“It’s Jimmi.” Reina had to say the name aloud in the hope that it might actually mean something to her. Then her brain reconnected with the world and gained traction. “I need to take this.”
The change in Edison’s expression was remarkable. “Who the hell is Jimmy?”
“Shut it.” Hitting the right button, she blacked out the screen while still receiving audio. “Hey there, Jimmi. How’s it?”
“Good...hey Reina, your holo-image isn’t coming up.” Jimmi’s sweet voice came through loud and clear, and she felt the tension in Edison’s body ebb away. “Check your signal strength.”
“It’s exactly how I want it to be. Any news on that shell?”
Jimmi huffed, apparently not a fan of Reina’s anti-social behavior. “As a matter of fact, yes. It’s definitely a zebra mussel shell, approximately twenty years old, and the soil is the same stuff found everywhere in this area.”
Nudging Edison’s hands aside so she could think clearly, Reina pulled the frictionsuit’s zipper up to her neck and heard him sigh in regret. “I knew it. It all makes perfect sense.”
“It makes sense that there are freshwater mussels showing up in trees?” Jimmi sounded like she doubted the sturdiness of her sanity. “Um, okay, Reina. Whatever you say.”
“I keep forgetting you care more about the future than the past.” It took every drop of strength Reina had to focus on something other than the firestorm of urgency Edison’s kiss had spawned in her nether regions, but she gave it her best shot. “The zebra mussel was one of those invasive non-indigenous species that took over the area’s waterways and decimated the ecosystem, until some bright bulb put together an enzyme that fed specifically on the zebra mussel. There was a huge die-off of the little buggers in 2026 and again in 2042—exactly twenty years ago. In both instances, river authorities had to fish the dead critters out of the water so the mass decay wouldn’t poison the ecosystem even worse, and they buried them by the millions in several landfills. Are we making sense of it now?”
“Don’t bother me, I’m looking...looking...ah. Here we go.” Jimmi made a sound of triumph. “Wow Reina, this sucks. There are like a dozen landfills for the 2042 die-off, and they’re scattered all over Chicagoland. Talk about a needle in a haystack.”
Reina frowned, not bothering to swear at the news the way Edison did. “Let’s see if we can narrow it down a bit. Of those landfills, I’m looking for one that would be home to an Austrian pine sapling. A park or some sort of land reclamation project, perhaps?”
“Six landfills have been totally built over, not a blade of grass in sight, much less an Austrian pine tree,” came the response only a few seconds later. “I’ve got all twelve sites up on my monitors now via live-satellite—”
“How’s she getting that?” Edison muttered, his sight turned inward as he clearly went through his own online systems. “Not even I can get that, and I’ve got official police clearance.”
“Shh,” Reina said absently before turning her attention back to Jimmi. “I don’t suppose your satellite images are clear enough for you to see any obvious holes in the ground where a tree might have been dug up.” That, of course, would be too easy.
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a badass blizzard outside. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“At least we’ve narrowed it down to six possible sites. That’s better than nothing.” Though it wasn’t all that great, especially in the worsening weather where travel would be difficult even without Edison’s nonexistent tolerance for subzero temps. Then a light went on as the thought of him jarred something loose. “Jimmi, is it possible to cross-reference those six sites with an urban needle-rot disease called Diplodia?”
“Diplodia?”
“Ha! Vindicated.” Edison’s smile was justifiably smug. “It wasn’t search-engine garbage after all, now was it?”
“We’ll see.”
“If it turns out to be at all helpful, you owe me dinner as an apology.”
She snorted. “What, are we making up the rules as we go along now?”
“Since rule-making is just as much fun as rule-breaking, I don’t see why not.”
“Excuse me,” Jimmi’s long-suffering voice broke in. “But in case anyone’s interested, there are two sites that make mention of Diplodia as being a problem, according to the annual reports of the Chicago Park Service.”
“Score.” Rubbing his now-warm hands together, Edison looked as eager as any kid in a candy store. “Now all I have to do is figure out where I want to eat tonight.”
“Let’s figure out where our suspect is located first,” Reina suggested, trying to look stern when all she really wanted to do was stare at him like a moony teen. But damn, when Edison Wicke was feeling frisky he amped up the sexy like a pro. “Jimmi, are either of those sites close to Bobbidy Boo’s Toy Store on Michigan Avenue?”
“Nope. Sorry.”
“Wait. What?” Reina dropped back to earth with a thud. She’d been counting on there being a close connection to the site where the tree had been taken and the toys’ point of origin.
“Okay, so we’re in the wrong place. Not the first time that’s happened, and it won’t be the last.” Wearing a frown that matched hers, Edison brushed an absent hand over her hair as if he thought she needed comfort. “We know the Seldon kids received toys that were ordered by Bobbidy Boo’s. But the store manager says those two specific toys haven’t been bought in the past six months.”
“How sad, unwanted toys.” Jimmi sounded like she wanted to give every unwanted toy in the known universe a hug. “Why aren’t those toys selling, I wonder? Every toy should be flying out the door this time of year.”
“These are old-fashioned things, just a doll and a dinosaur. No microchips, self-animating sensors or lifelike CGI—they’re basic last-century yawnsville stuff, though the Seldon kids didn’t seem to mind,” Reina added absently, trying to figure out a new angle. “Maybe we should expand our—”
“Got it.”
Both Reina and Edison stared at the digicell before Reina shook her head. “You’ve got what?”
“The answer.” Jimmi sounded as smug as only a teenager can. “Maybe I’ll just go now while you so-called detectives try to figure it out.”
“Listen, little miss, you’re not so old that I still can’t put you over my knee for a good paddling.”
“Way to win her over,” Edison snorted before talking directly into the digicell. “Don’t worry, Jimmi, I’ll save you from my meanie partner Reina if you whisper the answer in my ear. I’m not too proud to beg.”
“I think I like you,” Jimmi announced. “Okay, Reina’s partner, the answer’s obvious. Most toys have some kind of electronics in them nowadays, as the old-fashioned ones just don’t sell, right? With that in mind, I did an easy-peasy search for discontinued items like you described and voila! There’s a distribution center for discontinued items slated to be shipped off to less technologically advanced countries. This distribution center happens to be located only two hundred yards from one of the zebra mussel-slash-Diplodia needle blight sites. Better still, two nights ago the manager of the distribution center reported a break-in at one of the warehouses, and I’ll give you three guesses which items were reported missing—and the first two don’t count.”
“Toys.” The thrill of the chase zipped through her, sweeter than any drug in the universe, and she smiled up at Edison only to see the same look in his eyes. “Please be so kind as to download the address of that distribution center to my digicell, Jimmi. It looks like I owe you dinner as well.”
Chapter Five
“So. Jimmi’s the real brain behind the great Reina Vedette.”
“Don’t talk to me. I’m still trying to get over the shock that Diplodia was a clue that actually meant something.”
Edison laugh
ed, his breath a white vapor cloud trailing behind him as they quickly made their way from the distribution center’s parking area to warehouse 3, where the manager had promised to meet them. Laughter wasn’t his usual on-the-job response, but he figured he could hardly be blamed for it. Reina’s kiss was playing in a never-ending loop through his mind, and the unadulterated perfection of it made him downright giddy. If he wasn’t careful he might actually start giggling like a schoolgirl.
Once uncorked, Reina’s innate sensuality was just about the most devastating force of nature he’d ever experienced. He’d always suspected there was one hell of a fire buried deep inside her; with her lithe dancer’s body and luminous midnight eyes she could hardly be anything else. But that fire had always been rigorously banked, at times all but obliterated under a polar icecap of control and posh manners, but he now knew that cap was at its coldest when she was at her most fiery. He couldn’t help but feel a little special knowing what the rest of the world did not—far from being a difficult hardass, Reina Vedette was a passionate fireball who could melt a half-frozen man from the inside out with nothing more than a kiss.
It almost broke his brain to think what it was going to be like when he took her to bed.
“What’s the smile for?”
Wouldn’t she like to know. “If you had neurolinks, I’d be more than happy to share with you.”
“Ass,” she returned with a pleasant smile. She went through the automatic doors of the warehouse’s front office with a saucy swing of her hips, and he wasn’t sure if it was the warmth of the office or the edgy rush of hunger that made the cold vanish in a wave of heat. “Try as you might, you’ll never be able to convince me a man is any better at communicating via neurolinks than he is by using his mouth.”
“I guess something would get lost in the translation, at that. For instance, I love the way you communicate with your mouth.”
“I’m going to go with believing you’re referring to my spectacular verbal skills,” she said after an electrically charged moment, where raw, animal awareness crackled through the air hard enough to make his muscles tense with completely inappropriate excitement. “Anything else would be unprofessional.”
“So I’m unprofessional.” He ignored the approach of an emaciated-looking man sporting a cringe-worthy comb-over, choosing instead to drink in the sight of the flush claiming Reina’s porcelain face. “Now that I’ve had a taste of that mouth of yours, I want it so bad it’s all I can do to keep from grinding the feel of it, and you, into every damn cell of my body.” The urgent need in his gut tightened all the more when her eyes darkened with lush hunger, a look he was only too happy to keep stoked, as long as it was aimed at him. Stroking her with one last burning glance—and loving the skittering jump of her pulse he could hear from across the room—he turned to the approaching man. “Mr. Kricek? Detective Wicke and Detective Vedette. Thanks for meeting with us.”
“I’m glad someone is finally taking an interest in the trouble we had here.” Thin face pinched with disapproval of them, the police in general, and the universe at large, the property manager Kricek waved them toward a pair of heavy-duty steel doors. “I don’t suppose theft and vandalism rank all that high on your scale of importance, but a loss of property is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Vandalism?” As they came to a stop at the head of a massive bulk-storage aisle marked with a simple sign that read Toys, Reina lifted a brow. “The report your company filed mentioned only stolen toys.”
“Oh, there was property damage. Grave property damage.” Kricek pointed to a window at the far wall at least twenty feet up. “See that? That’s a new lock on that window. And whatever was used to get up and down from that window broke both the concrete flooring inside and the asphalt outside.”
“If he calls this damage grave, he’d probably crap a kitten if anyone ever tagged his precious warehouses with graffiti,” Edison said once Kricek left them to get down to business. He wandered over to where several massive containers wrapped in clear plastic sat on the lowest shelf, pausing to read their labels. “And I’ve never seen a ladder heavy enough to damage concrete or asphalt. Most thieves normally keep their tools of the trade light and easily portable.”
“They also usually take items that have a significant monetary value, so it’s a good bet we’re not dealing with normal.” She pulled her visor out and slipped it on before glancing up at the window. “Hm, twenty-two-point-five feet from windowsill to floor. Whoever our doer is, they don’t mind heights. First we have the Seldon family’s third-floor apartment, and now this.”
“There are tons of other toys here that he could have taken as well, but didn’t.” Edison leaned his head sideways to read a label off one of the mammoth boxes. “This holds an entire box of range-measuring baseballs and soccer balls. And here’s another one full of Barbilicious magnetic nail polish kits for girls. I wonder why our guy breezed by these cooler toys and went for the bare-bones boring stuff from the last century?” When she didn’t answer, he looked over his shoulder to find her staring at the cracked concrete beneath the window. “Reina?”
“I’m going to have a peek at the so-called vandalism done to the asphalt outside.” With a telltale electronic beep, she touched a gloved finger to the visor where the clear frames met the earpiece. “My com-link is now open so there’s no need for you to go out and freeze into place. Sync your IM program with me and you’ll be able to see and hear everything I do.”
By now he knew that faraway tone of hers meant her brain had shifted onto another plane of existence. “I’m more interested in what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking none of this makes any sense.” With a shake of her head that was the embodiment of frustration, she offered a quick wave before heading for the steel doors.
* * *
Despite the raging blizzard, Reina was barely aware of the cold as she rounded the corner of the warehouse. She was too buried in confusion to be aware of much of anything.
“The zebra mussel landfill, now named Mercy Park and adjacent to old Mercy Hospital, is just in sight from here, despite the near-white-out conditions,” she said above the never-ending scream of the wind. “Are you reading me, Edison?”
“That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name,” came the instant response. “Your POV display window is showing me pretty much nothing but a live stream of white in every direction, along with the occasional flash of your foot. Good luck in finding anything in this mess, partner.”
“You know what they say—rain or shine, sleet or snow, the job will get done.”
“Um, I think that had something to do with the old-time post office when mail was hand-delivered by actual people.”
“So I’m adopting it as my personal credo.”
“How dedicated of you. I want to be like you when I grow up.”
“I think I might be at the entry-point window.” Turning her freezing face up to the gray-whiteness of the sky, she managed to find the line of elevated windows and counted them off to make sure. “I’m going to have to dig this area out to view the so-called grave damage.”
“Better you than me. How are you feeling, Reina?”
“My nose is going numb and I think it’s starting to run. How’s that for sexy?”
“Not even a runny nose can diminish your sexiness,” came the unhesitating response. “Nevertheless, hurry it up and get back in here so I can take my turn at warming you up.”
“I don’t think Mr. Kricek would approve.” But the thought of just how Edison would chase the chill away elevated her inner temperature as she bent to shovel snow away with her arms and gloved hands. “What exactly would you do to warm me up? Give me something to shoot for.”
“As you demonstrated earlier, body heat really is the only way to go.” His voice lowered to a low purr that stroked along her nerves like a velvet caress. “The f
irst thing I’d do is take you in my arms and rub you against me to get some good old-fashioned friction going.”
Reina nearly laughed. Damned if her visor wasn’t fogging up. “Friction is always a good thing when trying to turn up the heat.”
“It’s one of my favorite things. And any friction with you would be the best of all.”
She smiled, ignoring the icy sting of snow slipping in under the cuffs of her gloves. “Certain parts of my body get colder than others. What would you do to warm those parts up?”
“Depends on the part. I have techniques for everything.”
“You versatile man, you. Right at this moment, my butt is a block of ice.”
“If we lived in the era of Homer, epic poems would have been written about your butt,” he said with such fervor she had to laugh. “The first thing I’m going to do to warm it up is cup it in my hands and rub it until you beg for mercy. Then I’m going to squeeze it just to make sure it’s nice and pliable, and then I’m going to strip your suit off and—”
“I could never get naked on Kricek’s property.”
“Then we go somewhere else.”
As Reina at last hit the hard surface of the ground, the seriousness of Edison’s tone struck what should have been an alarm that their teasing banter had officially skidded into dangerous territory. Instead, the only sensation she was aware of was a wave of delicious heat that rolled through her at the thought—no, the very real possibility—of at last taking her meched-out rival and constant thorn in her side as a lover.
Either that or she was suffering symptoms of hypothermia.
“First things first. We’re here to do a job, and I just hit pay dirt—or in this case, asphalt. Have you examined the cracks in the concrete beneath the window yet?”
For an answer a small POV display window opened in her visor’s right lens, showing her Edison’s view from his cyberized eyes. “It’s weird, this cracked-concrete pattern. It covers such a narrow area, less than a foot in diameter. What kind of heavy-duty ladder is less than a foot in width?”
A Galactic Holiday Page 6
