Nearly Departed, Max Schlienger [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

or in the wrong mood, the entire act could fall apart. Although he suspected that Ms. Palin would be fairly gracious, he still had no desire to find out, although she hadn’t left him with much of a choice.

“Very well.” Dennis checked his watch. “Expect my call at seven. I look forward to speaking with you, Ms. Palin.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” came the reply, and the line promptly went dead. Dennis rummaged through his various pockets, but the notebook he usually carried was absent, having been left in his overcoat the night before. He made do with scribbling the woman’s name on a napkin, along with a bold number seven beneath it. Once finished, he stowed both the napkin and his phone, and stood up to leave.

The motion brought a man into view through the restaurant’s side window. That on its own was hardly noteworthy, since pedestrians were anything but rare in the city. Dennis was often one of them, although he didn’t count himself among the number who stopped to photograph sandwich shops, as this one seemed to be doing. Strangely enough, the man moved on as soon as Dennis spotted him, pulling a gray baseball cap down over his face.

Well, there were weirder things in the city than restaurant-watchers, and Dennis didn’t have time for any of them right now. He grabbed Alena’s food and hurried out the door, turning uphill as soon as he hit the sidewalk. It was a fairly short distance to Metro Moves Dance, the studio that Alena ran, although Dennis had to stop several times along the way and switch the hot container of soup from one hand to the other. By the time he arrived, the Styrofoam felt like a lump of molten iron, and he was grateful to see Alena rushing out to greet him.

“Hi,” he said as the door opened. “This is hot. Take it away.” He thrust the items forward, shaking his hands as they were freed from their burdens. After a moment of comical flapping, he noticed that Alena had been watching his antics with a look of amusement. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alena replied, shaking her head.

“I told you it was hot!”

“Yes,” she answered, lightly pressing the container against her cheek. “It’s downright scalding.” She held the door open with her hip, waiting for Dennis to step inside before moving towards the back of the room. The studio was deserted, although the lingering smell of air freshener indicated that Alena had just finished cleaning after a class. As they always were when he visited, Dennis’ eyes were drawn to the full-length mirror that adorned the entirety of one wall. Its presence always gave the room an occupied feeling, despite the fact that usually only he and Alena (and sometimes Antonio) were present for his visits. Alena’s reflection never bothered Dennis, but lately the sight of his own, for whatever bizarre reason, had become slightly unnerving. He did his best to ignore it as he followed Alena towards the door at the back of the studio.

The private office was unchanged from the last time Dennis had visited, and it still looked much more like someone’s living room than an administrative area. Only the presence of a small filing cabinet and an even smaller safe gave any indication that it was a place of business, and the rest of the space was furnished with a large red couch and two matching recliners. The desk in one corner, usually bare save for Alena’s laptop computer, was piled high with notebooks and scraps of paper, all of which were shoved to the side as Alena deposited her lunch next to them.

“So, how’s your day going?” Dennis asked. He sat down on the soft seat of the couch, which sank under his weight and wrapped itself gently around his legs.

“Well, it was going fine until some idiot forgot to bring me a spoon,” replied Alena. Dennis’ brow furrowed in confusion until he realized that her words had been a joke at his expense.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Dennis started to rise. “Would you like me to run back and get one?” Alena smiled and shook her head, removing the lid from the soup as she answered.

“Nah, I’ll be fine.” She took a slow sip over the brim of the container before replacing it on her desk and reaching for the sandwich. “How about you? How’s Sam doing?”

“Actually, it was a bit strange over there today,” Dennis said.

“More ugly artwork?”

“No.” Dennis titled his head to one side. “Well, yes, but that wasn’t what I meant.” He thought back to the man in Harding’s office. “He was talking to a retired detective when I got there.”

Alena looked up from her sandwich. “There was a cop at Sam’s office?”

“An ex-cop,” corrected Dennis. “Yeah, apparently one of his patients started seeing ghosts awhile back, so this detective came by to investigate Sam for something.”

“I thought you said he was retired?” Alena asked. She went back to eating, although her eyes remained focused on Dennis’.

“Sam said he was the patient’s uncle or something. No, wait, it was his patient’s daughter who was seeing ghosts.” He shook his head to clear the fuzz of details that had coalesced. “I didn’t ask too much about it. It was nothing to do with me, so I didn’t think I should make it into a big deal.” Alena continued to thoughtfully watch him as she chewed.

“I don’t know,” she said, swallowing in mid-sentence. “Seeing ghosts? That sounds a little too close to what you do to be a coincidence. Are you sure she wasn’t someone that you referred?”

“I’ve only referred, like, nine people,” Dennis replied. “Or, rather, only nine of them have actually gone in to see him, and none of them were black.” Alena furrowed her brow.

“So? Why does that matter?”

“Oh, the cop was black, so I’m guessing that his niece would be, too.”

Alena nodded in understanding, and took another sip from her soup. “Well,” she said when she had finished, “just promise me that you’ll