PsyCop 4: Secrets

by Jordan Castillo Price

  I laid a lick across the bottom of his ribs just because I could reach, and maybe to panic him a little into thinking that I’d decided I was through talking.

  I looked back up and made sure he was looking me in the eye, and then I let my voice drop and go all campfire-ghost-story. “The whole time his head slid down that crack, he was staring me right in the eye.”

  I kept my fingers pressed in deep and stroked Jacob’s cock hard and fast. He grabbed for my head when he came, held me by the hair while he made sure that neither one of us looked away. The orgasm dragged a wordless noise from his throat, and his ass pulsed around my fingers while he shot. His hot jiz painted his belly and my chest, string after string, four giant spurts. Once his cock was spent, I squeezed a final drop of come from it, and his body went limp. He let go of my hair and allowed his arms to drop down on either side of him, tangling us both in the comforter. His breath hissed when I pulled my fingers out of his ass, but other than that, he was practically in a coma.

  I didn’t want to marinate in his jiz, so I kicked at the blanket until I’d carved out a spot at Jacob’s side where I could press up against him. He was still catching his breath.

  I laid my cheek against his chest and wondered why it’d taken me so long to figure out that Jacob had never been looking for me to parrot his dirty-talk back to him. He was turned on by my own special brand of sick. Was that as kinky as I thought it was?

  “C’mere.” Jacob grabbed for me, half asleep. He pressed his bellyful of sticky come against me. “Fuck my face.”

  My cock perked up. It was tempting. That goatee of his looks even sweeter when it’s wrapped around my hard-on. But I was worried that I’d lose the rare moment of understanding I was having if I took Jacob up on his offer. “I’ll take a rain check,” I told him, though I wasn’t sure what the world was coming to if I preferred quiet reflection to a blow job.

  “Aw, come on,” he said, but he was so drowsy he sounded drunk.

  I peeled myself off Jacob well enough to stretch across his chest and turn off his reading lamp. He was already snoring by the time the light went out. As I lay back down, I stuffed the comforter in between us so that I didn’t find myself stuck to Jacob like flypaper in the morning. What did I care? It wasn’t my job to do the laundry.

  I should probably tell Lisa to leave it for Jacob, though. Three brothers or not.

  -TWELVE-

  Jacob was gone by the time I woke up the next morning with the comforter stuck to my chest. Nice. I called Bob Zigler, and he didn’t care much one way or another if I took a personal day. He had a ton of paperwork to do on the frozen cat lady, and it was probably a lot easier for him to do it without me sitting across the desk from him making paper clip sculptures.

  I cleaned myself up in the minuscule half-bath next to the bedroom and wondered if it’d be possible to get a shower put in upstairs. The cannery’s last owner, an artist who was eligible for the fifty-cent senior coffee at McDonald’s, probably never needed to think about wandering past her houseguests covered in dried semen. But Jacob and I had some practical considerations to mull over if people were going to be showing up on our doorstep.

  Given that there was no blushing or awkwardness as Lisa and I filled our travel mugs, I figured that I had been quiet enough the night before. And that Lisa didn’t find it weird that the water had been running in the upstairs sink for nearly fifteen minutes.

  We each scarfed down a piece of toast on our way out the door. “Does it still look like a bite?” I asked Lisa. I tilted my head to give her a good look at my neck.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Damn.”

  “You could put foundation over it.”

  “Um. No. I’m not wearing your makeup to work.” I went into the downstairs bathroom—

  the one with the shower—and stuck a bandage over the bite mark.

  “My sister and me, when we had hickeys, we always used to say we burnt ourselves with the curling iron.”

  “Did anyone buy it?”

  “Probably not.”

  When we got to Rosewood there was a pair of patrolmen in the lobby, as well as a fresh set of cops outside room 304. None of them were holding coffee cups. Jacob was poring over a fan of notepaper on the bed while Carolyn scowled at the computer, and both of them went silent when Lisa and I walked in.

  “Are you gonna spend your si-nos early,” I asked, “or will you pace yourselves and spread ‘em throughout the day?”

  “That depends,” said Carolyn. “Jacob says you saw a spirit yesterday.” Oh God. Did he mention I had my fingers up his ass while I told him? “Do you think he’s connected to the case?”

  I shrugged. “Could be. Hard to say. We didn’t have a chance to chat.”

  “Think you can find him? I’d like you to make contact before Jacob and I use up our si-no questions.”

  Interesting tactic. They had two additional Psychs at their disposal, Lisa and me, and they had to choose which of us they were going to prioritize. They were burning my ability before Lisa’s. Was I more expendable to them? Or were they taking advantage because I hadn’t put any limits on my willingness to ghost-hunt, other than promising to stop if I saw something I couldn’t handle? I looked over at Lisa, who was peering at Irene’s image on the webcam. I could get into the idea of someone other than me being the more powerful Psych.

  “C’mon,” I told her. “We’ll do a sweep.”

  From the moment I walked in, Jacob had been staring at me as if he wanted to eat me alive. The corner of his lips curved up when I finally met his eye. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have psychic powers. If he did, he’d probably be able to get me off with one of those looks.

  I tried to look stern. He obviously dug my “stern look.” His gaze slid down the front of me and back up again. I wondered if my clothes were going to disintegrate.

  “Vic,” said Lisa. “You coming?”

  “Uh-huh.” I backed away from Jacob’s force field. He kept on staring, with that cryptic half-smile frozen in place. “Let’s go find some ghosts.” Once I finally got out of the room, I saw that the cops were outside Irene’s doorway instead of 304. They looked poised to do something fast, if only they knew what that something was. “Ma’am, should I…? Ma’am? What’s…?”

  A sound like a cat being strangled came from Irene’s room.

  People didn’t sound like that unless there was something seriously wrong. My mind hashed together Lisa’s si-nos—Irene may or may not have been raped, but she wasn’t senile and she wasn’t crazy. Her attacker was human.

  A ghost.

  The homeless guy.

  “Move,” I barked. The patrolmen jumped. I almost went for my gun but then changed my mind. A gun wouldn’t do me any good against a ghost. And if there wasn’t a ghost there, well, I didn’t want to end the investigation by giving Irene a heart attack.

  Both of the cops flattened against the wall and I pushed between them into Irene’s room.

  I expected a tangle of blankets, the blur and crackle of a half-seen ghost, or maybe the flap of a filthy, tattered trenchcoat.

  But instead there was just an old lady lying in bed. Her torso was round like a beach ball and her arms were a couple of sticks. Her gray hair was in curlers, and her skin hung in folds.

  She pointed her finger at me. “You!” she said.

  I flinched. What a voice.

  “You’re the one. He told me about you. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I stared.

  “You get the hell out of here and leave us alone.”

  I opened my mouth. “Listen, I think you’ve got….”

  “You heard me. Get out of here! Go!”

  “Ma’am,” I said. Cripes, I sounded exactly like the cops in the hall. “I need you to calm down….”

  “Calm down? I’ll give you ‘calm down’. You people won’t leave us the hell alone! Get out of here! Get out!”

  There was commotion in the hall, but I couldn’t make out anything spec
ific with Irene going at me full-throttle. “You said ‘leave us alone’,” I said, doing my best to get a word in edgewise. “Who’s us? Who’s he?”

  “I’ll call the newspaper—that’s what I’ll do. You can’t come in here without my permission.

  I don’t give you permission to be here! Get out! Get the hell out!” A hand dropped onto my shoulder and I flinched. “Come on, Vic,” said Jacob. “Irene doesn’t like strangers in her room.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Irene,” said Jacob in his smoothest voice, “this is Detective Bayne. He’s here to try and figure out what happened to you Monday night.”

  “I told you what happened. But this guy’s trouble—he’ll only make things worse. I don’t want him here. He’ll ruin everything.”

  “Back away,” Jacob murmured, giving my shoulder a tug.

  “Fine. You don’t have to tell me twice.” I turned around to get out of Irene’s room. Jacob stood square in the doorway—probably to cop a cheap feel as I squeezed by him—and then I saw it. Her. The person in the gigantic hat.

  I jumped and ended up backing into Jacob. He actually shifted to give me a little room. It was either that or start slow-dancing with me in front of the other cops.

  “Get out! Get out of my room! Leave me alone! All I want is peace and quiet!”

  “Saints above,” said the woman in the hat. She stood half-in, half-out of Irene’s bedside table, peering down at the bed with her hands on her hips. “You really know I’m here?” Jacob pulled my shoulder and attempted to steer me toward the door, but I shrugged him off.

  “Shepherd!” called Irene. “Shepherd! Come quick!”

  “Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-gun,” said the hat-ghost. She was a middle-aged black woman in her Sunday finest, a lavender dress with too many buttons to count, and a pair of gloves and purse to match the hat. I’d guess her outfit to be late 50’s, early 60’s. Pre flower-power, anyway. “She really can see spirits.”

  A fresh bout of chaos erupted in the hallway. I heard a lot of yelling in Spanish and the clatter of a gurney going by. And I hated that I could identify the sound a gurney made without actually seeing it. I took a deep breath and stuffed my Camp Hell memories out of the way for the moment.

  “It’s right there. It’s gonna get me,” wailed Irene. “Go away! Shepherd won’t come with all you people here.”

  “Mm, mm, mm,” said the ghost, shaking her head. “She sure acts like she’s crazy.”

  “Have we met?” I asked her.

  The ghost looked up sharply. Her interest in Irene evaporated. “You see spirits, Detective?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Is that me she’s all worked up about, saying I’m going to get her?” I nodded again.

  “Irene,” she said, “you’ve always been a damn fool.” Irene, meanwhile, was still screaming at the top of her lungs for me to leave, and for

  “Shepherd” to help her. Jacob must’ve spotted me chatting with the bedside table, though, because he’d stopped trying to drag me into the hallway and started running interference for me instead.

  Carolyn’s voice rose over the din from somewhere behind Jacob. “What’s going on?”

  “The black woman down the hall just died,” I said.

  “It’s her,” Irene gasped. “Roberta! I can feel her.”

  I crept closer to the ghost in the lavender hat despite the fit that Irene was pitching. “Um, Roberta? Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to come by and see for myself if all the fuss she put up was just for attention, or if she really could see spirits.”

  “Okay. Well, show’s over. I think Irene’s going to be joining you shortly if you don’t move along.” I know, it sounds harsh. But I wasn’t being a dick about it. And I really was scared that Irene might have an aneurysm and blame me for causing it. “Unless you know something about this guy who’s been bothering her.”

  Roberta pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her hat swooped back and forth.

  Irene started screaming again. “Get out! Get out!”

  “Seriously,” I told Roberta. “We should all go. You and I can talk in the hall.” Roberta thrust her chin out. “I’ve seen what I came to see,” she said. She gave Irene a contemptuous toss of her hat, turned toward the wall, and strode away—straight through a faded print of a sappy, big-eyed kitten.

  Jacob stood aside to let a nurse push by. She took Irene’s pulse and asked her all those questions that paramedics usually ply you with to make sure you’re not brain-damaged.

  What’s your name, what day is it—stuff you can typically answer unless you’re really sick or really high.

  “We need to clear the room,” she said to Jacob, but I was already heading back toward the door. Nothing more to see here, as we say at the Fifth.

  Lisa stood out in the hall with the patrolmen, another nurse, and a handful of patients in wheelchairs. She grabbed me by the sleeve as I tried to disengage from the crowd, and I walked her out toward the abandoned nurses’ station. “What happened?” she whispered.

  “Irene didn’t get attacked again. So what was it?”

  She must’ve had the si-no in overdrive to try and figure out what was happening. But without asking the right questions, without a definite yes or no answer, she was as much in the dark as the guy with the pointy wrist bones.

  “The black lady we met last night? The one in the wheelchair? She just died.” Lisa glanced down the hall where Roberta and her friend had been parked outside their rooms. It was quiet now. The gurney had come and gone.

  We stood together in silence. Undoubtedly, Lisa was still running a litany of si-nos past her sixth sense. I was trying to tread water. A laugh sideswiped me, bubbling up out of nowhere. I almost managed to turn it into a cough, but didn’t quite succeed.

  “What?” said Lisa.

  “Oh, nothing.” It’d been less than twenty-four hours ago that I was thinking how little old ladies were so cute.

  Carolyn rounded the corner. Her high heels clacked on the linoleum in a way that out-clacked everyone else in the building. She made a beeline for Lisa and me. “Come talk to me.” She looped one arm through Lisa’s and one arm through mine. She pulled us both into the ladies’ room next to the drinking fountain, and I was too baffled to put up a protest.

  Carolyn let go of both of us, turned toward the door, and clicked the lock.

  “Uh-oh,” said Lisa.

  Carolyn planted her hands on her hips and faced us. “Look, guys, here’s the deal. I can’t sugarcoat it, so don’t expect me to try.”

  I braced myself so hard inside that I was squinting at her. I’d never realized anyone so blonde and thin could be so imposing. She wanted to solve the case, and she’d figure out a way to get more si-nos from Lisa, Psych-rights or not.

  “Victor, you’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What?” I said. Real smooth.

  “Whenever you’re in the room, Jacob turns into a walking hard-on. I haven’t got the time for it. I want my partner back, and I need him to be doing something other than staring at you with goo-goo eyes.”

  Lisa covered her mouth with her hand, as if it wasn’t obvious she was hiding a giant grin.

  Nice way to reward me for watching her back.

  “We’re trying to help,” I said.

  “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

  “Fine, I’ll leave. But Lisa’s coming with me.”

  Carolyn rolled her eyes. “Right. You’ve got to protect her from us. Come on, you know me.

  If Lisa’s limit is three si-nos, I’m not going to try to milk a few more out of her. I respect her limits. Lisa’s more than just a precog talent—she’s another set of eyes that we trust.” I considered saying that we were working on a project. That we had an appointment. That I wasn’t feeling well and I needed her to drive. But what use was it? I was talking to Carolyn, so I might as well tell the truth. “This Psych stuff’s new to her,” I said, “at least think
ing of it as anything more serious than a card trick. I still want her to stick with me.” How inconvenient to have to figure out what I really thought, and then say it in a way that wouldn’t burn any bridges. I wondered how Jacob managed it day in, day out.

  “Fair enough,” said Carolyn. She slipped between us and headed for the door. She paused with her hand on the lock. “Lisa, is the attacker male?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he in the room with her?”

  Lisa looked puzzled.

  “Was he in the building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, great,” I said. “Irene’s stalker has a magical dick that can reach through walls.” Carolyn scowled and twisted the lock.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Now I’ve got one for you. How much do you know about my ‘privacy’?” I made finger-quotes in the air around the last word.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You knew I wasn’t on the Internet or in the Tribune. Isn’t that a little weird, given the number of high-profile cases I’ve been involved with?” Carolyn frowned in thought. “And that’s news to you? Huh. I’ve never questioned it. I just figured that once your Psych level tests at a high enough point—higher than mine, anyway—you’re entitled to certain protections.”

  Entitled? I wouldn’t have seen that one coming in a million years. “So you think it’s a good thing?”

  “You don’t?” She shook her head. “You think you could live with all the rock-star attention you’d get if people actually knew about you? Well, maybe you could. But I don’t think there’d be any middle ground. Either you’ve got your privacy, or every last intimate detail about you is blown open wide in a big, sordid, primetime special. Your drug habit, your homosexuality. They’d eat you alive. Are you really ready for that?” I really didn’t want the gay to be common knowledge at work, but I wasn’t gonna lose any sleep over it. It’s not as if I was on a “let’s have coffee” basis with anyone there. Other than the fine civil servants at the Fifth, I found it doubtful that anyone else would give a damn who I slept with. The drugs, however, were a little more tricky. I didn’t think my Seconal supplier would appreciate seeing his face on the five o’clock news.