by C. S. Poe
God, yes.
But I instead said, “You haven’t mentioned anything about inviting your family.”
Calvin didn’t respond, but his expression stumbled as if he had spoken.
“I killed the postsex mood, didn’t I?”
A brief, reluctant smile crossed Calvin’s features. He looked down, took my hand, and ran the pad of his thumb over my ring. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said before meeting my gaze. “Getting married isn’t about them. It’s about you.”
“It’s about us,” I corrected.
“Us,” he echoed in quiet agreement. “What I mean is… I love you. You’ve been my family since the beginning. It’s not….” Calvin stopped. He looked down at my hand again. “I don’t need to feel guilty for their reaction to my coming out.”
“That’s true,” I murmured.
“I am not obligated to extend an olive branch in the form of invitation to an event they’ve openly and viciously criticized in the past. It’s one thing—what they say to or about me—but I will not allow that behavior to be directed toward you.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up—”
“No. It’s all right. I do need to decide either way,” Calvin said. He brought my hand up, kissed the ring, and let go. “Give me a bit longer to think it over.”
“One crisis at a time,” I agreed.
“Right.” Calvin checked his watch and swore quietly. “I need to head back. Finish getting dressed, and I’ll drop you off at the hotel.” He moved around the foot of the bed, grabbed the bag that’d been knocked to the floor during our impromptu tangle in the sheets, and headed downstairs with it.
I puffed my cheeks as I let out a deep breath. I’m not sure why I thought now had been a good time to bring up the estranged family. Sex and bigoted in-laws didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand. Although, replace sex with murder, and yeah… I could see the connection. I figured it had been lingering in the back of my mind since earlier in the day, when I’d honestly tried to do some wedding prep.
I still wasn’t sure how I felt, beyond supportive of Calvin’s decision—no question there. The petty asshole in me wanted the Winters to attend so I could kiss their son in front of the entire world and show them I was the person who made him happier than he’d ever been. When I was more rational about it, of course I was not enthused about the idea of Retired Colonel Dickhead giving me stink eye the entire event.
Catch-22.
“Seb?” Calvin called from the living room.
I hastily buttoned my shirt, bent to yank my loafers back on, and walked to the stairs. “Yeah?” I started down, looking over the railing to the right as Calvin put his weapon on.
“What’s this?” he asked, with his free hand raising the envelope I’d tossed onto the table.
“USPS must have shoved it through the mail slot. I stepped on it when I got home.”
Calvin set it aside and put his suit coat on. He adjusted the collar and gave me a sideways glance as I joined him. “They delivered without postage?”
I grabbed the envelope and looked at it. After stepping on it in my haste to see the delivery guys upstairs, I hadn’t taken notice of the lack of stamps or confirmation it’d been processed through any post office. There didn’t appear to be a return address. I flipped it over—nothing on the back either.
I didn’t want to jump to any paranoid conclusions, although I didn’t think I’d be blamed for doing so. Still holding the envelope, I asked without looking at Calvin, “Do you want me to open it?”
“Wait.” Calvin walked toward the front door, turned left down the hall to the kitchen, and returned a moment later with a small kitchen knife. He carefully cut along the top of the envelope as I held it with the tips of my fingers.
Once Calvin finished, I dumped the contents onto the tabletop. A plastic Ziploc bag with some kind of mush inside fell out, followed by a folded piece of paper. I set the envelope aside, picked up the baggie, and held it up for both of us to examine.
“That’s a human eye,” Calvin stated.
Chapter Four
OR RATHER—it was a human eye.
After being trampled by two beefy delivery guys lugging a giant pine tree, followed by me and a dog, there wasn’t a lot left to its original form.
“Eye goop,” Neil said before snapping a photo. “Just great.”
Calvin stood a few feet farther into the living room, conversing with Quinn on his cell. Two police in uniform stood in the open doorway of our apartment. Another member of CSU was downstairs with a third officer, investigating the building’s front door and resident mailboxes.
I crossed my arms and studied Neil. No suit. He’d since changed into a long-sleeve sweater and a pair of dark jeans. “For not being the one on the receiving end of some seriously fucked-up, serial-killer, body-part-collector bullshit, you’re in an awfully foul mood this evening.”
Neil shot me a sour look.
I shrugged. “Trying to put life into perspective for you.”
“I’d just gotten off duty. I was in the middle of something.”
“Something sounds nice. Did I mention there’s a person wanting to cut me up into bite-size pieces?”
Neil paused, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. I knew the stance because it was one thing that he and Calvin had in common: the tendency to count to ten before deciding whether to take an argument with me to the next level.
When Neil opened his eyes again, I asked, “Feel better?”
“Nice hickey,” he retaliated, and not quietly.
I put a hand to my neck. “Shut it.”
Neil took another photo of the eye soup before setting his camera aside. “Have you looked at the note yet?”
I shook my head and took a wary step closer. “I wasn’t allowed.”
With gloved hands, Neil picked up the paper and carefully unfolded it. In identical Spencerian penmanship was one sentence:
A most peculiar war of intellect began and ended with a skull.
A Collector.
Underneath that—another drawing of an anatomical body part.
Neil was silent.
“A battle of wits,” I stated.
“Between who?”
“And to what length?” I said, instead of answering. “I mean, are we talking Odysseus crossing enemy lines inside the Trojan horse, or a game of questions between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?”
“I don’t think the note is suggesting a work of fiction,” Neil replied.
“No, I don’t believe so either,” I answered. “I only mean, a war of intellect can be both a literal or figurative battle. This note is extremely vague.”
“Well, which one involved a skull?”
“Do I look like fucking Wikipedia?” I shot back.
Neil clenched his jaw. He looked over my shoulder toward the living room, then said, very quietly, “I’m going to tell you about our other case because I think—for once—you being involved is a good thing.”
I shook my head and put my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to know.”
“Tough shit.”
“La, la, la, I can’t hear you.”
“Hey! Encyclopedia Britannica!” Neil snapped. “Listen to me.”
I lowered my hands. “Are you going to tell me about Frank Newell going missing? I’m aware. Why do you think Calvin is bringing me to a hotel?”
“Okay, fine. Did he also tell you this is the exact same message Frank got? Along with a delivery of human toes?” Neil waved the note for emphasis.
“The toes I knew about. Calvin… didn’t mention the note,” I said stiffly. Then a curious thought occurred to me. “Was this the only message Frank received?”
Neil shot Calvin another glance before murmuring, “No. He received two—”
“With another body part?”
“Yes,” Neil said slowly.
“Have you confirmed both—er—pieces were the same victim?”
“DNA evidence confirms this, yes. But we still don’t know who
—”
I waved a hand to stop him. “What did the second note say? Do you remember? When did you find that one?”
“Hold up on the inquisition.” Neil took a breath. “The second package was left on the tire of his car in a parking garage. It was found Wednesday evening. Same day as the first one that was delivered.” Neil retrieved his camera and started sifting through images stored on the memory card.
“Did you guys request video surveillance from the garage?”
“Wow. I bet that never occurred to Winter.” Neil turned the camera screen toward me. “This was his second note.”
A picture of now-familiar handwriting on plain paper said:
You have forty-eight hours. Hope you’re satisfied.
A Collector.
At the bottom was a drawing—a clinical rendition of the lower portion of a human foot.
Okay. One thing. Well, two things.
Fuck.
First thing.
“Look at how the drawings correspond to the packages. It’s basically showing you what to expect. His first note had a drawing of an ear, but the delivery was toes. This second note has a drawing of toes. So I’m guessing the package left in the garage had a severed ear?”
Neil nodded. “Indeed.”
“It’s the same as with me.” I reached to grab the note on the tabletop, then thought twice of doing so without latex gloves. Instead, I hovered my hand over it. “This morning at the Emporium, I had a delivery of a human head and a drawing of an eyeball. Tonight at home, I received said eyeball and a drawing of… what are these, molars?” I squinted a little at the picture in question, then looked at Neil, watching the wheels in his head begin to turn. “I’m going to get at least one more delivery, don’t you agree? And I bet it’ll have teeth. If it has a sketch of a head, that’ll bring the packages full circle.”
“Frank only had two messages.”
“Yeah. It seems like the Collector is adjusting their approach. Maybe because Frank failed in retrieving the artifact in question….”
“Or because you’re you,” Neil said. “And your brain doesn’t tick like most people’s.”
I scratched at my bristly chin. “That certainly gives more weight to the theory that it’s my reputation being targeted.”
Neil cocked his head. “Come again?”
I didn’t stop thinking out loud to explain to him what Calvin and I already feared to be the truth. “The first letter was an invitation to my curiosity. The second a temptation to my critical thinking.”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “And… the final message?”
“I suspect it’ll be similar—the countdown begins.”
“To find a skull,” Neil stated.
“Maybe.”
“What kind of skull?”
“I’m a snoop, not a clairvoyant,” I answered.
Calvin cleared his throat.
I turned around to see that not only had my handsome detective finished with his call to Quinn, but he’d likely been standing behind me and listening for a good minute. “Oh. Calvin. When did you get here?”
“Smooth,” Neil muttered.
Calvin stared at us. “Any other details of the case you want to share with an unauthorized individual, Millett?”
That annoyed Neil. Not that it was difficult to do. But his feathers were all a-ruffled that evening. “Was Frank Newell not confidential information?” he countered.
“I explained to Sebastian who Mr. Newell was so that he’d understand why I’m requesting police protection.”
“I told you this morning, and I’ll tell you again,” Neil said sternly, “keeping him out of this mystery is going to create more problems than simply asking for his help.”
“I don’t want to be involved,” I protested.
“Yes, you do,” Neil shot back.
“I mean, yes—but I won’t—wait, my help with what?” I asked suddenly, holding up my hands like I was putting on the brakes.
“No,” Calvin said to Neil with finality. “We’re done and not having this discussion again.” He looked at me briefly. “Grab your coat, sweetheart.”
I bit back a comment about them marking territory by pissing on my floor, and went toward the front door to fetch my coat from the rack. I glanced back, not surprised to see Calvin had assumed the hands-on-hips pose of authority as he continued to speak with Neil. When I grabbed for my scarf next, I caught one of the female officers in the open doorway staring at me.
“Men,” I said with a shrug.
She snorted, shook her head, and laughed a little.
I detoured briefly to the kitchen in order to collect the dog’s bowls and a bag of food. When I left the dark room and walked back down the hall, Calvin was straightening from putting Dillon’s leash on. I took it from him while he tossed the duffel bag over his shoulder.
“Usually I’m the one running low on sugar, spice, and everything nice,” I stated as we left the apartment.
Calvin followed me into the hall, tactfully ignoring the jab. “Millett will finish up here while I drive you to the hotel.”
“All right.”
He declined further comment after that.
We went down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor, where Calvin took the lead in order to have a brief word with the CSU detective and uniformed cop at the front door. I then followed him outside and along the sidewalk to his parked Ford Fusion. I settled Dillon in the back seat and climbed into the passenger’s as Calvin started the car. Cold air briefly blew out of the vents before it began to warm.
Calvin finagled the car from the side of the road and took off toward First Avenue. He hung the first left onto East Eleventh, then turned again uptown upon reaching Third Avenue. He adjusted the temperature controls with one hand.
“Need the heat higher?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It’s fine.” I glanced to the left as Calvin settled back in his seat. Light from streetlamps bounced off the windshield, cutting abstract shapes across his strong profile. “Hey. Uh—I’m not causing some kind of issue between you and Neil, am I?”
“No, Seb.”
“Because you could have fooled me.”
“Millett seems to have selective amnesia,” Calvin eventually said, “and thinks we’d benefit from having you professionally consult on this case.”
“Is that a slam?”
“Against you? It’s not meant to be, no.”
“I find it difficult to believe Neil wants me on this case more than what the Collector has already forced me into.”
“You’re smart,” Calvin said simply.
“That never stopped him from telling me to sit down and shut up in the past.”
Calvin tapped the wheel absently. “Yes, well… you might have an exasperating method of sleuthing, but that doesn’t diminish the knowledge you’ve provided on past cases.”
“Are you asking for my assistance?”
“Nope.”
I grunted. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t gamble with human lives. You’re already in too deep—I know, not by your own choosing,” he added when I made a sound of protest.
I looked at Calvin again when he stopped at a traffic light. “Can I tell you something about that note?”
“Which one?” He met my gaze. “The one addressed to you, or the one Millett insisted upon showing you?”
“Erm… both.”
Calvin looked at the road. “What about them?” he asked warily.
“Don’t they seem strange to you?”
“Obviously.” The light changed, and Calvin took his foot off the brake.
“I think we can come to the conclusion that ‘a most unusual article lost to time and neglect’ is likely to be a skull, based on the follow-up message. Now, what this war of intellect reference is, I can’t say. Nor do I have any idea what sort of skull the Collector may be searching for.”
“What about a dinosaur skull?” Calvin asked. “Frank is a paleontologist.”
>
I made a face, propped my elbow on the door, and leaned my head against my hand. “That’s possible.”
“What? A long-lost dinosaur skull doesn’t intrigue you?”
“It does,” I insisted.
“Did you not have a favorite dinosaur growing up?”
“Troodon.”
“Mine was Stegosaurus.”
“You know Stegosaurus was one of the dumbest dinosaurs? I mean, in relation to its brain-size versus body-size,” I explained.
“Thanks for breaking a seven-year-old boy’s heart,” Calvin replied.
“Suppose it is a dinosaur skull,” I continued, “for lack of any other lead. We should assume, based on the initial message, this is already a found artifact.”
“Not something yet to be unearthed in the sandstone hills of Wyoming, is that what you’re trying to say?” Calvin asked.
“Hmm. Once found, since lost.”
“Paleontology was all the rage in the 1800s,” Calvin suggested. “Perhaps that’s the incentive toward contacting you.”
“Egyptomania and anthropomorphic taxidermy were also hip,” I countered. “But yes, if we’re talking about a dinosaur bone specific to Victorian America, then… I can see why my reputation would encourage the Collector to reach out. But I’m going to admit right now, I don’t know much about dinosaurs beyond what I read in books as a kid.”
We’d hit Midtown by then. Traffic slowed to an evening crawl as we crossed avenues. I reached into the messenger bag at my feet, took out my sunglasses, and replaced my regular lenses with them. The closer we got to Times Square, the more commercial storefronts glowed in the night, the brighter the advertising, and the more blinding the visual noise.
“Frank’s second message is strange.”
“Of course it is.” Calvin hit the brakes suddenly. A biker, bundled up in enough winter gear to look like the Michelin Man, zoomed past without a care. Calvin shook his head and started driving again.
“‘I hope you’re satisfied.’ That phrase doesn’t make any sense in the context of the forty-eighty hour warning.” I scratched the back of my head. “It stands out like a sore thumb.”
“A double meaning?”
I shrugged. “A reference, perhaps.”
I mulled over possible allusions, ultimately coming up empty-handed as Calvin pulled to the curbside in front of a hotel on West Thirty-Seventh. He got out of the car, walked around the front, and was stopped by a doorman telling him he couldn’t park there. Drop-off only. Calvin flashed his badge as I climbed out of the passenger seat. I overheard him explain he’d be inside for only a few moments, to which the employee reluctantly agreed after studying Calvin’s credentials.
