by Jen Klein
Sky held a hand in front of my face to shush me while he continued his conversation. “Yes. We’re establishing a timeline and need to match it to a receipt from Thursday morning.” He paused. “Howard’s Flowers.” Another pause. “A dozen red roses.”
I couldn’t hear her response, but I assumed it involved a lot of crying because Sky started saying things like “It’s okay” and “I know, I know.”
The light turned green. I gunned through it. “I need help navigating if we’re going to crack this case!” I said, loudly enough for Corabelle to hear.
Sky made a face at me. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up. “She has a card that Todd sent her, but it’s in her car. She’ll text it in a minute.”
“And why do you want his signature?” I demanded. “Or a better question: Why didn’t you think to tell me you wanted it?”
“I want to match it to the one on the receipt for the flowers,” Sky explained, slipping back into that overly patient tone. “Maybe we’ve been going about this in the wrong way. Maybe Todd was already hellsick when he arrived at the florist and Susan missed the smell. After all, she was hungover from a night of gasoline prairie fires and . . . worse.” He pointed. “There.”
I turned left on Roscoe and pulled into the parking lot of the WaffleVille Diner. Not exactly cheery. There was a faded green awning and an even more faded green roof with peeling paint. It looked as if it was headed for foreclosure.
“Classy place for a date,” I said to Sky. “But I still don’t understand why you want Todd’s signature.”
“Because,” he explained, throwing open the car door, “if Todd was already hellsick at the florist, his signature will be shaky and messy. It’s worth comparing to his regular one, right?”
I frowned as we walked toward the diner. Despite the ratty exterior, it emitted the kind of smells that made my mouth water. Someone was baking biscuits. I took back my previous judgment.
“I’m not buying it,” I said to Sky. “Todd was coherent enough to tell Susan about Corabelle, and Susan was coherent enough to remember it. He couldn’t have been hellsick already.” I caught myself. “If such a thing as ‘hellsick’ even existed, that is.”
I heard a buzz, and Sky pulled out his cell phone. “Here it is,” he said. “Pull up the other one.”
I did, and we held our phones together. The signature on the receipt I’d photographed was messy, that was for sure. But so was the signature on Sky’s phone. They were the same. It just so happened that Todd Harmon had bad handwriting. I was relieved the guy was turning out to have at least one flaw. It would have been tremendously unfair if he was a hot, hard-working pre-med student with beautiful penmanship.
“That’s that,” I said, and started to pull my phone away.
“Hold on,” said Sky. He leaned close over my phone and peered at the photo. His breath was warm on my wrist.
“Hey!”
Sky had abruptly nabbed the phone out of my hand and was staring at the tiny screen. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s the succubus.”
Twelve
As we sped back down Sepulveda, Sky called Norbert and began rattling off information. “Todd Harmon didn’t meet the succubus after the florist shop. He met her at the florist shop. It’s the receipt just to the left of Todd’s receipt, on the edge of the picture. It looks like the name is Misty Callahan. Maybe you can blow the image up larger. Find out everything you can: her address, numbers, employment. Call as soon as you have any info.”
He hung up and turned to me. “It was there. It happened right there in Howard’s Flowers.”
“How can you possibly think you know that?” Sky waved my phone at me, and I swatted his hand away. “Driving!”
“Black calla lilies,” he said. “She bought black calla lilies.”
“What the hell is that supposed to prove?”
Sky made a pfft sound. “You don’t think succubi like daisies, do you? It’s classic. In the photo, you can see the receipt of the very next customer after Todd. Misty Callahan buying two dozen black calla lilies!”
I shook my head. “No way. Susan would remember if Todd kissed a succubus—a girl—in her store. Especially right after telling her his whole love story about Corabelle.”
“Susan could have been in the back room, or maybe she went to the bathroom after ringing up Todd. The succubus—”
“Misty,” I said.
“Fine, Misty,” he said. “She got her flowers, decided Todd looked scrumptious, and wove her spell. That’s why Corabelle thought he smelled burnt at breakfast. He had just gotten hellsick. He had just been taken over by Misty.”
I turned back onto Ventura Boulevard. “And you think that’s why he didn’t give the flowers to Corabelle?”
“Absolutely,” said Sky. “He was jacked up on succubus addiction. Couldn’t think straight.”
I almost laughed. “That condition seems to be going around.”
“You’ll see,” said Sky, very seriously. “We’ll ask Susan about the customer who came in right after Todd. If she’s tall and gorgeous, we got our girl.”
“We live in Los Angeles,” I informed him. “Tall and gorgeous is hardly an anomaly.” I flipped on my blinker to turn into the parking lot in front of Howard’s Flowers. “Hey, if what you’re saying is true about the succubi and how they trap their prey and all that, then what’s the defense? How would a guy protect himself? Wear a mask? A mouth guard? Be dorky enough that no self-respecting succubus would ever want to lip-lock with him?”
“Another woman’s kiss,” said Sky.
I made the turn and pulled into a space before looking at Sky. “Excuse me?”
He grinned. “Succubi hate the flavor of other women on their prey.” He winked before glancing toward the building. I watched his grin fade away. “Dammit.” Only then did I notice what he had. We were the only car in the parking lot. Howard’s Flowers had closed for the night.
An hour later, I found myself inching off the traffic-clogged highway exit my cousin had directed us to. “This is pointless,” I told Sky.
“No it’s not,” he retorted. “Norbert found a zip code. Don’t you trust your cousin?”
“I completely trust my cousin, but I have no idea why he trusts you. I think you’re a wing nut. And going downtown twice in the same day definitely qualifies as insane.”
“Turn here.”
Whether he was a wing nut or not, I did as he asked. We drove in silence for a few more minutes. We had already been over and over the facts : even though Todd had brought the roses with him, he hadn’t given them to Corabelle at breakfast. We’d also been over and over what Sky suspected: Todd had been confused and dizzy with succubus addiction, and so the bouquet had lain, forgotten, on his passenger seat while he’d struggled through his meal with Corabelle, his day at work, and an evening at his apartment.
I had to admit: I was having a hard time coming up with a plausible explanation that carried weight in the real world. I ran scenarios through my head: Todd had inexplicably gone on a spontaneous camping trip with a friend who owned equipment. Possible. Todd had fallen suddenly and tragically ill and was on his deathbed somewhere. Improbable, but I made a mental note to have Norbert search local hospital databases, just in case. Or maybe Todd had fallen for Misty Callahan, who was only a regular girl in a florist shop, albeit a girl with unusual taste in flowers. But maybe that was it. Maybe it was love at first sight, and Todd didn’t know how to tell Corabelle the truth.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” I blurted out.
“No.” Sky’s voice was quiet. I assumed he’d repeat the question back to me, but instead there was a long silence. One in which I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. One in which all I wanted to do was look at him.
I kept driving.
Sky pointed me to another street and then another. I followe
d his directions down a sketchy looking block and into a parking structure. I pulled into a space. We hopped out.
“Now what?” I asked. Maybe it was because I had been in charge of everything in my life for so long, or maybe it was because I had an impossible case and an obituary looming over my head—not to mention an unpaid electric bill—but letting someone else make a decision or two was actually a relief.
“Come on,” said Sky.
I followed him. We walked out to the street—lightly fragrant with urine, how lovely—and turned onto South Broadway. We passed two Spanish-language churches and several discount electronics stores. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in one of their windows. Even from the sidewalk, I could see that I was in disarray. My ponytail hung askew. My face was drawn, my eyes ringed with dark circles.
I glanced over at Sky who—of course—looked freshly showered and perfect despite a day of school and investigations. He seemed like the kind of guy who could run a marathon and still smell good afterward. I tore my eyes away from him and stared down at my boots.
A block up, the cement sidewalk gave way to a big, star-patterned mosaic in red and yellow and green. We were crossing it when Sky caught me by the elbow and gave a gentle tug, pulling me toward the adjoining building. We were underneath the awning; my nose told me that we were heading into a restaurant. I stopped moving. “Why are we going in here?”
“Because your stomach growled,” said Sky.
Color rose to my cheeks. “No, it didn’t.”
“Yes it did,” said Sky. “In the car.”
I managed a smile. Okay, he was right. I’d thought the radio had drowned it out, but apparently Sky had ears like a rabbit.
“I could hear it over your terrible music,” he teased.
“My music isn’t terrible. It’s catchy. That’s its genius. But for the record, you are not in charge of feeding me.”
“Someone needs to be. Now come on.” I let him pull me toward the double glass doors. “Besides,” he added, almost too quietly for me to hear, “it’s a great restaurant for a first date.”
Thirteen
It figured Sky would choose this place. It was a smug and subtle jab, at me. Right inside the front doors was a forest wonderland. Painted trees and rock formations sprung all the way up to the second floor. A waterfall—with actual water—bubbled down from above. A life-size bear held a plate.
The restaurant was to nature what I was to paranormal detection: totally fake.
Sky guided me into a cafeteria line. The food didn’t look fancy, but it smelled fantastic. He knew my taste. We each picked up a dessert (for some reason, they were first), and then I heaped a plate full of sautéed mushrooms and buttered peas and candied yams and added a big yeasty-smelling roll. He got roast beef and mashed potatoes. I reached the cashier before Sky did, but it was too late.
I was fishing through my wallet when I realized he was handing a card over. I turned to scowl at him, but he was already scowling back at me, perfectly mimicking what I’d spent years perfecting.
“See what you look like?” he said.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“You have a nice laugh,” he said.
My mouth clapped shut. He should have known by then that I didn’t do compliments.
In silence, I followed him up a set of worn stairs to a small balcony with two empty tables. We set our trays down and sat in the vinyl-covered chairs overlooking the main seating area. I took a moment to soak in the kitsch. There were garlands of ivy cascading from fake outcroppings of rock. A giant moose head gazed out from a patch of fake pine trees. Nearby, a tiny open cabin was fronted by a stream lit in brilliant green.
I turned to Sky. “Where did you find this place?”
“Online when I was getting ready to move to Los Angeles. Isn’t it cool?”
“I mean, I don’t know if ‘cool’ is exactly the word I’d use . . .”
“But interesting, right?”
I nodded. “Definitely interesting.”
Sky started eating. I did the same. I couldn’t stop thinking about that word, date. Was that what this was? I’d always imagined I would at least shower and change my clothes before a date. Whatever a “date” even was (the mah-jongg-sponsored movie with Michael Wilkins didn’t count). I’d spent the entire day with this guy, mostly annoyed at him, but occasionally grateful for his assistance. It was definitely not the normal lead-up to a first date, so how was this supposed to work? What did regular teenagers talk about on dates? Hey, so I got this obituary that says I’m going to bite it in six months.
More important, I wasn’t convinced that Sky wanted to be on a date with me. It was very possible that this was all part of some larger plan I still wasn’t seeing: cozying up to the daughter of Dr. Lewis Cade—the daughter he’d blackmailed, no less—for unknown reasons. Maybe he was so persistent because he really did want me to believe in my father’s nonsense. Maybe he was trying to save me in his own deluded way.
Most important: I’d strayed from the plan.
This dinner had nothing to do with the case.
The silence stretched beyond awkward into excruciating as we both finished our dinners.
Finally, as I reached for my strawberry pie, Sky spoke up.
“Now do you want to talk about it?”
I took a bite and made a show of savoring it. “Sure,” I said. “It’s sweet. And a little tangy.”
“Ha-ha,” said Sky. “I mean about last night. About your dad, or your mom, or whatever.”
My sister.
I fixed my eyes on a cartoonish moon painted on the wall high over the restaurant floor. “Nope.”
“Well, too bad,” said Sky. “I’m bored of talking about Corabelle’s case and thought I’d try regular old chatting.”
Which, obviously, I suck at. But whatever. I could indulge him with some light conversation, at least for a minute or two.
“Okay, where do you live?” I cringed at my own question. Would Sky think I was planning to stalk him back, the way he’d stalked me? If that was my best attempt at conversation, I might never have a second date in my whole life. If this was even a first one.
“Woodland Hills,” he said, pretending not to notice my discomfort.
“Then why don’t you go to Taft High School?”
Sky fiddled with his napkin. “I toured it when I moved here and didn’t like it.”
“Where did you move from?”
“San Francisco.”
“Why?”
“Dad got transferred.” Sky laid his napkin on his plate. “What do you think Todd was doing downtown?”
Great. My stab at conversation had already failed. So much for regular old chatting. But this was what I wanted anyway, right? This was good.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but do you really, honestly—I mean, truly—believe that he fell under the spell of a succubus?”
Sky pushed his plate away and leaned across the table. “Look, Jillian . . . I know you’re a skeptic. But don’t tell me you’ve never experienced something you can’t explain.”
I stared back, not sure how to answer. My entire life was an experience I couldn’t explain. I had grown up in a house where everything I thought I knew turned out to be a lie, a place where the earth shifted under my feet and the rules kept changing. All I knew for certain was that the magic had splintered around me, my mother had gotten lost in the twisted maze of her own mind, and my father had run away on a fruitless quest for something that didn’t exist: answers.
Or maybe that’s just what you tell your kid when you abandon her.
Sky didn’t push me. He waited for me to answer, to form my thoughts. Where to start? There was so much that didn’t make sense. Memories swam up from my childhood: murky, impossibly tall shapes looming over my bed at night. My parents checking on me. Whispers in
a language I didn’t know. A babysitter from another country. Shadows that could only be glimpsed in passing. Figments of my overactive imagination.
The way Mom used to twitch her fingers and make the laundry dance on the clothesline.
“It was the wind.” I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Sky responded.
“What?”
I swallowed, hard. “Nothing.”
Sky leaned even closer. “Jillian, you’re different. Special. You’ve always known it.” Once again, he sounded as if he were pleading with me. Only this time, I knew that he was right. I didn’t know how he knew it, but Sky Ramsey was right. There was something different about me.
Something broken.
“No!” The word popped from my mouth like a firecracker. I shoved my chair back from the table. “I’m done.”
I stalked out of the balcony, down the stairs, and across the restaurant to the door without looking back. Not that I had to. Sky was right behind me. He followed me all the way to my car.
Fourteen
We were back on the case. Just like I wanted. Sky poked at his phone, occasionally giving me directions, and I drove. Other than that, neither of us said a word, which was fine with me. As the sun set and the city streetlights glowed to life, Sky and I were back to our normal, totally abnormal, routine.
We ended up in Little Tokyo. I had never been there before, so I wasn’t prepared for the cool and funky factor. Lots of neon and signs written in what I assumed was Japanese. A woman in a red kimono walking a tiny dog, also in a red kimono. Bars and tattoo parlors and more skinny jeans than I’d ever seen in one place. What I did not see was either Todd Harmon or a succubus.
“I assume you’re logging on to your account at wildgoosechase.com,” I said to Sky, finally shattering the silence. Sometimes I amuse myself with my own wit. Sometimes I have to in order to survive.
Sky shook his head. “Nope, just trying to find places that might be fronts for a succubus hangout. Do you want me to delete your spam?”
