“You must be starving,” I said. “You’ve been working on this case since dawn, and you probably haven’t had anything to eat, have you?”
“I had coffee,” he said. “I can go a day or two without eating.”
“Crazy talk!” I yanked open the fridge and started pulling out containers and jars. “Let me whip up something for you. It won’t take a minute.”
“No need. I’ll be heading straight back to the office with this weapon. I can stop by the cafeteria if I get hungry.”
“By the sound of that stomach, you’re well past hungry.”
“I know my limits.”
I paused in my fridge raiding and gave him an over-the-glasses look. I didn’t wear glasses, but thanks to my librarian training, under the most esteemed of long-timers, I’d learned my over-the-glasses look from the best in the business. Bentley received the look and gave me a sheepish one in return.
“Sure, you do,” I said. “Your mouth says you’re leaving, but your butt’s trying to make friends with that chair.” I waved for him to sit down. “You bought the coffee today, so dinner’s on me.”
He set the bagged knife on the counter without making a sound. “If you insist,” he said. “Where might I wash my hands?”
I nodded at the hallway. “There’s a powder room on the main floor, or you can use the kitchen sink if you can’t bear to be away from me.”
He raised an eyebrow at me as he took off his gray suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. “A wise man knows when he’s being tested,” he said as he walked over to the kitchen sink. He undid his cuff buttons and methodically rolled up his shirt sleeves. He washed his hands, with soap, and then held them dripping above the sink.
He said, “Paper towel?”
I realized I’d been standing motionless in front of the open refrigerator door watching him wash his hands. As though it were must-see TV. I ducked down into the fridge and called out, “On your left, behind the Darth Vader cookie jar.”
He found the roll and dried his hands as he commented, “Interesting cookie jar.”
“You like it? It reminds me of my mother.”
“Because she used to make you cookies?”
“No.” I closed the fridge door. “Because I saw her choke a person using her mind.”
He cocked his head. “What?”
“Never mind.” I dropped the assortment of takeout containers on the counter. “Tonight’s special is a fusion dish. Lemon chicken with lasagna.”
“Perfect. I’ll make the salad.”
I laughed. “Good one.”
He was heading to the back door. “I’ll use the lettuce and tomatoes from your back garden. Unless you were saving them for some other occasion?”
“Uh, no. Not at all. Now is the perfect occasion to use the lettuce and tomatoes and whatever else is growing back there.”
He walked out to the back yard. I peered after him in semi-disbelief. I’d completely forgotten about the small vegetable garden I’d planted while under the influence of a ghost with two green thumbs.
What a day of surprises this was turning out to be.
* * *
After dinner, Bentley insisted he couldn’t possibly eat another bite, but then I showed him my method for making ice cream sandwiches using miniature chocolate chip cookies.
He ate three.
“I’ll just waddle my way out the door,” he joked.
“One for the road?” I sent another ice cream sandwich orbiting around his head like a satellite.
He sighed and then opened his mouth.
I sailed the flying vessel into port.
He pushed his chair back, unrolled his shirt sleeves, straightened his tie, and pulled on his suit jacket. He was Bentley, as before, but also not as before. He looked different now. Not as monochrome. There was color in his cheeks.
“I should be getting back to the office,” he said.
“Are you done for the day, or will you stick around while they do testing on the knife?”
He snorted, as though finding the idea of being done for the day amusing. “I’m not done by a long shot,” he said heavily. He took a step toward the door and paused. “What sort of things do you have planned for this evening?”
“I’ve got a few books I was going to look through to see what there is about beheadings.”
“Research is always good.” He nodded and adjusted the sleeves of his jacket.
“But I already had a quick scan through my books this morning, and there wasn’t much.”
“Ah.” He rubbed his chin. “If you’re not sick to death of me, you could come along with me to the medical examiner’s. Your perspective thus far has been rather helpful.”
I snapped my fingers and held out my arm for my purse. “The morgue on Saturday night? Now that’s a date!”
He blinked. “You really are a witch, aren’t you?”
“I really am.” I walked ahead of him toward the front door, stopped at the stairwell, and called up to my daughter, “Bentley’s taking me on a date to the morgue! Don’t wait up!”
Her disembodied voice replied, “Don’t do anything Auntie Z wouldn’t do!”
“You know, when you say something like that, you’re just egging me on!”
She giggled. “Have fun at the morgue!”
Bentley joined me at the stairwell and called up, “I’ll take excellent care of your mother, Zoey.”
There was a thump, and footsteps, then Zoey appeared at the top of the stairs. Her hazel eyes were wide. “Are you really going to the morgue? I thought you were joking.”
“This is what happens when you joke all the time,” Bentley said to me. “You become the boy who cried wolf.”
I held up my hand, sassy style. “Excuse me? The boy who cried wolf was doing it to get attention. He wasn’t very funny. I’m hilarious.”
Bentley gave me a smug look. “My point stands.”
“He does make a good point,” Zoey said.
I put my hands on my hips and glared up the stairs. “Et tu, daughter?”
“Mom, this morning when you tossed me the keys at the museum and said you were going to help Detective Bentley solve a homicide, I thought you were just going to the bathroom or something. I waited around like a dummy for an hour before I realized you weren’t coming back.”
My hands were still on my hips, and I was starting to feel the exasperation I’d been pretending to feel. “Now you’re pulling my leg.”
“I’m not.” She sighed. “Sometimes when you run off, I feel like I’ve been...” She mumbled something under her breath.
“What?”
“Abandoned,” she said. The word stung.
My daughter felt abandoned? Because I tossed her the car keys and didn’t get into a lengthy discussion about homicide investigation in the middle of a crowded museum? That didn’t seem fair.
Her cheeks were flushed. Softly, she repeated, “Sometimes I feel abandoned. I’m not saying it’s your fault. It’s just... how I feel.”
My own cheeks felt hot. She was calling me a bad mother, right in front of the detective?
I should have calmly reflected back her feelings and promised to discuss it in detail at a more appropriate time.
However, being me, I volleyed back with what seemed like humor. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss right now? How about the fact I don’t turn down your bed and put a chocolate mint on the pillow every night?” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. But there was no spell that could pull back words.
She said nothing.
I felt Bentley’s hand on my shoulder. “You’ve had a long day,” he said. “I shouldn’t take you away from—”
I wheeled around on him. “Don’t you dare ditch me now, partner. You promised me the morgue, and we’re going to the morgue.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave a wide-eyed look to the floor beneath our feet. “All right, then.”
I turned to my daughter. I’d had a few seconds to calm down
. Barely. I softened my voice as much as I could manage. “Sweetie, I’m sorry it felt like you were abandoned at the museum today. I should have taken more time to talk to you.” I swallowed, and then the words I should have said in the first place came to me. “I’m sorry I abandoned you.”
Bentley, wisely, said nothing.
After a long pause, Zoey took three slow steps down the stairs toward us and ducked her head. “Oh, Mom. I was fine. It all worked out.”
“I just wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry.”
“I know.”
“You’re my everything, kid.”
Her cheeks flushed again, this time probably with embarrassment. “I’m okay, I swear.”
And she was. The thing about teenagers was they could go from okay to not-okay in a heartbeat, but they could go the other way almost as quickly, too. And my beautiful, sweet, kind daughter was more resilient than most. She really did deserve a better mother than the one she got. But I would keep trying, anyway.
She waved me toward the front door with a limp arm. “Go on your date to the morgue.”
“I don’t have to go.”
“You should go.”
“I should probably stick around close to home. For your safety.”
“Mom, just go.” She sighed and flashed her eyes at me. “I promise not to get in any trouble.”
I shook a finger at her. “No potions.”
She shuffled down a few more steps and gave me an exasperated look. “No potions,” she promised.
I put my hands on my hips. “I’d make you do that my-word-is-a-bond thing, but you’re not old enough.” I shook my head. “It’s rather convenient that it doesn’t work on people under twenty-four.”
She gave me an innocent look. “It’s because our brains are still forming.”
I turned to explain the whole thing to the detective, but judging by the look on his face, he already knew.
“It’s true about brain development,” Bentley said in agreement. “We don’t see a drop-off in risk-taking behavior until after that age.”
Risk-taking behavior. Like hunting? I asked the detective, “How old was Ishmael? Twenty-six? He was barely an adult.”
“Barely. You’re right about that, and it may have been a factor.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”
I took his elbow playfully. “Let’s go to the morgue.”
He looked down at my fingers on his suit jacket, then up at my face with an amused expression. “Ah, but it gets better,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “The morgue is located in the underground headquarters of a secret organization.”
I gasped. “The DWM? I’m so excited-slash-terrified!”
Chapter 19
I’d been to the underground headquarters of the Department of Water and Magic a few times. Each time, I’d gone in through a different secret entrance. It was only logical that the place had a few access points—all the better to hide a stream of people and creatures coming in and out—but it was nevertheless dizzying.
For this visit, we entered the Wisteria Police Department, then ducked through a service door, which brought us to an elevator with the expected high-tech security panel. There was a palm and eye scan for Bentley, and then, weirdly enough, a brief interrogation by a disembodied female voice.
“Welcome back, Zara Riddle,” the voice said, managing to sound both robotic and breathily sexy at the same time. “We hope you enjoy your visit to our headquarters.”
“Thank you, disembodied voice,” I said.
“You may call me Codex,” she said, sounding husky along with breathy.
Bentley muttered under his breath, “That’s new.”
“I am new,” she replied. “Thank you for noticing, Detective. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Codex. I am the voice of this building’s automated systems.”
I peered up at the glowing red dot on the video screen. “Are you a robot?”
“Thank you for asking, Ms. Riddle. I am not a robot. I am the voice of this building’s automated systems.”
“You’re software?”
“Thank you for asking, Ms. Riddle. I am not software. Software is a program used by a computer. Let me see if I can explain by using an example. You and Detective Bentley use the language English, yet you are not English.”
Bentley frowned. “My ancestors are English.”
“A wonderful observation,” cooed the voice. “My ancestors are software.”
Bentley muttered something unintelligible.
The light on the display screen turned amber. The voice—Codex—continued, “We have now exceeded our allotted time allowance for pleasantries. Please proceed to your destination at once.”
The doors slid open faster than I’d ever seen elevator doors open. Bentley and I hopped in immediately. We exchanged a look but didn’t dare speak until we we’d ridden down multiple stories, then exited the elevator.
“That was new,” Bentley said again, once the doors had closed between us.
I gave him a bemused look. “We are currently ten or twenty stories beneath street level, inside a labyrinth of secret tunnels, filled with monsters. Does the fact that the exits are guarded by a flirty artificial intelligence make you feel more safe or less safe?”
He squeezed his chin thoughtfully. “With some things, it’s best not to ask questions or examine too closely.”
“I hear you. It’s like when you’re getting on an airplane, and you recognize the pilot from the fast food pit at the airport, where you noticed he had trouble getting his straw into his drink container.” I mimed clumsy repeated stabbing. “And he kept going like this, over and over, poke, poke, poke, not hitting the little patch of foil over the hole, until finally the straw gave up and crumpled in on itself.”
“That’s a rather specific example.”
I squeezed my own chin thoughtfully. “It wasn’t a perfect simile. How about this? It’s like when you’re donating blood, and you—”
“Blood?” His eyes widened.
“Yeah. It’s like when you’re donating blood, and you recognize the nurse from the fast food pit at the mall, where you noticed she couldn’t get her straw into her drink container.” I mimed more futile stabbing.
“Enough with the blood talk, and all the poking.” Bentley waved a hand to stop me. “You’re very good at examples.”
“I can do better. How about this one? It’s like when you’re getting on the roller coaster, and there’s a safety announcement, except it’s not done by a person. The announcer is actually an insane computer who talks in riddles.”
Bentley gave me two weary thumbs up. “Perfect.” He started walking down a concrete-walled corridor. “Right this way. We’re actually meeting with someone from legal before we head down to the morgue.”
“Someone from legal? Why?”
“He knew the victim personally, so I’d like to ask a few questions. He’s actually—”
I whooped excitedly as a sign caught my eye. “The cafeteria?” I asked. “Are we meeting this guy from legal in the cafeteria?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” I put a skip in my step. “I could eat.”
“Didn’t you just eat?”
“I didn’t say I was hungry. I said I could eat.” I fell in step with the detective. “I hear the cherry cheesecake is to die for.”
“Cherry cheesecake,” Bentley said, his voice sounding more dreamy than weary. He licked his lips. “Dark, red cherry syrup.” He reached up and touched the bullet talisman that formed a lump under the collar of his shirt.
“See? You’re not hungry, but you could eat.”
His voice low and gritty, he said, “I could eat.”
Chapter 20
The cafeteria at the DWM looked like the kind you’d find within the building of any corporation large enough to have a dedicated foodservice area, yet not gigantic enough to have multiple cafeterias, all with different themes.
The time was 8:30 pm, well past dinner, plus it was a Saturday
. The place was understandably quiet. Nobody was seated on the gleaming white chairs. A lone janitor in dark-blue overalls barely glanced our way as he dragged his pine-scented mop back and forth across the polished concrete floors. Over at the food stations, the buffet had been closed for the day. There wasn’t any hot food on offer, but there was a long row of refrigerated compartments offering sandwiches, salads, and—most importantly—cherry cheesecake.
I was yabbering away about cheesecake and headed toward it when Bentley grabbed my arm. He squeezed my bicep in what felt like urgency. I pulled myself away from the desserts, turned, and jerked to attention when I saw what he’d seen.
Walking in through the same door we had come was a creature from a fairy tale. Or a horror movie. It was the size of a pony, with the body of a lion and the head of an iguana. A big iguana.
I’d seen this creature before, during a visit to the underground offices. The beast had been walking down a hallway with a human, casually joking about eating a coworker’s office chair. The beast was an iguammit, and it was a him. His name was Steve. He was the person we were there to meet with, except he wasn’t in person form at all.
As the creature padded closer on its huge lion paws, I forced myself to blink a few times to break up the staring. The iguammit flicked its pink, forked tongue at us, then offered the iguana equivalent of a smile.
He spoke. “It has been a very long day for all of us, hasn’t it?” Steve the Iguammit had a French-accented human voice despite his green, dry-looking iguana lips. If you closed your eyes, you’d swear his pleasant speech came from human lips. That was magic for you. Just a wee bit inconsistent at times. My daughter couldn’t speak English at all when she was in fox form, yet this fantastical chimera, whose mouth wasn’t even mammalian, could speak perfectly. Better than I could, some might say.
Bentley replied to the giant iguana face, his voice showing only a hint of terror. “It’s been a very long day,” he agreed. “And it’s liable to be an even longer night.”
Steve moved toward us with no hurry. He gave another flick of the forked tongue. His cone-shaped eye sockets rotated independently as he glanced around. He stopped in front of us, sat back on his lion haunches, and extended a front paw.
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