Harmonized

by Mary Behre

  Zig nodded and clapped his gloved hands together once. “Right, let’s go inside. My er . . . friend will be here in a few. I’d like to get the place straightened.”

  Friend, right. Probably a girlfriend.

  That was fine. If he had someone in his life, then she wouldn’t be distracted by old attractions. Or the way his pants hugged his butt.

  He led the way through the front door of the brick building and down the short hallway. Every door looked like Cupid had thrown a temper tantrum: pink-and-red wreaths, puffy red hearts, and toga-clad babies toting bows and arrows adorned each space. Except one. Only Zig’s door appeared to escape the wrath of Cupid.

  “I’ll never understand why a baby with a projectile weapon and a mischievous smile is the symbol for true love,” Karma said after stepping into Zig’s living room.

  He shut the door with a shake of his head and a half grin curling his kissable lips. “Count on you to take a tradition and break it down to its most literal description.”

  “Well, think about it. If you saw a baby come toddling up to you, wearing only a diaper and a bed sheet and pointing an arrow at your chest, wouldn’t you run the other way?”

  Zig laughed and laughed. “God, I’ve missed you . . .” He cleared his throat. “I mean, your sense of humor. You always did know how to lighten a mood.”

  Karma glanced around the sparsely decorated living room. The sturdy brown micro-suede couch was the only color in the space. There were no pictures on the walls, no knickknacks, just a simple floor lamp and a coffee table. Only the flat-screen television on the wall offered any hint that Zig might use this room for more than a few minutes a week. But it was spotless. Not a speck of dust anywhere.

  “Yeah, I can see that you really needed to rush here and straighten up.” She gestured to the space. “It’s a pigsty in here. A real wonder you can find the door every morning.”

  “I have dishes in the sink.” Zig cocked his head at her, mock offense in his tone. “I should make you wait outside while I wash them up. Wouldn’t want you to be offended by my messiness.”

  The dishes in the sink consisted of a plate, a fork, and a glass. All previously rinsed.

  “You are ever the slob.” Karma arched an eyebrow at him. “Tell me, how long have you lived here?”

  “About four years. I signed the lease after graduating the police academy.” Zig spoke as he washed the three dishes.

  Karma again was struck by the meager attempt at personalizing the space. The kitchen didn’t even have a clock on the wall. “Don’t spend much time here?”

  Zig dried the plate and glass then put them in the cabinet. “Not really. I do a lot of shift work; mostly I use this place to sleep and eat. Except on Sundays. I still go to my folks’ for Sunday dinners.”

  Memories of big dinners, loud laughter, and romantic stolen kisses in his mother’s pantry tugged at her. Something inside her chest swelled, forcing a lump of regret into her throat. She swallowed hard, determined not to let past mistakes dampen the lightened mood they’d only begun to experience. “That’s wonderful. Sunday dinners at their place were always the best part of the week when we were in college.”

  A strange emotion flickered across his face before his expression darkened. Madre de Dios, she’d managed to screw up their tacit truce after all. Karma struggled to think of something, anything else to discuss that could bring back their semi-comfortable state. Nothing came to mind. Instead, she stood in the kitchen, vaguely aware of some weird tap-tap-tapping sound.

  Zig stared at her right knee, which was currently jiggling up and down and tapping the heel of her satin shoe on his kitchen floor. Karma stilled her knee. “Sorry.”

  He stared at her for another silent moment then strode to the fridge. “Can I get you a drink? Don’t have much, got diet soda or water. I can make you some sweet tea.”

  “Water’s great. Thanks.” She slipped out of his coat, carefully laying it over the back of one of the two metal table chairs. “What’s the plan for working on Gwyn’s case?”

  He pulled out two bottles of water and handed her one. “Officially, I can’t do anything. Unofficially, I told you I’d help and I will. I called a friend on the drive over here. He’s agreed to discuss the case notes from the incident at the bridge. Until he arrives, we wait. And talk. I figure after eight years, we might have some catching up to do.”

  Karma rolled the blue plastic bottle between her hands before setting it aside without taking a sip. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about their past, about her mistakes. But she owed him an explanation. Hearing he wanted one gave her a glimmer of hope that he could forgive her. She lifted her head to say that, only to realize Zig had left the kitchen.

  She found him sitting on the couch. His feet propped up on the aged coffee table, his unopened water bottle dangling from his right hand. His head back and his eyes closed. He looked exhausted. So much older than his twenty-seven years.

  Had she caused the weariness to smudge shadows under his eyes? Probably. What was she doing here? Yes, she needed his help, but from his expression . . . it looked like all she was doing was bringing him more pain. Regret had the backs of her eyes stinging and her rethinking her decision to talk about the past. Maybe she didn’t deserve forgiveness.

  “Sit down, Carmelita,” he said without lifting his head.

  “Only my mother ever called me that.” But she obeyed.

  “How is Griselda?” He exhaled hard, straightened and twisted the lid off his water.

  “She died.” She said it quickly, as if getting it out fast would keep the ache away. It didn’t work. This was exactly what she didn’t want to discuss, because every mistake Karma ever regretted came back to her mother.

  “I’m sorry, Karma. I know you were close.” Zig set his bottle on the floor and took her chilled, silken hand in his. She’d always had cold hands. He rubbed hers between his, warming them out of habit. He’d nearly brought them to his lips to blow on them, but stopped himself. “When did she pass?”

  Karma snorted. When she spoke her accent had returned. “Pass. I always hated that use of the word. Like there was some test she had to take and did so well on, she got to die. Like we should be celebrating.” Karma cleared her throat then her lips curled briefly into a grin. “She died four years ago.”

  Four years? The news jarred him. “I can’t believe I hadn’t heard. I’ve kept in touch with some of your cousins. Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “I’m not sure they know.” Karma’s words were barely audible. “I didn’t know who to call after she died. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in my family since the day I left town. I wasn’t sure anyone would have answered.”

  The resignation in her eyes had Zig whispering, “I would have. I wish you would’ve called me.”

  Pulling free of his grasp, she reached for her water. In a move too precise to be casual, she sipped from the bottle and slid to the other side of the couch. She stared at the bottle in her hands as if it were a microphone and spoke softly. “I couldn’t. It had been four years since we ended things. Since I left. For all I knew, you were married and had kids. I had no right to come back into your life at that point.”

  Annoyance raced through his blood. “I wasn’t married. No plans to ever make that mistake.”

  Liar.

  Karma whipped her gaze to his, searching. Her right eyebrow arched slightly. No doubt looking for his aura.

  “See anything?” It was small of him, but he had to know if she finally could see him the way she saw everyone else in the world.

  She closed her eyes on a quick exhale, opened them again, and shook her head. “Your aura? No. How did you know I was looking for it?”

  “Your brow arches, right there”— he touched a finger to the delicately shaped brow—“whenever you look at, or in my case, for an aura.”

  Her mouth formed a sma
ll o before she traced the soft skin he’d caressed. “Do I do that all the time? No one’s ever mentioned it.”

  “Probably because they don’t know what you’re doing.” The urge to touch her again was too strong, so he took a gulp of water instead. “Didn’t your mother do something like that?”

  She let out a derisive snort. “No. I didn’t get my ability from her. When I was around fifteen years old, I made the mistake of telling her I saw an ugly dark pink color around her new boyfriend. I didn’t know what he was back then. But her color, which was normally a pretty pastel blue, changed to a sickly yellow. The moment I saw that, I knew I’d said something wrong. She had me in front of a priest so fast. Madre de Dios, I think they’d have performed an exorcism on me. I did the only thing I could think of: I said that I’d lied about the colors to get attention. That I read about them in a book from the library.”

  “How come you never told me that before?” Zig shifted on the couch. A few inches closer to her. He wanted to reach out, comfort her, but didn’t want her to stop talking. Fool that he was, he missed the sound of her voice. “We were together two years and you never hid your crift from me.”

  “Crift?” she asked on a surprised laugh.

  “Cursed gift.” He shrugged and managed to hide his smile when she shifted an inch closer to him. “I have a friend who talks to ghosts. She calls her ability a crift.”

  “A friend, huh?” Karma’s smile fell at the corners, but she firmed it with obvious determination.

  She reached for her water bottle, then turned her body to face his. One knee draped over the other in a move that definitely sent out the back-off-loser vibe. Was she jealous?

  Was it small of him to hope she was, just a little?

  “Is that the friend you called on the way here?” Karma’s words spilled over one another as she began to babble. “You called a ghost whisperer-type to help us find Wesley? ’Cause he’s alive, not dead. And he’s a baby. Do baby ghosts talk? I wonder what that’s like.”

  Her rambling chatter didn’t disguise her change of subject. And he really wanted to get back to it. All those years ago, she’d been happy, if cautious, about discussing her childhood. Today, she appeared serious and even more protective. Why?

  The doorbell rang before he could answer any of her questions. Pushing to his feet, he held up a finger. “Hang on. My friend’s here.”

  He opened the door and smiled at the too-serious cop. “Hi, Detective English.”

  “We’re off-duty, Harmon, call me Seth or English,” he said, carrying a large, still-hot Philomela’s pizza. The scent of oregano and garlic wafted out of the large square box in his hands.

  Zig’s stomach rumbled, which made the normally surly detective chuckle. “Jules figured you hadn’t eaten either.”

  Zig glanced at his watch for the first time since Karma had sashayed into the station. Seven fifteen. Had it really only been three hours since she’d strode back into his life? In some ways, it seemed like she’d never left.

  “Oh, wow. I didn’t realize the time. Sorry to interrupt your dinner, sir.”

  “No ‘sir’ring me. Not ever and especially not tonight. This is unofficial.” Seth shifted his weight, shouldered his black briefcase. “Ah, here she comes now.”

  Jules hurried up the steps to stand beside Seth. The detective grinned at Zig and said, “Assuming you invite us in, we’ll just be friends having dinner with a couple girls.”

  Jules cleared her throat. “I’m a woman, not a girl.”

  “Please, come in.” Crap! He’d left Seth standing in the hallway. Zig gestured them both into the room. He quickly deposited the pizza on the coffee table while the couple strode through the door, hand-in-hand.

  “I swear, you call me a girl just to annoy me,” Jules said to Seth before giving Zig a big hug. “Hi, Z. Great to see you.”

  Zig laughed and hugged her back with both arms despite the ache zinging to his left shoulder. She’d have definitely noticed and fussed over him if she thought he was still in pain. “Hi, Jules, thanks for coming over.”

  Seth emitted a growl that had Jules laughing. She released Zig then swatted her fiancé on the arm. “Seth, you’re going to scare the man acting like that. Cut it out.”

  Karma rose from the couch, her expression friendly but cautious again. She stood several feet away, twisting her fingers together, a nervous smile on her lips.

  Zig stepped to her side to make introductions. “Detective Seth English and Jules Scott, this is my old, uh”—don’t say girlfriend—“my—my friend, Carmelita De La Cruz. Actually, it’s Carmelita Mc—”

  “Call me Karma,” she cut him off, extending her right hand to Seth. “Nice to meet you both.”

  Zig wasn’t sure why she’d stopped him from mentioning her father’s last name. That was a question he could save for later.

  Seth shook her hand then propped his hands on his hips. “So you’re the lady who thinks we got it wrong in the Bremer case? Thinks the baby’s alive.”

  “I don’t think it,” Karma said, crossing her arms over her chest like an Amazon warrior ready to do battle in her pink floral heels. “I know it.”

  Chapter Five

  Karma shook her head when Zig said, “Why don’t we all have a seat?” and gestured to the couch. There was no way Karma was squeezing into a seat next to another doubting cop.

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Me too,” the detective said.

  Jules, a pretty redhead, gave his arm a gentle tug. When the couple faced each other, Karma gasped.

  The passionate ruby aura emanated from the center of Seth’s chest. The look of love on his face matched the warm red color pulsing from Jules. Their auras blended together, engulfing them both in a lovely crimson glow. It was far more romantic than any armed, semi-naked toddler deity.

  Zig cleared his throat then rubbed his eyebrow to indicate hers was arched. Cheeks heating, Karma looked away.

  “Seth, let’s hear her out,” Jules said to her handsome dark-haired fiancé. She kept her gaze on Karma. “It’s why we came, right?”

  Seth slowly lowered himself to the couch. “Excuse me, Karma, but before you start I want to know why you called us over here in the first place.” He directed his question at Zig. “The Bremer case is homicide. Not my division.”

  “Because it’s not really a homicide,” Zig said, moving to stand beside Karma. Without making a show of it, he slipped his hand around one of hers and gave it a light squeeze of support. The simple touch had her pulse playing a salsa beat in her veins. Her fingers curled so easily around his, for a breath it was like they were college students again. Together and in love. The two of them against the world.

  If only . . .

  Zig didn’t dance around the subject but jumped right into the story. “Detective, I called you over because you are the most likely person to listen to Karma and believe what she has to say. Like Jules, she’s crifted.”

  Two pairs of eyes, one set green and the other dark brown, zeroed in on hers. There was no accusation, no doubt. Merely curiosity.

  “Do you see ghosts?” Jules asked, her voice light, but there was something in her aura. A slight shifting at the edge of her earthy brown aura to a brilliant lemon-yellow.

  Karma recognized the color of hope when she saw it and it eased her fears. “No, I don’t see ghosts. I see auras. Like yours. You have this rich soil-brown aura with a bright sunlight-yellow glow on the edges. I’d say you’re a plant lover, right? You work with flowers or trees a lot? It’s your job or maybe a hobby?”

  “Wow, that’s amazing!” Jules beamed. “You’re right, I work with plants all the time. Hobby and job. I manage April’s Flowers. Do you see everyone’s aura? How do you know what the colors mean? I’ve tried to research online but—”

  “We’re getting off topic, Jules.” Seth patted her hand with a tender sm
ile then turned his sharp eyes on Karma. “Okay, you see auras. I take it your crift is why you believe the Bremer baby isn’t dead.”

  Karma nodded as if he’d asked a question. “I see auras only around living people. Once they die, the colors fade for me.”

  “Really?” Jules leaned forward. “I see them only around the dead.”

  Karma sank into the open spot on the couch next to Jules. “I thought you talked to ghosts. You see auras too? Can you see them in pictures?”

  As if reading her mind, Zig handed Karma her purse. She retrieved the photo. “Do you see auras here?”

  Jules tugged on her left earlobe, staring hard at both pictures. Slowly she shook her head. “No. Sorry. I’ve never seen auras anywhere but around ghosts. Except with one person.” She darted a quick look at her fiancé then blushed. “Do you see auras in pictures?”

  “Yeah, I see them everywhere. If the person is alive, there’s this spark of color in the eyes. I see it when we’re in person, in actors during movies, even in black-and-white photographs. On the street, I see auras so often, I’ve learned to tune them out for the most part.”

  “Have you always seen them?” Jules asked.

  Karma nodded, easy with the questions posed by this woman. “I saw them some as a child, but it wasn’t until puberty that I realized not everyone could do it. Something happened at puberty and wham!” She clapped her hands together once in emphasis. “I recognized I could see auras around every living person in the world, except one.”

  Karma shot a glance at Zig, whose eyes were lit with interest and that same amusement he always had when she sought out his aura. He tapped a finger to his eyebrow and Karma brought her attention back to the detective and his fiancée.