by Sandra Elsa
He frowned at me; no doubt perfectly aware ignition spells didn't simply fizzle. "You said it looked like she was waiting for me to open the door?"
I nodded.
"Maybe it needs air to detonate?" He started drawing his own conclusions which was fine by me. Anything other than Frankie can zap other people's magic.
"Good possibility, if there's a vacuum seal on the contents," I agreed readily, letting him entrench his idea.
"Then maybe I shouldn't open the door without the bomb squad. Just in case."
I could have told him it was safe. But then he'd want to know how I knew. Besides, anytime explosives are involved it's not a bad idea to have it checked out.
"Good thought." Rollick got back on the radio and called for the bomb squad as well. Then we sat back to wait. The containment unit arrived and whisked Mrs. Ludovissy away.
Bomb squad got there about three minutes later and behind magical shields they opened the door. Nothing exploded but they turned away from the small door with a device in their hands and placed it in a lead lined tub. "Good call, Sergeant. Should be safe to get the body out of there now."
"Body?" I peered around the bomb squad captain's wide shoulder and looked at the desiccated victim wearing an expensive looking, brown pinstripe suit. As I watched, eyes moved underneath closed lids. "Oh damn, Wally, he's alive."
Wally spun from the bomb squad to the open door. The space was set up like a morgue drawer. Wally glanced at the captain with some misgiving before pulling the drawer out. Wouldn't have been the first time, bomb squad had been wrong. Nothing exploded and between them they lifted him from the drawer and placed him on the bed, Rollick was already radioing for an ambulance.
"If he's alive, that wasn't a vacuum. Why didn't her bomb explode?" Wally looked up at me as he felt for a pulse and chafed the man's wrists and feet, trying to increase circulation.
I glanced at the captain of the bomb squad and showed him the quiescent ignition vessel, hoping he'd offer a plausible excuse.
The captain said, "It was a combo detonator. Open the door at the precise moment the button is pushed and it blows. The button is a safety for the people that wanted to get in and out without being blown to bits. In the event it wasn't tripped within thirty seconds of opening the door, the spell should reset, but sometimes they're a little slow. Probably would have if you hadn't taken the thing apart."
There'd been more to it. She'd expected the double flick to set it off, but Wally hadn't noticed that. I left it alone, grateful to the captain even if he only stated the truth as best he could figure it. She'd been ready to commit suicide rather than get busted. Her husband was already dead. Who was she so scared of she wouldn't risk a day in court?
"Well damn, I'm glad you notice shit like she doesn't smoke, Frankie." Wally grinned, "Sorry she missed?"
"Nope, I like you Wally."
He raised his fingertips to the handprint on his cheek. "Good to know. Hate to see what you'd do if you didn't like me."
"That was playacting, Wally. If I didn't like you, I’d have broken your neck when I slapped you." It had been more surprise than anything, but I doubted he'd had anything to do with it. Siphons trapped their prey with lust and that put a whole new spin on their missing mage and his weekly encounter. I kept my thoughts silent, hoping sometime tonight I could slink away, before the person who put up the missing notice showed up and buried me deeper in mages. The Movie-Star was safe now anyway.
Wally shook his head. "Wish I knew if you were joking, Frankie."
The ambulance arrived and took away the victim and shortly thereafter a swarm of troopers in HQ-blue arrived.
"Busy night for you, Sergeant." Detective Thompson's voice made my skin crawl.
"Oh goody," I muttered under my breath. "My favorite detective."
Thompson craned his head to see around Wally. "Francesca. A pleasure, as always." He straightened up. "What the hell is she doing here, Wallin?"
"These two cases are connected, detective. Investigator Leone had a client in that room down in District Eleven. This was his residence. The siphon was his wife."
"So what exactly does all this have to do with the task you were sent out on earlier this afternoon? I don't see your missing person in this mess."
Wally opened the envelope I'd given him. "We actually have seen him. You can read my full report after it's written." He pulled a picture out and turned it around for Thompson to see.
"Oh damn. He was sleeping with a siphon? His father is not going to like that at all. You said you saw him today?"
"Yes and he's still plenty powerful, so I'm guessing either he recovers quickly or she didn't manage to steal much from him. Had to be afraid of somebody that strong. I'm going to get out of here, get Miss Leone down to HQ, take her statement and then see her home."
Thompson snorted, a sound which clearly stated his misogynistic views. "You can assign a trooper to drive her home. I'll have questions when you're through with your report."
"I'm running overtime already. Either call me, or wait 'til I get in tomorrow at three. I forced her to come along. I'll see her home."
"Back to my office anyway," I said, "where you left my car."
Thompson looked like he wanted to argue, but he grudgingly said, "Fine. Chief won't authorize overtime. Leave your report on my desk. Keep your phone turned on."
"Oh," I said, "while you're here you might want to go over the den with a fine tooth comb. She didn't seem to want Rollick in there either."
"Did you find anything, Trooper?" Thompson turned to Rollick.
""No, Sir. But I'd only just started when I heard Frankie say the word siphon. Thought I might be needed in here."
"We'll take care of it. Go home. Get some rest. Good work today, Trooper," he nodded at Rollick then Wally, "Sergeant."
I heaved a sigh of relief as we'd clearly been dismissed. Nearly out the door, Thompson stopped me. "Your phone number still the same, Francesca?"
"Hard for clients to get hold of me if I change it, Detective."
"Home number?"
"Business number's a cell, it'll get me no matter where I am."
A brief frown. "Good enough."
Rollick hurried me through the door.
The drive to HQ passed uneventfully except for the itch between my shoulder blades that said somebody tailed us. By the uneasy looks Rollick and Wally exchanged, they felt it too.
Glances in the mirror revealed nothing but empty road. I pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger staving off the headache threatening to overwhelm me. The pickets at the gate glanced in the Hummer and waved Sergeant Wallin through with a sharp salute. Once inside, the feeling of being followed dissipated and by the time we reached HQ, Wally and Rollick were back to their good-humored selves. I followed them to their cubes. Too tired to come up with any sharp repartee, I respectfully called Wally, Sergeant Wallin when the occasion arose to call him by name.
Rollick raised his head and sniffed, eyes narrowing. "You two have spent too much time together today. I think I'll drive her home, Sergeant."
"Nobody's driving me home. It's out of the way for both of you and I only need to get three miles up the road where my car is parked in District Two." I fixed Rollick with the most fearsome frown I could conjure. "And what the hell is that crack supposed to mean. Spent too much time together… Bah…He's a friend, Rollick."
"Explain that handprint."
The outline of my fingers was little more than a pale halo on the side of Wally's face. "Gave him a peck on the cheek to get his attention, make him block the client so I could show him what she looked at when he started pounding on walls. Figured that move would be far enough off base he'd figure out what I wanted, and he did."
"I got stupid," Wally said, "took it a little further. Figured as long as we were playacting anyway... She said no. Capital letters, bold print, don't bother searching for a clue, NO. She still saved my life, so I guess as long as I got the message we're still coo
l."
"She's being polite," Rollick argued with our, everything-normal defense.
I frowned at him. "I’m tired. If you want me to work up a good dose of bitch, I'm sure I can. You can take advantage of the fact that I got up this morning at five o'clock and it's now…" I glanced up at the solar powered clock above the Chief's door. "Almost the next morning and I've been going pretty much nonstop--or you can antagonize me until I give you a hard time."
Sergeant Wallin pulled out a sheaf of papers and started filling in date-time and the basics of the report. Rollick went over the envelope of pics and notes I’d given them. Questioning me occasionally about exactly where I’d been when I took a certain photograph or where she'd gone in District One when she came up here. It was nearly one o'clock when we finished and I dragged out of the chair to follow Wally out of HQ and down to his personal vehicle.
The black Subaru Outback was one of the largest cars authorized for personal use. Anything larger and it had better be public transit or government use. The solar drives couldn't effectively power much more,. And only government could afford the magic conversion drives of larger vehicles. I enjoyed being able to stretch out in Wally's car. I leaned my seat back, closed my eyes and didn't remember the trip until I heard Wally saying, "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."
I opened my eyes and grunted in surprise as he leaned over me.
He withdrew the moment he saw my eyes were open and said, "Just getting your seat belt. Thought I might have to carry you up, as out of it as you were."
"I'm good." I struggled upright and looked around, giving my mind a moment to come awake and sort out facts--the most pertinent of which was we weren't at my office, but my home.
"Don't argue Frankie. You were too tired to drive. I'll come back and give you a ride in the morning."
I opened the door and poured myself through it, stretching muscles awake. "Yeah, OK. Or you could crash on my couch. I need to be at my office by eight o'clock, got a potential client coming in bright and early."
"Sure you don't mind?"
"As long as you don't have any further lapses in judgment."
"On my honor, Frankie. Don't know what exactly came over me back there, but I'm over it."
"Don't beat yourself up. Might even have been her. Some siphons use lust to trap their victims. She may have been aiming for you and you transferred it to someone that you were at least familiar with."
"Dear God. Thanks for your common sense, Frankie. Honestly I never thought about doing anything like that before. Not on the job anyway. And thanks for setting me straight." Wally turned and walked toward the building.
The not-on-the-job disturbed me some. If he fantasized about things like that off the job, had I just made a mistake inviting him up? His comment had been spoken with a glib tongue. I prayed he intended it as a joke, and ignored it. "The lust trap would account for how she caught pretty-boy, too. Don't usually find her type happily married and living upscale. If the kill room is hers, she probably started in Eleven. Did she marry into Three, or take over a victim's life." There was another possibility, but mentioning it put me that much closer to District Seven and their twisted world. It occurred to me that if the high-and-mighty's son, my Movie-Star, had been snatched right off the res, maybe the as yet unnamed high-and-mighty had enemies who kept the siphons as pets. But that wasn't an idea I was ready to mention. Not until I knew how devastating being revealed would be for me. I wouldn't know that until I knew exactly how important Harrison Kendrel's father was.
"The husband had to at least know what she was and where the body in the house lurked," Wally said.
"Won't surprise me at all to find out a good number of the bodies in that room, were people with limited talent. I just don't know why Mr. Ludovissy would hire me to tail her around, knowing what she was."
Wally shrugged. "Maybe their relationship worked for them because they were two of a kind. He got wind she had something new on the side and wasn't sharing…there's never any accounting for personal relationships."
"And you should know." I couldn't resist one more cheap shot. Just so he knew where we stood.
"Damn it, Frankie, you can stop anytime now--actually, you go right ahead. At least I'm sure you're not holding this evening against me if you're razzing me about ancient history." His shoulder brushed mine.
I casually side-stepped as though accepting it as a moment of lost balance. "But I am holding this evening against you. Especially that shoulder to the gut as you manhandled me down the stairs. I'll get even with you for that one."
He grinned and also stepped sideways in the opposite direction, so maybe it had been an accident. "I'll be waiting for it, Francesca." The grin faded as we walked toward the door. He stopped me before we entered the lobby. "You know your house will probably be bugged. I wanted to ask you a question before we go in there?"
"They may have planted bugs. They won't work in my apartment. I have suppression units."
"They'd have found them." Wally sounded confident in the skills of his coworkers.
I grinned at him. "You sure about that? Whatever. Go ahead and ask your question."
Wally looked unsure, about proceeding. After gnawing his lower lip he asked, "How the hell did you know I had any sort of magic?" He knew me well enough to know I didn't particularly like magic.
"Pretty obvious when I watched you soothe the savage beast by twirling your hat in front of her. Never watched you work before. Is that the extent of it?"
"Pretty much."
"Ever use that trick on me?"
"Tried once. After the Girlo incident. Didn't work"
"Maybe that's because I wasn't a savage beast in need of calming. Just needed someone to believe I didn't set that bomb off." Interesting that he admitted to that, but not to his effort to keep me in my chair tonight. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed then. Sometimes my innate talent was like that. Unlike my more common talents, I never controlled my self-protection, and it was always on, but I usually noticed when it ate other magic aimed at me. Then again that had been a hectic night and the blast had singed me.
"It usually works on any sort of stress. Anger, pain--physical or mental, too much work…defusing tense incidents is a skill my superiors appreciate. Got me my promotion. I’d prefer the guys down at the station don't know it's magic. Very few of them do."
"Your secret's safe with me." I was the last person to blab about unregistered magic. "I hope Rollick knows though. If he didn't, he's not stupid enough to believe a siphon would arbitrarily choose to attack you."
"He knows. We've been partners too long."
"Good then. Let's get inside."
He stepped through the door ahead of me and looked around the lobby of the apartment building. The long couch under the window was empty. The door to the rec-room stood open. It was quiet as a church on a Tuesday evening. The hall to the pool was dark, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I looked down it. Nobody there. No footfalls. No gleam of eyes watching furtively.
Wally followed the direction of my glance as a shiver ran up my back. "Want me to check it out?"
I considered it less than a moment. "You're off duty. And it could just be my imagination seeing shadows in the dark. You'll be on my couch with your forty-five. I'll be in my bedroom with my nine-mil and a silver coated blade. Only a fool will come through my door tonight."
"Good enough for me." At least he seemed to be done playing hero-protector.
We'd just left the second landing when Wally stopped and put a hand on my arm. "Why didn't it?"
"I'm too tired to follow that. Could you be a little clearer?"
"Why didn't my magic work on you. For that matter, if a siphon used lust, it shouldn't have only affected me. And how can you be so damn sure a listening device planted in your apartment won't work."
"Took you long enough." I turned and started up the stairs without answering him. "We all have our secrets, don't we?"
"Damn it Frankie, that's not fair."
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"You’re Watch, Wally, and I have no intention of becoming a cog in that great wheel in District One."
"Shit. You have talent."
"No. Not really." I did. I had it in spades. Just nothing anybody could prove.
"There's only one other answer…"
"There's a smart boy. Now, can we continue this conversation in my apartment where we're not waking up my neighbors?"
He followed me the last flight of stairs in silence. Charlie, a trooper from District Eight lounged in a straight back fauxwood chair outside my door. As we came down the hall, he jumped to his feet. "Been quiet, Sergeant. We straightened everything up, stacked the paperwork, mostly in separate piles as they seemed to come out of the drawers but didn't really know where they all went."
"That's fine," I said. "Thank you for what you did, Charlie."
"Glad to, Frankie." He held up four fingers and I acknowledged his warning with a nod.
"Go ahead and take off," I told him. "I'll be in the rest of the night."
He glanced at Wally before nodding and saying, "You have a good-night, Frankie; Sergeant."
As the trooper's booted feet clattered down the steps, Wally asked, "You on a first name basis with all the local watch?"
"I'm on a tour they give all the newbies." Not really a joke either. "Unlike HQ, these guys like me. I'm useful to them and they pay me for my assistance from time to time."
Wally's forehead furrowed. "How the hell can they afford you? Any requisition for a consultant has to go through HQ."
I held a finger to my lips as I opened the door. "Just a minute." I closed my eyes and sought out the tiny blips of magic from three separate listening devices. I turned them off, then removed the devices from behind a living room curtain, my pantry, and, behind the headboard of my bed. "Now, how embarrassing would that have been if I’d dragged you up here to have wild, kinky, sex?" I then went to a cabinet and withdrew a wand and found the fourth device under the edge of my desk and smashed it.
"How the hell did you find the beetles?"
"How do you remember to breathe?"
