Page 34 of What Happens at Nightfall

“It’s like cement in your arteries,” said Melinda repressively.

“Tasty, tasty cement,” Adam said wistfully.

“I’ll take the artery clogger,” said Jess hastily. “Two slugs, please.”

Melinda looked at her askance. “There’s only four ounces of coffee in there.”

“Sugar is good for shock,” said Adam quickly. He was going to have to have a word with his daughter later about not yucking other people’s yum. “Have three slugs.”

“Two is fine. Oh, bless you,” Jess said, as Melinda handed her a ceramic mug with “It’s Not Hoarding If It’s Plants” on one side, and a buff guy in gardening gloves and sunglasses holding gardening implements on the other. Jess held it out and looked at the picture critically and then at Adam. “That looks a bit like you.”

Melinda snorted. “Hot gardener?”

Adam could feel his cheeks warming. “It’s the green gloves,” he said modestly.

“Also the hair. That bit that falls down over your brow . . .” Adam’s hand went automatically to the offending lock. Jess gave her own head a little shake. “I’m sorry. I’m so tired I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. I had the most insane dreams last night.”

“Really?” Adam watched as Jess lifted hot gardener to her lips, tilting the cup. There was something strangely erotic about it—which was clearly a sign he was equally sleep-deprived. “Um—me too. I also had weird dreams last night.”

Not to mention the ones he was having right now.

Jess grimaced at him over the cup. Hot gardener smirked at Adam from just above her cleavage. “Did yours have evil Cookie Monster?”

A thud from behind them made them both jump.

Ben stood in the doorway, his face chalk white under his exuberant dark hair. His backpack had hit the tile floor with all the weight of multiple textbooks and a hardback Harry Potter.

“Did you say Cookie Monster?” Ben’s voice was barely audible.

“Drat,” said Jess, and looked with dismay at a large patch of spilled coffee that was rapidly staining her pale dress brown.

“Here.” Adam lunged forward with a napkin, mopping ineffectually at her lap. The coffee was seeping through the thin fabric, molding it to her thigh. Adam was swabbing at an oversize peony when Jess caught his hand.

“It’s okay. I never liked this dress anyway.”

Adam was, he realized, kneeling in front of her, at an angle that put him pretty much face down in her, er, peony. He tried not to think of Georgia O’ Keeffe, but it was impossible. There were times when a flower was not just a flower.

“Um, here.” Adam thrust the napkin into her hand. “Ben, do you remember Jess? Jess is, er, helping us with something.”

Adam plunked back down in his chair, feeling entirely at a loss. Leaving aside the fact that he’d briefly forgotten Ben’s existence, how did he explain to Ben that his older sister might have—did have—a demented Gilded Age stalker with a demon fetish? The mind boggled. Everything boggled.

He fell back on the inconsequential. “I should have warned you not to take Cookie Monster’s name in vain in front of Ben. Cookie Monster has always been his favorite stuffy.”

“It was just a weird dream,” said Jess. “I don’t know where Cookie Monster came from.”

Adam twisted around toward Ben, who was still standing there, hunched like a turtle taking refuge in his shell. “Are you hungry? Do you want a snack?”

Ben shook his head, grabbing his backpack by one strap, not meeting Adam’s eyes. “I’m going to go up. Homework.”

“Before you go—there’s something you should know about.” Ben’s steps dragged to a stop. Adam looked appealingly at Jess, not sure what to say. “I don’t want you to get worried. It’s not really anything to do with you. And it doesn’t involve Cookie Monster in any way.”

“I have a stalker,” said Melinda, giving her father a look that dared him to make something more of it. She’d clearly decided to brazen it out. She looked at Jess’s cup with the appraising eye of a girl who had worked one afternoon as a barista for a charity fundraiser. “Refill?”

Jess hesitated for a moment and then handed her cup to Melinda. “Oh, the hell with it. Why not? It’s not like I’m going to sleep tonight anyway.”

Adam looked at Ben, whose face was as tightly shut as a locked school, and at his daughter, presiding over the coffee machine as if she were hosting the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. And the woman at his kitchen table, a patch of her skirt transparent with coffee. “Do we have decaf pods?”

“Thin end of the wedge, Dad.”