by S. E. Harmon
“Is that not talking about it?”
“I’m starting to rethink this relationship.” He shook his head. “God couldn’t have possibly saddled me with someone like this.”
“You could do worse.” I thought back to his high school prom photo and his date’s powder blue chiffon dress and big hair. She looked like a Barbie cupcake. “And you have.”
He slowed down in front of a house near the end of the dead-end street. The property seemed to be mostly yard, with a small Spanish Mission-style bungalow. The stucco exterior was canary yellow and there were faded blue shutters. I wouldn’t have picked any of the colors or materials, but I had to admit the house held a certain amount of rustic charm.
He peered at the house for a moment, presumably checking the numbers and then pulled into the driveway, just short of a huge pothole. A jagged crack ran down the length of the paved concrete, and I looked at it doubtfully. “Could be a sinkhole.”
He rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll risk it.”
I unlatched my seatbelt and got out of the car without further comment, since Danny didn’t care we were about to meet a suffocating end. I just hoped it sucked us in before the appointment and not after. It was just good manners to kill someone before an unpleasant experience.
“Now, it’s only going to be an hour,” he said as we made our way up the front walk. Despite his laissez-faire attitude about perishing in a sinkhole, he diligently avoided the crack. “I won’t be able to make it back before then, so try not to get kicked out, huh?”
I sent him a glare. “His name was Master Spencer and he owns a dojo. Anyone would’ve slipped up and called him Master Splinter at least once.”
“Mm-hmm. And what exactly would you call starting a group discussion on which Ninja Turtle everyone would be?”
“Unavoidable.”
Danny shook his head. “And calling dibs on being Michaelangelo?”
“Practical,” I shot back. “Everyone knows he’s the best one.”
Other than a muttered, “Christ,” he didn’t respond. We stepped up on the porch and he knocked briskly. After a moment, the white frilly curtains twitched. Several latches clicked and the door swung open to reveal a petite blonde woman. She blinked up at me. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to see… to see….” God, did I really have to call him by his full name? Danny nudged me from behind and I forced out the words. “The Great Magellan.”
“Of course. You must be his ten o’clock.” She smiled. “I’m his assistant, Bellamy. The Great One is just finishing up Ms. Graverly, and he’ll be right with you.”
The Great One? I pivoted on my heel to leave and Danny’s hands on my shoulders turned me right back around. The complete three-sixty made my head swim. I briefly felt like a human bobblehead.
Bellamy stepped aside to let us in, and we followed her to a small parlor with a lot of antiquated furniture. She waited until we were seated on delicate, Queen Anne-type chairs, said something about getting us coffee, and bustled off toward the kitchen.
“Relax,” Danny murmured. “I know it’s not what you expected, but we can leave any time you want. I’m a phone call away.”
“If he asks me to call him the Great One, I’m out,” I murmured.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to wear those white pajamas at the Red Lotus, or be slapped by a man named Tree. Or chased out of a dojo by a yelling sensei named Travis Spencer, who either did not understand or did not appreciate correlations between his life and the Ninja Turtles franchise.
Bellamy brought us our coffee and hurried off again. It was another fifteen minutes before she came back through, closely followed by a weeping woman in a pink tracksuit. The word Juicy was scripted on her pancake-flat rear. Bellamy put an arm about her shoulders as they disappeared through the foyer. A loud wail drifted back in our direction.
I looked at Danny with wide eyes, and he shrugged. “A good cry might do you some good. You’re far too… what’s that word you used again?”
“Compartmentalized,” I said through gritted teeth.
He nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Exactly. You could stand to open some of your compartments a bit more.”
I sipped my coffee, feeling prickly as a hedgehog. My Fuck You, Fuck You Hard compartment was certainly good and open.
It was another ten minutes before Bellamy led us to the Great One’s lair, which turned out to be a smallish room painted a garish red. Almost all the furniture in the room was upholstered in crushed purple velvet. A man in glittery robes sat at the end of the long table covered in a plum tablecloth. His chair was throne-like, and plumes of smoke billowed from behind him. Brown-eyed and dark-haired with oversized spectacles, he didn’t look much older than me.
He beckoned beringed fingers. “Come in, child.”
I turned to Danny, whose lips were suspiciously compressed. “Really?”
“You never know,” he said. “I thought you were full of bullshit too, remember?”
“I do, and I so love it when you remind me.”
I glanced back at the guy who was frantically smacking at what I could only imagine was a smoke machine under the table. Another puff of smoke billowed forth, and I glared at Danny. “This guy has about as much magic as a box of Lucky Charms.”
Danny bit down on his lip, hard. I’d bet money he was going to bust a gut as soon as he got back in the car. “Give him a chance. I’ll be back by the time your session is over.” At my long face, he rolled his eyes. “I’ll bring you a sandwich.”
“Come on, Irish,” I whined. “Cut me some slack.”
He gave me a small push. “Go on, now.”
I slunk into the room, much like a bad dog who’d been rifling through the trash can and had to face the music. Danny closed the door before I could change my mind. Determined to find out what made Magellan so damned great, I took a seat at the table.
He peered at me. “I see I’m in the company of a skeptic.”
“Um, no, I just—”
“Silence,” he cried.
Oh, for heaven’s sakes. I buttoned my lips, eyeing his increasingly red face with a little alarm. Would it be insulting to offer to check your spiritual guru’s blood pressure?
“I should begin by summoning the proper energy.” He started chanting softly in Latin. At least I thought it was Latin. I couldn’t quite pick out the words.
I eyed him uneasily. Remembering how Tree reacted to my nonparticipation, I offered quietly, “Should I chant too or—”
“Silence!”
I sat back with a huff. I never wished more that Danny was the medium and I was the normal one sitting on my ass in a diner for an hour, eating pancakes and checking email on my phone. A flicker of movement caught my eye, and I silently groaned. Ode to joy, there was a woman rocking in a chair behind the Great One. I was pretty sure she was not part of our session.
She paused in her knitting when I looked at her and smiled a little. “Well, well now. Looks like we have a real one. The name is Peg.” She squinted at me. “You trying to see more ghosts? Or none at all?”
I tried to speak without moving my lips. “Trying to get some control over my ability. Thought maybe an expert could help me.”
She guffawed. “Then honey, you’re really in the wrong place.”
“I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.” I made sure the Great One was still occupied before I murmured, “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?”
Magellan broke off his chanting and sent me a frown. “Please. I’m trying to get in contact with the spirits, and I require silence.”
“Otherwise this would be extremely stupid, right?”
He glared at me. “You already paid Bellamy. How you choose to waste this hour is entirely up to you.”
I sighed. “Sorry.”
When the chanting resumed, Peg looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You’re actually paying for this?”
“Kind of,” I whispered. Magellan’s eyelids fluttered but he
went on.
“Well, boy, do I have a story for you.” She sat forward in her chair. “It involves a slice of pumpkin pie, some poison, and that no-account girlfriend of his.”
My left eye twitched. I hadn’t heard many details yet, but my second try with a guru was starting to look like a frisk, cuff, and face down on the fucking ground kind of situation. “Tell me everything.”
By the time Danny pulled up, I was sitting on the front porch steps. Three squad cars were lined up on the curb and my suspects were in the back of two of them. Danny made his way up the walkway, a small paper sack in his hand. Wordlessly, he sat next to me on the top step and handed over the bag.
I pulled out a hefty sandwich wrapped in paper and dotted with grease spots—the best kind of spots. My stomach gave a little growl that reminded me I hadn’t eaten all morning, and I unwrapped the sandwich in a hurry. Danny put a small tower of napkins next to me that I ignored.
I was about to chow down when I remembered my manners. “Thank you. Also, hi.”
“Hi, yourself,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
I bit into the sandwich with gusto. “Man, I’m starved. Did you get this from that diner I like so much?”
“Yup.”
“You remembered to have them use cheddar, right? I can’t stand—”
“American cheese. I know.”
I wasn’t sure if the sandwich was extra delicious or I was just that hungry. Either way, I hummed a little as I ate. Danny surveyed the scene on the front lawn with mild interest. After a few moments, he asked, “Rain?”
“Yes?”
“Why is your guru in the back of a squad car?”
It boded well for our future that he was rather unflappable. “’E urdered is uther,” I said around a mouthful of sandwich.
“What?”
I realized that since I didn’t have the anatomy and physiology of a boa constrictor, I should probably stop eating like one. I stopped inhaling my sandwich and swallowed a few times. “He murdered his mother. And Bellamy helped. Nothing like murder to keep a relationship fresh.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, just processing. “Do you do ever plan to do anything the normal way? Ever?”
“While we’re delegating fault here, I’d like to mention that you’re the one who dropped me off at Leatherface’s house, and with little more than a backward glance,” I said indignantly. “You’re lucky you didn’t come back to find my eyeballs in a mason jar.”
Apparently unconcerned by the thought of my dismemberment, he asked, “So he just confessed? Just out of the blue?”
“His mother the friendly ghost helped.”
“Ah.” He nodded as if that made complete sense. “I assume it’ll all be in your report?”
“You got it.” I licked a bit of runaway cheese off the wrapper before biting into my sandwich again.
His phone buzzed with a text and he glanced at it for a few moments before quickly thumbing a reply. Then he pocketed his phone, all without telling me why. I huffed. “Well?”
He just loved it when I begged for information. “Well, what?”
“Who was that?” I demanded.
Sure enough, his mouth curved. “That’s Eli. He’s available to meet with you later today.”
“And why would I want to meet with our sketch artist?”
“The guy from your dreams. Eli can create a sketch, and we can run it through the database.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get a hit.”
It wasn’t a bad plan, and even if we didn’t get a hit, at least it would feel like I was doing something. “He can draw the bridge, too. Maybe someone will recognize it.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” he agreed.
Plan in place, I started to eat again, until I remembered our deal. The most important part. I elbowed him in the side. “This still counts, you know.”
“What does?”
“I went to the guru, so you owe me sex. And don’t give me any crap about your creaky old knees, Irish.”
He chuckled. “I promise to fulfill all your monstrous demands.”
“Good. When we get home, you’re the new evidence clerk who didn’t log in my evidence properly, and I’m the detective who’s offering you a way to make it up to me.”
“God, your sex fantasies are so weird.”
“And if you didn’t get off on them so hard, I’d probably be very insulted right now.” I leaned over and laid a sloppy kiss on his cheek that he pretended to wipe off. “I don’t suppose my morning trauma with my guru means I can leave work early.”
Danny smiled. “Hey look, your psychic powers are fading already.”
I didn’t bother to inform him that I was a medium, not a psychic, because strangely enough, I was getting a reading from the great beyond. I gave my mental Magic 8-Ball a shake. Am I going to make him beg before he fucks me?
“Signs point to yes,” I murmured.
He eyed me suspiciously as I polished off my sandwich with a great deal of enjoyment.
I met with Eli as promised. After an hour of “no, the nose is a little thinner, the eyes are a little farther apart,” he shooed me off to polish the sketch. I joked that he was probably just tired of my alterations, but he assured me that every detail was important. Later that afternoon, he delivered two copies of the finished version to my office. I thanked him heartily and waited until he left to turn it over.
I drew in a breath.
There he was in the flesh... or in 2D, at least. The man from my dreams, or nightmares, rather. Eli might as well have reached into my brain and plucked out the image. I tacked up one of the copies next to Mason’s picture and sat back in my chair, thinking.
There was a sharp knock at my door. “Detective Christiansen?” I glanced up to find Macy in my doorway, a sheaf of papers in her hand. “Anderson Marx just faxed over that list you wanted.”
I blanked for a moment, struggling to place a name I should’ve known immediately. I was glad when my synapses finally stopped lounging and started firing. “Oh. Yes! The coin dealer.” She handed me the papers and I shuffled through them before stacking them on my desk. “Thank you.”
I’d requested a list of the coins Howard Paige had in his collection, and his coin dealer had been nice enough to comply. I figured it was a long shot, but I planned to track some of them down. If I could prove Luke had stolen and sold off Mason’s precious coins, I’d be one step closer to proving he was Mason’s killer.
Message delivered, I expected Macy to vamoose. Instead she lingered, looking curiously at Eli’s sketch. “New suspect?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Is he a witness?”
“I’m not all that sure.”
“Oh, did you get an anonymous tip?”
I shook my head slowly. “Not exactly.”
She looked at me wide-eyed, clearly wondering if the rumors she’d heard were true. In the three months since Tate had transferred her to the PTU, she’d never asked, and I’d never confirmed. I more than liked that dynamic—I adored it. Let’s keep that shit going.
She stared at me some more.
I picked up a copy of the sketch and handed it to her. “Do you think you could bring this down to one of the guys in tech and ask him to run it through the database? Maybe JT? He owes me a favor.”
She glanced down at the paper and then back at me. “Of course.”
“It’s high priority,” I finally said.
“Oh. Oh. Okay,” she babbled as she backed out the door and then into the door. “Ow. I’ll get right on it. Just give me a holler if you need anything else.”
I smiled. “Will do.”
Chapter 19
Watts finally surfaced on Thursday.
His credit card info pinged at a rental car agency in Miami, and a quick call to the company put him in a white Impala. It didn’t have LoJack, so we couldn’t just shut that shit down, but he’d mentioned to the woman at the desk that he planned to get something to eat. Thinking he was a tourist, she gave hi
m a printout of local restaurants nearby, which she was more than happy to fax to me.
I printed out the fax and then grabbed my keys. I shot off a quick text to Danny to invite him along. My phone buzzed before I even rounded my desk.
D: In Tate’s office
Me: Are you updating her on our progress?
D: Yes.
His response was short and to the point, which was pretty much his default mode. In the past, I threatened to put an emoji on his headstone for answering my wordy, punctuated texts with one or two word answers. He seemed more amused than alarmed, but he tried to be more loquacious now.
Me: Is she on the warpath?
D: She will be if I don’t stop texting.
Me: When do you think you’ll be done?
D: Don’t wait. You know how she is.
Then he reminded me to partner up with someone. Before I could even peck out a k, another text came through that simply read, I’m serious.
I scowled. Maybe I had run off half-cocked a while ago and gotten myself briefly kidnapped… and shot a little, but I was a different person now. Somewhat.
As I left my office, my phone dinged again. I glanced at the screen to find a heart and snorted. Danny didn’t use emojis. He was probably trying to soften those bossy messages. Too bad I was immune to cute heart emojis. Then he sent a little cat face with heart eyes, and the bastard had me.
I collared Kevin from the breakroom, mid snack, and we headed out into the heat of the day. Things took a definite upswing in the parking lot as Kevin tossed me his remote fob. Apparently, he enjoyed being chauffeured, which was fantastic because I was sure as hell going to enjoy the hell out of driving his sweet Camaro.
My BMW was pure sophistication, every detail nuanced to remind you of why you’d spent so much damn money on what amounted to pieces of metal and rubber, but Kevin’s Camaro…. I ran my hand over the hood lightly with a little sigh of pleasure. It was slick black, all sleek and powerful lines. Built for hugging curves and pissing people off when you shot the gap in traffic. The red leather seats were clearly a cry for help, or a midlife crisis, but that was none of my concern.
