by Gina LaManna
“Of course it did, Jimmy,” I said gently. “I can see she meant a lot to you. The loss of her is tragic—no matter how old she was or how expected it might have been. It’s never easy to lose someone.”
“No, I mean—if it meant something. If it helped someone else,” Jimmy said. “Before my grandpa died, she was this...Gran was fun, you know? She did things with us. She baked cookies and read mysteries and hid treats around her house. It’s like my grandpa’s death just sucked the life right out of her, and the pills put the final nail in her coffin. It feels like such a waste. And she didn’t even see it coming.”
I wondered if that was the case or if, like Willa’s mother, Jimmy’s gran had had an inkling that these meds were a way of numbing the pain without sorting through the problem. “I know. Death, murder, accidents...they all feel like such a waste. It’s part of the reason I got into homicide.”
“That’s what I mean,” Jimmy said, leaning over the table. “If what I told you today helps to save someone else’s gran, maybe it will have been worth it. At least she’s with my grandpa now, which is the only place she ever wanted to be.”
I clutched Jimmy’s hand in mine and squeezed. “You’re a good kid, Jimmy. If you ever want a career in law enforcement, I think you might be a good fit.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Not sure I can stomach a headless dude.”
I wrinkled my own nose. “Not sure that’s a bad thing.”
He gave a laugh, then a half-hearted wave before he returned to the counter and left me to slurp the rest of my soda and eat the second slice of pizza while deep in thought. I was so lost in thought I didn’t see the room around me, didn’t hear the bustle of the early dinner rush, didn’t even hear Willa as she swung by and filled up my glass.
Abruptly, I got up and moved through the kitchen, ignoring Jack, and climbed the stairs to my apartment. My furniture greeted me with effusive and lewd comments, wondering when Captain King might be back. I was stunned to realize it was just this morning we’d been wrapped in one another’s arms.
“Not anytime soon,” I told Marla, who was drooling onto the rug just daydreaming of him. “We’re off again.”
“No loss,” Carl said. “He really dents my cushions.”
“Watch your mouth,” I told Carl. “I don’t like when my furniture is rude.”
I made it to the bathroom and popped open the medicine cabinet. I looked around, not for anything in particular, just waiting for a lightning strike. Something was bothering me about what Jimmy had said. Clearly, Lucia had been onto the Herbals issue—though whether she’d pegged it specifically as Harmony I couldn’t be sure. Either way, she’d suspected Doctor Johnston of distributing bad drugs.
While I thought, I fumbled through the cupboard and found a bottle of old Residual Remover I’d been issued from the department. I stared at it, letting my brain churn through the nonsensical web of Lucia’s open cases, waiting for a connection.
Finally, it hit me.
If Lucia had taken the pills off Jimmy’s grandmother’s hands, but she hadn’t made it to the lab, then why hadn’t we found them in her apartment?
The thought hit me like a hammer. The same officers who had questioned Lucia’s family first had also searched through her place and rifled through her medicine cabinet. That was Cop 101. Hell, that was Nosy Neighbor 101. They’d also checked her drawers, her purse, her backpack...there was a chance the team had somehow missed it, but that chance was far less likely than the alternative.
The only other option that made sense was if someone else had taken it. If they’d broken into her place and stolen the medicine to cover up all signs of Lucia’s investigation. Then they’d kidnapped her—or worse—and forced her to write a note of resignation. They’d counted on the fact that nobody would dig too deeply into her open investigations without a reason to do so. After all, even Commander Thomas had said she should have closed the case. The only person who had believed something was wrong was Lucia, and if she disappeared, the case would mysteriously fade away...
Lucia’s warning to Jimmy struck me as odd. The fact she’d warned him not to go to the police had me wondering if she’d suspected the bad prescriptions were somehow linked to an inside job. At the very least, someone had access to insider information, which would confirm my theories that the how, when, and why for Dr. Johnston’s murder was no coincidence.
I dreaded relaying my findings to Matthew. I had desperately hoped he was right to believe Sienna despite all of the evidence against her. I wanted to be wrong. But everything I’d learned today pointed neon lights in the direction of an inside job—and Sienna was safely on the inside.
“Felix,” I said into my Comm as the tech wizard picked up. “Did you get any samples from Lucia before she disappeared to test?”
“What sort of samples? Which case?”
“Anything that could’ve been related to Harmony. Meds, pills, Herbals—you name it.”
I could practically hear him frowning as papers flipped in the background.
“Nope,” he said. “Looks like the last thing I got from her was two months back, and that was a routine hair sample. She closed the case that day.”
“Damn.”
“You think she was onto Harmony?”
“I do,” I said, and then hesitated. “Er, thanks.”
I shut up quickly, deciding to heed Lucia’s advice. She had clearly not trusted anyone—even me—enough to come forward with the evidence she’d found during her investigation. If Lucia’s theory was correct, the insider responsible for this mess was one dangerous individual.
“What else you got for me, cupcake?”
“Ah, nothing,” I said, too flustered for my usual retort. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. Hold on a second—do I hear Nash’s voice? Where are you, Felix?”
“What?” Felix struggled to follow my one-eighty flip in conversation. “Oh, yeah. That’s Nash—he’s here with me in the lab. Actually, he and Peter are walking out the door now.”
“Why?”
Felix froze up on the other end of the line, silence ensuing. “Um—”
“Why?” I pressed. “What is Nash looking into?”
“I’m not getting in the middle of a brother and sister dispute,” Felix spluttered, finding some semblance of a backbone. “You figure your own familial issues out. Bye.”
I stared at the black band on my wrist, appalled. My own brother was blackballing me with the tech-genius. Nash had clearly instructed Felix not to share that he and Peter were digging around in the investigation, which irked me.
I sighed, pulled the bottle of Residual Remover from the shelf, and turned around. I stopped mid-stride, stupefied in place by the figure standing in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, my hand inching down for my Stunner. “And how’d you get inside my apartment?”
“Your door was open,” my surprise visitor said, raising his hands. “So, I came in. I swear, I just want to talk.”
“About?”
“It’s about Lucia.” George, Lucia’s brother, stood before me with his hands shoved in his pockets and a tense set to his jaw. “I lied to you, Detective. There’s something you need to know.”
Chapter 21
After getting George seated on Carl, I stood across from him and left the Stunner obviously displayed against my waist. “Alright, George. Spill.”
“Look, I know you’re probably frustrated.”
“Probably?”
A sheepish flush crept onto his cheeks, but he battled it back in favor of anger. “Hey—I didn’t know you. Why should I confide my sister’s secrets to a stranger?”
“Because I’m the only cop looking for her.” I thumbed at my own chest and leaned in, completely out of patience. “I don’t want to hear your sob story—I want to find your sister. What did she tell you?”
“You have to understand, she told me not to say stuff to the cops,” George said uneasily. “She warned me that if anything h
appened that I should keep my lips zipped.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Go on.”
“She was seeing someone.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “Who was she dating?”
“I don’t know, some guy.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I said. “Otherwise, I’m going to start thinking you might be involved in her disappearance. Maybe you were doing something illegal...your cop sister caught on...and you fell into quite a pickle?”
His eyes widened in fear. “I didn’t hurt her!”
“Keep talking, give me something useful, and I just might believe you.”
“She was dating some guy. A new guy,” he clarified quickly. “It’d been going on for a few months, but she was keeping it on the down low.”
“How’d you find out?”
He rubbed a hand over his face and looked annoyed. “I walked in on them accidentally.”
I blinked, not expecting that. “Would you be able to pick this guy out of a line-up?”
“No.” He recoiled. “They were...in the middle of things when I let myself into Lucia’s place. Romantic things. I didn’t stick around to watch, nor did I see his face.”
“Why were you at Lucia’s in the first place?”
“Well, I live with my parents. Sometimes it’s too much, so I crash at Lucia’s for the night—she has a spare key out front, so I just let myself in when nobody answered my knock.”
“I’m sorry to ask for details—but I need to know everything you saw that day. This man might be responsible for your sister’s disappearance... or worse.”
“Like I said, they were on the couch. I didn’t catch a glimpse of anything except some naked limbs and a blanket. I’m a twenty-one-year-old man. I know what they were doing.” He cringed, then shook his head, as if ridding himself of the memory. “After I realized what was happening, I ditched out real fast. I went straight home and decided staying under my mom’s roof wasn’t so bad.”
“Did Lucia say anything to you?” I asked. “She must have heard you come in.”
“That’s the thing,” he said, heaving a sigh. “I walked on eggshells the next day thinking she was going to ream me out—but she didn’t. That’s the day she disappeared.”
“Yet you didn’t come to anyone with this information?” I stared at him, flabbergasted. “You didn’t think for a second that this man might have something to do with her disappearance?”
“Of course I did,” he said, surprising me with his answer. “I thought she eloped with him. Ran away. She’d been crazy stressed, Detective. Like—not sleeping, hardly eating. She lost like ten pounds since she joined the force. Frankly, I hoped she did elope with the dude because he clearly made her happy. Gross, but there you have it.”
“You’re sure the person she was with was male?”
“What sort of question is that?”
My mind had been focused on Sienna, trying to fit the clues around her. I’d been so close, so sure she was involved, but this turn of events made no sense. A mystery man? And above all, if he was innocent, then why was he still a mystery?
I could think of only two options. Either he was dead, or he was involved with her disappearance. I couldn’t think of another reason the man would remain silent. Any normal worried significant other would’ve contacted the police.
“Then her letter arrived,” George said, “and it cemented my theory she’d had some sort of a breakdown and needed out of the job. You know, I took her at face value and thought she’d run away to The Isle, probably married the mystery dude. You know Lucia—my sister’s a capable adult. She can hold her own. I didn’t think too much of it.”
“You don’t know your own sister very well,” I said, “if you think that’s how she would’ve handled things. She was onto something—a dangerous case. I need to know the identity of this man.”
“I can’t help you with the identity,” he said, “but there is one more thing.”
I raised my eyebrows, waiting.
“He was a cop.”
“What?” I cleared my throat, and then tried again. “How do you know that if he was naked?”
“I know that because he was naked,” George said. “His clothes were on the floor. Badge, gun, the whole lot of it. Before you ask, no—I don’t remember any of the details. I came, I saw, and I got the hell out of there.”
“You never saw her again,” I said quietly, feeling a small burst of sympathy for her misguided brother. “I really am sorry about that. I care a lot about Lucia.”
“I know,” George said. “That’s why I’m hoping you can help. I was afraid to go to any of the other police because, well—”
“Because it might be an inside job,” I said. “But who would do this to her, and why? How? She was a strong woman—mentally and physically. I trained her myself.”
“If she was sleeping with someone,” he said, his eyes unfocused, “it meant she must have loved him. She would never hurt someone she loved. If anything, she would’ve trusted him so much she’d have overlooked his flaws.”
“I understand.”
He leaned forward, easing a muted grunt from Carl. “I mean it, Detective. I care about my sister. I know you think my family is strange, but we mean well.”
“Most families do,” I admitted with a truce of a smile.
George gave a nod, exhaled in relief. A hand came up to toy with the locks of hair hanging over his forehead. “I just want to see her home safely.”
“Will you help me with something?” The change of subject was abrupt for both of us—myself included. I’d blurted out the words before the thought finished processing in my brain. “I need to test something.”
“Will it hurt?” George gave me a skeptical glance as I shook the bottle of Residual Remover in front of me. “I don’t like the looks of that.”
I stood. “You’re sure your sister was with a man?”
“Dude, yes.” He looked exasperated. “I’m positive. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to burn it from my brain. I know what I saw.”
“Then either Sienna has a partner, or I’m wrong about the whole thing.” I began pacing the length of Carl. I could feel George’s eyes following me as I lost myself in thought. Could Matthew be right? Had I been all wrong about Sienna? I’d assumed she’d just incorrectly used the Residual Remover potion—which would be easy to do since she couldn’t see the Residuals themselves—but maybe that was the point.
Maybe she had been framed. And because she couldn’t see the Residuals on herself, she had no clue she’d been a target. “But that doesn’t explain why she lied to me,” I said aloud, earning a confused look from George. “Sorry.”
“What do you need to test?” George stood, then took a deep breath. “I’ll help.”
“I’ll need to turn you invisible.”
“Um, permanently?”
I couldn’t help the bark of laughter at his horrified, yet curiously intrigued look. “No—just for a few minutes. I’ll revert you, and then try to remove the Residuals.”
“You know, we always thought Lucia was weird with that Residuals crap,” George said with a shy smile. “When she was little, she used to stare at walls and people and random pockets of air as if she could see something. It’s actually real, huh?”
“Yep.”
“I felt bad when she was diagnosed as a Reserve.”
“You say that like it’s a disease,” I said, and then considered it. “In a way, I suppose it is.”
“No more than being a vampire or a necromancer,” George pointed out. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant she used to stare at things that weren’t there. It wasn’t until they figured out she was a Reserve that everything made sense. She was nine when they caught it.”
I winced. “I was seven.”
“Yeah, well, my family’s not the most observant,” George said wryly. “Anyway, if you think this’ll help Lucia, I’ll do it. I owe her bigtime.”
“Cool.”
I raised my hands and muttered the Invisibility Incantation—a tricky little spell I’d learned during police training. Unfortunately, it was illegal to turn ourselves invisible while on the job—too much potential for abuse of power. Therefore, I was a little rusty and forgot about the ending stanza of the incantation, which left George’s head blissfully visible above the slight fuzziness of the invisibility Residuals.
“Gah!” He yelped, glancing at a reflection of himself in a shiny chalice decorating my bookshelf. “I thought all of me was invisible! Did you behead me? Where’s my body?”
“Sit,” I demanded. “This should be enough.”
He sat, his head floating like a balloon without a string. Things got even more strange when he adjusted his hair with an invisible hand, and it looked like he was being attacked by a poltergeist.
“Sit still,” I said crossly, trying to aim at him with the reversal and missing. It was a good thing I’d left his head untouched so I had at least some point of reference for the spell.
“I am! Hurry up. This is giving me a queasy stomach.”
I huffed out the antidote to the spell and watched as his body slowly and surely tingled back to normal. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
He put his head in his hands. “I feel sick. I definitely do not want to die by beheading—it’s the worst.”
“You weren’t beheaded! Don’t go around telling people I beheaded you,” I warned, shaking my finger at him. “Word travels quickly, and I don’t want to have to explain myself. Now, I need you to slather this all over yourself.”
“Why?” He accepted the proffered bottle of Residual Remover and gave a quick glance at the label. “Lucia saw colors in the Residuals. Is that what you’re looking for?”
“It looks like green spider mites are eating your flesh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Yes. They are colorful—these are lime green. And yes, we all see Residuals the same, or at least similarly enough.”
