by Livia Quinn
“There wasn’t a cell phone on him. Did you find one here? I’d sure like to see who’s been calling him.”
“Not yet,” Ryan said. “Doesn’t look like he stayed here. One suit of clothes in the closet, no shorts or socks in the drawers. Nothing but a used razor in the trash can in the bathroom. I bagged it.”
I nodded. Kirkwood was a good man. He’d been my wingman in the Navy, but after sinus surgery was told he couldn’t fly anything but helicopters and low altitude aircraft. When I won the election, I managed to lure him away from Search and Rescue. See, Ryan was kidding about wanting peace and quiet; it was anyone’s guess how long he’d make it in a boring little town like Destiny.
As for me, I’d had more excitement in my personal life than on deployment; enough to last a lifetime. When this case was solved, I could picture myself in an aluminum boat, kicked back, jig pole in hand, a cool cat on my hook...
“All right. Let’s make one more pass and move on.”
He turned to me, head cocked, eyebrows winging up, “Move on? Where to?”
“Somewhere that’s going to get me in a lot of trouble.”
“Ohhh, yeah.” Ryan grinned.
Was it that obvious?
“You know how it is. War brings men closer than a lot of couples and you’re broadcasting loud and clear, Laser. Hell, I figured if you weren’t interested, I might ask her out myself.”
“Well, before you go getting involved with a suspect let’s get this case solved,” I growled.
Ryan chuckled, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I never said I was good at subterfuge. “Sweep the bathroom and kitchen, flunkie. I’ll double back behind you in the bedroom.”
We bagged and tagged what little we gathered. As I locked the front door, I got a call from Peggy. Tempe had just sat down to fill out the Missing Persons report.
I read off some of the most frequent calls on Meeker’s phone statement and told her to call me when she knew something. Then Kirkwood and I headed to Harmony.
What Tempe had referred to as her ‘voracious monster’ was in reality an elegant, though time worn, plantation home with a classic veranda surrounding the bottom floor. There were two ladders on one side and a sturdy scaffold. Rolls of insulation and stacks of blue roofing tin sat nearby.
“Man, these old places can suck the contents of your wallet and leave it gasping,” Kirkwood said.
“My thoughts—but it’s got class.”
“If you like that old broken down tramp look,” Ryan said. “You got a key?”
“Hell, no. We’re just going to be here when she gets home. Peggy got the honors.”
“Yowsa! You got a bigger set than me. You’re going to catch it on both ends, Laser.” Said the man whose call sign had been Stones.
He pulled a breakfast sack out of his car and sipped from a cup of coffee. My head hurt from caffeine deprivation, and my stomach rumbled.
“Give me a break, will ‘ya, and hand me that coffee.” I held out my hand. I’d taken one sip when I heard tires squealing on asphalt a block away.
“Suck it down, flyboy. It’s show time.”
Her march toward me was so determined, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d taken a swing at me. She was something: the colored strands of her hair flying around, crackling with electricity in the cold air; cheeks flushed with temper. Her eyes, when she glared up into mine, were an emotional hurricane.
“What’s this about a warrant, Sheriff?”
She made the word “sheriff” sound like “scumbag”. I resisted smiling, as it seemed like a good way to get hurt. “As I told you before, I’m just doing my job.”
“Well, just do it then. Here’s the key.”
Off-guard, I automatically put my hand out. It stung after she slapped the key into it.
“Search all you want. I’ve searched the last two nights. Now if you don’t mind, I have places to go and people to see.” She turned, head high, like the Queen dismissing the Guard.
I grabbed her arm. When she turned, I felt the flush to my skin, the hairs standing up like they had in battle, a spontaneous reaction to impending danger. I let go.
“Sorry. You have to stay.”
“Really,” she said, sarcastically. “Pour quoi?”
“Because especially now, I don’t want to be sued for stealing something from your house. Honestly, Tempe, I thought you’d be more cooperative.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you’d asked for permission, I’d have opened my door and baked you a cake. But it will be a sizzling hot day in Iceland before I cooperate now. And here I thought you were concerned about my brother. I believed all that crap about getting Peggy to start looking around unofficiall—”
“She did—”
“I even went ahead and filed the report believing you meant to help me find him.”
Ryan spoke up, “She did—”
“It’s okay, Ryan. Ms. Pomeroy is just a little upset right now.” I’ll say. I felt the heat of her skin through her jacket and her eyes flickered, hot with anger. I hoped it was anger. She sure seemed to have a way with electricity.
Kirkwood cleared his throat and shifted.
“Deputy Kirkwood is correct. Peggy made the rounds to the surrounding towns. The only bar where your brother was seen was the Wasted Turtle, where the contractor’s employee said he saw him. The woman has yet to be identified.”
That shut her up. For about two seconds, maybe less. “And you’re searching my house for what, exactly?”
“Any possible murder weapon, ties to the victim, clues to your brother’s whereabouts. All I have is your word and a statement from this Rutledge guy that River didn’t show up on the job Monday.”
She started to object.
“I didn’t say I don’t believe you, but I have to follow procedure. There’s been no ransom, no evidence of foul play. He might be layin’ up somewhere with this woman. And...”
“And?”
“You might not know your baby brother like you think you do.” I thought she was going to blow then. If mad was a planet, she’d have been Mars.
“I want River’s amphora back.”
“It’s still being held as evidence.”
Actually, I’d broken my promise to her. It was being tested this very moment. With the body missing, solving the case, finding the killer and maybe her brother, might depend on those backup slides.
I felt a twinge in my midsection when her shoulders slumped. She looked as tired as I felt. Unlocking the front door, she threw the keys on the table in the hallway. “Do your worst; it can’t be any more than I did last night. I’m going to make coffee.”
She wasn’t kidding. The rooms looked like a preschool class had spent the night here. I nodded at Ryan to start in the living room. I headed for the upstairs, her brother’s living quarters.
She served us coffee and stayed out of our way. Everything about her was so calm she nearly disappeared into the air around us. She had to be running on empty.
“So, what were you looking for?” I asked.
Her auburn lashes feathered down over pale cheeks as she rested her head against the back of the sofa. “Anything that would give me a clue where River is. His plans, a note—a little black book.”
“I take it you didn’t find anything.” Her lids opened to reveal blue irises. They swallowed me down into their depths and brought back memories of flying across a cloudless winter sky.
“Have you?”
Duhhh, Earth to Jack. The woman is speaking to you, and you’re standing here like a horny teenager. “Have I what?”
“Have you found anything? A murder weapon? Blood... anything to point to River as a murderer?”
Accusations. The calm was dissipating like a deceivingly passive electrical line just before the transformer blows. I actually imagined I heard thunder.
“I don’t care if you strip my house bare and carry the pieces to the best lab in the country. River didn’t kill anyone. Now, I seem t
o be the only one taking my brother’s disappearance seriously.” Her voice cracked. “He could be in serious trouble, lying in a ditch somewhere, anything. I have to find him. I took today off for that purpose, and since you’re obviously not going to help me…” She took a deep uneven breath.
Here we go again, I thought, as her eyes brimmed. Waterworks. “I will follow up on your brother’s disappearance as soon as I get done here, now that you’ve filed the report.” My cell phone rang.
“Yeah, Peggy.”
Tempe
I began taking the trash I’d set in piles next to the door last night and loading them in my truck while the sheriff answered his cell. I was tired, frustrated and scared. Really scared. Not for myself, but for River. I wasn’t even angry so much about them searching my house, though something in me felt a little betrayed. Well, okay, more than a little, but mostly—it was inconvenient as hell.
Everybody knows the longer someone is missing the less likely you are to find them, and in River’s case the reasons were two fold—the time factor in turning up clues to his whereabouts, and the fact that he would die from being away from his amphora for too long. Not to mention that if someone had him, and they knew how to take advantage of his power…
When I entered the kitchen, I heard Lang’s voice clearly, “Damn it. Peggy, are you sure?” He rubbed his hand across his neck. His deputy looked from me to Jack, who flipped his phone shut with a snap.
He looked at Ryan, “Peggy did a reverse locator on the numbers.”
He skewered me with that cutting stare. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. The number most often called was to Alliance.” He repeated the phone number. “Ring any bells?”
It was Phoebe’s number.
Chapter 24
Tempe
“He called my mother?” My mind stuck on those words in a mire of incredulity, while images exploded like a kaleidoscope, of the man in the clubhouse, my mother the last time I’d seen her. “I-I don’t get it. What would he be calling Phoebe for?” My head pounded with confusion.
“I assure you I’ll find out.” He regarded me suspiciously.
“What? I knew nothing about this.” But something niggled at the back of my mind.
Lang noticed. “A man is dead. If you know something, it would save a lot of time...”
“Whose time, Sheriff… yours? What about us? My mother, my brother. It’s like a witch hunt.” Was there such a thing that applied to Djinn and their families? “And it’s all just keeping my energy and yours from finding River. Can’t you see that?”
He shook his head disgustedly. “I’ve asked you to trust me. If your family is innocent of any wrong doing, I’ll find the truth.”
“If. If. If. When you finally figure out we’re all innocent of any wrongdoing…” I let him see the fear I was feeling, “It may be too late.” I picked up my keys. “Now, help yourself to anything I own, but if you try to stop me from leaving this house, you’ll be sorry. That is, if I’m not under arrest.” I put as much grit in my voice as I could. The anger and fear I felt was churning menori to life. I had to get out of here.
“Hold up,” he said. “Ryan, lock up behind me.”
He started to put his hand on my elbow, but must have sensed the spinning vortex of emotions bubbling up inside of me, like a tsunami nearing the coastline. An image came unbidden of my mother blowing the windows out of our living room in the middle of an argument with my father. And I hadn’t even known she was mad.
He followed me out to my truck as I escaped. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure.” I wasn’t lying. Only burning off this churning energy inside me would keep me from coming apart. I lifted my face to the wind and wondered if I could just raise my arms and let it take me somewhere…anywhere.
“Just… don’t do anything stupid. Trust me to get to the bottom of this.”
His eyes implored me to do just that, and oh… “I wish I could,” I said, climbing into my truck and gunning the engine.
He stood in the street watching as I flew away from Harmony.
I drove to Alliance to talk to Phoebe, to no avail. I asked her neighbor watching from his back porch if he’d seen her.
“Not in the last couple days,” he said.
I thanked him and drove to the Tricked-Out Tarot to meet a man who dealt in amphoras and demijohns. The vase I’d found at the house was just that, a flower vase with a cork stopper. Dylan had said it wasn’t secure enough for a Djinn force.
If I’d known it would be this difficult to find an appropriate genie bottle replacement, I’d have arranged a backup. But Dylan didn’t know of one, and promised to find someone to ceremonialize a new one.
The Tricked-out Tarot was a hole in the wall, actually a narrow alley walk between two tall brick buildings; tall in Destiny being three stories. The far end of the alley was dark, but I saw light filtering around the corner and heard what sounded at first like guitar music, but turned out to be ukuleles and Blue Hawaii. I expected hula dancers, definitely not the Elvis impersonator who stepped from behind a curtain at the front desk. He eyed me for a moment, then smiled and said, “Tempest Pomeroy. You resemble your mother. Come in. Come in.”
Most women hope they can avoid being compared with their mothers. We like to think we’ve learned from their mistakes and think we will not turn into a duplicate. That particularly applied to Phoebe and me, but I’d heard this comment enough that after the initial irritation I took it in stride. He held the curtain aside while I ducked into the room decorated in red velvet. Tacky didn’t begin to describe…
“You mentioned you are looking for a replacement vessel?” Elvis stooped behind the counter and came up with two of the ugliest containers I’d ever seen. One was fat at the bottom and narrow at the spout resembling a teepee—and it was orange. The single slender opening at the top where the inhabitant’s smoke would exit, or the inhabitant himself, was tiny making me claustrophobic on the future homeowner’s behalf. It wouldn’t be my brother. I guess I should be less “choicey” as Bailey says, considering I was desperate.
The next was twin bottomed, who knew? I couldn’t begin to imagine how a genie could make use of the thing. “What is this, a bong?”
Elvis just rolled his eyes and shrugged as if to say “can’t blame me for trying” and swapped the ugly mustard colored thing for another—an amphora.
I moved toward it the second it touched the glass counter. A stunning gem-studded blue, it resembled the moonlit sky. I picked it up. The shape and weight of it was perfect. Unfortunately, this amphora was a single entrance model.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name…Mr.—?”
“Presley.”
Of course. “Mr. Presley. Do you have a flashlight?” I was wasting my time on this bottle—one entrance simply wouldn’t do. I know, most Djinn don’t bother—they opt for the single entrance and rely on advanced warning systems, like their human masters or familiars, but the one thing River was adamant about was not relying on others for his own security.
All of River’s previous bottles had had emergency exits.
I took the flashlight from Elvis and peered into the exquisite piece. The interior was lined in smoky blue and gold velvet, and when I ran my fingers around the inside edge to determine the makeup of the glaze, I felt the tug against my flesh that only the iron infused glaze can produce.
I sighed, handing him back the flashlight. Best not give away my interest.
“I don’t know. It’s got the basics and it’s lovely, but I was looking for one with two door—openings and unless these gems are zirconia, I imagine the cost is more than I can afford.”
One thick black eyebrow hiked up under the ‘Elvis’ lock on his forehead and his lips pursed. I could almost see him adding each tiny gem up in his head. Not good.
Again, he reached under the counter and brought out a straight rod about the height of the bottle. With the flair of an illusionist he made a show of pushing up his sleeves, runn
ing two fingers around the length of the rod, a display to illustrate it was clear of any strings or attachments. Then he inserted it straight into the amphora until only an inch of the brass rod remained above the opening. He motioned for me to place my index finger on the end and removed his own. Then he tapped the pad of his index finger against the countertop to demonstrate.
Holding the rod between my thumb and third finger I pressed with my own index finger as shown. Nothing. He said, “Two seconds,” placing his hand palm up next to the amphora.
I pressed for two seconds and something tiny flew off the side of the container. Elvis caught it in his hand and opened his palm for me to see. One of the larger gems lay in his hand and when he rotated the amphora I could see a tiny hole in the dark blue exterior and light...
He smiled slyly at my stunned expression. Oops, I was about to give away all my negotiation power.
“How does it work?”
“There is a hidden release under the rug off the center near the couch. He simply toes it up and presses, and voilà—he’s out of that little Heartbreak Hotel.”
“Excellent. Unfortunately, it’s still out of my budget.”
“Ah,” he stroked his chin, the corner of his lip curling in a familiar smile. “I think we can work out some kind of deal, an exchange of services perhaps.”
This was going to cost River. But time was of the essence and the midnight blue amphora would be a spectacular upgrade to the old one. It was beautiful, iron infused, and secure. And truth be known, I’d take out a second mortgage if necessary to purchase it for my brother, so after some negotiating I held out my hand.
“Deal.”
He swiveled his hips and with that infamous wiggle of hips said, “Thank you. Thank you very much!”
I got a call from Montana after sealing the deal for the new amphora, which was secured in a covered box behind my seat.
