Broken Paths (AIR Book 2)

by Amanda Booloodian

  "Agent Heidrich, can I have a word with you, in private?" Detective Parker asked.

  Logan winked at me, "I'll wait out front."

  Wondering what Detective Parker wanted, I waited until the door locked again.

  "I wanted to apologize," Detective Parker said.

  I shrugged but softened the attitude by giving him a friendly look. "Like I said, it's no problem."

  "I'd like to make it up to you."

  "Really, there's nothing to make up for."

  He looked me straight in the eyes. "I'd like to anyway."

  I wanted to say there really was no need, but I didn't manage to get the first word out.

  "Would you like to meet me for drinks tonight?" he asked.

  Drinks? That was not the direction my mind had been working towards.

  "If you're free," he added after I'd been silent for too long.

  Was my face going red? "Um, sure. I mean, yes. I'd like that." Yep, it had to be red now.

  "Do you know Royce? Over on 10th street? We could meet there around seven."

  I'd heard the name, but was completely unfamiliar with the place, but the Internet was my friend. "Sure, I'd like that."

  Had I already said that?

  "I'll see you at seven." Detective Parker stepped around the corner, and the door buzzed again.

  Walking out, my mind was far from the hospital. Had I been asked on a date, or was this him feeling bad for being rude?

  I guess I'd find out tonight.

  "Are you two getting together at some point?" Logan asked.

  "You knew he was going to ask me out?" I asked.

  "Well, I had to make sure he knew this might be his only chance. I wasn't sure how your side of the conversation would go. I know last fall-"

  "We're meeting later tonight." I didn't want Logan to move our discussion to last fall, so at the truck, I snatched the tablet up, and started discussing the case while Logan drove.

  Hank let us know the victims were in the same morgue, and Detective Parker called to tell them we would be stopping by.

  In the basement of the hospital, I looked over the bodies while Logan talked to the man who had shown us around. The morgue had some vestiges of deep blue showing grief, but for the most part, the Path was as sterile as their cleaning fluids. The usual day-to-day Paths of people at work circulated through currents.

  The hit and run was messy, so I concentrated hard on avoiding the damage and reading only Zeke's Path. It was fading, but everything appeared normal. There were no traces of anger or betrayal lurking around. Oliver was the same way, but Raj was another story. The Path peeled away from him as though afraid to touch him. An unnatural pocket of nothingness surrounded him.

  "I was told it looked like this man died of natural causes. Is that what you've found?" I interrupted.

  "Preliminary reports show no external causes of death, but he did suffer a small aneurysm. We ordered a tox screen, but that will take a couple of days. Too early to say it was natural, though, at least not with certainty."

  I braced myself before opening the floodgates of the Path, allowing it to pour over me, amplified a thousand fold. The sterile morgue turned into a tapestry of color. Shapes moved around as the past came into view, overriding the present. Blurry images of doctors and nurses walked around, and sheeted gurneys were moved in and out of the room.

  Pulling myself towards the present, I watched ghosted images of the three boys being brought into the room for us. Raj's Path was a gaping hole, and worse. As his body was moved around, other patches of voided Path had sprung up.

  Shivering, I moved the Path further forward into the present. It was more difficult than I anticipated, but the blank spots drove me forward. This read too close to what had or hadn't surrounded the gnome, Am. Once I managed to get close to the present, I saw that the Path regained its typical flow. It was lighter in texture and color, but it had reclaimed the empty spaces.

  Closing my eyes, I shoved the Path aside. When I opened them, I blinked rapidly as the dull colors of the real world returned. Logan and I left, thanking the man for his time.

  "What did you find?" Logan asked.

  "It's like Am. The Path around him is a blank slate. Do you think Raj knew about the Lost?" I asked.

  "Most people wouldn't be able to keep the Lost secret if they stumbled into it. Bill swore that no one knew about him, apart from another Lost on campus. I doubt that Raj knew anything. We can have Hank dive into his background to be safe."

  Logan called it in as we left the building. Once in the truck, I added to the report that Kyrian gave me, giving the agency an instant update on the investigation.

  "According to the report," I said, "Raj and Zeek disappeared after entering a club downtown. Let's go there and see if we can find out where they might have gone."

  "Is this town big enough to have a club?" Logan asked.

  "We're turning into a city, at least when all the college students are around," I said. "Haven't you noticed that businesses and subdivisions have been creeping toward our neighborhood in the country?"

  "Might be time to consider moving further out. Get a few more acres, spread out a bit," Logan said.

  "What you mean is that you want a place large enough to get your own horse."

  Logan laughed. It had such a musical quality to it that it held me briefly entranced.

  Feeling lighter, I looked back at the case file. "Should we bring Rider in on the case?"

  "We can ask him to check it out later."

  ***

  Downtown wasn't busy, and we were able to park the truck on the street.

  Logan hummed and watched people pass by as I struggled to pull up the Path and coerce it to flow into the past. In the morgue, the past popped up without trying. Here, it fought me every step of the way. The weather was cool, but it didn't take long for me to break into a sweat.

  Since hundreds of people had walked through this area, each leaving their mark, the past would help me pinpoint which flowing trail we needed to follow. By the time I sifted through the evening, I was fatigued from the effort. Too much use of the Path in one day was draining me.

  Once in the past, it was easier to focus what I was looking for and follow the flow without burning as much energy. Zeek and Raj left the club. When they parted ways, I followed the ghosted past of Raj. He walked towards campus, pausing a few times briefly on the way. University Park held many old Paths, but as he continued through, he appeared to be alone. We moved past stately old buildings used for lecture halls and classes, but I barely noticed them. When we reached the front of the law library, Raj's Path stopped.

  He was there and then gone with nothing in between. No one else was around, and the Path held no memory of him after that time.

  I walked around in circles, catching stray bits of Path, trying to see if they tied to our case. It wasn't until Logan put a hand on my shoulder that I fell into the flow of the Path, moving to the present. For the first time in a long while, I was able to stop Reading the Path without much issue.

  Well, it wasn't any trouble until it was gone. When the world turned ashen, I swayed, and then sat down hard on the ground having worked myself into exhaustion. There are records of other Readers following Paths into death. Thankfully, my partner knew when I'd had more than I could take.

  "I sent Rider back for the truck," Logan said. "You look more tired than a cowboy at the end of a long drive."

  "When did Rider get here?" I asked. My eyes felt like they were burning.

  "I called him after we left the club. He stopped by the morgue to catch some scents. He joined us on Raj's trail. When I saw you were about done for the day, I sent him back for the truck. He can track down where Oliver went through the evening, then come back to follow Zeek’s trail."

  Logan stared as I hauled myself to my feet.

  "I think I may have let you go too far today," Logan said.

  "I'll be okay," I lied. Exhaustion leaked out of my pores, and the chilled we
ather was sinking back in its place.

  We heard screeching tires and looked up in time to see Rider swerving around a car. The front tire of the truck jumped the curb and Rider came to a stop in front of us, half was on the street and half on the sidewalk. I must have looked worse than I thought because he jumped out and came around to meet us.

  "You look like a ghost," Rider said. "Let me help you into the truck."

  "I can make it to the truck on my own," I said.

  Rider kept moving towards me.

  "Boy, you are never going to learn," Logan chuckled.

  "Rider," I snapped, "if you pick me up and put me in the truck I am going to tranq you."

  Rider stopped and looked from me to Logan, confused. Logan laughed louder.

  "You're not helping," I said to Logan.

  I teetered, but there was no way I was letting anyone see me fall. If I couldn't control what my power did to me, I wasn't much use in the field. I certainly didn't want one of my partners to feel the need to save me from myself.

  "I'll drive," Logan said, patting Rider on the back and taking the keys.

  Rider looked confused and climbed in next to me. I decided to ignore the confusion and move on.

  "Did you find anything on the trail?" I asked.

  Logan turned the heaters up full blast and drove back to Rider's car.

  "Nothing," Rider said, "since one of the deaths was similar to the gnome death, I thought I might find the same oddity in the area, but it was clean. There was no one around him when he died."

  "Maybe we should check the Path where they died as well," I suggested.

  Logan raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word.

  Right, I thought. Stupid idea. "Tomorrow?" I suggested.

  "We'll put it on the agenda," Logan said.

  "Meet us at the house?" I asked as we drove up to Rider's car.

  "I will meet you there," he said as he got out.

  "Can we grab some coffee on the way back? I need a large dose of caffeine." I stretched out in the seat.

  "Thinking of staying up late tonight?" Logan asked.

  I sighed. "I should file this report. Plus, I want to pick Rider's brain more about the gnome scents and the trails here."

  "You may be forgetting something. At around seven tonight," Logan said.

  The reminder caused pixies to riot in my stomach. "There's a lot to do. I should probably call and cancel."

  Chapter 6

  "All that work will be there in the morning," Logan said. "Go out. Have some fun."

  Biting my lip, I flipped through a few pages of the case file without paying attention. "I haven't been out with someone in ages. I'm not even sure what adults do when they go on dates."

  Logan snickered.

  "Okay, a first date, what do they do on a first date?"

  "It's drinks. Talk and get to know him. You're both in similar fields, you have stuff in common."

  Shrugging was the only response I gave.

  Logan switched gears. "We need to go out and check on Essy this week."

  This was a much safer topic. "Sure. The fairies have had a long winter. Maybe we can run out and see her tomorrow. After we go through the Paths of the other victims."

  "Maybe we can take the horses out this time," Logan said, ignoring my comment.

  "Hmm, maybe."

  We ordered my coffee in a drive-thru and went home.

  "Gerald is taking another art class," Logan said.

  "How does he like it?" I asked.

  Gerald was Logan's youngest son. The youngest of three children. From the conversations we've had, I was able to glean that Logan's wife died not long after Gerald was born. Not long was a relative term. It could mean up to twenty-five years or so to an elf.

  "He came home with an easel, a bunch of canvas, and about thirty different tubes of colors. He's pretty enthusiastic."

  "What is he painting?" I asked.

  "Anything that will hold still long enough," Logan said.

  Laughing helped to relieve some of my dating apprehension. I downed the caffeine hoping to stimulate some brain cells so I could have a decent conversation that night. The drink perked me up, but I went straight to the kitchen when we got home. Gran already had a pot of coffee brewing.

  "How you can drink caffeine in the afternoon is beyond me," she said as way of greeting.

  "I need to make sure I'm awake this evening," I said.

  Rider was pulling out plates and setting the table.

  Gran beamed. "Dinner is ready for that very reason."

  "Any idea if it's going to go well?" I asked, willing Gran to have a premonition of my evening.

  "No idea." The look Gran gave me didn't hint if she was telling the truth or not.

  Logan and I helped set the table.

  Not wanting to think about this evening, I switched our conversation to the case as we settled into dinner. "I wanted to ask you again, Rider, about the trip to the gnome hole. You said the area was off, but you didn't smell anything?"

  "I find it hard to explain. It is almost as if something should have been there, or had been there, and was then taken away." Rider paused as though thinking that over. "That is not quite it either."

  "Have you ever experienced anything that you could compare it to?" Logan asked.

  "No," Rider said.

  "And you didn't sense anything like that again today? Not even the last part of the excursion?" I almost said the last body, but stopped for Gran's sake.

  Gran wouldn't care if we talked about bodies. If guests wanted to talk about corpses, then she'd be happy to let them, but I didn't want her to be too deeply mixed up in AIR work. I'd been loose about it in the past, but I was trying to keep work at work.

  "Nothing like it," Rider responded.

  While I mulled over what Rider said, I changed the subject. "How was your day, Gran?"

  "Susan and I went shopping and then out to visit Morgan. I invited him to dinner on Sunday."

  Morgan Renner was a troll that Gran got together with from time to time. He was smart for his species. Actually, almost any species would call him smart. He worked as a software development consultant. From home, of course. Smart or not, he looked like a troll, so he didn't go out often.

  "It'll be good to see Morgan again," I said.

  "You'll see another person from your past soon," Gran said.

  I waited for more, but it didn't come. Thinking of Vincent, my heart beat faster.

  "Any idea who it will be?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

  "Sorry," Gran said, "I don't think it's him."

  "It could be anyone," I said, trying to hide my disappointment. "I've had lots of friends."

  That wasn't exactly true. My powers came on late in high school, and I wasn't able to keep many friends. Being a Reader made college a living hell. A person's Path said a lot about them, and I made and lost friends because of it.

  After dinner, as I washed the dishes, I thought of the friends I had made since working at AIR. Even some of my casual friends knew about my gifts, accepted them, and accepted me.

  Once the dishes were done, I excused myself. Time was moving on, and I had to get ready. Thoughts of Vincent flickered past as I went upstairs, but I mentally shoved them aside.

  ***

  Detective Parker asked me to call him Ethan when we met. Once we were seated, with drinks in hand, we tried to make small talk in that awkward way people do when they don't know anything about each other.

  "Do you live in the area?" Ethan asked.

  "Yeah, I'm from here actually. I live outside of town now. You?" It was so much easier if he asked a question and I asked him to answer the same one.

  "My family owns some land outside of town. I lived here for a while as a kid and moved back a few years ago."

  I latched onto that. "Did you go to school in town?"

  "East End Elementary. We moved when I was in second grade."

  "I went to Crates for elementary."

  He no
dded, smiling. It was a nice smile, one that I wouldn't mind watching for a while.

  "How about college?" he asked.

  "I started here. They have a good accountancy program, but I transferred out of state for my senior year."

  "You're an accountant?" He looked surprised.

  "I used to be, but I was looking for a new line of work before my first year of work was up. How about you?"

  "I went into the Navy for a few years and went to school while I was in service for the most part. When I got out, I went straight into law enforcement."

  "How did you like the Navy?" I asked.

  "It wasn't quite what I was looking for, but I like working for the local police department. How's your current job?"

  Knowing that I should have steered clear of questions about jobs, I cleared my throat to stall for time. "Most days, it's good, and when they're not, at least I know we're working to make things better."

  "I've never met someone who worked for the Department of Treasury unless they were with Secret Service. I didn't realize there were other agencies."

  Once again, I found myself struggling with what to say. "It's, uh, specialized." It was lame, and I found myself studying my drink.

  "So, what else do you do? Outside of work, I mean."

  I'm sure Ethan noticed the grateful look I flashed him. "Not much, to be honest. Visiting friends, hiking, cooking, well, mostly baking really." Trying to think of anything else was impossible. Was that really all I did outside of work?

  "I went to Tennessee a few weeks ago, and they have some great trails in the mountains."

  "Hey, Parker!" A few men walked up, the one talking was obviously drunk. "How are ya?"

  "Evening, Ike." Ethan looked less than thrilled.

  All the men, except Ike, moved on to another table and waved down a waitress.

  "Come have a drink with us," Ike said.

  Ethan looked embarrassed. "Thanks, but I'm already having one."

  "With her? She's cute, but..." Ike apparently had a problem getting beyond that.

  "Excuse me for a minute," Ethan said to me. He stood up, took his friend Ike, and led him over to the other table.

  The words, ‘She's cute, but,’ started playing in my mind. Ike's reaction to me had been better than Ethan's, better than most really, at least out of the people that don't ignore me completely. It wasn't exactly the words I wanted to hear while out with someone, so while Ethan's back was turned, I took a large drink, trying to shorten my visit.