  “We’ll tell you what we learned this morning, too,” I said.

  “What? What did you find out?” Xander asked, stopping mid-bite.

  “We discovered that one of Elliott Reams’ friends is an employee of ours,” Miles said. “We visited his place of work this morning, and came up with a reason to speak to him. We managed to lead the conversation in Elliott’s direction. What we learned supports what Jeff and Julia told us. Elliott was well liked. If he had an enemy, none of them knew of it. They didn’t believe he was depressed, and certainly not suicidal.”

  “A lot of people received a suicide note emailed from Ellio
tt’s account though, including this friend,” I interjected.

  “There was something about the note that struck him as ‘off,’” Miles said.

  “It sounded like someone else wrote it?” Jenny asked.

  “It sounded too much like Elliott wrote it,” I replied.

  “How is that?” John wondered.

  “Phrases and words he often used were overused in the note,” Miles said. “For example, Anika often prefaces sentences with ‘well,’ uses the word ‘wow,’ and says ‘oh my goodness’ a lot. Don’t get self-conscious, honey, I think it’s cute how you do that. It’s how she talks, but that’s not how she writes.”

  “Well oh my goodness, wow, I can’t believe you pointed that out!” I pretended to be shocked, and he smiled.

  “So it would be like Xander, including the word ‘man’ over and over in a note,” Jenny said.

  “Right, and that’s one of the specific words Elliott’s friend mentioned,” Miles said.

  “Aww, man, I don’t do that…” Xander waved them both away, then smiled. “Just watch it, the rest of us’ll figure out some phrases or mannerisms to tease you two about.”

  “Oh my goodness, we should!” I said enthusiastically. “Wow, that would be so much fun!”

  “Man, we totally will,” Xander replied.

  He got a couple of napkins thrown at him by his future wife, and my husband. Miles gave me a one-armed hug.

  “Didn’t mean to start anything. Moving on, now. According to Jeff, Julia, and Elliott’s friend, he was ambitious and looking for a way to profit. Unless he kept it well-hidden, he gambled on investments though, not sports. Julia said he was expecting something to pay off big the day he died, but the other two didn’t say anything about that.”

  “He expected to be paid off that night?” John asked, and I looked at him funny. Then me and Miles looked at each other funny.

  “But—for what?” I wondered.

  “What?” John asked, confused. Xander looked like he got it, but Jenny and Annette didn’t.

  “Maybe it’s nothing,” I quickly said.

  “But, it could be something,” Miles said slowly. “The way you asked the question, presents a possible scenario.”

  “He could’ve been on Alpine Ridge that night, expecting to collect the money he told Julia about!” Xander said.