by C. S. Poe
Eight years ago would have put Calvin where? Military, right? Or just leaving, actually. So these two probably served overseas together.
“What about you?” Calvin asked politely.
“Teaching. Adjunct professor. It’s shit pay.” Lee finally looked at me again. “I walk by this place and the Oddities shop all the time on my break and never actually stop inside. Last week I peeked into that place, and today I thought I’d check this one out. What incredible timing, huh?”
“Yeah,” I managed to say. I might have been legally blind, but fucking hello.
Max looked grateful when the shop phone rang and he could back out of the conversation before it got even more uncomfortable.
“How’d you two end up becoming friends?” Lee asked. “An antique dealer and a cop. There’s not much crossover.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Antiquing is a dangerous business.”
Lee laughed and put his hands in his trouser pockets. “You don’t say?”
“Lots of murder,” I continued.
Lee knitted his brows together.
“Seb,” Calvin murmured. He said to Lee, “We’re dating.”
“Oh.” Lee staggered a bit on the landing but made another decent recovery. “I remember a guy, back in the Army, who everyone called Heartless Winter. How’d he put it that one time? I. Don’t. Date,” Lee said in a deep voice obviously meant to be an imitation of Calvin.
“That was a long time ago,” Calvin answered. “People change.”
“Yes, they do,” Lee said with a smile. But his tone, though pleasant, had at least a dozen different layers to it. I didn’t even know where to start on deconstructing the meaning behind that statement.
Lee suddenly reached into his inner pocket, removed a business card, and offered it to Calvin. “I’ve got a class in thirty minutes,” he said. “But we should do lunch soon. Talk about old times.”
Ah yes, a not-so-subtle way of saying I wasn’t invited.
“I try to focus on the here and now,” Calvin answered, accepting the card. “But sure.”
Lee smiled again and glanced at me. “Pleasure to meet you, Sebastian.”
“Oh, uh. Yeah. You too,” I said, stumbling over myself after being a third wheel for most of the interaction.
Lee inclined his head and moved around us both. He paused at the bookshelf beside the door, studied the spines for a moment, then saw himself out.
“Wow,” I stated after a long pause.
Calvin grunted. “Sometimes New York is too small of a world.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just wasn’t… expecting that. Him. Lee.”
I touched his bare arm and gave it an affectionate rub.
Calvin kissed me. “I’m going to head home.”
Home. Hearing that was never going to get old.
“I’ll see you this evening,” I answered.
“We’ll christen the new bed.”
THE MEETING we were scheduled to have in bed was on my mind the rest of the day.
So the second the clock hit six, I all but shoved Max out the door, locked up, brought the gate down, and hoofed it down the block. Of course, first I had to make a deposit at the bank, grab a box of condoms from the drugstore that weren’t the glow-in-the-dark variety because I wasn’t okay with Calvin’s dick looking like a party favor, and then needed to pick up some takeout since I was certain he’d be too tired to shop and cook dinner again. Especially after we’d both been up and running since four in the morning.
Doing errands was the very essence of delayed gratification, I guess.
I grabbed the receipt from the ATM and turned to exit the after-hours lobby of National Trust. I held the slip of paper close and tried to decipher the tiny print as I shoved the door open with one hand. I felt and heard a loud thud and looked up, expecting a pigeon dive-bombing the glass.
Nope. I just hit a random guy with the door.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, stepping out of the bank and moving toward him. “Are you okay?” I put a hand on his shoulder and paused. Familiarity hit me hard—years of touches playing through my mind like someone holding a stack of pictures and thumbing the corners to produce moving images. “Neil?”
He winced as he removed his hand from his face. He looked at me, and then his eyes widened a little. “Sebastian?”
Ah great. First Calvin, now me. Nothing like bumping into an ex in a city of eight million, outside of a crime scene no less, which used to be the only place I had to worry about seeing Neil.
“Is your face okay?”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “Feels like someone hit it with a door.”
It wasn’t funny.
It really wasn’t.
But I started laughing.
And to my surprise, Neil cracked a smile.
“Promise you didn’t see me coming,” he said.
“And intentionally hit you with a commercial-grade insulated glass door?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“Good.”
Neil looked great. Well, was looking better than he had back in February, that much I was certain of. He was impeccably dressed and had that same sharp expression and handsome face I used to know so intimately.
During the Curiosities fiasco, we’d been thrust into each other’s personal spaces, and it’d been a cop trying to do his job while his pain-in-the-ass ex made everything considerably more difficult. But out here, in front of a bank and next door to a modeling agency and a Greek restaurant, we were just two people. We’d both been off our guard. And for the first time since last Christmas, I was able to look Neil in the face and just feel… okay. About everything.
“What?” Neil asked.
I blinked. “What, what?”
“You’re smiling.”
“It’s nothing.”
Neil massaged his forehead for a minute, lowered his arm, and asked, “How have you been?”
“Are you being polite or really asking?”
“I’m really asking.”
“Oh…. I’ve been good,” I said, hearing the touch of surprise in my voice.
Neil slid his hands into his trouser pockets, assuming that cool presence he always had and seeming nothing like a man who’d just been whacked with a door. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Do I need to bring you to the hospital?”
Neil shook his head, looking just the slightest bit… amused. He glanced down briefly, scuffing the sidewalk with the toe of his expensive shoe. “Heading home?”
I nodded and countered with “What’re you doing around here?”
He looked up and then jutted a thumb over his shoulder at the Greek place. “Picking up a gyro for dinner.”
We used to order out from there a lot—50 percent convenience, 50 percent best fucking gyros I’d ever eaten. But since I’d broken up with Neil, I hadn’t stepped foot in the Greek shop, despite doing business at my bank nearly every day and being right next door. Subconscious thing, I guess.
“Sebby—” Neil paused and then corrected himself. “Sebastian.”
I smiled a little. “Yeah?”
“I’ve been… thinking about you a lot lately.”
“Neil.”
“I mean… it was serendipitous running into you.”
“This isn’t a ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’ situation, is it?” I asked.
Neil looked confused.
“Cab Calloway? No? Never mind.”
“There’s just some things I’d like to say to you. A cup of coffee’s worth of conversation.”
I let out a breath and consciously relaxed my shoulders. The turbulent relationship I’d had with Neil was the very depiction of what happened when one settled for what they knew in their heart was profoundly wrong for them. That being said, I put the man through hell in February. He’d nearly taken a bullet because of me. A chat over a house brew wasn’t going to kill me.
“Okay,” I agreed. I fished my cell from my messenger bag. “Let me tell Calvin I’ll be home late.”
Neil looked at the ground again as he nodded. “Still seeing him?”
“We’re living together,” I stated.
He raised his head. “Is he treating you right?”
To which I elegantly responded, “Huh?”
I admit, that was not what I was expecting from Neil. In my memories, he was still cold and bitter toward Calvin. I couldn’t blame him. We might have been wrong for each other, but hearts were still broken. The comfort and routine of Neil’s life had not only been disrupted by me meeting Calvin, but thrown on its head and then out a window.
But he silently waited for my answer.
“Uh… y-yeah. He does.” I smiled a bit serenely. “Like a prince.”
My phone rang in my hand.
“Shit. Sorry, hang on.” I raised the screen close, expecting it to read either Calvin or Pop.
It was neither.
I frowned a little and accepted the call. “Hello?”
“This is Tasha Lewis calling with Advice Line. May I speak with Sebastian Snow?”
“Oh God! That’s me. Speaking.”
“Sir, your place of business is reporting an unauthorized entry after no security code was entered. Can you confirm if this is you or an employee?”
“No, not at all! My shop is closed for the night.”
“I understand. We are notifying the police at once.”
I swore loudly and could feel myself starting to shake. I had been at the Emporium fifteen minutes ago. It had to be the same person as early this morning. Right? Had they waited in hiding? Or was their plan to come in and make it a face-to-face confrontation, and I’d simply left work more on time than I usually did?
“What’s going on?” Neil asked, getting close.
“Someone might be robbing the Emporium again,” I said to him. I agreed to whatever Miss Tasha was saying and hung up. “I have to go. I’m sorry, Neil.”
“Wait, Seb.” He took my arm and pulled me back as I started to move past him.
“Wait for what, Neil? For some piece of shit to clean out my place of business? I have to get back there!”
“You don’t know what the situation is,” Neil said firmly. “You don’t know if there’s one suspect or twelve—if they’re armed with a putty knife or a rifle. Is your security company calling the police?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay put.”
“Like hell I am.” I yanked my arm free.
“Sebastian.” Neil made a quick movement and cut me off. “Since when have reckless choices gotten you anywhere but in trouble?”
“Well, unless you plan on arresting me, I’m going.” I took a step to the left, but Neil matched it. “I’m not sticking around for a goddamn dance, Neil. Move.”
“What if whoever is there hurts you, Sebastian?”
“Then I’m shit out of luck.”
“Don’t do that to Winter.”
I paused and looked up at Neil.
“If he’s treating you right, then you damn well better be doing the same for him. Don’t go being an idiot, running headfirst into danger and considering the consequences of it later.” He let out a breath that somehow managed to have a tone, then tilted his head toward the side of the road. “I’ll drive.”
“But—you just—”
“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Are you armed?”
“No.”
“I’m both. Get in.” Neil walked to the edge of the sidewalk and opened the passenger door to his car.
I didn’t have to be told twice. I quickly climbed in and shut the door as Neil walked around the front and slid into the driver’s seat. He merged into uptown traffic, made the next available left, and turned to head back downtown on Second Avenue.
“No way that it might be Max?” he eventually asked.
“He’d never go inside without me.”
“Why don’t you give him a call. Rule him out.” Neil slammed on the brakes when a taxi cut him off. “Stupid son of a….”
I chose Max in my contacts and put the phone to my ear.
“Hi-de-ho, boss,” Max answered. “Make it fast, I’m about to go into a tunnel.”
“You’re not at the Emporium?”
“No?” He sounded confused. “I’m on my way—” The line cut when signal was lost.
I lowered my phone. “He’s on the subway.”
“And it wouldn’t be your father?”
“Of course not.”
“Winter?”
“No, Neil.”
“I’m just—goddamn it, man, pick a fucking lane—trying to cover all the bases before we get there.”
I took a deep breath. “Someone broke in this morning.”
“What?”
“At like 4:00 a.m. Calvin installed a dead bolt on the back door today.”
“Great,” Neil muttered.
He was easily as good a driver as Calvin. Neil wove through New York City rush hour with practiced ease. He might have lacked the patience Calvin had behind the wheel, but he more than made up for it by looking like a hard-boiled detective fresh off the pages of some ’40s pulp fiction novel. It was the suit, I think. Neil always had immaculate, if expensive, taste.
He reached the Emporium’s block and swerved into a free spot on the side of the road. “Alley door is open.”
“Is it?” I looked out the passenger window as I unbuckled my seat belt. “I definitely locked it tonight.”
“What kind of lock do you have on it?”
“You’d need bolt cutters.”
Neil opened the driver’s door and got out of the car. I quickly followed.
“Oh no, park your ass in the car,” he said as he came around to my side.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You rarely are.”
“If you get hurt, that’s on me,” Neil said.
“I think it’d be my own fault,” I countered.
“You can say that because you wouldn’t be the one getting stared down by a combat-trained vet.”
Neil walked across the sidewalk, reached into his coat, and pulled his service weapon from the shoulder holster as he reached the alley. He fingered the padlock Beth and I kept on the alley door, then poked his head around the corner. Once Neil disappeared inside, I started across the sidewalk.
I could have listened. But why start now?
I briefly considered that Max might have been right yesterday when he said the Emporium was cursed. Ever since December, it had become a magnet for all things mysterious and murderous. And while that might have been fine and dandy to keep my boredom at bay, I was trying to run a business.
I leaned around the corner and peered down the alley. Save for the dumpster pushed up against the left wall, it was empty. The back door of the Emporium was open and seemed to be swinging in the mild, early summer breeze. Neil was inside the store, and I could hear the alarm chirping away.
I stepped in and cautiously moved along the right wall, reached the door, and spared a glance inside. Thank God for my contacts, sunglasses, and a dim shop. I could make out the shapes of furniture, display cases, and the figure, who was most definitely Neil, inspecting corners, under tables, and behind the register counter—gun at the ready.
But that was it.
I didn’t see anyone else.
It’d taken us a few minutes to reach the Emporium…. I supposed it was safe to assume the thief wouldn’t need more time than that. Because it had to be the same person returning for the remaining length of footage they’d failed to obtain earlier. I’d have much preferred a random burglary and be out a mahogany apothecary cabinet, complete with twenty-five glass bottles all with original labels. Or my sword cane. Hell, I’d even be willing to give up the silver pepper shaker in the shape of a pigeon I recently won at an estate sale.
But they’d
come looking for the murder portion of the movie, and I just knew this wouldn’t end well….
“Looks empty,” I called.
“I see you’re not listening again,” Neil answered from within. He strode across the shop to the front door, and after a beat, asked, “Did you change the code for the alarm?”
“You mean, after a vigilante bypassed the system to woo me with the remnants of Barnum’s lost museum?”
“Just tell me the new code.”
“One, one, four, two.”
The alarm silenced, and then Neil turned on a nearby bank lamp. “What’s it mean?” he called.
“Hmm?”
“I know you pick numbers that have a meaning so you remember them easier.”
“Since when?”
“Since your debit card pin number is your dad’s birth year.”
“I’ll be sure to change it now, thanks.”
Another light was turned on as Neil moved around the Emporium, still holding his gun out. “What’s the new code mean?”
“I’m a sentimental shithead.”
He paused in one of the congested walkways and looked toward me.
“Can I come in or not?” I asked impatiently.
“Wait.”
I rolled my eyes and stepped back from the doorway. I leaned against the exterior bricks and glanced at the dumpster again. The heavy plastic top was open and propped against the wall. Beth and I were sticklers about keeping the lid closed. The last thing anyone wanted was a shop smelling like garbage. And Max should have known better after taking the trash out for the night.
I walked back to the dumpster, grabbed on to the edge, put my foot into a small niche, and hoisted myself up in order to reach the lid.
Inside was a dead man.
Chapter Six
ALL RIGHT.
I wasn’t unaccustomed to finding dead bodies.
Man-in-Dumpster marked lucky #5 on my list. And let’s not forget, there was once a pig heart stuffed into the floorboards of the Emporium. So this was more like body #5.5, in my opinion.
But still. I had been expecting to see packing peanuts and office trash bags full of coffee grounds and take-out containers. Not a corpse nestled among the debris. And Guy’s face was one of shock and horror—eyes wide and mouth hanging open, like he was just as surprised as me to be dead. His neck and chest were covered in something dark that at this point I had to simply assume was blood.
