Home Sweet Home Ch. 04

They ended the phone call shortly afterwards. As promised, he began to receive emails, each with a separate video attachment of an audition for the role of Michelle Frost. He waited for an additional thirty minutes just to make sure no more would populate his inbox. Thirty-four emails arrived.

Before Riley started viewing them, he made some popcorn and prepared a sheet of paper for notetaking. He made a list of things he would be looking for in the performance.

In Riley's book, The Order of the Shattered Cross, Michelle Frost was a young nun who was also an exorcist. At the start of the story, she replaced the recently killed exorcist of Timothy Augustine, a veteran operative of the Cross who is a Fractured.

In his fictional world, when people die, their souls burst from their bodies and attached themselves to the environment around them. If that person is brought back, through resuscitation or a similar life restoring process, the soul returns, but not whole. Their souls returned, fractured. Sometimes, a foreign soul attaches itself into the cracks of the returned soul. Those with two souls are called Fractured. The presence of a foreign soul gives them special abilities to compel other souls to reveal themselves. They could speak to and see those spirits. It also allows them to converse with the soul within them as well.

Every video was about a half hour long, each actress going through three dialogue sequences taken straight from the book. They would be testing her compatibility with the actor who would play Timothy Augustine. Their first meeting, the altercation with the Swamp Witch, and the removal of the seals protecting the Glass Chamber.

None of the actresses Riley had ever heard of. These were the actresses who already got through the first cut, so he expected a moderately good performance. He cut off the first three auditions within ten minutes. They were horrid. Those actresses must have been someone's daughter or niece. Nothing else explained how they got that far.

The fourth was excellent. This actress came to the audition dressed like a nun and had taken the time to really read the book to understand Michelle Frost's mannerisms. So much so, when she would have a natural pause during her lines when the director who was reading for Augustine, she would look in a particular direction every time. The actress was likely looking in the cardinal direction of west. Michelle Frost in the book, was unconsciously compelled to face the west when in deep thought. It was a clever nuance to the audition the actress was consciously performing to perfection.

Riley read through her resume in the email. Her name was Danielle Wake. Several guest starring roles in televisions shows over the last few years, but nothing before four years ago. She was twenty, somewhat younger than the character, but that was inconsequential. Correct eye color. Blonde rather than a brunette, but nothing a little hair dye couldn't fix.

In only four auditions, Riley believed he had already found her. He flagged that email as important, and proceeded down for the next two, but he found himself comparing them to Danielle, rather than truly watching their respective auditions. And the other actresses were not comparing. He stopped what he was doing and sent Debra a message.

'Danielle Wake is Michelle Frost.'

Without prompting, Debra sent him the next grouping of auditions for the Little Maiden. This character was the soul of a witch that latched onto Timothy's soul when he was made a Fractured. The presence of her soul granted him unique arcane abilities not typically associated with a Fractured. She could project an image of herself to Timothy that only he or other Fractured could see. That image was of a little girl who was burned during a witch trial in modern day Germany in the 17^th Century. A piece of her soul had latched onto a wooden cross of a spectator during her burning. The cross was a family heirloom passed down, eventually to a Chaplain in the United States Army during the Korean War. Timothy Augustine was this Chaplain's assistant during the war. The Little Maiden appeared to be around nine to ten years old but was in fact a millennia old witch. This presumably young actress would need to have a Kirsten Dunst Interview with the Vampire level of a performance. To convey the maturity of a woman perpetually trapped in the body of a girl.

The first ten auditions of the total thirty-seven sent to him were awful. The family members of producers, writers, and actors, hoping to get their daughters, nieces, whatever, into stardom. Not if Riley had any say in the matter. They were plain bad. They read the lines for her reveal during the Swamp Witch plot. The reveal that the second soul in Timothy Augustine was a witch, explaining his arcane powers.

Before proceeding, Riley looked at his watch and saw it was nearly eight in the evening. He had been at this for nearly a full workday. He yawned, and then walked to the kitchen to get some coffee. It was empty, so he dumped the old grounds into the trash. He prepared to tip the bag of coffee into the new filter but stopped himself.

"Golden ratio," he said aloud. He looked for a measuring spoon and found it next to the coffee pot. He took Tilly's advice and measured it out.

"Two for every six," Tilly said as she walked down the stairs.

"I got it," Riley said, beginning to scoop the grounds into the filter.

"You haven't left the office since lunch. Busy?" Tilly asked.

"Casting for the TV show," Riley said. He had finished with the grounds and started with the water. He filled the reservoir and put the pot on the burner. "All but a handful were insufferable."

"You're actually involved in making the show?"

"Thankfully, I made the deal with the devil before I wrote Shattered Cross. My second novel ended up on the New York Times for about three weeks. It peaked at number three, but it lingered enough to get offers on the rights. I sold the rights without blinking for seventy thousand. They haven't made anything with it, but I still regret not owning my own property. When I published the first Shattered Cross novel, and it hit number one and stayed there for twenty weeks, obviously I got more offers. Because of the prior experience, I was a little more protective of the IP. Kept creative control."

"Shattered Cross wasn't your first book?"

"It was my fourth," Riley said.

"Here I was I thinking you struck gold first try," Tilly said. Riley chuckled a little. It's easy to assume that. People see the success; they don't see what came before that. Struggling to get short stories published. Manuscript rejections. Finding a literary agent. More manuscript rejections. Riley had abandoned three times the number of stories he ever finished. Of the ones he did finish, most of those were rejected without a note. Shattered Cross was rejected by fifteen publishing houses before being bought.

"It's not that easy," Riley said. The coffee finished brewing and he retreated to his office to resume. He remembered he was on the Little Maiden auditions. He opened one and immediately paused it the moment the girl started reading. Much like him, unless this girl improved, she'd have a long road characterized by rejection.

--

Riley called Debra on Friday morning and asked if there was a hard deadline for his short list. They went back and forth on what 'as soon as possible' meant and agreed it meant by Monday night. After getting halfway through the Little Maiden audition videos, he needed a break. Timothy Augustine and Theodora Abernathy would have to wait for the weekend.

Tilly returned from her court hearing in the midafternoon. Her lawyer had done her job at tempering her expectations. The good news was that the motion to hear a case for lowering her community service was granted and heard that day. Instead of five hundred hours, she now had two hundred hours, to be served at a woman's shelter. Her lawyer had done her research on the judge, tailoring her language to his sympathies. The judge had a daughter who after losing her mother, went down a spiral of poor decisions before course correcting. If her argument had a theme, it was second chances, and the judge spent most of it looking at Tilly with a thoughtful gaze of empathy.

Even with her efforts of regaining custody of Howie seeming far away, she returned to the house in good spirits. When she entered, Riley was at the ironing board, pressing the wrinkles from his shirts. Three other still warm shirts were hung on the back of a chair.

"Look at you, all grown up," Tilly said, placing her keys on the table next to the door.

"Couldn't watch any more of those auditions. Child actors are a special breed of awful," Riley said. He stretched out the sleeve across the board, then started at the cuff. "How'd it go?"

"Community service reduced in agreeance of a month-long parenting class. Every Thursday, starting next week. CPS will inspect the house on Tuesday if that's alright," Tilly said.

"It's fine. Do you want me to hide when they do?" he asked.

"Only if you don't iron your shirt," Tilly said, making them both laugh a little. "You're ahead of me on that one. Got another date or something?"

"I do. There is a walking trail from downtown to the local high school. I suggested this one, and she liked the idea. Movies are nice and all, but..."

"...you're not a teenager trying to fingerbang her..."

"...you can't talk to someone and...what?" Riley asked, having not heard her fully.

"Nothing," Tilly said, holding back a laugh so hard it made her cough.

"You can't talk to the other person, and that's how you get to the know them," Riley said. Tilly smiled at him. The kind of man Riley was, were nearly extinct. There was something charmingly old fashioned about him. Aside from sex on the first date, but he made that feel romantic and not lustful. Tilly realize it was his intentions that made the difference.

--

Diana and Riley met downtown. It was more alive than normal because it was Friday. He didn't wear an ironed dress shirt, instead choosing a shirt and sports coat with jeans and tennis shoes. They were going on a walk after all. Diana matched his wardrobe, but she was still stunning.

The trail was similarly traveled that night by other young couples in blossoming relationships. Teenagers holding hands, the girls leaning against the shoulders of the boys with toothy grins. The trail was illuminated by lights at knee level. They were all filled with bulbs that simulated a flicking red-orange torch. The path wasn't straight. It twisted and turned every fifty feet, hiding its true two-mile length to the high school. Many students would walk the trail to downtown after school to patron the family owned café.

They didn't hold hands as they walked. It wasn't a sign of regretting the company. Holding hands mandated a uniform speed, and their steps were not uniform. Riley had to adjust himself to her naturally long strides.

Diana told him about the Chief's retirement, and the likelihood of her getting the position. He told her about being a producer and felt bad at mocking the performances of the younger actresses, but only for a moment. She asked about Tilly and he got her up to speed. There were moments of silence, but neither felt a need to fill the gaps. Even the silence was comfortable between the two of them.

"Could you tell me more about Ginny?" Diana asked. Riley thought about where to begin and wondered if he even should. He decided he would.

Riley explained that Ginny always carried a book and loved to read. How she had gotten him interested in reading and writing when he was still a teenager. They temporarily fell out of contact after he turned eighteen and wasn't her problem anymore. And how she would have never called any of the kids she helped problems. Ginny had saved a lot more kids that just Riley.

The nature of Ginny's work never dampened her spirits. Watching the same kids get put back into the same situations over and over again. Powerless to make lasting change to the machine that was meant to protect children, but often simply put them into harm's way. Foster parents who treated the system like an easy paycheck. Predators who abused the system to recruit a fresh population of victims. Ginny knew it was broken, but it didn't make her quit. She always tried to do what she could within her limited range of influence. Even the most hardened kids knew they had someone who would believe them. That one adult was not like all the other adults.

After he spent a mile talking about Ginny, a question for Diana entered Riley's thoughts. He knew Diana had raised her sister and was now raising her own daughter. Was there ever a man beyond Marcus in that equation?

"What happened to Whitney's father?" Riley asked. It was only fair after asking about his deceased wife. Diana was not put off in the slightest by the question.

"Don't know, don't care," Diana said, but Riley still asked for more than that. "When I got the job with the police here, there was a six-month transition period. I would come here every week or so, get trained up on their procedures, then go back to Chicago. Three months before I was set to leave, my squad held a going away party for me. It was the only time with the patrol rotation we had, so they did it way early. Part of it was at a bar. Whitney's father is someone I met there, and I never saw him again."

"You ever look for him?"

"I did. I remember his name at the very least. Ronald Larson. A junior district attorney, married, father of two. Technically three," Diana said. "I could have fucked his life up. I could have made a different decision with Whitney. There are a lot of different things, but I don't live by my what ifs. Pointless. It doesn't change anything. I started a new job, three months pregnant. Everyone assumed that's why I got the job if you know what I mean." Riley knew what she meant.

"Not the best way to start," Riley said with a chuckle he wasn't sure he should have let out.

"No, it wasn't. Didn't matter though. I knew I was good cop. I knew I earned it, so I didn't let that bother me. It's something Marcus taught me. If you want the world to stop treating you like shit, stop giving it permission by treating yourself the same way." Riley thought to himself he would have liked to have met Marcus.

They reached the high school and turned to start walking back the way they came. Their pace slowed, allowing more time to enjoy the conversation.

"You gonna have to leave at some point for the show?" Diana asked.

"I probably will. We want to shoot on location in Georgia and Florida. The production will then shift to Massachusetts for the part of the story that takes place in Salem. I need to be on set because any rewrites need my approval, and sometimes those happen the day of filming," Riley explained. "That's not for a long while though. We're not even planning on starting principle photography until at earliest August." It was April, so they had time.

"Still in preproduction?" Diana asked. Riley nodded in confirmation. "What comes after casting?"

"The production company has teams already location scouting in Florida and Georgia. They plan on doing some b-roll filming by August. You know, the transition shots between scenes or the larger exterior shots to show scale. The set for the Glass Chamber is being built in Georgia right now. Story boards will be drawn up, I'll probably look at those next month. It's a production," Riley said. He tried his best to hide his own ignorance of how it all worked. He stuck with buzzwords.

"You got any time for me in that schedule?" Diana asked. He stopped to look at her. She was grinning.

"You got any time for me, Chief of Police?" Riley shot back in jest.

"I'll delegate when needed," Diana said. She closed their distance and kissed him. From there they continued walking, now holding hands. The difference in their stride didn't matter anymore.

--

Diana only went into the station on Saturdays in the afternoon. And only for a few hours. After kissing at their cars, they knew they were going to get into trouble again. Only this time they could lounge around in bed the next morning. Diana would have normally been more delayed in bringing a boyfriend home, but Whitney being opposed to her choice of a man was unlikely.

Diana led him inside the house. Whitney was at the kitchen table eating straight from a bag of carrot sticks while doing her homework. They gave each other brief greetings without seeing each other. Diana pointed Riley to the shoe rack and they both removed their footwear before leaving the doorway. Whitney heard more than one set of shoes being removed, so left the room and stood in the breezeway of the kitchen. Her mother gave her look, and Whitney squeaked while pressing her lips to smoother her reaction.

"Hey Mr. Blake," Whitney said.

"It's Riley," he said, and Whitney nodded. She smiled, not knowing the orange shredding of carrots were trapped in her braces. He looked away to save her the embarrassment. "What are you up to?"

"Ah, you know, homework," Whitney said, remaining at the doorless frame to the kitchen, not even adjusting as her mother squeezed by. "You guys have fun?"

"Absolutely, it was great walk," Riley said. Whitney finally realized how awkward she was making the situation, so stepped back to the table and sat down. "Where's your bathroom?"

"Top of the stairs, first door on the right," Diana said while she poured herself some water in the faucet. Riley excused himself and the sounds of him climbing the stairs ended with a door being shut. "We're going to be in my room. Don't be weird."

"Long romantic walk?" Whitney asked. Diana didn't deny it. "His idea?"

"It was. We are still getting to know each other," Diana said.

"So when I start to getting to know a guy, I can just..." Whitney started just to get a rile out of her.

"...I'm forty-four. You're fifteen. Not the same thing," Diana said sternly. Her daughter laughing made her realize she took the bait. "When you start getting to know a guy, he will drop you off on time. He will also not honk from the driveway to get you outside. He will come to the door and face my wrath."

"I guess I'm dying a virgin then," Whitney said.

"Sounds good to me," Diana said. A flush was heard from upstairs, followed by the faucet of the sink. Riley returned to the first floor. He was offered a few options for a drink and he replied with water.

Riley took a seat at the dinner table across from Whitney and they started talking. Diana sat down in the middle and listened to them. Diana knew Riley came here with full knowledge of how the night was ending, but still didn't jump directly into the fun part. Diana's previous attempts at a relationship, always ended by small things. Lack of care in their appearance. Avoiding talking to Whitney. Riley was at his best when it came to the small things. He understood Diana and Whitney were a package deal, and there was no separating them. Having a good relationship with Whitney was just as important.

Diana didn't interrupt them. She followed their conversation. Riley asked her about her school, hobbies, interests, friends. Whitney would attempt to steer the conversation for a spoiler on the third book, but Riley would manage to turn it back to her. Riley was often awkward when it came to talking with other adults but talking with kids was effortless for him.

When it was nearing ten, Diana feigned being tired and announced she was going to bed. Riley played along, saying goodnight to Whitney, and that he'd see her in the morning. They went to Diana's bedroom and shut the door. Diana locked it while leaning back against the knob.