by Claire Kane
Rebecca’s face fell, and she looked down as if in thought. Lacey wasn’t sure how well the girl could think, though, as glassy-eyed as she looked. The blond guy squirmed on his seat, obviously impatient to get on with his teasing and with his clear expectations for time with Rebecca, but Lacey had to know.
“Maybe in the morning?” she offered. “After you’ve slept on it?”
Rebecca squinted, clearly uneasy. “Maybe,” she said slowly, then turned pleading eyes back to Lacey. “Can we not talk about this anymore? Let’s just have fun.”
Lacey faked an accommodating smile. “Sure. Sorry. You just made it sound like so much fun, you know? I thought it might be nice to get a sneak preview of what Geo has in mind.”
“Well, if you really want to know,” Rebecca said, standing slightly, then repositioning herself in her male friend’s lap, “you could just talk to Geo. Just don’t go in his office; that place is a mess. It’s no wonder he keeps it locked. I went in there once, and it just gave me the creeps, all those pictures everywhere. I mean, he’s so neat and tidy at work, but a slob in his own office.”
“I know, right?” Lacey agreed, hoping to stimulate the conversation. But Rebecca was already leaning in on the blond, and he obliged her fully, despite his earlier remarks. Conversation died in the pyre of a backwoods makeout, and Lacey sighed and turned for the woods, where she could be alone with her thoughts.
She’d spent plenty of time in the forest of the Puget Sound; you couldn’t really live in the greater Seattle area and not be at least somewhat a part of them. There was, however, a distinct difference between the beautiful, filtered-green light that made summer daytime walks so serene, and the ominous, skeletal fingers that clawed at the sky as she looked overhead just then. She told herself it was just her mind playing tricks, but something inside her said otherwise; she still hadn’t figured much out about anything—who actually killed anyone, what Teddy’s part in this really was (and was he actually as innocent as he claimed?), why she’d utterly gone off script in a job interview, and so many other things. But at last, she had a lead—Geo. His office was easy enough to access, she was sure, locked or not. She hadn’t been an investigative reporter for as long as she had without learning at least a few of the finer points of breaking and entering.
Knowing that Rebecca wouldn’t need a ride home for a while, she set herself to planning. She had a killer to catch.
TWENTY-NINE
The following morning passed in a blur. Lacey felt like the love child of a clothing rack and a Formula One race car as she bounced from studio to studio. By the time what passed as a lunch break rolled around, she could barely see for all the camera flashes she’d stood through, notwithstanding the diffusers. While most of the girls filed out the dressing room door in search of local eateries, Lacey stayed behind, surreptitiously keeping an eye on Jack Beals’ head photographer while she pretended to slowly change back into her street clothes. When the moment was right, she caught his eyes.
“Don’t even ask,” he said.
Lacey turned innocent eyes on him. “What do you think I was going to ask?”
He waved it away. “You want me to tell you you’re skinny, beautiful, and God’s gift to mankind. That’s why you’re not eating, isn’t it? I’m so sick of these girls thinking that anything but water and tree leaves is going to make them balloon. Besides, you could weigh five hundred pounds and I could still make you look good enough to sell clothing. Even before Photoshop.”
Lacey adopted a defeated look. “So you really do think I’m pretty?”
He turned and headed for the hall. “I told you not to ask. As for me, I’m going for lunch.”
She swallowed hard, hoping her gamble would pay off. “But what about Jack’s e-mail?”
“What e-mail?” he called over his shoulder, but he pulled out his phone and began scrolling through it. She’d expected that, and moved to part two.
“The one about my new keycard? Said you’d have a spare somewhere.” She crossed her fingers, then quickly finished lacing her shoes and hurried after him. He sighed heavily, and gave her a half-suffering, half-disgusted look when she fell into step beside him.
“You mean to tell me that you couldn’t keep track of a simple card for even twenty four hours? How often do you get locked out of your car, or apartment?”
Lacey’s shoulders slumped, and her face fell just the right way. “It was an accident. I promise. I’m usually good…”
He stared flatly at her. “You’re a real piece of work, Ling. You’re just gorgeous enough that I don’t tell Jack to toss you. But mark my words—you’d better tread lightly around here. And don’t even think about asking for any perks any time soon.”
She nodded sullenly but held her tongue. “So... can I get one? Like, now?”
His jaw fell. “Do I look like the genie of the lamp? Hello! ‘Geo. Get me a new keycard. Geo, get my lunch, but make it non-fat, dairy and gluten free, and entirely organic. Geo, paint my nails. Geo, I want a new apartment because mine’s just so lame.’ For the love of Mike, woman, did you not hear what I said about treading lightly?”
She sulked further. “Just thought I’d ask,” she muttered. “I think I’ll go grab a pizza and a pint of ice cream.”
“It had better not be on your face when you get back,” he warned. “And if I see any pizza grease on my inventory after this afternoon, I’m coming after you.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “I got out of kindergarten a long time ago, Geo.”
He sneered but left Lacey in his wake as he power-walked his hip-wiggling figure down the hall. Lacey waited what she thought was an appropriate amount of time, then stole after him. The tour Jack had given her was still mostly fresh in her mind, and the building wasn’t terribly complex, but she couldn’t quite recall which door Jack had pointed out as belonging to the chief photographer. And so, she let Geo give her a little reminder.
She turned a corner and stopped abruptly, and ducked back around the corner as he wheeled around to face her direction. But instead of coming back her way, he went up a flight of stairs. She broke cover and hurried after him, stalking him carefully until, at last, he stopped in front of a door, shoved a key into a lock, and shoved his door open. Lacey bit her lip and waited. Geo was in and out again in moments, palming a small white object that may have been a key card. He bustled back toward Lacey, who dove into an office just in time to escape notice.
When he had passed, she scanned the hall and, finding it clear, hurried to his office. She tried the knob—still locked, but not surprising. She fished a set of lock picks from her purse; she’d carried them for years, just for instances like this. Constantly scanning the hall, she defeated the lock in short order and pushed open his door. Before she even stepped in, every hair on her neck shot up, and her muscles tensed of their own accord. Her breathing suddenly became shallow, and she felt herself getting tunnel vision. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew she needed to get in and out as quickly as possible. And so she forced herself into the room.
What she saw inside nearly made her vomit.
*
Victor was no more. At least, he didn’t want to exist anymore. Sorrow and pain such as he hadn’t thought possible were all he knew, and he was somewhere deep and dark that showed a gleeful resolve to keep him perpetually smothered. He couldn’t really think about it—couldn’t think about anything, really—but he didn’t want to. He just wanted to wink away into a faded memory. But he couldn’t. And that was the worst torture of all.
From somewhere very far away came a faint… something… that seemed vaguely different than the monotonous, chaotic misery he’d become. It meant nothing to him, but it caught his attention just enough to form a thought: I exist.
The sensation came again, or so it seemed, and from his abyss of despair sprang another thought: I hope.
If only he could remember what that word actually meant.
THIRTY
Lacey knelt beside Victor�
��or at least she was pretty sure the translucent being shriveled on the floor in his T-shirt and blue jeans was her ex-boyfriend—and let the tears flow. She wanted to scream his name, but bit her tongue for fear of giving herself away; but between seeing Victor and the scores of filthy photographs strewn everywhere, it was all she could do not to scream and light the whole place on fire.
Instead, she somehow reined herself in, keeping her eyes fixated on the shrunken figure before her. “Victor?” she asked carefully. “Victor? Can you hear me?” He gave no sign of recognition, and she reached out to pick him up, only to be reminded that she couldn’t, as her hands passed clean through him; they suddenly felt like ice. Shivers racked her, which only made her sense of being strangled all the worse. She pushed it away, but the sensation eagerly crowded back on top of her.
“Victor, please,” she hissed. “We need to get out of here, now. Geo could come back at any time. And this place is wrong.” She reached for him again, but with the same results. Then she remembered something. A time, not four months ago, when she had been able to feel him. She thought back to her stay in the hospital, when Victor had been there every waking moment. And it was in one of those moments that she felt how much he truly had loved her. They’d shared a kiss that she hadn’t forgotten—one that, despite him being immaterial, she had been physically able to feel.
It was almost nothing to go on, but it was something, and it would have to be enough. She leaned down, closed her eyes, and drew as deep a breath as she could manage. Then she kissed him. Or tried to, anyway. Her face wound up on the industrial grade carpet of Geo’s office. Worse, her entire head felt as though she’d dunked it in an arctic lake, and her vision swam slightly. Somehow, she knew time was running out for both her and Victor.
She gritted her teeth. Think, Lacey. And then, like a man emerging from a fog carrying a lantern, it came to her—she had felt him during a moment that she truly cared for him. Calling to mind every good time, even warm kiss, every kind gesture he’d made for her, she felt her hands and head and even heart warm. She closed her eyes and let it flow over him, remembering how he’d saved her life before the autumn had even started to turn the leaves in Seattle. Then she leaned in again.
This time, there was still no feeling, but she caught something in the recesses of her mind; it was the scent of Victor’s cologne on a warm summer’s evening. If was the feel of her pressed up against him as they looked out over the sound at sunset. And she saw in her mind his face, turning toward her, his eyes slowly blinking open as though waking from a coma.
Lacey? His voice was the barest breeze in her mind, but it was definitely his.
“Victor?” she said, wishing she could shake him, or hold him, or pick him up off the floor and carry him away from this… this… she didn’t have a word for it, but kept her focus on him instead. “Come back to me. It’s Lacey. I’m here, now. Please, come back to me.”
The face in her mind peered through her, but eventually, his eyes came into focus.
Lacey? Lacey, is that really you? All at once, he sounded tired, enormously depressed, and afraid. It made her tremble, but she kept her thoughts happy and trained on him.
“Come on back, hon. I need you.” She felt a tear well in her eye, and felt her words in her heart. “I really do. Please don’t leave me.”
What seemed like a ray of sunlight blossomed in her mind, and she watched as it washed over Victor. His frame filled out, and his eyes came open for real and began to glint as he slowly craned his neck to look at her. She barely refrained from hugging him, but he reached out a ghostly hand and stroked her face. She still felt nothing, but the gesture was comforting. “Can you move, Victor?”
He wrinkled his brow in thought, and made to stand. He managed it, a little shakily, and then glanced around the room. Almost instantly, the light that had been growing in him began to die.
“Lacey,” he croaked.
Not knowing what to do, she placed herself directly in front of him. “Keep your eyes on mine, Victor. I’m going to back out of here, and you’re going to think of nothing but me and how much you love me. Got it?”
He nodded weakly and followed her into the hall. He halted momentarily at the doorframe, as though he were fighting through a wall of tar, but after a brief struggle, he broke out into the hallway. Sagging, he placed his hands on his knees; she found it strange that he wasn’t panting like a dog, but remembered that spirits needn’t breathe.
“Wh-what happened?” he said, a note of despair ringing in his voice.
“I don’t know,” she said, sucking in a deep breath herself, “but we don’t have time for that. Just stay here. I need to get something super quick.” With that, she dashed into Geo’s office, snatched a few handfuls of photographs out of the cluttered pile on the floor, then all but sprinted back into the hall, leaving the TV showing whatever smut was on it; she had actively avoided looking as soon as she’d heard the moans and screams. She hazarded a glance at the photos she’d grabbed—yes; they were plenty enough to paint the ugly picture—and shoved them carefully into her jacket pocket, and pulled the door closed behind her, double checking to ensure it was latched.
“Come on,” she said, breaking into a fast stride for the stairs on the far end of the building; she wasn’t going to chance another meeting with Geo this close to his office. Victor fell, uneasily, in beside her, and while he actually looked alive again, his face was stricken, haunted.
“Everyone’s out for lunch,” she said, avoiding the questions she desperately wanted to ask, “but I don’t know how long that will last. I’m already on his black list, and I know he’s eager to shove me out the door as soon as he can find an excuse. I can’t let this go when I’m this close.”
She gestured at her bag. “I’m taking these to Jack; it’s not enough to convince the cops, but I’m sure he’ll know what to do when he finds out his right-hand man is involved in a prostitution ring.” She shuddered at the thought. “I can’t believe Jessica got pulled into that. That’s… that’s terrible.” They reached the stairwell door, and she pushed it open.
She felt, more than saw, Victor’s shudder. He mumbled something.
Lacey glanced at him as she jogged down the stairs, Victor drifting sullenly, and half-listlessly, nearby. “What was that?”
“She was on TV,” he whispered.
Lacey frowned. “Who was on what T—” she halted abruptly, comprehension dawning on her. She turned to Victor, and the confirmation was clear in his sad, deep eyes. Jessica Simcox’s humiliation had been captured on film. Lacey’s throat tightened, and she whipped out her phone, scanning the stairwell for any sign of anyone else. She unlocked the phone and hammered a number in, and paused until it rang. “C’mon, c’mon,” she breathed. “Jack, please.”
“This is Jack,” said his voice on the other end of the line.
“Jack, I’m so glad you—”
“Sorry I couldn’t take your call. Wait for the beep. You know what to do. Ciao.”
She ground her teeth and growled, shoving her phone back in her bag. “I’ll just have to find him myself,” she murmured. Pursing her lips, she finally took a moment to think. She twisted to face Victor, and immediately felt her breath catch. Though he still had somewhat of a glow to him, his expression was still one of unbridled sadness. She’d seen him on his bad days, back when he was alive, but those days were rare; and he’d never really had one, as best she knew, since he’d died. Or, at least, certainly not since moving on to Heaven. She stepped to him and placed a hand over his cheek.
“Victor, what’s wrong?”
He answered only with another look of unfathomable sorrow.
“Please,” she said. “Let me help you.”
He shook his head slowly and looked upward. “I… I don’t think you can. I don’t even know if I can.” He turned those sad eyes on her again. “I—I can’t feel Heaven anymore. I think I’ve been cut off.”
Lacey gasped. “But, how?”
His eyes unfocused again, and he hung his head. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you what happened in there.” He paused. “But probably not. For now, I need some time alone, and in a place of peace.” He locked eyes with her, and his face grew blurry through Lacey’s tears. “I’m going to have to leave you for a while, Lacey, while I figure out what’s wrong with me. This—this is… ‘bad’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. Some guardian angel I turned out to be.”
With that, he turned toward the nearest wall. She called after him, but he only shook his head once more, slowly. Defeated. He stopped just before disappearing through the wall, then glanced over his shoulder. “Thank you, Lacey,” he said simply. “You saved me. Hopefully, one day, I can return the favor.” And then he was gone.
Lacey stood, staring at the wall for a long time, breaking her stare only when the door clicked next to her and a secretary gasped in surprise at seeing a speechless model with her eyes glued to the wall. Lacey made a hasty apology and moved aside.
Her hands curled deliberately into fists. Fists she would, if necessary, use to dispense justice. She would see to it that Geo would rot for his crimes, both against Heaven and Earth.
And against the man she had once loved.
THIRTY-ONE
Lacey spotted Jack just outside the lobby mere minutes after Victor had left her. He left me. The thought made her heart hitch, but she kept the sadness from her eyes. Would she see her guardian angel again any time soon? He had looked so… lost. What was Heaven doing? Why was he feeling disconnected from God? The same questions attacked her mind even as she knew she needed to chat with Jack. Like, now.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, hurrying to her and taking her gently by the shoulders. His jaw was set, and his searching eyes seemed to carry a determination to understand.
She shook her head. “It’s… it’s nothing. Nothing I can talk about here, anyway. But we do need to talk about this. And the sooner the better.”
