by Ruth Vincent
“I’m not going to spy on you,” I said quietly.
Quinn starred at me, clearly not convinced.
I tried a different strategy. “If I wanted to spy on you, I could have already. We have cameras the size of a pinky fingernail. I could have already planted one.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t say anything.
“But I didn’t plant any spy cams.”
She still didn’t say anything. Slowly she moved to turn her head back towards the wall.
“I wanted to talk to you. You’re an adult. So am I. Maybe our parents don’t think we are, but we are, and I’m not going to treat you as less than that.”
I couldn’t tell if my words were getting through or not, with her head facing away from me, but I kept going.
“So, are you willing to talk to me?”
Quinn kept her face turned to the wall, silent, and I sighed, feeling like I’d lost what little ground I’d made.
And then, with her face still to the wall, I heard her voice, so quiet it was almost inaudible.
“I can’t talk about it. You wouldn’t understand. If you spy, you won’t see anything anyway. So don’t bother with me.”
This was a lot more than she’d been saying previously, and I felt like it was progress.
“Quinn, I’m not going to spy. I just want to talk. Your parents are worried about you. That’s the only reason they hired me. They’re worried that you dropped out of school, that you haven’t left your room. They’re worried something happened, that you’re hurt.”
She didn’t reply.
“They’re worried your new boyfriend . . .”
“I’m not seeing him anymore,” Quinn interrupted me, her voice emotionless.
Something about the utter flatness in her voice told me the end of that relationship had been bad.
I didn’t say anything for a while, steepling my fingers on the arms of the red velvet chair. I supposed it was a good thing that they had broken up, if the boy was the source of the drugs. Then again, the boy was out of the picture now, but Quinn’s symptoms continued.
I studied her. She turned back to me, her knees gradually drawing up into a kind of fetal position. Her eyes still had that same, dead, haunted look.
A terrible possibility was dawning in my mind, but I didn’t know how to talk about it. And I didn’t know how to get Quinn to trust me. I mean, who was I to this girl? A stranger, and one hired by her parents ostensibly to spy on her to boot. Why should she trust me?
But as I looked at her, I thought of Eva, I thought of my Shadow, so outwardly hostile and so inwardly hurt. I wanted to help this girl too. Would she see that my intentions were good? Would that matter? I had to say what I was thinking. I tried to put it gently.
“Quinn,” I said softly. “Did he . . . ?” My words trailed off. How could I say it: hurt, abuse, rape?
“Did he hurt you?” was all I could manage.
Quinn didn’t reply. Her whole body had gone stiff, wooden again.
But I noticed a glistening in her eyes, a tear pooling, unheeded.
“If he hurt you, there are things we can do,” I tried desperately. “I can help.”
But she shook her head, almost violently.
“It wasn’t like that,” she said quickly.
I was silent.
“No, I mean it. It wasn’t like that.” She struggled to find the words. “He didn’t hurt me. I mean, he hurt me, I guess, but it wasn’t . . .” She paused, grimacing, searching in our paucity of language for emotional pain to describe whatever had happened. “It wasn’t like that,” she finished.
I believed her. I had to take her at her word, because what other choice did I have? But then it left me wondering what to say next, what would help?
“Quinn, you don’t have to talk to me. I mean, I know I’m just a stranger. But I hope you will talk to someone.”
She didn’t reply.
“I know your parents took you, forced you to go, to therapists. But what if it wasn’t someone they picked, what if it was someone you picked?”
She was silent.
“Maybe it would help,” I started, but she cut me off, her voice utterly cold.
“They wouldn’t believe me.”
“But . . .”
“They wouldn’t believe me because I wouldn’t believe me if I heard myself. It’s too unbelievable.”
I waited, breathless for her to go on.
But she didn’t.
Clearly, she’d decided she’d said too much. She rolled herself onto her other side and faced the wall again, away from me. I put my head in my hands.
At last I asked, “Would you be willing to try me?”
I heard a “no” in her silence. But then to my surprise she spoke. With her head still turned to the wall, her voice sounded disembodied.
“Listen, Mabily, you seem like a nice person. And I know my mom and dad are trying to help. That’s why they keep bringing people in to see me: doctors, therapists and now, I guess, private detectives.” I couldn’t see her face, turned as it was to the wall, but I could imagine she was rolling her eyes at the last one. I tried not to be insulted.
“It’s very well meaning and sweet. I’m sorry I worry them.”
I sat there, just crossing my fingers that she would keep speaking. It was the most she’d spoken since I’d arrived.
“I’m sure I do seem worrisome,” she added. “They can’t understand it. But I don’t even understand it, really, what happened. It’s just like all the joy got sucked right out of me . . .”
I sat very still on the edge of the velvet chair, holding my breath. I could tell she was debating whether or not to open up, whether or not to trust me with more, and if I said the wrong thing now, she’d never say another genuine thing to me again. So I said nothing, sitting on my hands and praying that the little crack of light I’d seen in Quinn’s thick wall would open wide enough for me to come inside.
“Maybe I should have told someone,” she muttered, her head to the wall. “But there’s no way to find him now. No telling where he is. I never even knew his real name.” Her voice trailed off into silence.
“Um, Quinn, that’s where I, as a private detective, might have an advantage over the other professionals your parents hired. If you want to track someone down, that’s our strong suit.”
“You wouldn’t be able to find him. Not someone like this.”
“We can try. Give me as much information as you can about him,” I said. “Do you have any photos of him? Anything you remember him telling you about his life, occupation, where he was from, any biographical details? And whatever name he gave you, even if it was a fake name, it’s a start.”
But she shook her head again, her back still to me. “I’m not even sure if he’s alive.”
“We can find out,” I said gently. “There are databases we can search that can help us find out if he’s still living.”
“He’s not like other people. I’m telling you it won’t help, okay?”
I couldn’t tell what it was I’d done or said, but I could feel the wall around her slowly rolling down like a garage door, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Look”—she turned her head to stare straight at me—“your intentions seem good, but I’m not going to tell you anything. I’m not because I can’t. So you can go, because you’re just wasting your time with me.”
The defensiveness in her tone was asking me to quit, but I wasn’t giving up so easily.
Then again, I didn’t know what to do next.
Quinn turned her face back to the wall.
Her words rang in my mind.
I’m not going to tell you anything . . . because I can’t, she’d said. Was she worried about retribution for talking to me? Did she think this man would come after her to hurt her, if she revealed his identity? If that was the issue, this made it an entirely different conversation.
“If you’re worried he’s going to come back and hurt you b
ecause of something you tell me, we have ways to keep you safe,” I started, trying to reassure her.
“That’s not what I’m worried about. I don’t think he’s even in this world anymore.”
I wondered what had happened that made Quinn think her ex-boyfriend might be dead.
That was what she meant when she said “not in this world,” right?
It was an odd choice of phrase, a haunted emphasis on the word world, and a thought occurred to me as I gazed at the prostrate girl on the bed. Could Quinn possibly be talking about another world, my world? But it didn’t make sense. She clearly wasn’t a Fetch, if she was having a conversation with me. There was no way a human like her would have access to the Vale. And fairies didn’t linger in the human world when they visited; they didn’t like spending time here. Perhaps Quinn’s mysterious man was a Sanguinari—a vampire—or a Wolfman? I looked at her pale white neck, exposed where her hair fell back upon the pillow. No. She didn’t have any of the telltale scars.
I sighed, rubbing my forehead. There was nothing supernatural here. All there was was a depressed girl, who’d had a bad breakup, and now refused to talk about it.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Quinn turned to me with dead, desperate eyes.
“Please leave my room,” she said quietly. “I feel like shit, and I want to be alone.”
I hesitated for a moment, wanting so badly to talk to her more, hating that I was leaving with no more information than I’d started with.
“If there’s any information you could provide . . .” I started, but she cut me off.
“No. Please leave now.”
“Okay,” I said softly, “thank you for talking to me.”
She gave me the tiniest nod. “Thank you,” she whispered, and I could see through her pain, and her anger, her despair and self-loathing, that the thanks had been genuine. There was that tiny crack in her wall again.
“Would it be okay if I come back again and talk to you later?” I asked.
She shrugged.
I realized I wasn’t going to get any more out of her.
“Here’s my card,” I said, pulling one out of my purse and setting it on her bedside table. “Please call me if there’s anything I can do.” I highly doubted Quinn would ever call me. It would be me calling her. She acknowledged the card with the tiniest flicker of her eyes, but didn’t say anything. So I said goodbye and let myself out of the bedroom, and the stale air of despair it reeked with. Shutting the door behind me, I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh. I felt like I’d failed. I’d come all the way out here, talked to her for a half an hour and gotten nothing useful. Why had I ever thought I could be a P.I.?
But maybe there wasn’t even a case here? Clearly this ex of hers had hurt her, but the wound seemed primarily emotional. Maybe I just saw the supernaturally sinister everywhere I turned because of my past experience, even where it wasn’t.
There was the telltale click-clacking of heels and Brenda stood at the base of the stairs.
“Well, how did it go?” she said with cheerful desperation.
What could I say? I walked down the stairs to her, past the rows of photos.
“It was an initial conversation. Quinn wasn’t . . .” I paused, trying to put it diplomatically. “She wasn’t very forthcoming. But I certainly haven’t given up. I’d like to go back and talk to my boss, and then we’ll let you know if and how we want to proceed.”
It was as delicate an answer as I could give, but Brenda obviously heard failure in it, because her face fell.
“Well, thank you for trying,” she said. Yet somehow her voice was kinder now, as if she didn’t blame me for not being able to get through to her daughter. We were in the same boat.
“None of the doctors or therapists or anyone else were able to get her to talk either; it’s not just you,” she said quickly as she led me towards the door. Well, that was a small comfort.
“I’ll call you about next steps,” I said, but I could tell in her eyes she’d already checked us off her mental list as one more failed attempt, and she was running out of options.
We sat in silence in the Mercedes, soft rock playing faintly from the stereo as she drove me back to the train station.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said as I got out. Her polite smile was a bright facade, but I looked her straight in the eye. “Your daughter knows you’re worried about her, and she’s sorry,” I shared, thinking maybe it was the one helpful thing I could say. “She told me so.”
“Oh, thank you.” Brenda bit her lip and looked like she was about to cry. She gave a quick nod, buttoning up her emotions, but I could tell I’d touched a nerve, and her posture was different when she drove away.
The whole train ride back to Penn Station I thought over the conversation, wondering if maybe Quinn had revealed something without meaning to reveal it, like her evasive answers could be some kind of code. But I got nothing. The train jolted and rocked as it sped through the suburbs and industrial parks towards the beckoning skyscrapers of Manhattan. What had I even come out here for?
Chapter 3
I was in a dark mood the rest of the day at the office, and nothing Reggie could say about it only being an initial interview, and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, or that there were brownies in the break room (food was Reggie’s answer to all conundrums), seemed to be able to affect my gloom. I just felt so helpless. I didn’t know what was worse, if magic was somehow involved in Quinn’s case or it wasn’t. If there was something otherworldly here, it didn’t match up with anything in my experience. And if it was just an ordinary case, then I was just a fledgling P.I. in way over my head. Either way, I had nothing. I appreciated Reggie’s faith in me, but I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
Eva met up with me after work. She had texted me that she would be in the city, something to do with this new mysterious job that was taking up all her time, but that she still wouldn’t talk about. I was eager to see her. It had been too long since we’d had a face-to-face conversation. When the elevator doors opened and I saw her in the lobby, it dispelled my gloom about Quinn’s case. She threw her arms around me in a hearty hug, and we walked arm and arm out onto 37th Street.
Eva looked happy. There was a glow to her skin, and a light in her eyes, despite the bags of exhaustion under them. This new job, whatever it was, was clearly agreeing with her.
We walked towards Broadway. There was a street fair set up about half a block down from Reggie’s building, and I could already smell the arepas sizzling. Street fairs were fairly ubiquitous in midtown in the summer. But it was September now, which meant this might be the last one until next season. That gave the meat-scented sausage smoke and pounding reggaeton a kind of melancholy feel.
“You want to walk through it?” Eva asked. We had both lived in New York City just long enough to no longer be surprised by street fairs, but not so long that we viewed them merely as a traffic blocking nuisance.
“Sure,” I said, figuring it would take my mind off things.
We strolled along through the colorful booths, wandering meanderingly in the direction of the subway. We passed smoking kabab grills, and signs advertising Thai food for the terrifyingly low price of “$1,” and a booth selling flimsy batik dresses that would shrink down to the size to fit an infant as soon as you put them in the dryer.
I turned to Eva. “I met the boy you had over. We didn’t get to talk very much, though. He said he was on his way out.”
Eva’s face crumpled up at the mention of the boy, and she averted her eyes from me. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing him again,” she said quietly.
“Oh, Eva.” I put my arm around her. I felt so bad that she had gotten hurt again. She was just starting to get over Ramsey.
“Did he not even say goodbye to you when he ran out the door like that?” I asked, incensed.
“Nope,” she said, still not meeting my eye, feigning an interest in the batik dresses.
“Bastard.” I squeezed her hand. “I
’m so sorry, honey. You deserve so much better than that.”
Eva nodded, but that crushed look was still on her face when she finally raised her eyes to mine. For a moment she gazed off into the colorful booths, not saying anything.
“I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised,” she said at last. “But I thought he was different. The thing is, he was different.”
I looked at her skeptically.
“I know you don’t believe me, but trust me, he wasn’t like other guys. I met him through my, um, group.” She turned away from me, flushing.
I nodded, understanding. I knew about Eva’s “group.” She didn’t seem to want to call it what it was: a coven. Eva had always been a seeker, and she’d found a group of other twenty-somethings who shared her spiritual interests. They got together once a month and meditated and chanted and took day trips upstate to dance around bonfires, etc. . . . It all seemed like pretty good, clean fun, honestly, but Eva’s Catholic grandmother viewed it as Satan worship, and had given Eva a bit of a guilt complex about the things she most dearly loved.
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m glad you’re meeting people there. People with whom you have something in common. No offense, but you and Ramsey?”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “That was a mistake. But anyway, this guy, Cory”—her eyes looked far away, dreamlike, as she spoke of him—“we only spent that one night together but it was . . . magical. He was magical. I’m worried now he’s ruined me for merely mortal men.”
She laughed, but there was a darkness to it.
“Eva, don’t say that,” I cajoled.
“I thought if it was that good, it had to be love, I guess. I thought he was special. Maybe he is. I just wasn’t special to him.”
“Eva, stop it. If this guy didn’t see how great you are, he’s an idiot and you’re better off without him.”
First Ramsey, and now this Cory jerk. I wished she could be with someone who saw how special she was, someone who could see her like I saw her.
She shook her head, as if she could shake off the pain in her heart.
