“Holy SpongeBob,” I said, blinking in surprise when I got the whole picture. I leaned into Heather and whispered, “She doesn’t even need his help. She hired him because she’s in love with him. I can feel it oozing out of her.”
“No way,” Heather said, as shocked as I was.
But the more I looked at the guy, the more I understood. He was a doll. “They are going to make beautiful, smart babies together one day.”
“You can see the future, too?”
“No. That’s just an educated guess.”
“Oh,” she said, even more disappointed than before. She’d started playing with her food, her mind a thousand miles away.
“There’s something else I didn’t tell you. I’m a private investigator.”
She looked at me, and I saw panic set in.
“Nobody hired me to find you,” I hurried to explain. “My office is right down the street. Like I said, I can feel your distress, and I have resources. Whatever, or whoever, is frightening you, I can find a way to help.”
Her laugh, more like a scoff, sent her into a fit of coughs. When she recovered, she said, “Nobody can help me. It’s too late.”
Concern shot through me. Was she dying? Did she have a disease? Or worse, cancer?
“Can I at least try?” I asked. “I’m really good at helping people.”
“You’ll think it’s stupid and send me back.”
“Back?”
She bit down and slumped in her chair. “To the home. I’m number ten. I’m next, and I’m going to die soon.”
13
I’m fairly certain that, given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world.
—TRUE FACT
I guess I should’ve been thankful we were getting somewhere, but her imminent death was a tad disturbing. Did she have access to an assassin’s hit list? A serial killer’s project board? A psychopath’s scrapbook? How could she know such a thing?
“What makes you say that, hon?”
Her fist tightened around her fork, and I could only hope she wasn’t the violent sort. I eased back just in case. I liked the number of holes in my face at the moment.
“It’s the curse,” she said, coughing again. “I got sick like all the others.”
“The others?” I asked. This was going nowhere good.
“I live in a children’s home. Nine other kids have gotten sick and died. Nine in the last seven years. And now I have the same symptoms. That’s why I ran away.” Tears threatened to push past her thick lashes. “We call it the Harbor House Curse, and I’m next, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” She looked up at me. “Not even you.”
Fear so palpable, I could taste it pour out of her. I reached out and put my hand over hers. She didn’t pull away, which surprised me.
“There are three things wrong with your theory.”
She pulled away after all. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Adults never do.”
“First,” I said, reaching out to bring her back to me, “remember the whole superpower thing? I know you’re not lying.”
I didn’t mention the fact that I could only sense when someone knew they were lying. If she believed she was cursed, right or wrong, she wouldn’t be lying.
“Second,” I said, letting go of her hand but staying close, “you’ve never met me. You have no idea what I am capable of.” Hell, I didn’t know myself, so I was fairly certain she didn’t. “I have a way of finding out how to solve the most impossible of problems. Even the ones that nobody believes they can do anything about.”
For the first time since she sat down, hope shone on her pretty face.
“And third,” I said, lifting her chin until her gaze met mine again, “whoever thinks they can put curses on kids and get away with it has never met me, either.”
She swallowed hard and asked, “You really think you can stop it?”
“I will do everything in my power to stop it, and I have a lot of power.”
She smiled and sat back in her chair, her future suddenly not as dire as she’d previously thought.
“I mean, I can’t fly or anything. Or stop a bullet. Though I did stop a knife once. With my leg. I still have the scars if you wanna see.”
That finally got another giggle out of her. Soft and hoarse, much too raspy. I really wanted her checked out by a doctor, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it without drawing unwanted attention. Surely, there were alerts out all over the state.
And no way could I leave her to fend for herself. Nor could I take her to the station. They’d send her back to the home before the ink dried on my arrest papers because then I’d have to kidnap her. Not an option.
Until I had time to look into her story, she was not going back to Harbor House, which sounded like the setting for a horror movie. Why was it all the evil places in horror movies had such promising, uplifting names?
But all this raised the question of where to put her. With the case we already had and everything going on with Cookie and Amber and the ex, I didn’t want to burden Cook any more than was absolutely necessary. A runaway could not be good for the stress levels, no matter how sweet.
Then it hit me, and a slow smile spread across my face. “Will you trust me?” I asked her.
“I already do. That’s dumb, huh? I don’t even know you.”
“Not dumb at all. I just want you to stay with a friend of mine. She’s a bit quirky and keeps odd hours.”
“I like quirky,” she said, putting on a brave face but jumping at the chance to get off the streets. I should have known. She was scared and alone.
“Perfect,” I said, already going over my to-do list where Heather was concerned. “But first, what do you say we split one of their infamous sweet rolls?”
Her face brightened, and she nodded enthusiastically. Girl had good taste.
* * *
I had a plethora of people to interview on the Emery Adams case, and I had the perfect solution to keeping Heather both off the streets and safe. Ish. Hoping my solution would agree, I found her, a.k.a. my tattoo artist friend Pari, sleeping—which would explain why she hadn’t answered my texts, or phone calls, or her door when I pounded for ten minutes. Luckily, I knew where she hid the key.
After leaving Heather downstairs in Pari’s office with computer, a soda, and a half-eaten bag of chocolate chip cookies I found on a desk, I made my way upstairs, hoping Pari had gone to bed batching it. There were just some things I didn’t need to see.
Her apartment sat above the tattoo parlor she had on Central. I opened the door slowly, really slowly, to get the full effect of how badly the hinges needed to be oiled. Just below the headboard sat a patch of thick brown hair, so either her unruly locks would need a thorough brushing when she got up, or she’d gotten a cat.
I tiptoed to her side and turned on a lamp. It was a bit early for her. She kept late hours, sometimes working until two or three in the morning. But I needed to get Heather taken care of quickly and quietly.
“What the fuck?” she screeched when she realized I was standing over her. Staring. Wondering how best to rouse her. “Turn off the fucking light!”
She buried her head deeper in the covers as I reached over and turned off the lamp, knowing it would do no good. Pari’d had a near-death when she was a kid. She’d seen apparitions ever since. Not really people like I could see, but mists and fogs where a departed might be.
But with me, she got the full effect.
“I swear to God, if you don’t turn out that—”
I think it hit her who I was. Probably because I’d started to giggle.
She threw the covers off and bolted straight up. “Chuck!” she yelled before covering her eyes and falling back. “Oh, my god. Find my sunglasses. The industrial-strength ones.”
Like I knew which of her sunglasses were industrial strength.
She snapped and pointed to her nightstand. “Purse. Side pocket. Hurry before my retinas disappear completely.”
With another
laugh, I fished out her glasses and put them in her outstretched hand.
She slid them on and then bolted upright again. “Chuck! Where the hell you been?”
“What do you mean?”
Her hair was flat on one side and Texas big on the other. “You’ve been gone for, like, a year.”
“Really?” I said, perplexed.
Scrambling up for a hug, she grabbed hold of me and pulled me onto the bed with her.
“This is kind of sudden,” I said, giggling again, “but okay.”
“Holy hell, I missed your face.”
“You can’t actually see my face. You told me it’s just a bright white blur even with your shades on.”
“Then I missed your blur. How long have you been back?”
“A week.”
She settled beside me, snuggling closer against my side.
“And while I love the whole reunion thing,” I added, “like, I’m totally into it, for reals, but you sleep in the nude.”
“That I do,” she said, her “pretty if not a little road-worn” face morphing into a full-on smirk. “That I do.”
She wrestled her way off the bed and found a robe while I struggled to sit up.
“And you have a water bed,” I said, perplexed for real that time.
“One of my boyfriends left it, and it’s too heavy to move, so I just gave in to the inevitable. I’m a water creature, anyway.”
“You’re a creature, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, man, Chuck.” She beamed at me, and I’d forgotten how much I missed her until that moment.
I stood and hugged her again, and I could feel emotion welling inside her. Like, real emotion. Pari wasn’t exactly the emotional type except when it came to her love interests.
“Hey,” I said, setting her at arm’s length. She was about a foot shorter than I was with a killer body and an attitude to match. “What’s this?”
“I wanted to go. To be there.”
“What?” I hugged her again. “Stop it. I was a mess. I couldn’t even remember my own name, much less yours.”
When she looked up at me again, I fought the urge to giggle for the thousandth time. She looked like a bug with her huge industrial-strength sunglasses. But her distress was real.
“I thought we’d lost you,” she said. “And you are way too special to lose.”
“I feel the same way about you.”
“Okay.” She stepped back and sniffed. “What do you need?”
“What makes you think I need something?”
She pursed her lips and waited me out.
“Okay, I need you to watch a twelve-year-old homeless girl who is trying to outrun a curse that will kill her soon if I don’t stop it.”
Fingers crossed.
It took her a moment, but she finally nodded. “I can do that on one condition.”
“Name it,” I said, elated.
“The curse. It’s not contagious, right? I have enough shit on my plate without death looming over my head.”
“It looms over all our heads,” I reminded her, bringing her in for a hug.
“I suppose it does.”
“Also, I need you to hack into ADA Nick Parker’s computer, both work and home, and see what he has on me.”
“Of course you do.”
“I feel a blackmail situation coming on. And I need you to get ahold of that sexy doctor dude. The one who lost his license for prescribing Oxy to his patients and then buying it back from them.”
“Okay, but I don’t think he can get ahold of any more.”
“I don’t need Oxy, but thanks. Heather’s been sick, and I need to know what’s going on with her as soon as possible.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n. Sure you don’t want to crawl back into bed with me for a while? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I’m sure you would.” Her offer didn’t sound half-bad, actually, with my recent forced vow of abstinence, but I preferred outies over innies. “What happened to Tre?”
“Oh, he’s still around. But he doesn’t consider my relationships with women cheating.”
“That’s very pervy of him.”
“That’s Tre for ya. By the way, who’s Heather?”
* * *
After I got Heather settled and explained that I was going to have a doctor come look at her while I looked into her situation-slash-curse, I left her in the capable-ish hands of Pari.
They’d hit it off beautifully once Heather found out Pari had not only an Xbox but a PlayStation as well. They would have a ball.
I swung by the office before heading out to interview some of Emery Adams’s friends and associates as well as look at the scene where her car was found. Cookie filled me in on what she’d found that morning over lunch—a.k.a. my third meal of the day, and it wasn’t even noon yet. But the minivan boys were back, and I wanted them to follow me inside the restaurant. To familiar ground.
Also, Reyes was there, so I was basically leading the lambs to slaughter should they try anything. Valerie brought our plates as I read the report on Geoff Adams Jr., Emery’s father, that Cookie had given me.
She was still absorbing the Heather dilemma and having a hard time with it. “Twelve?” she asked, heartbroken. “How is that even possible? How has she survived?”
“I don’t know, hon, but we’ll find out. He’s had a very eclectic career.”
She nodded. “And she’s been sick?”
“Yeah, poor kid. That’s why I need you to find out everything you can about Harbor House. Pari’s hacking their files, but I want to know what they project to the community. And who does the projecting. If nine children have really died there in the last seven years, I want to know why there hasn’t been an investigation.”
“Of course. She could stay with us, you know.”
I turned to the next page. “I thought of that, but we have so much going on. Who would keep an eye her? A racetrack? Really? He tried to open a racetrack?”
“Yeah, that fell through. Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Oh, right.” I took a bite of my nachos and went back to reading. “An upscale billiards room.”
“Failed.”
“A chain of restaurants.”
“Failed.”
“This guy sank a ton of money into one venture after another, and yet they all failed miserably before they even got off the ground.”
“He certainly doesn’t have the head for business his father did.”
Every few sentences, I’d look into Reyes’s office. He’d been on the phone since we got there, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His gaze would lock with mine occasionally, at which point I’d duck my head and start reading again.
Cookie had collected a ton of articles on Mr. Adams. He hadn’t struck me as a man this careless. This wasteful and sloppy and irresponsible. He’d struck me as being rather intelligent.
“I just find it interesting that his father, who is as savvy as they come, would sink money into a venture that had no chance of paying out. And then do it over and over again.”
“Why haven’t I seen her on the news?” she asked, unable to drop it. I should have brought Heather by to meet her at least.
Reyes finally ended the call. He eyed me a long moment, then strode behind his desk, combing through some papers, his movement agitated.
“I’ll be right back,” I said as Cookie was asking about Heather’s parents. “And that is another thing you are going to find out for me.”
She nodded, still in a daze, as I navigated the twists and turns of tables and chairs to get to Reyes’s office.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said without looking up.
“Of course there’s something wrong. I can feel the heat rolling off you like the flames from a forest fire.” I curled my fingers into the front of my sweater, right over my heart. “Is it Beep?”
“No. Everything’s okay. Just an issue with one of our vendors.”
He was
lying. I couldn’t feel it, not from him, not anymore, but I knew he was lying. My own anger spiked.
“If it’s Beep, I have a right—”
“It’s not,” he said, his voice deathly quiet.
I curled my other hand into fist at my side. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
He stopped and looked up at me, his gaze curious. “You no longer know me? Or you no longer wish to?”
“What? What does that even mean?”
“Nothing. I have to cook. Sammy called in.”
He stepped around the desk and walked out, pausing slightly as he passed, then disappearing into the kitchen. He left me frustrated and more confused than ever. What had happened on our way home from New York? I’d played the entire month we were there over and over in my head. When we left, everything seemed fine. Perfect almost, aside from the fact that I’d just found out he was created from an evil god. Also, I had trapped a demon from another dimension inside a hell filled with innocent people. And I’d lost a friend while in New York. A very good one.
But on the way home, I could feel him pulling away. And now I was just frustrated and worried and wondering about our future more and more.
14
Just when you think you have all your ducks in a row,
someone comes along and teaches you the recipe to
duck à l’orange, and you realize you can live without a duck or two.
—MEME
I walked back to our table and realized there were two, actually. Two groups of men were following me. I got the feeling they weren’t together. But they seemed to have similar goals. Follow me around and record my every move.
One team was very good at their job. The other, Crew Minivan, was not. I’d spotted them yesterday, but I had no idea how long the second crew had been following me. They were definitely not from the Vatican. I hadn’t seen the Vatican guy in a while. They could have replaced him since he’d been made, but I rather doubted it.
No, these guys had ulterior motives, but quite frankly, I was tired of being followed around. And EMFed. I passed by the Crew Minivan and heard static coming from one of the guy’s laps.