by Lyn Benedict
Thumping down the stairs, she drew to a halt, a smile forming as she saw the young man waiting by the doorway. “Frankie?”
“Hey, Shadows,” he said. “Got a minute?”
“For you, sure,” she said. She leaned on the reception desk next to Alex.
Frankie was the boy next door, in this case literally; he and his partner, Etienne, ran the bar across the alley. Frankie, she liked. The woman lingering in the doorway behind him, she didn’t. Lisse Conrad, owner of the art gallery down the street, had started her relationship with Sylvie by passing a petition to deny her business space. PIs, apparently, were not posh.
Conrad looked uncomfortable now; high spots of color bloomed on her sculpted cheekbones when she met Sylvie’s eyes. Her mouth twisted. She jumped when Guerro barked. That was all right with Sylvie. Art dealers weren’t high on her happy list right now. Not after Lilith had nearly brought about the end of the world in the guise of one.
“Don’t tell me,” Sylvie said. “You want my help.” Conrad looked to Frankie. Sylvie looked at him also, at his hands stuffed in his chinos, rocking back on his heels, trying for the look of an innocent schoolboy and failing.
“What gives, Frankie?” Sylvie asked.
“Things have been kind of weird around here last month or so; don’t know if you two were in the loop?”
“Consider us excluded,” Sylvie said. Alex coughed. A warning of bad behavior.
“Please, have a seat,” Alex said, gesturing toward the sofa. Frankie led Lisse to the seat, settled himself beside her. “Coffee?”
“No,” the woman said. She flicked her fingers, pushing dog fur away from her skirt.
In the gaps of the miniblinds, Sylvie saw an older-model grey Taurus slowing to a halt, holding up traffic just outside the door.
Sylvie opened her mouth to kick the woman out; she wasn’t interested in helping. Alex cut her off. “Syl, your sister’s here. Why don’t you let me talk to Lis—” At the woman’s sour expression, she continued, “Ms. Conrad.”
Sylvie hesitated. Letting Alex talk to Conrad was as good as taking the case. Alex was a soft touch, and she approved of income.
The front door slammed open, slammed shut, and brought in a teenage girl, all bad temper and self-importance.
On the desk, the silver warning bell rang twice uncertainly. Alex set her fingers to it, stilling the echo, but looked around warily. The bell was a witch’s gift, alerting them to any dark magic entering their shop.
Sylvie turned her attention away from the bell as it fell back to inert metal. Just a fluke. It wasn’t bad magic walking in, only a teenager with a penchant for slamming the door. Even the window had rattled briefly; no surprise, then, that the bell had shifted.
“Nice,” Zoe said. “You can’t have a bell over the door like everyone else?”
“You can’t come in without slamming doors? How old are you, six?” Sylvie sniped right back. Ah, sisterhood. She waved at her dad as he drove on by, having committed his personal hit-and-run on her life.
Lisse Conrad picked at the patch on the couch, her nails finding the old damage unerringly.
“It’s Friday,” Zoe said. “How lame is this? I’m grounded for something so stupid, you won’t even believe it.” She turned to throw herself on the couch, her usual sulk pattern, and blushed scarlet when she saw Conrad watching her with a frown.
“Don’t want to get grounded?” Sylvie said. “Don’t get caught. C’mon, brat. Upstairs. You can tell me what you did. Then we can go get dinner and bitch about the folks.”
Zoe blew sleek hair out of her face on a sigh, smoothed the seaming of her crisp white blouse before taking the narrow stairs ahead of Sylvie. Checking that she still qualified for fashion-model status, Sylvie thought. But that was Zoe. Sylvie had taught her to drive the day she turned fifteen, loaned her the truck the day she turned sixteen, and tried—and failed—to persuade her parents that Zoe needed a car of her own. It wasn’t altruism on her part. Sylvie’s weekends had been subject to being held hostage at the mall while Zoe worked her way through the sale racks at Banana Republic and Armani Exchange, interrogated the women at Sephora, and turned herself into ms. junior fashion plate.
Sylvie looked down at her own worn jeans, her T-shirt, the faded ’Canes jacket, and wondered if they were truly related. Zoe liked the nice things in life, and Sylvie, whose clothes were ruined as frequently as they were bought, didn’t bother much with trying to look anything beyond clean and presentable.
Once they were in the office, Sylvie slumped down behind her desk, and said, “So, spill?”
Zoe ambled about the room, poking at things. She ran her fingers over the pile of phone books in the guest chair, pulled the dusty roman blinds up so she could stare down into the alley. “Stayed out overnight without asking first. It’s not like it was even a school night! It’s summer, for god’s sake. Ari and I had been shopping all day, trying on a billion ugly swimsuits, then hunting for furniture. She’s going to redo her room. I was just too tired to drive home after all that, and it was too late to call. I was being considerate. Catch me doing that again.”
Sylvie snorted, trying to hide a laugh. That much excuse mingled with indignation? It had to be a lie. Teenagers never understood the concept of less being more.
Zoe sighed and grinned. “Look, you probably have things to do. Let’s just make a deal.”
And sometimes, she knew in her bones that they were sisters. In some ways, the brat reminded her of looking in a fun-house mirror—same brown hair, same brown eyes, same rangy build, only distorted—made smaller, made innocent.
“Syl, you’ll let me go out, right? I mean, Mom and Dad totally overreacted. And I’ve got a date with Carson.”
Sylvie said, “What happened to Raul?” Not committing to anything.
“Oh, great. Bring him up,” Zoe said, sweet entreaty defaulting right back to teenage indignation. “He was only three boyfriends ago. You know, if you can’t bother to call me back, you could at least read my blog. . . .”
“It’s not safe for you to be out roaming the streets late. Miami’s a dangerous—”
“How after-school special,” Zoe said. “C’mon, Syl, you act like I’m out there turning tricks. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Not that you know that. Since you’re never around anymore.”
“I’ve been—”
“Busy. So you say. For someone who’s quick to question me, you’re not big on sharing the details.” Zoe propped herself on the edge of Sylvie’s desk, tried to stare her down.
“I’ve got bigger problems than schoolwork and dating,” Sylvie said. A quick flicker of memory: Demalion leaning over, pressing a small, sleepy kiss to her shoulder. She shook it away. Taking it easy meant not thinking about him.
“And I don’t?” Zoe’s cheeks flushed; her lips thinned. “You have no idea how hard—”
“I’m sure shopping really takes it out of you,” Sylvie snapped, regretted it instantly. Zoe jerked to her feet. Sylvie’s apology derailed as she saw the glint of unexpected rage in her sister’s eyes. The mirror isn’t so distorted after all, she thought distantly; then it was only Zoe again, and Sylvie said, “Zo, I’m sorry. Just, it’s been a real bad time around here. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
The discontent and bad temper in Zoe’s face faded and didn’t come back. “So, I can go out, right?”
“And she never gives up,” Sylvie said. “Sorry, brat. You know the drill by now. No boys, no girls, no going out, and fork over the cell phone.”
Alex’s tap on the door and subsequent entry derailed Zoe’s first retort but not her scowl. Alex flashed a check in Sylvie’s face, a quick here and gone, but Sylvie caught the amount—$1,200. Standard two-day fee for clients Sylvie didn’t like.
Sylvie opened her mouth to bitch, just for the sake of it, and Alex’s expression went from pleased to flat. She leaned over the desk, hissed, “You wanted an easy case. This is it. A couple of stakeouts, you turn the results over
to the cops. Bloodless. Easy. And a chance for goodwill among our stuck-up neighbors. You don’t get to bitch when the universe gives you exactly what you requested.”
“But Conrad’s such a—” Sylvie caught the whine in her own voice, caught her sister smirking, and gave in on principle. No bad role models here. “Stakeout?”
“Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll have a file ready for you with the most likely address. I’m chasing a pattern to the robberies. But you’ll be able to start tonight.”
Sylvie slumped, thinking, yeah, Alex with a full partnership was going to be a pain in her ass. Then another thought occurred, brought a smile to her lips. “Tonight? Fine. But you’re sitting Zoe overnight.”
“What?” Two voices in outraged harmony. Amazing, Sylvie thought. Alex and Zoe so rarely agreed on anything at all.
“She watches Doctor Who and wears weird clothes with dog hair all over them,” Zoe wailed. “I’ve got better things to do!”
Alex grimaced. Sylvie said, hastily, “I owe you one, Alex.”
Zoe stopped whining long enough to say, “Her? What about what you owe me?”
“You’re going to owe me a big one,” Alex said.
Given that Zoe was now nicely aggravated anyway, Sylvie grabbed her sister’s purse and dumped it out. Grounded girls didn’t get to play with their toys. Zoe yelped, but the deed was done. Sylvie ruthlessly confiscated the iPhone—wondering how the hell Zoe had conned her parents out of that chunk of change; she hadn’t had it the last time Sylvie got to play prison warden—another cell phone, iPod, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an orange bottle of prescription drugs. Sylvie rolled the bottle in her hand. Maybe her parents were right to be concerned. She and Zoe had done this song and dance before, but there’d never been drugs involved.
Kids could get in over their heads really damn fast. Sylvie had seen it more than once. The parents worried about the kid’s grades, the boyfriend/girlfriend, and by the time they started really worrying, by the time they showed up on Sylvie’s doorstep, their baby was gone for good.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Alex slinking out, playing at discretion. Sylvie turned the bottle again, listening to the pills clicking inside. The label read AMOXICILLIN. The contents, when she popped the lid off, were clearly not.
“Those aren’t mine,” Zoe said.
Sylvie tilted the bottle up, reading the name on the label. Isabel Martinez. “So I see. You holding them for her or taking them for her?”
“Holding,” Zoe said.
“That the truth?”
“Yeah.”
“Like you told me you quit smoking?”
“I did.”
Sylvie held up the cigarette pack. The two cigarettes left in it rattled loosely. “You holding these for Bella also?”
“You know what? Screw you,” Zoe said. “I haven’t even hung out with Bella in weeks. If you were around, you might have known that. She’s all messed up, and I know when to walk away. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
“I’ll believe that when you start making sensible ones,” Sylvie snapped. More worried than she wanted to be—she was taking things easy, dammit—she shoved the rest of her sister’s belongings back into her Vuitton knockoff: wallet, a slide of cash—twenties and tens—enough cosmetics for three makeovers, a couple of small candles in red and gold, spare earrings, a perfume sample, a comb, and a double handful of salt and powdered creamer packets from some fast-food place. She turned the last over a couple of times, trying to figure out why they were there. The powdered creamers worried her, made her think of drugs being cut. The salt . . . She couldn’t imagine what Zoe would need salt in that quantity for.
“The cafeteria sucks,” Zoe said. “They always run out of condiments.” She snatched them back, shoved them in on top of everything else, and Sylvie narrowed her eyes. Was Zoe nervous? Or telling the simple truth?
Zoe took the bag, clutched it to her chest, and watched as Sylvie swept the confiscated items into her own satchel. “It’s nearly dinnertime. Alex’ll take you next door. Frankie’ll feed you for free—he owes me one—but don’t make his life difficult by asking for a drink.”
Zoe shrugged as if the thought had never crossed her mind. “You’re really sending me off with her? We’re not even going to do dinner together?”
Sylvie shoved her sister toward the stairs. “Work calls. Go play nice, Zo. Or I’ll drag you on the stakeout with me. You’d like that even less. We can talk tomorrow. Promise.”
Liar, her little dark voice said. You’ll find another excuse. For her own good.
“What are you staking out, anyway?”
Alex met them at the base of the stairs with a promptness that suggested she’d been eavesdropping via the intercom.
“Potential burglary,” she answered, handing Sylvie the promised file. “A gang’s working the south Florida circuit. No one knows how they’re getting in. Hit the jewelry store up the street, the art gallery, loads of others. Sylvie’s been hired to find them.”
“Oh,” Zoe said, her voice gone small and tight as if she’d never considered that Sylvie’s job might involve real criminals. “You think you’ll catch them?”
“That’s the plan,” Sylvie said.
2
On the Job
FOUR HOURS INTO HER STAKEOUT OF MIAMI’S BAYSIDE MALL, AND Sylvie was cursing Lisse Conrad, Alex, her too-small truck, and mankind’s love of asphalt, which kept the nighttime hours at a balmy ninety-seven degrees. The sun was down; Biscayne Bay was a bare parking lot’s width away; a stiff breeze stirred the air. The night should have been nothing but beautifully cool. Sylvie’s jeans stuck to the leather seat each and every time she shifted, giving the lie to that. Baking from below. Good for pastries, not people.
She shifted, smelled her own salt sweat and the faint drift of night-blooming jasmine. Sticky seat leather or not, boredom and a SOB holster kept her hunting for a comfortable position. Her legs tangled again, confined in the wheel well, unable to stretch completely. She’d tried propping them along the bench seat or on the dash, but both positions left her vulnerable, unable to move quickly if needed.
She was one step away from declaring the night a washout and going home. The matter was police business, really, not hers. Not an unlicensed PI who worked the Magicus Mundi beat.
But if she did, if she started up the engine, let it growl out her frustration as she headed for home, for air-conditioning, for a cool shower and clean sheets; if she quit this case before it had even begun, Alex would be . . . visibly, horribly . . . disappointed in her. Sylvie could face down werewolves, succubi, angels, even a god or two, but Alex? Tell Alex that Sylvie thought the case was tedious and out of her purview, and to hell with making nice with the neighbors who had hired her? No way.
Movement on the access road, the bump-bump of a van’s tires slowing over the speed hump. Sylvie snatched up the binoculars, trained them on the van’s side in time to get the last of their logo vanishing beneath a streetlamp—ITORIAL SERVICES and a dancing mop. She took down the license number, just in case, but unless the police were far more incompetent than she imagined, these were not her guys.
She let her head drop back to the headrest, her list drifting to the floor beneath her feet, her hair snagging in the seat belt. It was a terrible thing to think, but she almost missed the death-and-devastation beat she usually marched to: At least then, she wasn’t bored. Frantic, half out of her mind with anger or fear, and injured—but not bored. The very things she told Alex she wanted to escape. People were contrary to the bone, she thought. Why should she be any different?
Still, she didn’t really mean it. It was just resentment for taking a case she didn’t want. Trying to catch burglars in the act.
Alex had made it more palatable by pointing out all the unusual features of the case, pointing out reasons why Sylvie was exactly the woman for the job. It might be Alex working overtime to draw conclusions, but the case as presented did twig the part of her br
ain that resonated to magic. It was the illogic of it all.
Sixteen stores, all robbed this summer, all without a single alarm going off. When the workers arrived in the morning, the alarms worked as they were supposed to. The alarm companies’ records said the alarms hadn’t been bypassed or accessed, that no one had come or gone at all. So either there was a conspiracy spanning five alarm companies, sixteen stores, and three insurance agencies, or something trickier was going on.
Sylvie didn’t have objections to a real-world conspiracy; just because she knew magic existed didn’t make it responsible for everything unusual.
However, if it was a conspiracy, it was one that was both too clever and astoundingly stupid. Clever enough to be discreet. Stupid because . . . sixteen stores robbed of stuff. Not cash. Not easy items to fence. Not items that could be used as stepping-stones to more important crimes. Just stuff. The closest they’d come to real money was an independent jewelry store that specialized in antique art deco. Distinctive, but not high-dollar.
It just couldn’t be profitable. It sure as hell shouldn’t have been discreet. One of the stores hit was a coffee shop; they’d been robbed of their espresso machine, a La Pavoni behemoth.
It was far too much effort for far too little reward. But if magic was involved, then maybe the effort changed. Required fewer people, less of a need for profit.
Even if these burglars had managed to rob a whole slew of South Beach stores successfully by using magic, then what? Sylvie was a blunt instrument, more competent at handing out punishment than gathering prosecutable evidence. Most of the people she was sent after ended up dead.
That seemed like overkill for a bunch of after-hours thieves.
Still, she thought, shifting again, nearly winding herself with the steering wheel, taking the burglary case at least got Alex off her back about the might-be-possessed-cop case. Sylvie might dislike boredom; she also disliked complicated tangles. Give her a clear-cut foe and a lot of ammunition, and she knew where she stood.
She tugged the gun out of her holster with a lot of wiggling and cursing, rested its weight in her palm, settled her finger on the trigger. She sighted along it in the dark, aimed at the far wall of the parking garage, testing to see if the dark voice within stirred again. Testing herself.
