Aviira took a few steps closer to the grim scene, heart pounding. The images from her dream rose to the top of her mind and it made her shiver. She swallowed her stomach back into its proper location before her coffee came up. Jirel stepped up next to her. He had a fist to his mouth and it appeared he was at a loss for words; maybe he was trying to keep his coffee down, too.
She shook her head. “What the fuck…”
“Somebody doesn’t want us here,” Jirel said.
“Who the fuck would have left that here without us knowing?” she said. She looked at Jirel. “You were up all night, right?”
“Yeah, but I did feel like someone was out here.”
She looked back at the bird. “This hasn’t been here all that long,” she murmured. “An hour or two at the most.”
Jirel didn’t say anything for a moment. “Let’s just go,” he said quietly.
Aviira didn’t move. When he looked over at her, she had a strange look on her face and was pressing two fingers to her breastbone.
“What?”
Her head shook back and forth for a moment. “Nothing,” she whispered, still shaking her head. “In my dream there were shitloads of dead ravens all like this.”
He didn’t say anything for a long while as they both worked over the implications of that. Finally he cleared his throat. “Well. I’ll get rid of it. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Right,” Aviira said in a distant voice.
Before she got in the car, she caught a whiff of something sickly sweet. It was brief, and in her next breath it was gone.
They were quiet in the car for a long time, both too rattled to make small talk. Aviira couldn’t stop thinking the crazy thought that the dead bird had been left for her. It was too much of a strange coincidence that she’d dreamt about something so specific only to wake and find a real one waiting for her.
She didn’t realize how deep in thought she’d been until Jirel tapped her arm with the back of his hand. When she looked at him, he had an expression that said he’d asked her a question and she’d completely missed it.
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you minded if we lay low for the rest of the day when we get back. Go fill in Xander tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “No complaint from me,” she said quietly.
“Good.”
Aviira let the silence hang for a little while. Silence rarely bothered her, but for some reason it just felt awkward when it was shared with Jirel.
“Was that Elven I heard back there? When you found the bird?”
He had to think back to the moment when he’d walked out onto the porch and found the grim gift on the porch. The entire thing had happened in such a rush he wasn’t even positive about what he’d said. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I think in Elven first and have to translate before it comes out of my mouth,” he said with a shrug. “So sometimes expletives come out too fast to be translated…or if I’m angry, distracted, that kind of thing.”
She nodded absently. “How many people in the world still speak Elven, do you think?”
He made a quiet laugh. “Probably not many. I suspect once I go it’ll finally be a dead language.”
“Too bad,” she said quietly as she looked out the window. He glanced at her. “You ever think about teaching it to someone?”
“Always thought I’d raise my kids to speak it,” he said. He cleared his throat. “But I have a feeling that might be off the table now.”
She didn’t miss the tone of disappointment in his voice even if she couldn’t empathize. She’d never even come close to considering having kids; her parents and their treatment of her had completely wiped that desire away from a young age.
“You never know,” she said in an offhanded tone, hoping that was something that people said to someone who was losing hope. “Someone might come along.”
Jirel swallowed, considered that for a moment. “I’m afraid she already did,” he said softly.
Aviira glanced at him for just a moment before turning her gaze back out the window. There was a weary sadness in his voice that made her hope she never found herself falling for another person. Her insides were already damaged enough as it was.
***
Jirel was dozing on his balcony when he heard someone banging on his front door. He sat up and looked into the dark apartment, considered the sound for a long moment before he meandered inside and pulled the door open.
“’Bout fucking time,” Jayne said from the other side when he opened it. “I’ve called you like three times. What have you been doing in there?”
“Taking a nap,” he said, feeling those unintentional defenses go up immediately. “Is that okay?”
Jayne didn’t seem to notice his flare of anger, or if she did, she ignored it. “Well, get up. You’re coming out with me.”
He sighed softly. “Jayne.”
“No, you and I are hashing this out. I’m tired of not having you around.”
He looked at her for a long while. “I just got home,” he said. “I am literally on the case from hell right now.”
“Good thing I’m buying your drinks then.”
They stared at each other. Jayne lifted her thin eyebrows and gave him that look, the one that said she wasn’t giving up. He was very familiar with it.
“Fine,” he whispered.
Her face immediately burst into a wide smile, the one that was sweet enough to make most people forget that she was a trained sharpshooter.
“Get your shit and let’s go,” she said, and it left very little room for argument.
***
At seven that night, Aviira found herself sitting in her car parked across the street and several houses down from the address Jensen had written down, the one that belonged to Liisha. It was a nice neighborhood near Washington Park filled with post-war bungalow-style homes that looked quaint and tiny next to the newer, larger stucco-and-brick-front two-story homes that were going up all over the place. Suburbanite moneymakers were buying up aging homes, razing them to the ground, and building unnecessarily large and tall houses that had to go up instead of out to accommodate the thousands of square feet required for a family of three, since the lots were dated and packed together. She could see a light on in the front room of the house where her sister lived, but she had parked too far away to see if anyone was inside.
She had no idea what she was doing.
She had been telling herself since the moment Jensen had handed her that envelope that she would wait to contact her sister until after her case was closed. Life was already complicated enough and she did not want her brain space to be even more cluttered with the addition of working up the nerve to contact her, but still, here she was, sitting within fifty feet of her family’s home. Maybe it was just a way to escape the pressure of the case and the fact that neither she nor Jirel had any idea what they were doing. Maybe it was to break the images from that morning’s nightmare and the paranoid voice at the back of her head that the dead bird had been left there on the porch for her.
But mostly, she knew it was because she was too afraid to go home and try to fight her way through another restless night.
Perhaps if for no other reason than to distract herself from her crazy thoughts, she pulled out her phone and stared at it for a long time. Finally she sighed and dialed. After several empty rings Jensen’s voicemail picked up and she nearly hung up again. But then the phone beeped and the recording began and she had to commit; he would know that she called anyway and there was a very good chance he had just ignored her altogether.
“Jensen, it’s me…look, uh, I just wanted to say…thank you for getting this information to me…and I’m…I’m sorry if you misconstrued anything about Jirel and me, it’s really not what you’re thinking at all…” She paused for a long moment. “And I’m sorry about what I said earlier, about us…that was a pretty shitty thing for me to say. Anyway I’m eyeballs deep in this really fucked up
case but I really…we should sit down and talk. Anyway. Thanks again and uh…I guess I’ll call you as soon as this is over. Bye.”
She stared at her phone for a long while after she hung up. Half of her was hoping Jensen would call her back and explain that he’d just missed picking up the phone and she could explain herself better than her half-assed message. The other half was hoping he would just listen to it and that she wouldn’t have to talk about it anymore.
But the phone did nothing, so she threw it onto the passenger seat and tried her best not to think about it.
Aviira leaned away from the open window and rubbed at her eyes. Wished she had someone to call and vent to about her grim case and all the strange shit that had been happening to her lately. Wished she had someone to tell about the unsettling feelings she’d begun to have about her new partner. Jensen was about the only friend she had and that conversation was definitely out. Tito maybe, but he’d only tell her to go for it, which was not the answer she wanted.
A car drove by her and she glanced out the window. An orange Subaru Cross-Trek pulled into an empty street-side spot several cars in front of her, across the street from Liisha’s house. The door opened and a young woman climbed out and crossed the street toward the house.
Aviira’s throat closed over her sister’s name and her fingers unconsciously went to the scar beside her lip. She felt herself sink lower in her seat. Liisha was gorgeous, with long blonde hair that sat in perfect waves and came all the way down her back. She glanced vaguely in Aviira’s direction as she looked to make sure there were no cars coming before she crossed the street. She looked healthy and happy. Aviira watched her hop up the steps and head inside the house, where she was sure she was greeted by loving parents who had never once cared that Liisha wasn’t their biological daughter.
Alone in the street again, Aviira leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Her stomach had tied itself in a knot. After several minutes of sitting there trying to figure out exactly what she was doing, she turned the key in the ignition and turned the car around, leaving her sister and her perfect, happy family in her rear view.
***
“So,” Jayne said as she scooted into the booth next to Jirel with their drinks. “Tell me about the new girl.”
“She’d punch you if she found out you called her new girl, for starters,” he said. He shrugged one shoulder. “She’s like you, but crazier,” Jirel said.
A loud laugh burst from Jayne’s mouth. Jirel found himself missing that sound; he didn’t realize how much he had.
“I’ve always heard that she’s crazy,” Jayne said. “But I mean, like, a good crazy, right?”
“Good crazy?”
“She’s good at what she does, she’s just a little intense sometimes.”
He smirked and took a drink of his beer. “Intense. Yeah, I guess that’s a good word for it.”
“I mean she must be at least halfway good at what she does or she’d never have pulled off that undercover thing.”
He knew where she was going with that comment, and he redirected it. “One would assume.”
“So you’re getting on okay.”
He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling for a second. “Uh, I guess so. I wasn’t sure at first. She’s really…” He shook his head while he searched for the right word. “Guarded. It’s tough to get a gauge for her at first. The first few days I wasn’t sure if she didn’t like me or if she was just a huge bitch.”
“So which is it?”
“Neither. She’s just…” He shrugged. “She’s had her chain jerked a lot, so she keeps it pretty close now. It makes her read like she doesn’t like anybody.”
Jayne made a funny sound, a guffaw almost. Jirel looked at her.
“What?”
“She’s just like you then.”
He considered that for a second.
“Don’t try to deny it,” Jayne said with a shake of her head. “Everybody thinks you’re aloof till they get to know you. You don’t let people in and it makes people think that you’re uptight.”
He frowned. “Maybe. But for pretty different reasons.”
Jayne shrugged. “That doesn’t matter.”
Jirel was quiet for another long moment. “I didn’t think we’d work very well together at first. Now that I can start to see how those gears turn in her head, her method makes a little more sense. She’s very smart. She just doesn’t make the best spur of the moment decisions sometimes.”
Jayne was quiet, but when he looked up at her, she was smirking at him like she knew something he didn’t.
“What?”
“You like her.”
“I do not.”
“You so do,” she insisted.
“How do you know? I’ve been talking about her for all of three minutes.”
She gave him a flat look with her rich caramel eyes. “For one thing, she’s a redhead.” Jirel gave an incredulous laugh and looked away, shaking his head. She grinned. “If she was really as bullheaded as you’re claiming you’d have already told Xander to shove it.”
“I was on probation,” he reminded her. “I don’t exactly have the luxury of telling Xander to shove it.”
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “You and I and everyone else knows that Xander would bend over backwards and take one in the eye to keep you around. He’s playing you with this tough guy act because he’s got his reputation to consider too, but he’d get screwed so hard by Ullemaster if he fired you.”
“Still has nothing to do with Aviira.”
“Uh, let’s not forget who obsessed over her case notes on the undercover Hunter gig for like a week,” Jayne said. She pulled her long blonde hair over one shoulder.
He rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“You called her a genius. A genius, Jirel.”
“She is a genius. She tested straight into the detective billet when she was eighteen, Jayne. You know how many people have ever done that? It’s just that nobody really takes her seriously.”
“You’ve been interested in her since you first saw her, you just didn’t realize it. Or you pretended not to because of Caesli.”
He gave her a stern look, and her face turned apologetic.
“Sorry. But you know what I mean. You read her notes and were fascinated by what she did. Now you’re working next to her and I’m willing to bet you’ve never gushed over her undercover thing to her.”
“I thought we were having drinks so we could bury the hatchet,” he said quietly. “Not talk about my nonexistent love life.”
Jayne smiled. “Just saying.”
“Okay. It’s been said.”
She leaned one elbow on the table and cradled her face in her palm, gave him a good looking over. “Did I mention you look like hell?”
He felt like hell. The restless sleep for the last week was catching up with him, not to mention all the other complications that were rattling around inside his head. “I think it might have been said.” He sighed and leaned back in the booth. “Corin treating you right?”
A lazy half-smile crossed her face, the smile of a new love that still hadn’t worn the charm off yet. “He’s treating me fine.” She let the silence hang for a long moment, brought in a little breath. “I am sorry about how things turned out. It was kind of shitty of me.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “You did what you had to do. I’m sorry I was too wrapped up in myself to be happy for you.”
“It was bad timing.”
Jirel shrugged again. Jayne considered him with a sad look.
“You hear from her at all?”
He took a drink and tried not to think about it. “She called last week.”
A mother bear look crossed Jayne’s face. “Calling in a post-mortem?”
“No. She’s moved to San Diego. Just checking up on me, making sure I wasn’t about to crash and burn since the bomber resurfaced.” He shook his head in a tight motion that had a lot of bitterness to it. “So that was nice
of her.”
Jayne made a sympathetic face. “Sorry, bud.”
He shrugged and they sat there together in a loaded silence for a bit.
Finally, Jayne said, “We okay?”
Jirel put one elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand, looked at his friend for a while. “We’re okay,” he said. “Sorry if I’ve been a dick.”
A little smile crossed her face. “You just needed some time to be mad. I get it.”
He sighed. “I’m tired of being mad.” Shook his head. “Just tired.”
Jayne put her arm across his shoulder and gave him a positive smile. “Tell me about your case.”
“You’re going to have to buy me another drink first.”
A wide smile spread across her face and she laughed, squeezed his shoulder. “Atta boy.”
***
Moira did not appear particularly surprised to see Aviira standing on her doorstep when she opened the screen. Still, she smiled and said, “Aviira. What a pleasant surprise.”
Aviira was surprised that she had ended up on Moira’s doorstep, too.
“I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Of course not. I was just making myself a drink. Do come in.”
Aviira followed Moira into the foyer and through the sitting room where she and Jirel had sat for tea a few days earlier. The woman led her down another hall that was lined with so many picture frames of various sizes and shapes that there was almost no blank wall space underneath. Aviira had to pause and let her eyes pass over the cluttered walls, take in the photographs, the majority of which were in black and white. Ahead of her, Moira slipped into a wide kitchen that looked like it had been new in the mid-nineteenth century. She was at the counter mixing a drink when Aviira joined her. There were two glasses set there.
Aviira paused by the doorway.
“Were you expecting someone else? I can go if you need.”
Moira shook her head, the beads draped around her neck rattling. “No one but you,” she said.
Shadows of Old Ghosts Page 16
