Free To Dance with the Devil (The Blood Singer Novels) by Cat Adams Page A

minutes.” In the meantime, it hurt. But I wasn’t going to say that.
    She harrumphed. “You need to take better care of yourself.”
    Talk about your pot calling the kettle black, I thought, but I forced myself to be diplomatic. I didn’t want to ruin the new accord between us. “I’ll try.”
    “Do that.” She grinned at me and I couldn’t help but grin back.
    Then, with a flicker, my mom and her shrink, Dr. Thomason, joined us via split screen.
    Dr. Thomason was a big man, probably a good six six, built like a linebacker, and obviously Polynesian. He was dressed in a dove gray suit with a white shirt and blue-and-silver-striped tie. His smile of greeting was warm but professional. My mother sat next to him, wearing prison orange, on a long couch not much different from the one Gwen and I were seated on.
    My mother, Lana Graves, had once been a beautiful woman, and you can still see the echoes of that beauty in her bone structure. But years of heavy drinking and drugging have put a lot of rough miles on her. Even now, clean and sober, she looked hard, brittle, and angry at the world. Her hair needed a good cut and a dye job, to make the two inches of dark roots match the yellow blonde of the rest of her hair. The bright orange jumpsuit washed out her skin and hung limply on a frame that was moving past thin and on to skeletal. Honestly, she looked older than my gran, and not nearly as nice.
    She didn’t bother greeting either me or Gran. Instead, she glared at the screen and said, “What have you done with Ivy? Where’s my baby? For days now she hasn’t come when I called. What have you done ?” She spat the words at me.
    “Lana…” Dr. Thomason’s voice was calm but firm.
    Shit. Well, wasn’t this getting us off to a fine start. “Hey, Mom. Good to see you, too.”
    At my sarcasm, Gran’s expression darkened. “That’s enough! Both of you.” She looked directly into the screen, but I could tell it was my mother she was addressing. “Lana, baby, Ivy’s in heaven. She found her way home.”
    “ No! ” my mother shrieked, launching herself to her feet. She pointed at the screen, at me. “ You did this. You. You’re nothing but trouble. Well, you’re not taking her away from me again. I won’t let you. You’re not taking my baby from me again! ”
    “Lana, stop,” Gran ordered. But Mom wasn’t listening to her. She wasn’t listening to Dr. Thomason either as he tried to get her to sit down and calm down. Instead, she started calling my sister’s name, shouting for her the way she had when we were little, when she called us in from playing outdoors—to no avail. When she finally realized that Gran and I were telling the truth, that Ivy was never coming back, she started sobbing hysterically. Dr. Thomason called a halt to the proceedings so that he could deal with her privately.
    Half the screen went dark. I stared at it for a long moment, trying to decide what I was feeling. I knew I should care that my mother was distraught, but I didn’t. That lack of feeling was so cold it scared me. But it was the truth. “Well, hell. That was useless.” The words popped out of my mouth, unbidden.
    “Celia Kalino Graves!” Gran snapped.
    I sighed and decided an apology and a change of subject were probably in order. “Sorry, Gran. So, um, how are you doing? How are you liking your new place?” Yeah, I was re-covering old ground, but it was the best I could think of under the circumstances.
    She gave me a level look, to let me know that she absolutely knew what I was doing before letting me get away with it. “Yes, I am. Quite a lot. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. The view is magnificent.”
    “The stairs are a pain in the butt, though.”
    She laughed in spite of herself. “Yes, they are. But there’s a trail. It’s longer but less steep. I tend to take that instead. It’s easier on my knees.” She paused, her eyes going a little distant, her expression wistful. “It’s hard to