“I did,” Michael said. “So did Nate and Ava.”
Kaleb put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. I tried not to stare at his chest. “Ava? Why did you have to bring the Shining?”
“The Shining?” I asked.
“Stephen King reference,” Michael said to me. To Kaleb, he said, “Because Ava’s the one who answered the phone. She came to get me.”
“Came to get you?” Kaleb frowned and opened his eyes to squint at us. “Where were you?”
Michael pulled me forward to stand beside him. “With the angel. This is Emerson.”
Kaleb sat up quickly, turning three shades of green before grasping the blanket tightly around his waist, leaping up from the couch, and making a run for the door.
I looked up at Michael. “Okay.”
We walked up the stairs as I tried to ignore the sound of retching coming from the downstairs bathroom, glad I’d skipped breakfast. “Great first impression.”
“He’s really not that bad.” Michael’s blinds were open and sunshine filled his room. “That’s not true. He’s worse than this sometimes.”
“I meant me, not him. You told him my name, and he ran to the bathroom to throw up. You don’t have to explain his behavior. Who am I to judge?”
“In the past six months I’ve watched him go from nice guy to hard-ass.” Michael sat down in his desk chair and put his head in his hands. “It was bad enough when Liam died, but then his mom …”
“Got sick,” I supplied.
“It was more than that.” He hesitated before raising his head. “After Liam died, she … tried to kill herself.”
I swallowed. Really hard. “Wow.”
“Luckily, she didn’t succeed. Grace has been in a coma ever since. For a while she had private nurses around the clock. Landers allowed her to stay at the Hourglass house.”
“That’s why Kaleb stayed,” I said, finally understanding why he would remain in the same house with the man he suspected of killing his father. “To watch out for his mom.”
“Right.” Michael’s face was troubled. “But her doctor suggested a long-term care facility. She’s being moved today.”
“That sucks.” I knew way too much about long-term care facilities. I wondered if Kaleb did. If he knew what he’d have to deal with when he visited.
“That sucks,” he agreed. “Kaleb used to be so different, so focused. He was a champion swimmer. The pool you saw at the Hourglass was put in for him.”
That explained the swimmer’s body, especially the shoulders. And the six-pack.
Eight-pack.
My edit button worked for once, and I kept my mouth shut. I pulled myself up to sit on the desk, the square edge scraping against my jeans. “You never told me what his ability is. Can you?” “I might as well,” he said, settling back in his chair. “He won’t. Do you know what an empath is?”
“I know what empathy is.”
Michael picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end rhythmically on his desk. “There’s a difference. An empath is supernaturally in tune with other people, sometimes whether he wants to be or not. Empaths aren’t held by time or space, so they can feel the emotions of anyone, anywhere, in any time. But Kaleb mostly feels the emotions of people he would otherwise connect with in some way. He can read me because he’s like my brother.”
“Why did he call Ava ‘the Shining’?”
“Have you read the book?”
“No, but I’ve read about it, and the movie.” I avoided horror, especially horror that involved ghosts and psychopaths. I was exceedingly grateful for the Internet, the easily accessible plot synopsis, and the fact that it allowed me to consume popular culture in an informed but distanced way. “Ava doesn’t keep an ax in her room or write on doors with lipstick, does she?”
He gave me a look. “Kaleb has a thing about nicknames. He claims Ava’s mind is just as fractured as the dad in the book, and that she’s just as resentful of authority. She tends to do whatever she wants to do whenever she wants to do it.”
“Are all Kaleb’s nicknames that involved?”