Harder To Love Than Blood

The moment I left the house it felt as though I had eyes on me; the back of my neck prickled, that almost primal sense of awareness kicked up. I looked around at the other houses. Nothing but the occasional working adult off to their morning shifts.

Shrugging it off as a subsequence for last night’s fiasco, I turned down the street and walked. A few blocks down, East 7th Avenue fed into a small urban district with old houses that had been remodeled into new stores, intermediated by parks and golf courses. The stores were nice little businesses that had the sense of community. A decent place to start work.

The first two shops I went to weren’t hiring thanks to it being game season with the schools and the sports-zealous teens needing pocket money on game nights.

I lucked out with the third shop I came to, hitting jackpot with a HELP WANTED sign in the bookstore’s window, though there had yet to be a name for the shop painted on it.

The gold bell above the door clanked as I walked in. The moment I walked in, their quest for workers–as oppose to everywhere else being fully staffed–was made obvious by the soft smell of freshly dried paint. The store was brand new. There were boxes sitting on shelves, opened and holding books awaiting organization. The sight of all those glossy spines was enough to make my mouth water.

“Can I help you?”

The feminine voice made me jump despite how gentle it tried to be. I turned to find a woman behind a halfway-finished best-sellers display, a box of Janet Evanoviches in her arms.

She laughed softy. “I’m sorry to scare you. Are you looking for something in particular?”

I opened my mouth then closed it, then remembered why I was there. “Are you still hiring?” I made a vague gesture toward the sign as a reason for my question.

The woman smiled, bright blue eyes crinkling in the corners. “Yes, I am.” She put the box on the floor beside the display table, making her extra-long black hair sweep the floor before she straightened. “Have you ever worked in retail before?” she asked as she moved past me and behind the counter.

I bit my lip. “No,” I admitted, adding quickly, “But I’m a fast learner if I watch you. And I’m pretty good with knowing books and authors.”

She smiled with those friendly blue eyes as she pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it to me. “That’s great. We’re not entirely up and running yet so I’ll have time to teach you the cash register. Just fill out that application form,”–she waved a negligent hand at it–“Business purposes,” she explained. “Just fill it out and I’ll give you a try. See how well you do.”

I smiled back at her in thanks and moved down to the end of the counter, pulling out my pen and started filling out the form.

The top of the form read Ink Leaf Bookshop. All of the questions were pretty standard (i.e., Name, DoB, SSN, prison record–if any, of course–previous places of employment, etc.) but the “Under 18? Y or N” got me chewing my lower lip again.

I looked around for the lady again and found her almost done with the best-sellers display. “Umm.” I faltered with not having gotten her name.

“Gladys,” she answered to the unasked question.

“Gladys. Do you hire under eighteen?”

“As long as you have parental consent.” She pursed her lips and gave a shrug, that universal Well, shucks, but that’s the way it is gesture.

I pursed my lips and grunted in that universal Well, shucks, but that just sucks gesture.

I sighed resignedly. “Okay, I’ll just have my brother sign off on it. He got custody yesterday.”

Gladys gave a look as though it sounded like an interesting topic to hear about, but she made no comment. I was really starting to like the woman.

She nodded. “Okay, you can go ahead and take it home. Make sure he signs it. Then just bring it back. I can really use some help with shelving.”

I smiled and thanked her, and all but ran out the shop. The job was an almost guarantee.

Pausing just long enough to scribble down the store’s address in the little pocket notebook (I knew that thing would come in handy) I retraced my footsteps and was home-free on East 7th.

I was less than a block away from the house when that creepy feeling in the back of my neck came back. I felt like someone was walking over my grave. It was bizarre and frightening and it pissed me the hell off. Kicking up my pace, I hot-footed it to the house. Just two more front yards to go and I'll be at the door.

One and a half.

Just one more.

“Excuse me.”

Dammit!

Spinning on my heel, I came face-to-chest with a mass of park blue polo.

“Oh, sorry to scare you,” the man said, voice deep and scratchy, like a chain-smoker. He even had the smell of nicotine coming off of him like some kind of aromatic aura.

Stepping back and looking up—and I mean way up—I found deep-set brown eyes in a harsh face lined with years of troubles. He had a day's worth of growth prickling his cheeks and dimpled chin, thick eyebrows over his nearly-black eyes, and dark smudges under those pitiless caves like he hadn't seen a good night's sleep in a long time.

Nevertheless, he smiled a less-than-white smile. Tobacco stains are not pretty. “My name is Carter, Carter Malone.” He held out his hand to me. Hesitantly, I took it. And his large hand nearly crushed mine.

I made a slight pained sound. Malone's eyes widened as he pulled his hand away quickly. “Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean that.” He fidgeted, not knowing what to do with his hands as I held mine against me.

“Yeah. Sure.” What was it with people crushing me just because I'm only half their size? A third, in Malone's case. He cleared his throat harshly, like trying to soften sandpaper. Just the sound made me wince at the phantom pain in my own throat.

“Look, I was just wondering if you know of any strange happenings last night. I'm a reporter, you see, and I've been hearing some talk about missing pets and such.”

“Strange happenings?” And then I narrowed my eyes at him. “Missing pets?” And next he's going to tell me that there are wild animals out around here and that some passerby saw a huge cat slinking through the shadows last night. I gave a mirthless laugh, shaking my head at simple stupidity. “Let me guess, Jonathan put you up to this.”

His heavy eyebrows drew down. “Excuse me?”

“Look, I don't have time for my brother's games. I'm pissed enough at him for the jokes he played last night. Now, if you'll excuse me.” I turned from him and stomped back towards the house.

The instant the door slammed shut behind me, I dropped the the floor and crab-walked to the edge of the window. Peeking up from underneath, I watched as Malone scanned the house with scrutinizing, narrowed eyes. He took out his cellphone and clicked a few buttons, but I didn't see him raise it to his ear. Probably texting Jonathan or something.

“What are we looking at?”

A jumped and squeaked at the voice that was suddenly right at my ear. Glaring, I turned my eyes to Clive, who looked much more alert than he did this morning. He gave me an amused little smile, just the slightest curve of his lips.

Blowing out a sigh, I turned my attention back to the man in our yard. “Just some buddy of Jonathan's, I guess.”

Clive's brows drew down as he squatted next to me, looking out over the bottom sill of the window as I was. Though he had to crouch lower because he was a good few inches taller than me.

“He doesn't look like he'd work in the photo industry.”

I raised a brow at him. “Photo industry?”

He nodded, leaning over to whisper, “Jonathan's an assistant photographer for a woman's magazine. Helps take pictures of all the models.”

I had to roll my eyes. “Figures.” He would have a profession where he got to ogle half-naked beauties all day long.

Finally Malone turned away and headed across the street to where a dinky old Corolla was parked. The sound of the door wrenching open was like sawing through a can of tuna, all metallic whining and groaning.

The car took off and I stretched myself up from the floor. Clive came out of his crouch with a lot more grace while my back pulled a Rice Krispies with the snaps, crackles, and pops.

“So, where's DJ?”

Clive looked up to the ceiling, as though he could see through it. “He's up in his room, I think.”

I nodded and headed off that way. But as I got to the stairs, Clive's voice stopped me.

“Hey, Amanda... Thanks. For this morning, I mean.”

I looked back at him in surprise. “You're my little brother, Clive. I'm supposed to take care of you.” I shrugged a shoulder. “It's part of my job.” And speaking of jobs...

I turned and headed up the steps, knocking on the door to my direct right at the top of the stairs.

“What is it, Amanda?” came the muffled reply.

I furrowed my eyebrows and opened the door. “How did you know it was me?”

He was sitting at a desk in a section of the room that was separated from the bed area by a tiny half-wall. In front of him was a glowing computer screen and he had a pair of glasses pushed up to his forehead, his thumb and forefinger rubbing at his eyes. “I heard the door slam. Figured it was either you or a Yeti.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, ha ha.” I pulled the application out and slipped it in front of him over the keyboard. “Just sign that and keep the peanut gallery commentary to yourself.”

DJ picked up the paper. “The Ink Leaf,” he read. Then he looked up at me. “You do realize that I could just refuse to sign it and then you're stuck at home after school instead of having a job that I don't agree with you getting. Right?”

“And you do realize that I could just forge your signature and cut to work straight out of school all by myself, right?”

He sighed and signed the paper. “At least it's at a bookstore so I don't have to worry about your literary education.”

I pulled the application out from under his hand and shrugged as I turned around. “I like new-age fiction more than educationally inclined literature.”

The last thing I heard was his groan as I closed the bedroom door.