“Ash, my detective extraordinaire,” Rafael said in a jovial tone, strolling in. He still had a British accent but it was far less posh.
I blinked at the electric blue golf shirt that he’d paired with khaki slacks. He didn’t wear glasses and his hair was gelled to within an inch of its life.
“Nice shirt,” I said.
“I told them the color was bollocks, but corporate said we had to wear them for the big tee-off this morning.” He sat down, legs wide. “With you bowing out of the fundraiser because of work, I had a shot at the trophy.”
I squinted at him, my mouth open. There was no illusion, alternate reality, or flat-out insanity where I played golf, let alone excelled at it. As entertainment it ranked somewhere between pointless and boring. “How’d you do?”
“Miller beat me, but it was close. Ah well. All for a good cause. Listen.” He ran a finger along the neck of his collar. “I’m going to have to take over the Cooper file. They’re fighting our decision on the life insurance policy and HQ wants it settled out of court. Sorry. I know the hours you put in.”
Yeah, I sacrificed mightily for it. “It’s yours with my blessings.”
He fired double finger guns and I clamped my lips together to stifle my snort. “Thanks, sport,” he said.
Did the Queen think my deepest fear was that my lie of working for an insurance firm would become the truth? Hardly. I’d still have my Nefesh magic and many fascinating cases.
I glanced at my office door, a jolt spearing through me. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“The stencil reading Cohen Investigations.”
“You shut that business down ages ago when you came to work exclusively for us,” Rafael said. “Are you okay?”
“It still existed. I did work for House Pacifica.”
Rafael scratched his head. “Why would they need you?”
“Because—” Of my Jezebel magic to find Meryem and the missing kids. Of my acquaintanceship with Mayan so I could tell if she was behaving strangely. Of my relationship with the Queen regarding the Bookworm.
Even the Queen had hired me on Omar’s case because she’d needed someone who was Mundane on record.
None of those jobs had been given to me specifically because of my investigator abilities.
I had no clientele, no built-up word of mouth, and I couldn’t exactly advertise the cases I’d already solved. Where did that leave me when all this was over?
Numb, I passed Rafael the requested file.
With another set of finger guns, he left, nodding politely at Priya on her way in.
The massive rock shining on her finger next to her wedding band was one thing, her huge pregnant belly quite another. “Look, smoochie, it’s Auntie Ashira.” She rubbed a hand over the bump. “Say hi to your niece.”
I gently batted her belly out of my face. “It’s not a directional mic, Pri. Um, hi, baby thing.”
“Baby thing?” she grimaced. “What happened to ‘Superstar Skittilitious Cutie Head?’”
Uh, I wasn’t lobotomized and those words would never pass my lips?
Holding the arm of a chair, she did this weird backwards dip until her ass crashed down on it. “Do I still have ankles?”
I peered over the top of my desk. “You have feet attached to your legs. That’s as much as I’m willing to commit to. So, how are you and Superstar Skittilitious Cutie Head”—I tried not to anally pucker as I said it—“doing?”
She rambled on about her weird food cravings, then she gripped my hand. “I need you there for the birth, asshole, so clear your schedule. You were the one who encouraged me to get pregnant, you giant baby hog. You’re going to take smoochie to the park and teach her how to knit like you promised.”
Wow, her grip was tight.
“I promise. How could I not when I have so much to look forward to?” I could always use those knitting needles to teach the kid basic stabbing techniques. Or gouge out my eyes.
“Yoo-hoo, darling girl,” Talia said, breezing into the room. Was my mother wearing floral patterned yoga pants? Whoa. She kissed the top of Priya’s head, bent down to say hi to the baby bump, and then enveloped me in a hug. “You look so good. I could eat you up. Nom. Nom. Nom.”
I pinched myself but didn’t wake up from this diabetic coma. “Okay, Talia.”
“Talia? I’m your mother, annoying child. I earned that moniker with sixteen hours of labor, since your stubbornness started in the womb. Have some respect.” She winked and dropped her enormous Coach purse onto my desk, where it hit with a thud.
A mother who loved me unconditionally.
A best friend about to make me an aunt.
I rubbed a hand over the pang in my chest. I hadn’t ever dreamed of that future, but there was a sweetness to it. My relationship with real Talia was either fraught with secrets and lies or outright contentious and my friendship with Priya had been a series of minefields these last couple of months.
All because of my Jezebel magic. Would that all change once my mission ended? Was that the trade-off? My personal relationships would improve but my career would plummet?
Why would I ever take that deal?
“I brought your makeup kit,” Talia said.
Priya clapped her hands together. “Makeovers!”
Fuck no. This wasn’t about visions of what could be. This was a nightmare trip to the demon realm with complimentary torture thrown in.
The two women swooped in.
“I’m at work,” I protested, batting away their hands. “This is extremely unprofessional.”
“Putting effort into your appearance is always a smart professional move,” Priya said. “A conservative insurance company will appreciate a more polished look from its sub-contractors.”
It was easier not to fight these two determined women than convince them of the truth of my situation.
“There’s our pretty-pretty princess,” Pri said, giving my lashes one final coat of mascara.
My mom rummaged into her bag. “Aha!” She brandished a small mirror in front of me.
I didn’t look half bad. They’d made my eyes all smoky and huge and given me pouty red lips. Talia had even brushed my hair into a high ponytail that helped highlight my cheekbones. Only one problem. “This isn’t polished. It’s nightclub-ready. Unless part of catching fraudsters is getting them so hot and bothered that they confess?”
Priya and Talia exchanged knowing glances.
My eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Not everything is about work,” Talia said.
“Hi.”
My head snapped to Levi standing nervously in the doorway holding a small gift bag. I drank him in, from his jeans to the dark green sweater that hugged his shoulders and his jet-black locks loosely framing his face. His eyes were a deep blue that homed in on me like I was the only one in the world.
Oh. Those previous visits were the warm-up torture.
I dug my fingers into the armrests of my desk chair.
“We should go,” my mother murmured.
Sure, doll me up, throw me in his path, and run away.
Priya tugged on my ponytail. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Talia kissed my cheek and then they both left, speaking softly to Levi on their way out.
He cautiously approached me. “Is it okay…?” He waved a hand at one of the chairs.
“Suit yourself.”
He sat down and handed me the gift bag.
I pulled off the yellow tissue paper. Inside was a bakery box with a single jelly donut. “Twice in one day,” I murmured.
“What?”
I shook my head. “You realize I’m not sharing.”
He pointed at the tiny silver scar on his hand. “Yeah, no shit.”
Was the Queen’s magic reading my memories or…? “You remember that?”
“I remember everything. Especially how you’d been working yourself to the bone. And then how I…” He kissed my knuckles. “There’s no excuse for
how I treated you. I should have trusted in the two of us, and if you’ll have me back, nothing and no one will ever stand between us again. I swear it.”
I’d yearned to hear those words for two months, but they landed with a hollow thud now.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said.
Fool that I was, my heart swelled to have Levi back in my corner, in my life. Except, this wasn’t my Levi. There was no “my Levi.” But who would it hurt to have this illusion for a few moments?
I held out my arms. “Come here, Leviticus.”
He grinned and that piratical look shot a bolt of lust straight through me. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear that ridiculous nickname again.”
“Meeting me. Best day ever.”
He laughed and we positioned ourselves in my desk chair so that I sat in his lap. I buried my face in his chest and inhaled, craving the scent of his magic, but there was only a trace of cologne.
My head throbbed harder. Everything else about him felt absolutely real and right. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
I turned my face up to his. “Yeah? Tell me why and don’t stint on the reasons.”
“You’re smart, funny, and you have an enormous heart. It would take me too long to enumerate all of them, Ash. What I came here to say was that I want to try again. I know your parents didn’t make it, but we will. I’ve had to face a lot of my own demons, and you have to face that your dad did a number on you. Neither of us can be scared little kids.”
I flinched hearing the words that I’d thrown so callously at the real Levi.
“I’m not Adam,” he said. “I’m not going to leave you. You’re it for me, and I won’t let you down.”
I hugged him one last time, holding his words close to my heart before I let them go. This wasn’t some vision of my future. It was a wake-up call. Levi and I could take a few moments and push reality away, but outside of that, we were over. This version of the man I’d loved existed only as a magic delusion.
As for the rest of my future? Once I’d stopped Chariot—stopped Isaac—for good, I wouldn’t be the same person I was now. Speculating on that Ash’s desires was pointless.
I tugged away and stood up. “It’s too late for us.”
His face twisted. “Fight for us, bella. I implore you.”
Pain speared through me at this twisted parody of the words I’d said the night he walked away. Careful what you wished for, Ash. I’d longed for him to step up, but hearing it like this was killing me.
I lay my hand on Levi’s cheek and clutched the gold token. “Goodbye.”
Chapter 11
The token took me straight home to my living room.
Priya screamed and dropped her spoon into her granola, splashing milk onto her pajamas. “Where the hell have you been?”
I blinked stupidly at her candy cane–striped pajamas. “You weren’t wearing those this morning.”
“You monitor my pj’s? Get a new hobby, Holmes. And I wasn’t wearing them yesterday morning, but I did put them on last night. It’s Sunday. I haven’t seen you in twenty-four hours.”
My brow furrowed. That wasn’t possible.
“Why didn’t you answer my texts?” Priya said, rubbing at the milk spot. “You can’t tell me Chariot knows who you are and then ghost me.” Her voice got high-pitched.
I checked my phone to find seven increasingly anxious messages from her. “I didn’t get them.”
Mrs. Hudson barreled into the room with Pinky in her mouth and leapt at my legs, knocking me onto the sofa. She jumped up beside me and pushed her head under my hand.
I scratched the puppy’s ears while telling Priya all about the Bookworm and the vision I’d had when I’d touched the data cloud.
Priya listened calmly to the entire story, though her hand fluttered to her belly for a moment at her being pregnant. When I was done, she set her empty cereal bowl on the coffee table. “I would never let you teach my child to knit.”
I buried my face in a cushion. “Some part of me had stupidly been holding out hope, but it’s really over with Levi.”
Priya made a non-committal noise and rubbed my back. “Do what you do best. Work. That means getting answers out of this Bookworm. How are you going to deal with her?”
I dropped the pillow and exhaled slowly. “First things first. I have to find out if she’s being held against her will. If that’s the case then I can’t leave her there. No matter what the Queen does in retaliation.”
“Hopefully, Isaac will get caught in the crossfire of her wrath,” Priya said cheerfully. “How are you going to get this woman lucid?”
“Blank.” A designer drug, now manufactured exclusively for House Pacifica ever since Levi had learned its side effects included magic suppression. One dose only lasted for twenty-four hours, which was plenty of time to ask the Bookworm about any money laundering proof and help her escape, if desired, while she was alert. If she chose otherwise, she could return to her magic state with no long-term effects.
I tossed Pinky across the room for Mrs. H. to fetch and dialed a number on my phone, lowering my voice to a deep rasp. “Is this Kilo McSnorts’s Drug Emporium? I’m in a bad way, man.”
“It’s Sunday, Cohen,” Miles said on the other end of the phone. “My day of rest. From you.”
“What kind of shitty Jew are you, Berenbaum? Your Sabbath was yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it. Now, how do I get my hands on some Blank for a case?”
“Which case?”
“Uh, the Bookworm.”
“You talk to Levi,” Miles said.
“Why would I do that when you’re perfectly capable of procuring it from the Chemist?”
“Because in the past twenty-four hours his assholeness of the last two months has grown yet another asshole. Fix whatever you did.”
“Oh my God, Miles. Quit blaming me every time His Lordship gets pissy.” Our bakery encounter had affected Levi? Did it reflect poorly on my character to feel smug? Heh.
There was resounding silence from Miles.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll get the Blank from Levi. Happy?”
“Put a smile back on his face and I’ll name a fucking sandwich after you.” He hung up on me.
If Levi got grouchier, Miles would kill me. On the upside, my impending demise gave me a deadline to solve all my cases and I worked well under pressure.
“Have I mentioned how much I hate Miles?” I said.
“Not in at least a week,” Priya said.
I threw my phone on the sofa, sagging back wearily. I should have trusted in the two of us. I’ve missed you so much. “How am I supposed to face Levi with all those grand declarations of that other version’s still in my head? It’s over, I knew that, but he said everything I’d hoped for. I saw it, I heard it, and now I’m supposed to forget it because none of it was fucking real?” I divided the mess on our coffee table into neat piles. If only life was so easily sorted. “You know what the real kicker is? Even if the real Levi had said all those things to me, I wouldn’t believe him.”
“Believe him or trust him?”
I shrugged helplessly.
Priya gathered up her empty cereal bowl. “You want me to get the drug?”
I gave her a wry smile. “Thanks, but no. I pulled the Jezebel card and I don’t get to back away from that responsibility now.”
Sherlock Holmes once said, “Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for last.” So far this syllabus had been disorienting and heartbreaking, and this so-called greatest lesson might be my undoing. Then again, he’d also said “Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson,” so if anything could get me through my grief, it was a delicious mystery.
I armed myself with a host of nice neutral meeting-place suggestions that would allow for a quick turnover time and called Levi, who sounded subdued. He asked if we could go for a walk along Spanish Banks instead, to talk.
Had our bakery interlude clarified his
position on removing House resources from my disposal? Shit. He was going to fire me. I transferred my phone to my other ear and wiped my sweaty hands off on my jeans. Might as well get the inevitable over with. I agreed to meet him at the westernmost beach parking lot in a couple hours.
With everything I’d been pursuing, I hadn’t had time to look into Deepa Anand’s personal life, so I grabbed my laptop. The information online was relatively superficial. She’d lost a daughter recently in a tragic car accident, and was survived by her husband and son. Photos before her loss showed a woman who smiled a lot and attended many social events, especially cricket matches. That changed after her daughter died. The sole function she’d been at since then was the Under-19 World Cricket Cup held in New Zealand, because her son played for the Indian national team.
None of that led me back to Chariot.
I checked my notes on the Mundane woman. Deepa had run a money lending company in India called D21 Personal Loan. According to Priya, that was the age Anand had been when she founded the company. She had professional ties to Isaac through his cybersecurity business, and had died on pilgrimage to a Hindu site. Not all of the Ten were necessarily Jewish these days, so her religion didn’t preclude her being part of Chariot. What bothered me, though, was her making that journey at all. If Deepa was caught up in this, she was after immortality, same as the rest of them. How did that gel with going to a religious site to gain awareness or some higher spirituality?
I scanned a few more details. At the time of her death, she’d been in Northern India at Char Dham. Further research revealed that was actually a compound consisting of four temples, which Hindus visited to wash away their sins and help them attain moksha. I was unfamiliar with the term, but learned it was connected to their beliefs regarding reincarnation. They believed the soul passed through a cycle of successive lives, known as samsara. However, each incarnation was dependent on how the previous life was lived, aka karma.
Moksha was the release from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Had Deepa felt the need to achieve moksha in preparation for gaining immortality? There was no way of knowing how her Chariot goals intersected with her religious beliefs.
Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 4) Page 10
