by Jen Klein
“Hi.” I dropped my backpack to the ground, plopping onto the other end of the bench. I glanced at my watch. Eight minutes.
First thing first: get rid of Corabelle. I decided to fight fornication with fornication. “I need this space,” I told her. “I got a guy coming.”
“Really?” Corabelle’s tone of surprise was, frankly, a little offensive.
I frowned.
“Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry at all. “I’ve just never seen you with a guy.”
I scanned the street. No cars were slowing down as they drove past the school. Yet. “Maybe I don’t have guys the way you have guys, but I have guys.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Now she sounded offended. “The way I have guys?”
“Hi, guys.”
It was a guy’s voice. Actually, it was Sky’s voice. He sat down between us on the bench.
Wonderful.
“Hello,” Corabelle cooed.
Wonderful . . . and also irritating. I shrugged off any faint idea that Sky might have been interested in me, or that Corabelle wouldn’t be interested in him. With his messy crop of dirty-blond hair and the way his face was all perfect and his body was all tall and lean, it made total sense that she’d jumped right on it. But seriously, school had started like four hours ago. It wasn’t her taste that was so impressive. It was her speed.
Now I had seven minutes until my client showed up, and I had to ditch two audience members instead of one. This was awful . . .
Or not, I suddenly realized.
Since Corabelle and Sky appeared to be meeting for some noontime nookie, maybe there was a way to get him to take her somewhere else. After all, she wasn’t going to let him get to second base right in front of me. At least, I hoped not.
“Condoms,” I blurted out.
Corabelle stared at me. “What?”
“She said condoms,” Sky told her helpfully.
“They’re giving them out in the cafeteria,” I said. “It’s part of the war against sexually transmitted diseases. You guys should go pick some up.”
“What are you trying to say?” Corabelle asked.
“Only that you might want to take advantage of the free prophylactics being offered at our oh-so-progressive school.”
“I’m on the pill,” said Corabelle.
“But these are special condoms. Like, with colors and flavors.” I was improvising now, which couldn’t be good. Outside of that one embarrassing week in seventh-grade health class, I’d never come in contact with a condom in my life. “And shapes.”
Sky and Corabelle exchanged glances. “Shapes?” he said.
Corabelle shrugged. “Hey, if you want to check out the condoms with shapes, go right ahead.” She fixed me with a glare that was both icy and amused. “I’m comfortable right here.”
“Me too,” said Sky.
What did they want, a witness for their exchange of bodily fluids? They would not win this battle. They could get it on anywhere. I was staking my claim on this bench. I checked my watch again. Five minutes. Still no cars. I was debating faking a coronary, because maybe at least one of them would run for help, when Corabelle said something that changed my mind.
“You know what would make this bench even more comfortable?” She stared straight at Sky. “A nice thick blanket.”
I froze.
Blanket? Did she say blanket?! The first of my four random passwords? It had to be a coincidence. It had to be merely a weird way of inviting Sky’s lips onto her own. Surely—surely—my rich HelpMeDude client was not Corabelle LaCaze!
I looked at Sky. He was smiling at Corabelle. “If you don’t mind getting bird poop on it,” he said.
“Oh.” Corabelle kept her gaze on Sky. She could have been disappointed about one of two things: either that Sky hadn’t said the second password or that he hadn’t lunged into her mouth. The latter seemed more likely.
There was only one thing to do. I leaned toward Corabelle, trying to ignore Sky between us. “I agree with you,” I said.
Her giant blue eyes turned to me. “You do?”
“A blanket would be great out here. It could be used for a picnic.”
“A picnic?” Corabelle also leaned closer.
“A fancy picnic,” I said. “One with gourmet cheeses and spiced olives and baguettes.”
“Anything else?” Corabelle’s eyes never wavered from mine.
“Champagne?” said Sky. We both ignored him.
“Vegetables,” I said.
“Vegetables,” Corabelle breathed.
We drew closer until we were practically in Sky’s lap. He didn’t seem to mind. “Green beans?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “No green beans.”
“Definitely no green beans,” said Corabelle.
I stared straight at Corabelle, letting the word slide slowly from between my lips. “Assssparagusssss.”
Corabelle’s eyes and mouth popped open super wide. “Only if you cooked it on a skateboard!” she shrieked.
Okay, now that was just stupid. Mine at least made sense.
“A skateboard in Guam,” I concluded.
Corabelle leaped to her feet. “Holy shit! You’re Umbra Investigations!”
And then she burst into tears.
Four
I leapt up, holding my hands out to shush Corabelle. The girl cried loud. “Let’s go somewhere else,” I urged in what I hoped was a soothing voice. I glanced at Sky. He already knew too much about my father. No need to share even more information about my secret life as a (fake) paranormal detective.
But Sky didn’t seem to take the hint. He pulled a tissue out of his backpack and handed it to Corabelle.
“Don’t leave on my behalf,” he said. “Umbra is the bomb.”
I whirled to him. “That’s it. Get lost. Find some other girls to bother. This isn’t your party.”
But Sky only grinned at me, leaning back on the bench with his hands laced behind his head. “But it’s the most interesting party in town.”
I scowled. Fanboy of my dad or not, what kind of jerk sticks around where he’s clearly unwanted? I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought, but Corabelle interrupted.
“It totally makes sense that you’re Umbra,” she gasped between sobs. “If anyone at this school was going to be a paranormal investigator—”
Fake, I added in my head.
“—it’s you. You’re so weird and dark and scary.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “Look, let’s go where we can talk. Alone. I’ll buy you a coffee and—”
“It’s in Jillian’s DNA,” Sky interrupted. “Her father is basically a guru when it comes to the paranormal, so of course she’s a genius with this stuff. You’re in great hands.”
I glared at him once more before focusing my gaze on Corabelle. It was time to try a different strategy: ignoring Sky completely. “What’s with the HelpMeDude handle?” I asked her. “I thought you were a guy.”
“I meant to type HelpMyDude, but I hit the wrong key.”
She blew her nose, and Sky fished out yet another tissue for her.
Ignoring wasn’t working either. And something occurred to me. Sky was being helpful. Really helpful. Too helpful. In my limited understanding of cute boys, even the ones who are fanboys of Daddy Dearest, they don’t go this far out of their way without a hidden agenda. Something was off about Sky Ramsey. Something that maybe I could have figured out if I had been a real detective.
“So you’ve got a case?” he asked Corabelle.
I wanted to kill him, but I let it go for a moment because I didn’t want to scare Corabelle away. And because she was taking deep, calming yoga breaths beside me. She dabbed her eyes one last time. “My boyfriend is missing.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Sky and I said together. Apparent
ly I hadn’t been the only one thinking Corabelle was tongue-gunning for Sky. It must have bummed him out to see his lunch-hour sexy time disappear, but at least now he might take off in search of someone who was more available.
“Todd Harmon, like I wrote,” Corabelle said. “He’s a junior at CSUN.”
Of course he was.
All right, time to get Sky out of here. I made shooing motions. “Okay, you’ve seen enough. Go away. This is a confidential case.”
“He can stay,” said Corabelle. “I don’t mind.”
“I can stay,” Sky echoed. “She doesn’t mind.”
“You can’t stay because I mind,” I informed them both.
Sky stared at me. “Interesting.”
“It’s not interesting and it’s not your business. Goodbye.”
“You know, the way you say ‘confidential,’ Jillian . . . it doesn’t sound like you mean it.” The smile he turned on me was slow. Deliberate. “It sounds like you’re just making that up. It sounds like . . . fiction.”
The blood in my wrists went icy and sluggish. Sky wasn’t just off. He was blackmailing me. He was using my own words from earlier against me—the ones I’d said when it hadn’t occurred to me that he would ever be a witness to my fake detective work. But why would that have occurred to me? I began to feel panicky. Maybe he’d appointed himself to be the hero who exposed the lies of the Cade family. Maybe he wasn’t a fanboy after all.
Maybe he was the opposite.
“There’s no fiction here,” I said, inwardly scrambling for a way to defend myself if he outed me as a nonbeliever in the paranormal to Corabelle. “There’s just me trying to do my job.”
“All I’m saying is I would enjoy watching you do that job. After all, it’s always amazing to see someone who is truly gifted in their . . . calling.” The way he paused before the last word confirmed it: Sky was epically screwing with me, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to get epically screwed.
The only question was why.
“Please go.” It came out more pitiful than I intended.
“As you wish,” said Sky, standing up. “I want to help, but I’m pretty busy anyway. It turns out that I have some really interesting facts to publish on various social media outlets.” He pulled out his phone and started swiping and tapping. “Mostly a global bulletin about Jillian Cade, the great paranormal investigator and the strongly held beliefs that compelled her to become involved with this business in the first place—”
“Fine!” I interrupted. “Stay, Sky. Please. Help if you want to help.”
“Are you sure?” Sky awarded me another (unfortunately) brilliant smile.
“I’m sure.” Inwardly, I wondered if it was possible to suffocate him with a wad of his own Corabelle-soiled tissues. It was clear: I had no choice in the matter. I was going to have to roll with this—at least temporarily. I turned back to Corabelle. “Saturday, on the application, you said Todd had been missing for a day.” I unzipped my backpack and rustled around for a pen and notebook. “You still haven’t heard from him?”
“Nothing.”
“So three days. Since Friday.” I scribbled it down.
“Is that when you last saw him?” asked Sky.
“I got this,” I told him with a glare. “If you want to help, just listen.”
“No, that was Thursday night,” Corabelle answered.
“Out of curiosity,” I asked her, “why haven’t you called the police?”
“Do you happen to know a cop who’d believe my boyfriend was cursed?”
And here we go.
This would usually be when I clicked into full-out bullshit mode. The problem was, this time I would have to do it in front of an audience member who was one hundred percent onto me, and whose motives I could only guess. I tapped my pen against the notebook.
“Hm,” I said, my voice thoughtful to match the thoughtful face I was trying to make. “Cursed, you say.”
I glanced over at Sky and saw that one of his eyebrows was raised.
“I know it sounds weird,” said Corabelle.
“Not at all. Curses are Umbra’s specialty. Tell me more.”
“I mean, he’s a twenty-one-year-old guy,” said Corabelle. “Of course he’s going to go out partying with his friends. I don’t expect us to spend every waking minute together.”
I could see where this was heading. Corabelle had hooked up with a college guy and couldn’t take it when he blew her off. Way better for her ego to assume it was a curse than to accept what had probably actually lured him away: a hot coed with an interest in anatomy.
Now that I thought about it, this was going to be a piece of cake.
I’d find out who Todd was dating and then tell Corabelle I’d broken the curse. Yet in doing so, I’d say that I had learned the identity of Todd’s soul mate. I would woefully share that it was not Corabelle, and I’d “prove” it by showing her photos or videos of Todd with his collegiate flavor of the month. Then, to assuage her grief, I’d throw in a free charm to attract a love of her own.
Since Corabelle had never had a problem getting male attention, she’d have another guy on top of her within minutes. Maybe it would even be Sky. I could play it off as a supernatural sign that he’d shown up right as Todd had bailed out. I could kill two birds with one stone and wash my hands of the whole stupid affair, many dollars richer. Not too bad, all things considered.
“What was the first sign that he’d been cursed?” I asked her.
“We were supposed to go out Wednesday night, but he canceled on me.” I scribbled. Sky made a tsking sound. Corabelle kept going. “Todd had a headache, so instead we decided to meet for breakfast before he went to work the next day. At the restaurant on Thursday morning, he was all weird and distracted. And he smelled . . .” She paused and I waited. “He smelled like he’d been burnt.”
My pen hovered over the notebook. “Burnt?”
Sky leaned forward on the bench, his smug expression gone. Now he seemed to be listening intently.
“I don’t know how else to explain it,” said Corabelle. “It wasn’t anything like barbecue smoke, and it wasn’t exactly like cigarettes either. It was—”
“Hellfire.”
That would be Sky who said the word. Sky, who had no business throwing himself into my business, who was now standing and pacing in front of the bench. “It sounds like hellfire,” he said.
No, really. What did he want?
Corabelle nodded. “If that’s a thing, that’s how I’d describe it.”
“Was it sulfuric?” Sky asked. “You know, like a lit match?”
I was getting fed up, fast. It wasn’t enough that he was blackmailing me. Now he had to play Mr. Amateur Fake Detective too?
“That’s not relevant to—” I began. And then I stopped. What if that was it? What if Sky wasn’t playing annoying amateur detective but was, instead, the real (fake) thing? Another pretend pro trying to move in on my turf. It had never happened before, but there’s a first time for everything. And it made sense, given all his interest in my father.
Or maybe I was just jumpy because someone had slipped an obituary into my locker.
Either way, I had to indulge him. At least in front of Corabelle. Once I had Sky alone, I’d be able to find out what he was up to.
“Yeah, sulfuric,” Corabelle answered Sky. “And then, all the rest of the day, it was radio silence from Todd. No calls. No emails. Nothing. It wasn’t like him. He always sends me texts from work, little things . . . you know, for my eyes only.”
Barf, I thought.
“Nice,” Sky said.
Corabelle smiled gratefully at Sky. “That’s the thing. He even stopped playing Words With Friends. Right in the middle of our game. He never came back to it. It was awful.”
Tragic.
“So we are still talkin
g about Thursday,” I said for clarification.
“Yes.”
“One workday,” I said, on the off chance I had somehow missed a key piece of information. “Literally eight hours where Todd didn’t call you or text you or play turn-based word games with you.”
“Right,” said Corabelle.
“Did you see him Thursday night?” Sky cut in.
“Yes, but not for long. I went over to his apartment.”
“Uninvited?” I asked.
She ignored the question, keeping her eyes on Sky. “His roommates were playing poker.”
“He didn’t join in?” asked Sky.
“No,” said Corabelle. “He sat in the corner and watched them.”
“Was it like he was in a trance?” said Sky.
Corabelle nodded, swallowing. “Exactly. His eyes were all red.”
I bit my lip, forcing myself to stay quiet. I reminded myself of the facts: Corabelle was the one with the checkbook; Sky was the one with the goods on me; and I was the one with the fraudulent business practices.
“Were his lips dry?” Sky pressed. “Did his hands shake?”
“Yes!” Corabelle sat up straight and began nodding. “Both of those.”
I cleared my throat loudly. Sky was hitting too close to the mark. Too close to my mark. Unless . . .
Another possibility crept into my mind.
I hopped to my feet and took a hard look at Sky. He was good-looking, tall, with some muscles but not in that too-much-time-at-the-gym way. Mature. Maybe older even. And he grilled Corabelle with assurance. The kind of assurance that didn’t seem amateur at all.
What if Sky wasn’t an amateur detective or a fake pro? What if he wasn’t even a student? What if he was the real deal, as in, real—an actual young-looking cop stationed on school grounds to investigate me?
What if I was the mark here?
I wasn’t one to pore over academic guidelines, but I was pretty sure that running a bogus paranormal-investigation business on campus was against school rules. And probably against legal ones too.
