The Lady in Pink - Deadly Ever After 2

by J. A. Kazimer

  “Wait! What?” she yelled, spinning to face me, her hands flying to her hips. “You think I’m involved in a takeover? Are you nuts?”

  My eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you’re not?”

  “Of course not.” She laughed with bitterness. “I’m not like your flea-riddled girlfriend—”

  “Forget Bo Peep,” I said, reaching for her arm. My fingers closed around her forearm, generating a slight spark. I quickly dropped it before I hurt her. “If you’re not involved in a hostile takeover, what the hell have you been keeping from me?”

  She winced. “Why don’t you take a seat . . .”

  CHAPTER 23

  “You’re working a case without telling me?” I shook my head for the tenth time since she’d spilled her proverbial beans. I couldn’t believe her. She’d been working some case for more than a month without my knowledge. I pictured the danger she could face while on a case, any case, and the lowlifes who would cut out her heart for a few bucks. I wanted to shake her until her very strong white teeth rattled.

  One of her flame-colored eyebrows rose. “And this is different from you taking Peyton’s missing-fairy case how?”

  “Because . . . I . . . ah . . .” I jumped from the couch to pace. “It just is, damn it.” I jabbed my finger at her. “I’m the investigator. You are . . .”

  “I’m what, Blue?” she asked in a dangerous tone. “A pretty face? A trophy partner? How exactly do you see our working relationship?”

  I shook my head. “You’re putting words in my mouth. I just meant, I have experience working cases.”

  “And I don’t?” She shook her head. “I remember solving my fair share over the last year.”

  “Together,” I said. “We solved those cases. Not you by yourself.” I rushed on before she could argue. “Investigations can be very dangerous, Izzy. People can get hurt.” I paused, pushing my next words through the lump in my throat at the very thought of any harm coming to her. “You could get hurt.”

  For a moment, the anger left her face and she looked resigned. “I won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.” I licked my dry lips. “Please, let me help you. We can work the case together, whatever it might be. I’ll even let you take the lead.”

  “Let me?” She snorted, her voice rising with each word. “You’ll let me take the lead on my own case?”

  I held up my hand. “Take it easy. I’m merely trying to help.”

  “Then keep your mouth shut.” She poked her finger into my chest. Hard. A blue bolt of electricity shot from me to her finger, but she didn’t seem to notice the electrical charge. “You go ahead and work your missing-fairy case, and I’ll work mine. When it’s over”—her eyes met mine and her voice quieted—“we will reevaluate.”

  “Reevaluate what, Izzy?” I asked, though I had a damn good idea what she wanted to reassess.

  “Us.”

  Following her proclamation, Izzy walked out of my apartment, closing the door quietly behind her. I stared at the closed door, a feeling of imminent doom sweeping through me. I was a fool. Izzy had talked me in circles, avoiding spilling any of her secrets, and now I was left staring at a closed door, wondering what kind of case she was working and whether or not she was sleeping with Clark. My fists clenched, and I considered chasing after her.

  But I’d lost my chance.

  Before I took a step toward the door, it flew open, smacking against the wall with a loud bang. Izzy stormed back inside, her eyes burning violet. “Damn it, Blue. You can’t leave your door unlocked so just anyone can bust inside and kill you. Do you not remember James lying dead on the floor?”

  “I—”

  Her finger wagged in my direction. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. Just lock your door.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, which drained all of her righteous anger.

  She sighed deeply. “All right, then.”

  “Is that why you came back?” I took a cautious stride closer to her, until we were less than a foot apart. “To make sure I lock my door?”

  “Of course.” Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. “What other reason would I have?”

  We stood there, silence growing between us.

  Finally Izzy gave me a small, sad smile. “Right and Left are standing guard in the hall. Try not to get yourself killed before morning.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The next morning I dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, poured a cup of three-day-old coffee into a chipped mug, and plopped down on my couch to contemplate my next move. It had been three days since I’d found James dead on my floor. One day since Izzy had walked in on me and Bo Peep. And less than eight hours since she’d walked out my door with her secrets intact. Suffice it to say, I hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  I rubbed my eyes, downing half the cup of coffee. It tasted much worse after the third day. But caffeine didn’t care if it tasted like dirt; it worked miracles no matter what. My heart started to beat with pleasure and an electrical pulse. Taking a deep breath, I picked up my cell phone from the coffee table and punched in a phone number from memory.

  Bad memories, to be precise.

  Memories better left in the past.

  But I had no choice if I wanted to find James’s killer.

  “Locks,” the detective answered on the third ring, sounding much worse than I felt.

  “Good morning, Detective,” I said in my sincerest voice. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Who is this?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Blue Reynolds.”

  “How did you get my cell number?” Her voice grew stronger with each word, until my phone crackled with anger. Lucky for me, Detective Goldie Locks couldn’t shoot people through the phone. I bet she wished for such a power right now.

  Rather than answer that loaded question about the means by which I’d obtained her mobile number, all of which were very illegal, I said, “I know that you’re a busy woman so I’ll be quick—”

  “Too late.”

  I ignored her statement. “I was calling to see if you’ve made any headway on the Wild case.”

  Silence greeted my inquiry.

  “Locks?” I asked after thirty seconds of nothingness. “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “Mr. Reynolds, I promise that as soon as we have a suspect, you’ll be the first to know. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Detective,” I said sharply.

  She blew out a drawn-out sigh. “Look,” she said, “we’re doing all we can, but you have to understand—”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly.” I gripped the phone tighter, my fingers smoldering against the plastic. “A charbroiled intern isn’t top priority. Not in a city this size. At least not to the NNPD.” I paused, letting my words sink in. “But it is to me. Either you do your damn job, or else . . .”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, Detective. It’s a promise.”

  Following my call to Detective Locks, I pulled on my leather jacket and a pair of thick gloves and then headed for my front door. I wasn’t lying to the good detective. I would find James’s killer with or without the NNPD’s help.

  A few minutes later I left my apartment and jumped on the Fey Train uptown to the offices of Reynolds & Davis Securities. When I arrived at the office it appeared deserted, with the exception of Izzy’s bitchy administrative assistant seated primly at her desk, filing her talon-like nails to even finer points. All the better to stab anyone without an appointment.

  “Ms. Davis isn’t in,” she sneered when she finally bothered to glance my way. “She called to say she had a late night and wouldn’t be in until later. I heard a man in the background. He sounded hot ... Now that I think about it, Mr. Boyer hasn’t arrived yet either . . .”

  I ignored her and turned down the hall toward my fire-damaged office. The closer I got, the greater the acrid stench of smoke. My eyes started to water when I opened the door. My mouth dropped open and I took a step back, surveying t
he destruction in front of me.

  Half of the office was completely destroyed, from my old, worn desk to the file cabinets against the far wall. The other half appeared untouched by the flames, as if someone had drawn a line from one side to the other. Of course, everything not burned to a crisp was completely soaked in water and fire retardant. My feet squished on the carpet as I entered the room.

  Good thing I’d worn rubber-soled shoes.

  I winced, noticing for the first time that the expensive artwork Izzy had meticulously picked out just for me, mostly from Picasso’s Blue Period, was charred at the edges. I moved toward my desk, my chest aching with every step as I tore off my gloves. Large black scorch marks raced across the desktop. My laptop lay in a puddle, thoroughly melted from the flames, as if it was ground zero. Licking my dry lips, I reached down to pull out what used to be the bottom drawer of my desk. It slid forward an inch and then disintegrated in my hands.

  I closed my eyes, fearing the worst.

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  The file, my file, lay in a pile of ash.

  Gone. It was all gone. What I knew of my early life, had collected meticulously for years, was now dust and ash. Burned up in an instant.

  Anger swept through me, quick and hot, much like the fire itself. My fingers brushed the charred remnants of my life. Hell, it wasn’t like I could burn them even more. I glanced around the office, resigning myself to the truth. Like James’s murder, this wasn’t an accident. Someone had torched my office on purpose, using a fast-burning accelerant. Alcohol maybe. I looked on the floor, not too surprised to see a bottle of expensive whiskey, the same brand I kept in the bottom drawer with the file, lying in the ash. The bottle was empty.

  The fire was a spur-of-the-moment crime.

  Not a well-executed crime either. Quick and dirty.

  But effective.

  Why? What did someone gain by destroying my office?

  Izzy knocked on the open door, gasping in shock when she saw the damage. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to question her about her late night or whom she’d been with. My fingers dug into my palms, leaving tiny half-moon indents on my flesh.

  Izzy waved a hand in front of her face as she entered the destruction. “Reminds me of the last time we went to happy hour.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. The tension in my muscles eased a bit. “I did pay for the damages.”

  “Of course, you could’ve avoided the whole debacle if you’d just let Clayton win.”

  “He was cheating.” I frowned, growing annoyed all over again. “At bar trivia. Who does that?”

  Her lips curved into a wicked smile as she raised a guilty hand. “I was, but you didn’t electrify my barstool.”

  My annoyance vanished under her obvious humor. I lifted my shoulder in a shrug, feeling better than I had all morning. “But you’re just a girl. You have to cheat in order to win.”

  Her small fist came out of nowhere, smacking me in the arm with enough force to leave a mark. Luckily the resulting shock did nothing more than bring a frown to her lips as she blew on her fist. “Hey,” I complained. “I should file a complaint with HR. Workplace violence is the number one killer of—”

  “Complaint denied.”

  I grinned. “So soon?”

  She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m efficient.”

  “You, my winged partner, are many things . . .” I trailed off, watching her closely.

  She sniffed the air. “Are you smoking again?”

  I thought of the cigarette I’d enjoyed less than twenty minutes ago and shook my head. “Of course not; you know I quit six months ago.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Izzy, you smell the smoke from the fire. Nothing more.” To take her mind off my vices, many of which I longed for right now, I motioned around the charred office. “Did the security system catch anything?”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing.”

  “Figures,” I said. After all, we’d spent more than fifty thousand dollars on the system a few months ago. It had cameras covering every single nook and cranny, not to mention motion detectors and heat sensors. Hell, the damn thing went off as soon as I got within five hundred feet of the building, and yet, somehow, it failed to notice my office turning to cinders. Convenient.

  A little too much so for my peace of mind.

  Though I’d sworn to tell Izzy everything from now on, I decided to break my word just this once. It was my office that had burned, after all. That and the very real possibility that whoever had set the fire had also murdered my intern and wouldn’t think twice about killing another innocent victim who got in his or her way were reason enough to keep this to myself.

  So many questions swirled through my mind. But one kept repeating, like a blowing horn inside my head: Had the arsonist specifically targeted the file or was this a more general warning? I suspected the latter given that most of the file was worthless, just random pieces of a puzzle I was very far from ever solving. I bit my lip, thinking about another fire—one that happened thirty-one years ago in a maternity ward at the New Never City Hospital.

  Were the fires somehow connected?

  I shook my head at the fanciful notion. Arsonists didn’t wait thirty-one years to burn up a few pieces of yellowed paper. Something else was going on, something connected to James’s death, I was fairly sure.

  CHAPTER 25

  More than thirty years ago a fire started in the maternity ward of the New Never City Hospital. No one knew exactly what had caused the flames to erupt. Some claimed faulty wiring while others wondered if God had passed judgment on one of the newborn souls. I suspected the latter to be true. But not just any newborn—a blue-haired one born to an unknown mother who later left said child on the doorstep of an orphanage.

  Christine Connors was the nurse on duty when the fire started.

  She knew what happened that night.

  I could feel it in my bones.

  What I couldn’t do was find either hide or hair of Nurse Connors.

  After that night she, too, had vanished in a whiff of smoke.

  But not for long. Today would be the day I would finally find the woman I’d been looking for.

  An hour later, after Izzy left me to do some work in her own office, I followed the cubicle farm to the very last desk tucked between the soda machine and the men’s room. It was there I found just what I was looking for, or rather who I was looking for—Alice Glass—the best, albeit clumsiest, investigator in the city. At least the best one with boobs.

  After all, I was no investigational slouch.

  Izzy and I had hired Alice three months ago when Alice moved to the city from the outer borough of Queens of Hearts. At the time everyone had laughed, saying we had made a big mistake. Sure, Alice closed cases, they said, but she also had burned down two offices, broken the legs of several of her dates, and left a general swath of accidental destruction wherever she went. All valid points, we soon learned, when Alice managed to drop a computer on a very wealthy client with a gold digger for a wife.

  Luckily for us, and for Alice, the client took one look into Alice’s bespectacled blue eyes, dumped his gold-digging wife, and vowed to marry Alice as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce papers.

  Since then Alice had proved herself a valued asset to our growing team.

  As long as we didn’t let her in the field or near our clients.

  Not really a problem, since Alice preferred to stay tucked in her cubicle, scouring the Internet for clues. I used technology to solve cases, but I preferred the old ways, kicking ass and taking names on the mean, dirty streets, harder to do since the mayor had taken to regular street sweeping and jailing dirtbags willing to sell their own fairy godmothers. Alice, on the other hand, could learn anything about anyone with a few clicks of the keys. Less mess, and a hell of a lot less fun, but to each investigator his or her own.

  I knocked on her cubicle wall. “Hey, Alice, got a second?”

  She
jumped out of her chair, spilling a cup of searing-hot liquid all over both of us. I stifled a yelp as sparks shot from my skin. “Oh, Blue, I mean, Mr. Reynolds, I’m so sorry.” She wiped at my soaked shirt with her hand, shocking both of us with a decent amount of current.

  Startled by my conductivity, she leapt back, nearly toppling her workstation. I grabbed it in time, but it was too late to save her. Alice landed hard on the ground at my feet. Her legs sprawled wide, showing off a pair of day-of-the-week panties.

  Being a gentleman, I turned my head, barely noticing “Friday” embroidered up the side.

  Alice managed to pull herself together, and once she settled back in her office chair, I got down to business. “Any luck on locating Christine Connors yet?” I asked. Since I’d given her the assignment only an hour ago I didn’t expect much, and I was more than a little shocked when Alice’s fingers flew across her keyboard, golden hair dancing with every keystroke. Images, words, and numbers flashed over the computer screen faster and faster until my stomach gurgled more from motion sickness than from the whiskey I’d consumed the night before.

  Less than a minute later a photograph of an older woman in a hospital uniform appeared on the screen. “You couldn’t find her because thirty years ago she changed her name to Christine Quick, erasing all traces of Christine Connors,” Alice said, her head tilting to one side. She drew her bottom lip through her teeth, lost in thought. “Which couldn’t have been cheap. This lady was hiding something from someone.”

  My throat tightened. “Was?”

  Alice’s fingers paused over the keys and she glanced up. Her dark-framed glasses slid down her nose, changing her whole appearance. Suddenly her gawkiness turned to Fairymate of the Year material. Odd that I hadn’t noticed until that moment how beautiful Alice was with her flaxen locks, wildflower-blue eyes, and trim body. My eyes narrowed on the shimmering color of her hair. Then she pushed her glasses back in place, breaking me from my thoughts.

  “When did Christine die?” My last clue to the circumstances surrounding my birth and curse was fading before my eyes. I’d always had hope that Christine Connors was the key. The disappointment at her death nearly overwhelmed me. The burned-up file had been bad enough ... Hope that I would one day be free from this electrical curse, free to touch and be touched by another person without a tube of Neosporin handy, dried up.