I pointed two doors down. He pulled me to Jed’s door and pounded on it. I stared at my shirt.
“Unless you want to give your neighbor a show, you might want to put that on,” Hudson said.
“Won’t matter. Jed’s gay.”
“Hey.” Hudson tilted my face with his hands until I stared into his eyes. “Snap out of it. I need you here.”
I blinked. The door opened and I jumped behind Hudson and stuffed my arms into my shirt, yanking it down.
“Look, I don’t know—”
“Jed, someone broke into my apartment,” I said.
“Eva?” Jed blinked at me, then turned a steely gaze back to Hudson.
“Call nine-one-one,” Hudson said.
Jed stuck his head into the hallway and peered toward my apartment. “Are they gone?”
“I don’t know.”
Jed grabbed both our arms and yanked us into his apartment. Troy rushed toward us, phone in hand, looking like an avenging Latin god: thick black hair slicked back, five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw, and topless, his nut brown skin and defined abs glistening with sweat.
“I heard,” Troy said; then he turned his attention to the cordless phone. “Yes, I need to report a break-in.”
“Are you okay?” Jed asked me, pulling me deeper into the loft and sitting me on their couch. I went willingly; I needed to get as far from the phone as possible. “You’re looking a little . . . askew.”
“I’m fine.” I glanced down at myself. My shirt was on backward. Fighting a losing battle against a blush, I pulled my arms into the sleeves of my shirt and turned it face forward.
“You should tell your man his pants are undone,” Jed said.
I whirled toward Hudson. He paced in front of Troy, who was still on the line with the 911 operator. The top button of his jeans was undone, and the zipper had slid down far enough to show the waistband of his underwear. Blue today. He’d changed them when he’d gone on his donut run a lifetime ago.
As if he felt the weight of my stare, Hudson glanced my way, then turned his back to the room and buttoned and zipped his pants.
“I love the honeymoon phase,” Jed said, his eyes on Troy.
The wait for the police was interminable. It took them twelve minutes, but I spiraled through a year’s worth of nightmares, all beginning and ending with Jenny. When the police arrived, they wouldn’t let us into the hallway until they verified my home was unoccupied.
“The burglars must have knocked out the electricity for this floor,” Troy said, gesturing to the dark bulb overhead. Nothing happened when he flicked a light switch.
“Odd,” I said. I paced the entryway, listening to the cops on their radios through the door. My feeble attempt to reinstate my normal barriers couldn’t counter the fear riding my thoughts.
I had my eye pressed to the peephole when the policeman gave the all clear, and I yanked the door open before his fist could make contact.
“Are you Eva Parker?” he asked. I nodded. “I’m Officer Bae. This is Officer Teague.” Caucasian and tall, Bae had sandy brown hair and a baby face. Teague was shorter, Asian, and bored. He tipped his head toward me, got a nod from Bae, and walked off toward the stairs. A calculator sat on his shoulder, spewing a stream of ticker tape that undulated up his leg like a boa constrictor.
“Was there anyone inside?” Hudson asked, coming up behind me.
“And you are?”
“Hudson Keyes. Eva’s boyfriend.”
“Do you both reside here?”
“No, just me, Officer,” I said.
Bae shifted his stance, hooking his thumbs into his belt. An enormous reporter’s camera popped into existence beside him, the lens focused on Bae’s face. “The perpetrators are long gone.”
I tried to step into the hallway, but Bae didn’t move.
“I’m sorry to tell you, ma’am, but they got all of your electronics.”
“No. I—” I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t tell my usual lies that my electronics were loaned to friends or being repaired to a police officer. Even if I wanted to, I had to match what I’d told Hudson earlier. Flustered, I tried to recall our conversation, but I kept seeing the trashed sliver of my home visible from the entrance, and all other thoughts slid away.
Bae took my hesitation as shock. “Your TVs, your computer, everything. You’ll need to file a report—”
“I didn’t have any,” I said, thoughts scrambling.
“No computer?”
“It’s in the shop,” Hudson said. That’s right.
“Your TVs?”
“I didn’t have any.”
“Not even one?”
“No.”
“Microwave?”
I shook my head.
“Did you just move in?”
“She’s a feng shui consultant,” Hudson said.
Bae narrowed his eyes at me. The camera by his shoulder shifted to point at me.
“Maybe you should walk me through the place and tell me what’s been taken.”
Bae wouldn’t let Hudson accompany us. I walked through my emotional minefield alone. The couch—the first piece of furniture I’d ever purchased—lay in shreds. My favorite reading chair had been ripped apart. Glass and ceramic shards littered the floor, remnants of art and framed memories. The middle three shelves of all four bookcases had been swept to the floor. Book spines were broken, pages ripped. Glass coated every surface.
My office suffered the brunt of the assault. The filing cabinets had been emptied across the floor, my desk overturned, my calendar torn to pieces. I stood on the threshold, hand to my mouth, and tried to hold in my tears.
“Do you see anything missing?” Bae asked.
I shook my head. It was impossible to tell. They could have taken some paperwork, a book, a picture. I wouldn’t know until I’d gone through everything.
I reached to pick up the nearest piece of paper.
“Not yet,” Bae said. His hand was firm on my arm. “Let’s check upstairs.”
I wanted to say no.
Clothes scattered down the stairs; more lay in clumps across my bedroom floor. I sidestepped the mess and opened the middle drawer of my dresser. Half the shirts had been torn out. I shoved the rest aside and stared at the back of a framed painting. I didn’t flip it over. I didn’t need to. It was an original early S. Sterling colored pencil drawing titled James Parker. The handsome teenage man with pale blond hair and a cleft chin in the portrait was crowded by overlapping images: a beagle puppy; a faded tan minivan with dark, foggy windows hinting at naked forms in the backseat; two butterflies with footballs for spots; a silver lasso; an NES video game controller; and a swath of starry night sky. My father, as Sofie had seen him twenty-six years ago. She’d given me the drawing on my eighteenth birthday. I’d buried it in my dresser the same day.
“Something missing?” Bae asked, and I jumped.
“No.”
I uncurled my fist and slammed the drawer, mentally and physically, on James Parker; I had enough to deal with today. I stood at the corner of my loft and stared down at the destruction below. A hurricane in my apartment could not have caused more damage. I brushed a tear from my cheek.
A short, black woman walked into the living room, a bag clutched in one hand. “Bae? Are you in here?” she called.
“Up here.” Bae trotted down the stairs, avoiding most of my clothing. “Why didn’t you call up?”
“I did. Did you turn your radio off?”
Bae fiddled with the buttons on the tiny piece of electronics, looking puzzled.
I trudged after Bae. He introduced me to Officer Plunket, a one-woman crime-scene-evidence collector. She had thigh-high dominatrix boots on over her work uniform, complete with four-inch spike heels. I figured those weren’t regulation boots and must be an apparition, as was the sleek panther stalking across my front room and the herd of Beanie Babies frolicking in the air between us, and shock made it easy to ignore them. At least Bae’s camera had turne
d its lens away from me. It now focused squarely on Plunket’s breasts, shooting from straight above and up close. When she pulled out her fingerprint dust, Bae motioned me toward the hallway. The camera followed us with blatant reluctance.
Hudson pulled me into his arms the moment I crossed the threshold. Jellyfish bobbed around us like live naval mines, swaying close on invisible currents. I shivered as a handful guttered through me, their poisonous eidolon stings impotent.
“Are you okay?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Can you think why anyone would want to do this?” Bae asked.
“No.” I pulled free of Hudson’s arms and faced the cop and his camera, ignoring the membranous horde. Only one thing had changed recently in my life, and though I’d thought about nothing else since Troy had called 911, I couldn’t find a connection between the destruction of my apartment and Kyoko. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have said anything. I couldn’t. Bae, a hardened street cop, treated me with open suspicion simply because I didn’t own a TV. If he knew about my curse—if anyone found out—he and everyone else would treat me like a walking plague.
I rallied my thoughts, thankful for a lifetime of lies to prompt me. “I would have told you I don’t have any enemies, but . . .”
Bae studied me, then Hudson. The camera zoomed on my face. Bae’s lips tightened and he narrowed his eyes at me.
“It looks like someone is trying to send you a message. Whatever you’re mixed up in, I suggest you get out of it.”
“I’m not—”
“This wasn’t random. No one picks a penthouse loft in a building with camera security for a crime of opportunity.”
“About those cameras,” Hudson began.
“We’ll let you know if they show us anything useful,” Bae said. “But it would be helpful if we weren’t working in the dark.”
I didn’t like his accusation, but I had to admit he had a point. When Bae excused himself to question neighbors, I spun through possible scenarios again, my mind latching on to the most unlikely connections. Like between Sofie’s art being stolen and this break-in. Were those connected? Or was this the work of Atlas and Edmond? They’d said they were Jenny’s cousins and working for her, but could that have been a ruse? Were they looking for information about Kyoko’s whereabouts?
“Do you think it was the mysterious skip tracer?” Hudson asked.
“I don’t know. Why destroy my apartment? I obviously wouldn’t have Kyoko in there.”
“Like the cop said, he could have been sending a message.”
“If he is, I don’t get it.”
“‘Help Jenny and I’ll destroy your life’?” Hudson suggested.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and said nothing.
It took an hour for Plunket to dust for fingerprints. She took samples of mine and Hudson’s for reference, then packed up and left. Bae waited on the scene until she finished. None of my neighbors had heard anything or seen anyone suspicious.
The numbness was fading, and my fear had long since waned. Only anger was left. After the officers departed, I stomped into my apartment, grabbed the chair in the entryway, and dragged it back to the front room.
“What are you doing?” Hudson asked, trailing after me, Jed and Troy following.
“Cleaning up. Those bastards did a number on my feng shui, and I’m not leaving it like this.”
“Oh, Eva!” Jed exclaimed, halting at the edge of my living room. “Is it all like this?”
“Every room.”
Troy swept me into a tight hug. He’d put a shirt on at some point, and he smelled like he’d showered, too. “I’m so glad you weren’t here when they did this,” Troy said, not releasing me. “You could have been hurt.”
“But I wasn’t. I’m fine. Except for air. I need air, Troy.”
Hudson returned from my office, his hands in fists. He marched upstairs. Jed followed, picking up the strewn contents of my closet as he went.
Ari arrived in a breathless rush, took one look at my loft, and pulled me into a tight hug. “Jed called. I ran the whole way.” She brushed tears from my cheeks with gentle fingers. “I’m so sorry, Eva.” She didn’t ask if I was okay. She marched to the laundry room and returned with a broom and large plastic bags.
“Thank you,” I said. I took the broom and swept piles of glass. Ari pulled her hair back into a ponytail and helped Troy straighten heavy furniture. My couch was ruined, and we bagged the destroyed cushions to take down to the Dumpster. Most of my photographs were salvageable, but only one frame survived. I cleaned methodically, anger draining with each sweep of the broom. The vases on the mantel, the ceramic lamp base, and the glass fixtures over every light and lamp all mixed together in jagged shards. Only two kitchen fixtures had been left unbroken, and until Antonio could verify the gas lines to the other lights hadn’t been damaged, I didn’t risk turning on any other lights.
“Come on, Eva, let’s finish in the morning,” Hudson said, placing his hand on my arm. I had the feeling he’d repeated himself and I hadn’t noticed.
I glanced up. Daylight had bled away. Behind Hudson, Jed, Troy, and Ari waited, watching me.
“I can’t leave my home like this.” The negative feng shui would give me nightmares.
“We can’t do much more tonight. We need to get food and rest. We’ll come back tomorrow refreshed. It’ll all look—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘better.’”
“Manageable tomorrow,” Hudson finished. A round yellow disk with a piece missing out of it, like a flat wheel of cheese, skimmed down Hudson’s stomach. No, not cheese. The missing piece opened and closed like a mouth. Pac-Man? What does Pac-Man have to do with anything?
“You can stay with us tonight,” Jed said. “Our spare bedroom seldom gets used—”
“Eva can stay with me.” Hudson’s tone made it sound like an order. Behind Hudson’s back, Jed raised his eyebrows at me in silent question.
I closed my eyes. Hudson proposed disaster. If I slept at his place, not a single drop of electricity would survive. One morning waking up to a localized power outage was bizarre. The second time could be laughed off as a strange coincidence. The third time ended the relationship. I’d made superstitious men of four lovers before I’d given up alternating sleeping arrangements. Now, all men stayed with me, in a hotel, or not at all.
“You should stay with me,” Ari said.
“No,” Hudson said. “Eva, I want you where I know you’re safe.”
“You think staying at Ari’s would be dangerous?” I met Ari’s worried eyes.
“I think Antonio is dangerous.”
My lips twitched, trying to remember how to smile.
“Don’t be silly, Hudson,” Ari protested. She couldn’t see the tarnished broadsword hanging from Hudson’s back.
My white knight had no clue he invited the curse into his home.
“Is Antonio home tonight?” I asked Ari.
“Yep.”
“Good.” I didn’t want her staying alone tonight. On the slim chance the burglars spread their search to my contacts, Ari would be their next victim. I grimaced. I should never have called Ari from Jenny’s abandoned house. I should never have told her about Kyoko. I’d dragged her far enough into my mess. “You’ll call Sofie for me? Make sure she knows I’m okay?”
“Of course.”
I turned to Hudson. “You’re sure?”
“It’s the only way I’m getting sleep tonight.”
I packed a small duffel with clothing that looked the least touched by strangers; it gave me the willies to think of people pawing through my clothes. I added my bathroom supplies and hefted the bag. I didn’t own travel-size anything, and with the weight of a full bottle of shampoo and conditioner, my face creams, and my hair product, it felt like I’d packed for a monthlong stay. Fortunately Hudson didn’t say a word about the bag’s weight when he took it from me.
I locked the door behind me—a useless gesture that gave me no comfort. As we trudged
down the stairs, my home’s destroyed feng shui settled over me in a black cloud of bad luck.
Doom, my mind supplied. This is what doom feels like.
The evening air swirled around me, crisp and fresh, and it pushed aside some of my gloom. No one spoke on the walk back to Ari’s. She gave me a lung-squeezing hug when we reached her porch. Hudson and I waited until she locked the dead bolt behind herself before we circled the block to Hudson’s car.
Meditation failed me. I cataloged the broken items in my home, the memories attached to each item, and the price. The list depressed me, but I couldn’t make myself stop adding to it. I’d walked away from a disaster when I should have remained. I needed to fix up my apartment. Get rid of the broken items. Clean my clothes. Straighten my office. Depression morphed to frustration the farther Hudson drove from my apartment. He was right: I couldn’t do much more tonight, and it wasn’t safe for me to stay in my own home. Acknowledging as much agitated the acid in my stomach, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to return.
If this break-in had been about anything other than Kyoko, something would have been stolen—the art hanging on my walls, the sculptures that had been shattered, my jewelry—but nothing was missing. The burglars had been looking for something, and all signs pointed to Kyoko.
“I’m really beginning to hate Jenny,” I said.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one.” The car lurched and Hudson scanned the dash. It lurched again, and Hudson cussed. “Oh, no, you don’t. Mike said you were fine. You were fine. Come on, baby. Not here.” The car sputtered and the door locks buzzed. We decelerated, and the engine quieted. “Oh, come on!” Hudson shouted.
He steered the car to the curb with the last of its momentum, then set the emergency brake. We were on a dark side street. Two blocks in front of us, a major street bisected ours, and cars zipped by, mocking us.
“How much farther to your house?” I asked.
“I’m cursed.” Hudson gripped the steering wheel with knuckles gone white. “The gods are pointing and laughing, and I’m the butt of their jokes. I should have guessed this would happen. I mean, why would something go my way? I can’t get a cell phone that works. I can’t get a car that works. It’s a goddamn elephant curse. ‘Here, look after this,’ Jenny says. ‘Oh, what is it?’ ‘It’s the bane of all things good. I know it looks like a baby elephant, but it’s evil incarnate—’”
Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance Page 17
