by Tina Gower
Rosa shoots the sensitive a look of challenge and some sort of communication passes between them.
“Absolutely.” Orland bows and backs into the opposite corner like a robed lampshade.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lipski mutters from his spot on the couch. He makes the universal sign to get things started, waving his finger in a circle.
“This is concerning a prediction made on Friday afternoon February—”
“I remember it. Poor thing. Hope she went quickly.”
“He, you mean.”
“No. It was a blonde. Alana Morrison, hit with a tree branch. The image haunted me, still haunts me.”
“Rosa,” Orland interrupts, “you must remember what we discussed. It wasn’t the girl, but the man you saw?”
“I didn’t see no man in my vision. I’ve never altered a vision to suit the needs of anyone and I’m not starting now.”
I let out a relieved breath. It had been exactly what the other predicting oracle had done once the paperwork was filed: she retracted most of the damning details, until her prediction was a shell of what she’d turned over originally. But that other oracle was young and probably scared of what an error might do to her future.
Rosa grabs my hand and her papery skin is cool to the touch. My eyes go wide, toes curl. I turn to Orland. “I didn’t. I’m…she—”
Rosa keeps going with her story as if she didn’t just break the biggest rule of all. “Anyway, if it wasn’t the tree branch then she was going to slip and fall in her house and hit her head on the concrete flooring of her garage. Blunt force trauma, instant death no matter what she did. Horrible, horrible. Tell you what: if you ever know anyone who’s got a talent to become an oracle, gods bless them if they become a death oracle. Orland, go fetch us some cookies.”
He leaves the room. She drops my hand and I don’t know if I should wipe it on my skirt? Do a little chant?
Lipski laughs at something on his phone, totally oblivious to my problem.
“He’s gone. Now tell me about the girl. I know something fishy is up and Orland, sweet fool, keeps us all in a bubble.”
“She didn’t die, Ms. Germain. She lived. A man named”—I check my notes—” Jared Walker was killed in her place.”
She whistles. “No shit? Well hell. That’s not how I saw it. Not at all.”
“Are you sure there is nothing else you remember from the vision? Anything at all?”
She focuses on her hands in her lap. “Well, I wrote it all down, didn’t leave nothing out.”
“Is there anyone in your house experiencing problems? Blocked visions? Seizures? Headaches? Anything out of the ordinary.”
“No. We all have a high prediction rate, always have. Work well together. Friends. Orland’s been with us for fifteen years. He’s overprotective, a little bit of a jerk to outsiders, but he’s good to us. We know about the sensitive who tried to hurt the oracles. That’s not Orland. He’d sacrifice himself before he ever let anyone near us who had ill intentions.”
Orland didn’t seem the type to turn on the oracles, but his dedication to sweeping this wrong prediction out of the public eye made him a suspect. “Is there any reason Orland might not want this wrong prediction to become public?”
She shifts in her seat. “Other than having civilians question the accuracy of oracles and looking at our pay and benefits and wondering why we get such a good deal?”
Orland re-enters and sets the cookies on the coffee table in front of us. There’s a mix of powdered sugar-covered chocolate and some oat-nut-fruit neatly lined on an etched silver platter.
Rosa grabs three and stacks them up on her knee, taking a small bite out of a fourth she snatches as if an afterthought. “Oracles have been trying to petition for more money to widen the net. If people keep track of the errors, even if it’s less than five percent of total predictions made in a year, they only see the problems with the net—not the benefits. They’ll wonder if it’s worth throwing money into what they see as a broken system. The less media we get for wrong predictions, the better for all of us.”
Lipski pockets his phone and gives me the times-up look. He coughs a few times, clearing his throat, and swipes the remainder of the cookies off the silver serving plate.
“If you think of something, please call me at this number or send an email.” I hand her my card and she pauses for a second to look at it, flipping it over. She tucks it into the front pocket of her oversized men’s dress shirt and winks. On the back I wrote her a message to email me tomorrow. Once I have a direct line to her, I might be able to ask more questions without having to go through Orland to make an appointment.
So the prediction was solid. I’d interpreted it correctly, and although I could have assigned it a lower probability, there’s no question it was rightfully calculated in the high percentages if Rosa remembered the vision this clearly nearly four days later.
Now to find out who attempted the altering. And for what purpose.
Chapter 9
“I’m going to want an interview with both Jared Walker’s family and Alana Morrison’s,” I call from the back seat. I lace my fingers in the metal cage and shake it. “Hey, do you hear me, Lipski? Now that we know that prediction was solid I can get more clearance, right?” Lipski grunts. “And the bus driver? What’s the company he works for? I want him too. And the sanitation workers who moved that trash can. The answers are going to be close to one of those people.”
What I really need is to crack open Mile’s case, even just a peek. If the two chance occurrences were related in some way, that would significantly narrow down my suspect list. If Alana is clean, then I want to know who would want her alive, or maybe she’s not even the focus of the reason for change.
Lipski isn’t going to lift a finger to help me, so I text Becker. Nothing.
“Gods, you’d think Becker’s meeting would be out by now.”
Lipski glances at me from the driver’s seat. “It was out before I met with you.”
“It was…what? Then where’s Becker? Hells, Lipski, if Becker was injured or upset, you should have—”
“Told you? Why, Katie? You’re just a coworker. That would be inappropriate to share personal information.”
“Cut the crap, Lipski. You know, okay? I know you know and you’re pissed that I chickened out of a full relationship with your buddy. But Becker and I are still friends outside of work and if he needs—”
“Maybe for not much longer. Maybe you’re finally getting your wish, cupcake.”
“What do you mean?” Wary, I scoot back in the seat and grip the shoulder belt. “By the way, I don’t like being called Katie or cupcake or any combination of the two.”
He ignores me. “Our captain has noticed a change in Becker.”
“Yeah, he’s a lot more stable.”
“Right, but he still hasn’t passed his detective’s exam and they’d like to see him move up. He’s not really supposed to be in the position he’s at as a liaison for Accidental Death, but he does good work, real good. They put us together to balance it out, but now that I’ve passed my exam and Becker hasn’t, I’ll be moving along.”
No idea where this is going, I play it conservative. “Congratulations.”
“Which means there would be some restructuring.”
“No. They can’t move Becker from Accidental Death. Gretchen says he’s perfect. They’re finally getting forward momentum with cases there after years of gridlock.”
Without a police liaison who took us seriously we’d become glorified paper pushers. We could kiss investigations good-bye. We’d be at the whim of insurance companies—doing what looked good on paper, rather than solving and preventing more deaths from occurring.
Some accidental deaths turned out to be crimes, or tied to crime. Those cases would go unchecked. When I’d interned in Homicide, Accidental was the butt of all our jokes. On the surface it appeared like an unneeded department. With the exception of Michelle Kitman, who managed to keep the off
ice from getting budget cut or folded into Health related Death. Because really, how many death departments did you need actuarial data for? Homicide was the obvious lifesaver of the bunch.
Lipski takes his time, chewing his thumbnail. “Ain’t that easy. Becker doesn’t exactly present his best self. Not until recently, that is. But he blew up a few days ago over a personal matter.”
“That shade goaded him. They can’t hold him responsible for that. Those were his pack mates. His family. And that asshole listed them off to toy with him.”
“Hells, I know that. You know that. But the brass? They don’t know that. They saw it as a relapse. You didn’t know Becker much from before. He got the job done, but he was a mess. I spent half my time cleaning up after to make it look like he had his shit together. I did that for three years until he imploded and they suspended him.”
“But he’s better now. One setback isn’t a big deal. He went right back to work the next day and he was fine. I saw him. He bounced right back. Your captain had to notice.”
“The calls had already been made. They know certain wolves need pack. They’d been working with consultants. Either transfer Becker to another town or bring more wolves in.”
“So…?” I couldn’t ask, couldn’t fully form the question. Becker getting transferred would leave a huge hole in my chest. More wolves would mean I’d get to keep him near, but we wouldn’t be pack.
“Thankfully a third option presented itself just in the nick of time.” Lipski grinned in a way that had me distrustful of this third option. “We got a call from a nearby pack. They’re interested in taking Becker in on a trial basis.”
My fingers go cold. I snap back to the cage, clinging to it. “It wasn’t a pack in Turmoil was it?”
“Hey, yeah, how’d you—”
My mouth goes dry. “They can’t let…shit Lipski…he can’t go to them.” I fumble over the correct words, warnings. Except anything I share would break the trust Becker placed in telling me. They wanted to use him to breed a werewolf that could shift. It had been decades since a shifting wolf had existed. Becker had been adopted, but he was nearly full-blooded. He had a number of sensory issues and high anxiety, which meant it was possible he’d been part of a failed eugenics experiment with the same goal. Becker wanted no part of it. “Please, Lipski, I can’t tell you the specifics, but this is a terrible idea. We need to find him.” I ease back into the seat, feeling sick.
“I wouldn’t worry about him. The meeting already took place.”
“What? And he shot down the idea, right? They’re not going to force him to join the pack. That would go way over the line—”
Lipski laughs. My cheeks burn. I don’t find any of this situation funny. If Lipski knew what a danger this was to Becker…or maybe he did and he found it amusing all the same. Lipski could be a grade-A asshole on a good day.
We park in front of a downtown alchemy bar. The music vibrations pound against the police cruiser. A group of ghoulish teens exit with a sour pucker to their faces. Their hair’s died various shades of metal and teased into impossible styles and clothes hang in tatters from their over-thin bodies. The bar sign blinks from blue to red and illuminates the inside of the car.
Lipski rolls down the window and hangs his arm out. “Here’s where my show’s at. We got a few minutes before it starts. You got to pee? Grab a bite?”
“I’m not going with you. I’m going to find Becker.” I text furiously into my phone. Becker where are you? Lipski told me everything.
“Are you sure? Because I can hear your stomach growling.”
“I’m calling a cab.”
“You ain’t getting out of this car unless I open it from the outside.” My mouth opens wide at his threat and he shakes his head. “Don’t look at me, cupcake, I’m not the one who insisted on riding back there for safety. Something about a chewed off seat belt?”
I toss my phone at the cage and it bounces. “I hate you, Lipski. I really fucking hate you. Becker’s in trouble. Real trouble. If you don’t let me out of here I can’t help him.” I collect my things, shoving them into my laptop bag and I mumble. “And I thought under all that thick, jerk-faced skin that you liked Becker. Deep down I’d never have thought you would do something that would cause him such obvious harm.”
“Oh really? You think I’d be here chatting it up with you, about to go in and enjoy my evening if I knew my partner was out there in trouble?” He smirks. “We’ll see whose side you’re on in about ten minutes.”
“You don’t make any sense, Lipski.” I jerk at the door handle. “Let me out of here. I’m done with your little game. Let. Me. Out.”
“You nearly put on as good of a tantrum as your boyfriend. He tossed every table in that interview room when the captain told him what they planned. His eyes glowed that nice shade of gold and he snorted like a wild boar.”
“Shut up. Either tell me where he’s at or let me go, but gods damn it, I never want to see your face ever again.” I continue to jerk at the door handle, and when that gets me nowhere, I lean back and start kicking at the cage. My heel gets caught in one of the holes.
“Calm down. Patience. I knew you’d want to see Becker, but he’s not done with his date yet.”
I sit up fast. “His date?” My hair falls in front of my eyes and I smooth it behind my ears. Lipski is still messing with me. Nothing he can say beyond this point will get me more riled up.
“Yeah, you didn’t let me finish. So he’s all steamed. Lots of yelling and cursing. He asked for you. He handed me over his phone and told me to use the GPS to track you and take you to your meeting and then bring you back to him. By this point the captain had made it mandatory that Becker at least listen to what the Turmoil pack had to say.”
“But we already met with the Turmoil pack.”
“Becker didn’t mention that. He threw the fit and then after I got him calmed enough he agreed to see them on the condition that I’d take care of you and bring you to him.”
I squint out the window, waiting. “Becker’s here then. Are we meeting him here?”
Lipski’s expression goes neutral. “Not exactly.” He twists around to face me fully, getting serious. “They brought in the pack representative and you could hear a pin drop in the room. Absolute silence. I’d never seen Becker get it together so quickly after he’s that worked up. She’s gorgeous. A real stunner.”
“Okay.” I didn’t want to know that, but I’m not worried. Becker’s allowed to date. I’m not officially his girlfriend. We never really clarified exactly what I am. Although hearing the story is like a hundred cigarette burns on my soul.
“Becker sat with her for about ten minutes. Then he orders everyone out of the room. They put their heads together and in less than a minute he says the only way he’s going to consider the option is if he can take her to this bar and they discuss it in private, because pack business is a private matter.”
Right. Becker would take her somewhere they’d not be overheard, somewhere loud that would confuse anyone with the same super hearing he and Lipski have. He brought her here to shut her down and send a message back to Turmoil that he’d not join their pack under any circumstances.
Lipski grins. “I got a guy on the inside keeping an eye on your boy. Do you think I’d let him go it alone after the way he acted like the captain was burning his feet off?” He exits the car and opens my door, holding a hand out to help me over the curb.
“I still hate you.”
He sandwiches my arm under his armpit. “We’ll tally up at the end and see who you hate more.”
A uniformed cop stops us before we enter. His nametag says “Officer Morale” and his mousy blond hair is slicked back to reveal a widow’s peak. His skin has a tinge of green revealing his gremlin heritage. Just like Lipski, except Lipski is also part troll, so the red tones balance him out, giving him more of a sallow peach color. A muddy peach that has sat in the sun until it’s more like a raisin.
“Sir.” He whisper
s something into Lipski’s ear.
“Well fuck.” He releases his hold on me. I inch away. “Who let him order that?”
“He had a few beers first.” Morale shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “The woman flagged down a waiter and they brought over a few rounds of tequilas. And now…”
“He can’t handle tequila, but when he’s already got a few in him he thinks he can.” Lipski groans. “And you didn’t think to stop him?”
“You said to hang back. I didn’t want to break my cover.”
“It’s Becker. He’s a werewolf. He knows you’re here. Shit. I was hoping for Becker to put on a show, but this is a disaster.”
I push past the two men into the main room. It’s loud. I knew it would be with the way the music vibrated the brick walls even from outside. There’s a long bar with stools down the left, and the remainder of the long thin room is evenly spaced black circular tables with a tin of peanuts on each. In the back a group huddles around what I assume is an area set up for dancing. The lights flash between the bodies crammed together. My heels crunch against the red stained concrete and discarded shells, as I look from table to table for Becker and the mysterious woman from Turmoil.
My vision narrows, searching for one person. The guy with his head in his arm, lying on the table and a beer in the other fist? Not Becker. The muscular troll woman who smiles and winks at me from behind the bar? Not Becker. There’s a loud cheer followed by a smash and then the crowd, as if it has one voice, Ooh’s and ahh’s with concern. Propping myself on a stool for height, I get a peek of bronze hair bobbing in the center of the commotion.
Lipski appears beside me. “We’re too late. There’s already a problem.”
I roll up my sleeves. “I’ll push in, get his attention, and calm him down. You disperse the crowd.”
“No, you should disperse…” I take off before he can change the plan. He jogs after me. “Hey.”
I find a weak spot. A few college-age girls who are dressed in slinky outfits and fruity mall perfume. They’re backing away as though they’re not sure they want to watch what’s going down. I shove through them and work my way to the center of the circle.
