Heart and Soul

by Jackie May

  “Watch me.”

  As we continue to wrestle each other for the position of meat shield, the sounds of a brawl enter the doorway. In a tangle of punching fists and kicking legs, Detective Russo and Agent Hillerman crash into the room.

  “Brenner, I got one!” Russo grunts as he struggles to get cuffs on Hillerman. “Resisting arrest. Just a little.”

  “Russo, wait,” Brenner says, raising a palm to call off his dog.

  But I clamp a hand over Brenner’s mouth. “Hush now. Just let me enjoy this.”

  Hillerman throws her elbow at Russo with an angry shout. He dodges the attack and wraps his thick arms around her waist from behind. Like a trapped animal, she goes berserk, stomping his feet and whipping her hair back and forth across his face. Russo spins her around, pinning her arms behind her, smashing their chests together, bringing their faces within inches of each other.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Russo says. “Anything you say or do—”

  She tries to bite his face, so Russo pulls her hair, jerking her chin back and rattling her roadkill necklace. He glances at the necklace, then, with wide eyes, makes a quick study of her face. He shoves her away with a goofy grin. “You’re Charlotte Hayes!”

  To which she responds by socking him in his left eye. He staggers back with a string of painful curses, but ending with “—loving it, though. Perfect form. Expect nothing less from the Girl Who Fought Back.”

  Hillerman spits blood on the carpet, then turns her wrath on us. “Does this troll belong to somebody?”

  “He’s not a troll,” I say. “He’s only the size of one.”

  Brenner jumps to his feet, and as he helps me up, he explains, “That’s Russo. He’s my partner. And he needs stitches.”

  A deep cut on Russo’s brow gushes blood into his eye. He grins like a fool. “Stitches, are you kidding? Charlotte Hayes split my brow! I’m going to pick at the scab to make sure it scars forever. Jay, do you know who this is?”

  “Special Agent Hillerman,” Brenner answers, and then with emphasis adds, “FBI.”

  “Hillerman, that’s right.” As he studies the tattoos on Hillerman’s arms, Russo’s expression turns somber. “Do you know, Agent Hillerman, I followed every article about you, and I even wrote you some letters back then. I’m sure you didn’t get them, but that means I can now tell you in person. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  I can practically see the venom building behind Hillerman’s eyes as she wipes bloody lips with the back of her hand. “The only thing I lost tonight were some of the prime suspects in the biggest case of my life! I was in pursuit of the East Side hit-and-run dirtbags who just lit up my hotel room with us inside, and because of you they got away. Great work, Detective.”

  Russo nods with grave comprehension. “I see. I may have been too hasty in my assessment of the situation.”

  “Hold up, Russo,” I interject. “If you’re not going to be offended, then allow me. You came, you saw, you acted. The truth is, you probably saved Special Agent Hothead from running to her own death.”

  “I wasn’t going to engage,” Hillerman snaps. “But we could have followed them. Got a plate number from their car. Anything!”

  “It was the big guy, right? Face full of scars?”

  “Yes. The silverback.”

  “Then you know who else was out there! Don’t you think it might have been exactly what they wanted—for us to follow them?”

  “At least we would be doing something. Not just cowering next to a warm body.”

  That one hits too close to the truth, so I decide to play bratty. To Russo, I say, “She downed three beers right before you got here.”

  Brenner steps between us. “Russo, let’s call this in, have a couple black and whites tape it off, and get reports from hotel staff.”

  “Staff and guests are all out front. Followed evacuation procedure soon as they heard gunfire.”

  “What about you?” Brenner asks. “How’d you know we were here?”

  Russo holds up his phone. “Buddy Bubble app. When the game started and you weren’t back, I knew something was wrong. Showed you way over on the west side.”

  “I’ll explain later. Right now, we’re standing in a crime scene for a case we just got assigned.”

  “You can’t do that,” Hillerman objects.

  “Attempted hit-and-run on a Detroit detective by East Side lowlifes?”

  Hillerman gestures between herself and me. “And two federal agents.”

  Brenner shakes his head. “Our lowlifes, our city, our case.”

  “Our bread and butter,” Russo adds with a cocky grin. “We know this city, and it knows us.”

  Hillerman stabs him with her eyes. “Spare me the bullshit bravado. You just moved here a month ago.”

  Russo’s face lights up. “You know me? Does the FBI have a file on me? If you’re here recruiting, I’ll tell you right now: I’m in.”

  Hillerman lifts her eyes to the ceiling, as though praying for patience. Or to be struck by lightning. One of the two.

  “We can’t stay here,” Brenner says. He looks at me. “We can take your statements at home.”

  “What, our place?”

  “Agent Hillerman should stay the night there, don’t you think? It’s got special…” Brenner’s voice trails off, and he glances quickly at Russo. I realize that he was about to say ‘special wards,’ but he can’t mention magic in front of Russo. “…special security,” he finishes.

  “That’s right,” Russo says, and he jabs a thumb at his own chest. “It’s got me.”

  Hillerman slides me a flat look. She doesn’t like this any more than I do. Elle Harrington warded our house when I officially moved in. Alarms will sound if any underworlder steps within a quarter mile of our front door. While a night with Hillerman is not my idea of a slumber party, Brenner is right—it will be the safest place we could go. When I don’t raise any objections, Hillerman spins on a heel and storms out of the room.

  Russo chuckles. “That is so like her. I’m totally fan-girling right now.”

  “You really followed her story in the news way back then?” I ask.

  “Oh, hanging on every word,” he says. “Most people don’t believe some of the stranger things about her story. I mean, we’re talking the supernatural realm. Ghosts and voodoo dolls and séances. Nobody really took her seriously.”

  “But you did?”

  “I always did.” He takes a deep, satisfied breath. “And I still do.”

  When his face flashes a quick shade of red, I gasp with a realization. “Oh my gosh, Agent Hillerman is totally your celebrity crush!”

  “No denial here.” Russo points to the cut that is bleeding into his eyelashes. “And now I’ve got something way better than her autograph.”

  “For sure. I mean, Hillerman never touches people. You might be pregnant.”

  “If you know her story,” Brenner says, “then you’ve heard of Tabitha Durran.”

  Russo’s face drops, as if Brenner has just said the worst possible thing. “Now there’s a bad apple, let me tell you. She was in prison for a stretch. Got out maybe ten years ago, hasn’t been seen ever since…” A thought strikes him, and he goes on high alert. “Wait, are you guys…” He’s too excited to form the necessary words.

  Brenner confirms with a nod. “Yes.”

  “You guys are going after Tabitha Durran?”

  Brenner claps him on the shoulder. “Now you are, too. And this case, I can promise you, we win.”

  The intense conviction in Brenner’s face scares me. I don’t doubt we can win, but I’m pretty sure that he and I have very different ideas of what winning is. For him, avenging Haley’s murder is the prize, no matter the cost. But for me, the only win is for Jay to still be alive when the dust settles.

  A slight movement in bed wakes me from deep sleep. My eyes are too heavy to open. Murmuring something unintelligible, I drape an arm over Brenner’s chest and squeeze. But it’s too
soft to be Brenner. It’s his pillow.

  I open my eyes to see Brenner sitting at my feet. The room is pitch-black, dark even for my night vision. He’s fully dressed, and he smells warm. By that I mean that he smells like he just showered, and he’s holding a steaming mug of peppermint hot cocoa. Two of my favorite smells.

  “Headed in?” I ask with a gravelly voice.

  “Russo’s warming up the car,” Brenner says in a half whisper. “We’ll file our statements and check things out at the hotel, see if the crew there got anything useful.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  “You sleep any?”

  “Enough.”

  I sit leaning against him, hugging my knees to my chest. Like always, it’s freezing in our room. Brenner offers me the mug to hold, and it warms my hands. The steam smells incredible.

  We stay like that for a long moment, just listening to silence outside our icy window. The world is asleep under a blanket of snow. I wish he didn’t have to go out into it.

  “You’ll be okay here?” he asks.

  “With her, you mean?” He doesn’t say anything, but I can hear his lips curve upward into a grin. I nudge him with my shoulder. “I’ll try.” The peppermint is too tempting. I steal a sip from his mug. Ouch, it’s still too hot.

  Brenner’s just a silhouette in the dark, but I can feel his eyes on me. I’m surprised he’s not in more of a hurry to go. Didn’t he say Russo’s already out in the car?

  “Shayne,” he says, and I can tell by the tenderness in his voice that he’s about to say something sweet. “You’re not like anybody I’ve ever known.”

  Believe it or not, he says these kinds of things pretty often. Unsurprisingly, I never get tired of hearing them.

  But this time, he’s got more to say. “I don’t think,” he starts, then changes course. “I think I could look and look and look, and never find another person in the world like you. How does that happen?”

  Normally I’d throw out something quippy and self-deprecating in response, but I’ve learned with Brenner to simply be quiet and enjoy the swell in my heart. Plus, I’d rather not interrupt him at the moment, because he seems to be working up to something, and that sometimes takes him a bit. Better to let him concentrate. I keep very still and stare into the wafting steam.

  He continues. “Knowing you—being with you—is sometimes…confusing. I get these thoughts, and the thoughts are…they’re not…” He sighs. “I get scared that I’ll start being glad about what happened to Haley.”

  That jolts me awake. “What? Jay, why would you ever—”

  “Because,” he interrupts, “if that didn’t happen, I never would have met you. Isn’t that true? I never would have looked into the underworld. I never would have moved to Detroit. You would still be here—that wouldn’t have changed. For the rest of my life you would have been out there somewhere in the world, but I’d have never known.”

  My fingers tighten around the mug. The thought is terrifying.

  “I used to wish more than anything that I could go back in time and stop what happened. But now…I’m just glad I’ll never have to make that choice. There’s no magic that can turn back time, right?”

  Yes, he is being serious, and yes, the answer is no. “Sorry,” I say. “You’re stuck with me.” He lets out a breath of relief, and I don’t know what else to say. Has this really been on his mind? And is it sweet or tragic? I can’t decide. With all this racing through my mind, I take another sip from the mug.

  “Shayne, are we married?”

  I gulp, and too much hot cocoa burns all the way down my throat, but through the pain I manage to squawk, “What?”

  He takes the mug from me. “I mean, in underworld terms. You quit your pack. We formed our own. Is that the same as being married?”

  “No.”

  He takes a drink of hot cocoa, leaving me in suspense. He wipes the back of his mouth. “So I would still have to ask?”

  I pull away from him, so he won’t feel the hammering of my heart. “Ask what?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  Thunk! That’s the sound of my heart hitting the floor. “Wait, are you saying that’s the question you would still have to ask, or are you asking—”

  “I’m asking it,” he confirms. “Will you marry me?”

  “Jay, put the mug down.”

  As soon as he does, I pounce on him. He responds eagerly, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing. We fall onto the bed, entangled and content to simply lie together, listening to each other breathe. No need to speak. I don’t have words. Only racing feelings, too fast and too deep—

  Wait, wait, what am I thinking? Of course I have words. Two, exactly. “When, Jay?”

  “Anytime you want.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s great.”

  A major problem occurs to me. I shake my head against his chest. “What am I saying? That’s too soon. It’ll take time…”

  Jay gives me a squeeze of support. “I know, Shayne. Take as much time as you need. It’s important that you get things patched up with your mom.”

  “Psh, not that. Forget my mom. I’m talking about Elle. I promised her she could make my wedding gown.”

  “Oh.”

  “How long do you think that takes, assuming she would spell some birds and squirrels to help out?”

  “Animal helpers? Well, shit, that changes everything. Shouldn’t take longer than one song.”

  “Perfect! So we’re back on for tomorrow.”

  “Hmmm.” Brenner needles me in the ribs with a finger. “So you’ve already talked about this with your friends? Pretty confident.”

  “Oh, please. You’ve wanted to marry me since the first second we met.”

  “Wrong. It took at least three seconds.”

  I smile, content to lay like this forever. But Brenner, always quicker to return to earth, says quietly, “Seriously, though…your family. Is this something we should wait—”

  I cut him off. “No.”

  He rubs my back reassuringly. “Even Bunica?”

  If Jay weren’t being so gentle about this, I’d slug him for pushing the issue. He knows my soft spots, and Little Bunica is one of them. I never had any issue with my great-grandmother. It kills me to be separated from her, and it’s inconceivable that I would get married without her at my side. Or my dad. Or my sister. It’s my mom and the Cody boys that ruined everything. But you can’t pick and choose from a pack. You get the whole thing or none of it.

  Wisely, Jay signals that he’s dropping the issue by pulling me up to his face for a long, deep kiss. It’s so difficult to let him go, but eventually we untangle and he heads out. As soon as he closes the bedroom door behind him, I push the window open, tear my clothes off, shift into my fox—fump!—and leap onto the second-floor balcony. From there it’s only a hop from the railing onto the roof, and a scrabbling of paws against icy roof tiles to the brick chimney, where I perch just in time to watch Jay’s car pull into the street and drive away. Even after it turns a corner, I perk my ears to listen until the sound of his car fades to nothing.

  I have so much energy—my fox could run circles around the block for hours—but I go inside and shift back. Right now all I want is my own mug of peppermint hot cocoa, just to remind me of Jay for another few minutes. Our bed comforter smells like him, so I wrap it around my shoulders and pad downstairs to the kitchen. Jay’s empty mug is on the counter, still warm. I fill it with hot water and tear into a pack of peppermint cocoa. When I go to pour the cocoa powder into the mug, Hillerman’s voice startles me half to death.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asks.

  Cocoa powder flies everywhere—except into the mug. “Dammit, where the hell’d you come from?”

  Hillerman sits at the table, leaning a chair back on two legs against the wall, so her feet dangle. She wears her sunglasses, even though it’s dark in the dining room, the only light coming from a naked bulb in the stairw
ell. “Sorry,” she says again. When I go to search for another packet of cocoa, she adds, “That was the last one. He asked if I wouldn’t mind leaving it for you.”

  “Jay did?”

  “Yeah.” Her lips form a hint of a smile, which puts me on guard for some kind of sarcastic remark. She says, “Thoughtful of him. I honestly think he doesn’t do or say anything without first thinking how it relates to you.”

  I try to find the bite to her remark, but come up empty. “And?”

  She gives a small shrug. “And I just wiped that counter clean an hour ago, so go ahead and scoop all that powder back into your mug.”

  I hesitate, looking for the catch, but the counter really does look clean. Lowering the mug beneath the lip of the counter, I collect all the cocoa powder and channel it over the edge into the hot water. I take the other seat at the table. In front of Hillerman is a bowl of ramen noodles. It hasn’t been touched.

  She pulls her hands inside the long sleeves of a fuzzy sweater. “He wake you up?”

  Of all the people in the world, Hillerman is the last that I would choose for a good girl talk, but the need to dish burns a hole in my pocket. “He proposed.”

  Hillerman’s brows raise, and her head turns slowly toward me. It’s not exactly the squeals and gasps and giggles I would have gotten from Elle, but trust me, for Hillerman, it’s a big reaction.

  “I said yes.”

  “So that’s why he was floating out the door just now.”

  “Floating?”

  “Practically whistling. Congratulations. That’s…” She sighs. “Thank you for telling me. It’s good to hear something positive right now. You guys are good for each other.”

  I really wish I could grin and be giddy right now, but I’m too weirded out by this interaction. I want to say, Who are you, and what have you done with Agent Hillerman? But at the same time, I don’t want to jinx it. I really need this right now. “So…you don’t think we’re completely insane?”

  “Maybe you are. But maybe that’s also what we all need right now. That crazy kind of defiance that breaks through walls. I mean that, Shayne. Hold onto it. You and Brenner could be the difference. Have you thought about that?”