“Or a P.I.,” Dags said, pulling his wallet out. Opening it up, he fished through a stack of laminated cards, pulling one out and showing the guy his P.I. license. “Asia Jackson hired me. The situation is somewhat complicated, but I guess I’m kind of a bodyguard, too. Mostly, I’ve been asked to look into the Tig thing.”
“And how does Jason fit into all this?” the man said, frowning. “This ‘complicated situation’ of yours?”
Despite his words, he’d relaxed slightly, folding his arms.
“We’re not sure,” Dags said truthfully. “Jason Tig attacked Asia two nights ago. In an alley. In Hollywood. We don’t know why. It seems completely out of character from everything I’ve learned about him in the time since.”
Forester’s shock was apparent.
Dags had been looking for that, for how the other stuntman reacted to that news.
What he saw in the other’s face more or less confirmed his own impressions.
“That’s impossible.” Forester shook his head, adamant. “No way. Tig was a pussycat. No way would he attack someone… much less a woman. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t believe that without a hell of a lot of evidence. Rock-solid evidence. Like seeing it with my own eyes. Even then, I’d check to see if the guy was a body double.”
Dags nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I get it. I didn’t know him like you obviously did, and it doesn’t add up for me, either. I’d ask Tig himself, but sadly, that’s not an option anymore.” Dags gestured vaguely with a hand. “It’s why I’d like to know what happened to him the week before the attack. Why he left his job. Where he went. Who he was with.”
Forester frowned at him.
After a pause, he shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”
“He didn’t say anything to you before he left that day? The last day he was on the site? He wasn’t acting strange? You didn’t see him talking to anyone you’d never seen him with before?”
But Forester’s eyes were distant, like he barely heard Dags.
“He really died of a heart attack?” The stuntman sounded bewildered, and sad, like Tig’s death was finally sinking in. “Was he alone? Where was he when he died?”
Dags frowned. “Does it matter?”
The man’s expression reverted back to hostile. “It might. You’re leaving a hell of a lot out, Mr. P.I. Jourdain. Like how you ended up with his dog.”
“I am,” Dags admitted. “Leaving things out. I have my reasons. The story’s complicated, like I said. But we have Jason Tig’s best interests at heart.”
“So what the hell do you want with me? If you’re not willing to tell me shit, how am I supposed to help you?” Forester frowned, glancing between them. “And why are you talking to me, and not the police?”
“They might want to talk to you, too,” Dags said, glancing at Phoenix. “But honestly, he died of natural causes. It might be case closed, as far as they’re concerned.”
Forester nodded, but his eyes looked distant again, and upset.
“Can’t believe he’s dead,” he muttered.
Forester glanced at Phoenix.
“He was supposed to be on the team for Continental Drift, you know. I brought him on as my second. You actually met him… at the first script reading. You might not remember.”
Phoenix frowned, glancing at Dags.
Dags had to assume that was the movie Phoenix was supposed to be in.
Forester was looking at Dags now. “So you don’t think he did it? Tig?”
Dags exhaled, facing the other man.
“It’s complicated, like I said,” Dags admitted. “But no, I don’t think Tig was responsible for himself when the attack occurred. I can’t prove it. I might not ever be able to prove it. But I want to know what happened to him. I thought it might help if I knew where he was the week he disappeared.”
Forester’s expression relaxed as Dags spoke.
He frowned then, obviously thinking about Dags’ words.
Dags watched him think. “When was the last day you actually saw him? Was it the last day he came in to work?”
Stan Forester nodded, his face taut. “Yes.”
“Do you remember him acting strange? Did he mention anything wrong in his life? Anything out of the ordinary? I know it was a while ago⏤”
“No.” Forester was already shaking his head. “No, I didn’t notice anything.”
Pausing, he flinched a little, as if remembering something.
“Oh,” he said. “There was a thing. He got a call in the middle of the last big team meeting he attended. And he took it. He took the call.”
Still thinking, and frowning now, Forested added,
“He told me he had to leave for a few hours after.”
“And that’s strange?” Dags pursed his lips. “Which part? Him answering the phone? Or him leaving early?”
“Both.”
That time, Phoenix spoke up. “Why?”
Forester looked at her, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“It’s more that it was strange for him, Ms. X,” he said politely. “Tig is… was…” he amended grimly. “…one of those guys who really prided himself on his professionalism, on honoring his commitments. I can’t think of another time he left early like that, with no notice. He was ridiculously reliable. And yeah, I’d never seen him take a call in the middle of a meeting before, either. Not unless it was related to the job, and then he generally gave me a head’s up.”
Forester met Dags’ stare next.
“He had a rep for that kind of thing,” the stuntman added. “You can ask around. He was so damned reliable, it verged on a running joke. A few of the younger guys called him ‘Padre’ because he didn’t drink or smoke or lie. Because he was never late, never screwed around.” Forester frowned, thinking. “He was also damned good at his job.”
Staring off to the side, he added in a mutter,
“He’s going to be hard to replace.”
Dags glanced at Phoenix, who returned his look, frowning a little.
Stan Forester wasn’t done.
“I think some of it was self-consciousness around his previous record, you know?” Stan said, still thinking aloud. “We all knew he had one, and no one cared, but I think he did. He used to drink. A lot. I never heard of him being violent or anything, but he managed to wreck his marriage, and screw up his relationship with his kid. He got picked up a few times. Did a few short stints, he told me. DUIs, mostly.”
Dags nodded. That explained the mugshots.
“Did he say where he was going?” he said. “That day. When he left early.”
The stuntman frowned, thinking again.
Then his eyes flinched, like a slice of memory just grew brighter in his mind.
“He did,” Forester said. “I didn’t ask, but he told me anyway, partly because he offered to come back that evening if I needed him. He said he was running up to a place near the Hollywood sign. He only mentioned it to let me know why it would take him a little bit to get up there and back. He said he had to go talk to someone.”
Dags frowned, exchanging looks with Phoenix.
“He said he had to go talk to someone. At the Hollywood sign?” Dags repeated back, hoping it didn’t only sound weird to him. “That didn’t strike you as odd?”
Forester’s lips curled in a half-scowl.
“We’re getting ready to shoot a big budget movie in a week,” he said, gesturing sharply around at the studio grounds. “I’ve got a little bit on my plate right now⏤”
“And he said nothing else?” Phoenix cut in, her voice more subdued. “Nothing about who he was going there to meet? Or why?”
Forester looked at her.
When he did, some of the heat went out of his eyes.
“No,” he said. “Nothing. He apologized. He said he had to drive up into the Hollywood Hills, not far from the sign, and that if I still needed him here, he’d be back as soon as he could. He said maybe two hours. I never saw him again.”
Aga
in, Dags and Phoenix exchanged looks.
It wasn’t much.
Really, it wasn’t anything.
Even so, something about it bugged Dags.
“Okay,” Dags said, looking back at Forester. “Thanks.”
Chapter 22
Partners
Luckily, Kara didn’t arrest him outright.
She even let Dags bring the dog, Steve McQueen, into the station with him.
Which was good, because Dags wasn’t about to leave him in the car, not in L.A. summer.
The dog got lots of pats and ear rubs as he made his rounds inside the station.
As for Dags himself, he got stuck in an interrogation room for most of the afternoon, badgered with all the same questions he’d been asked the last time a dead body turned up in his apartment, along with a few dozen new ones.
In the end, like before, they didn’t have anything on him. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found much of anything on anyone.
They were testing all the weapons in Dags’ apartment, likely to eliminate the possibility that one of them was used in the murder. The forensics guys were still crawling all over every inch of his space, but so far, they hadn’t found anything useful: no fingerprints, DNA, or anything else that didn’t belong to either Dags or the victim.
They hadn’t found anything apart from the location to tie it to Dags himself.
The real reason he didn’t get arrested, however, was that Dags had an alibi.
Witnesses included not only Phoenix, Karver, Asia, Veronica, and their head of security, Cal⏤but also nearly a dozen people from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Kara herself. They pinpointed time of death to between five-thirty and six o’clock in the morning, right about the time Dags was being questioned by Kara and the detective from L.A. County.
When Dags finally left the interrogation room, he found Phoenix waiting for him on a bench in the main lobby of the police station, outside the bulletproof glass of the security wall.
He frowned when he saw her there.
There’s no way they would have held her as long as they had him.
Why hadn’t she called a cab?
He walked up to her, that frown still ghosting his lips.
“Where to now, Mr. Jourdain?” she said, rising to her feet.
Noting the confused, half-annoyed look on his face, she folded her arms. The pose somehow made her look even smaller to him.
“I’m not going home,” she said stubbornly. “Not alone. I told you that.”
“What about a hotel?” he said, still frowning. “There has to be someplace you would feel safe. Someplace you wouldn’t be alone.”
She only refolded her arms tighter.
She didn’t have an aura, but he found himself reading the look on her face anyway.
Exhaling, he said, “What about Asia? When is she getting done with work?”
“She texted me. She doesn’t want to go back to the house either. Not tonight.” Phoenix hesitated. “She didn’t answer when I called her back, but I texted to tell her we’d meet her at a coffee place she likes in Hollywood. I thought we’d go to your place after that.”
Dags scowled a little, motioning pointedly around at the police station.
“My place is out, in case you haven’t realized that. For tonight, definitely. Probably for the next few days.”
Phoenix frowned. “The next few days? Why?”
Dags gave her an exasperated look. “This isn’t like Jason Tig, Phoenix. Tig had a heart attack. The location was weird, but he died of natural causes. Jane had her heart cut out of her chest and a message written on my floor in her blood⏤”
Phoenix winced, holding up a hand. “Okay. Stop. I get it.”
Sighing, Dags began walking towards the station exit.
When she didn’t follow, he glanced back from the front door, holding the door in one hand and gripping Steve McQueen’s leash in the other.
“You coming?” he said.
She jumped. Then gave him a relieved smile.
He waited while she walked up to him, holding the door open for her to exit in front of him.
“You know where this coffee place is?” he said, following her out of the building and down the cement stairs. Steve McQueen tried to bound in front of him, so he kept a tight hold on the leather leash.
Phoenix nodded. “Yes.”
“What about Karver?” he said, gruff, still working to wrangle the dog. “He must be out of the hospital by now. Would he go to your place? After they released him?”
Phoenix hesitated, looking over her shoulder at him.
“Probably.”
She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask.
They didn’t talk again until the three of them climbed back into the car.
Phoenix gave Dags directions, then curled up in the bucket seat of his Mustang and closed her eyes. Steve McQueen wormed his way forward from the back seat and stuck his black furry head on her lap. She rubbed his ears for a while, then just rested her hand on his thick ruff. Her face and body looked so relaxed, Dags almost thought she’d fallen asleep.
When Dags pulled into the parking lot of the diner in West Hollywood, she opened her eyes, sitting up in the seat.
“Why do you trust me so much?” he said, pulling into a free parking spot. He yanked up the emergency brake, letting the engine idle. “You just met me.”
When he glanced at her, her lips were pursed, her eyes hard.
From her expression, the question of whether or not to trust him had never occurred to her.
“You fell asleep in my car,” Dags added. “What if I was one of these things? What if I turned? Like Karver did? Why would you trust me more than him?”
She looked at him, her lips still pursed.
“I don’t think they can do that to you,” she said frankly.
The way she said it, she was sure of her words, but a question mark still lived there, as if she wasn’t sure why she was so sure.
“They can’t do that to you,” she said, as if hearing his thoughts. “Not like Karver. Not like that stuntman, Jason Tig. Not like Asia, probably.”
“Why would you think that?” he said, genuinely puzzled.
“I’m right, though. Aren’t I?”
“How would I know?” Scowling, Dags stuck his phone back into his jacket pocket. “I don’t know any more about any of this than you do, sweetheart.”
But Phoenix shook her head.
“That can’t possibly be true,” she said flatly. “You can fly. You have that blue-green lightning stuff on your hands. I may not have seen the wings, like Asia, but I saw that light. I saw you leap across the room. That wasn’t… normal.”
Dags turned off the engine, keeping his hand on the key for a beat as he looked at her.
“You’re not normal,” she repeated, returning his look. “That thing that took Karver and killed your friend isn’t normal, either. I figured, you not being normal, and that thing not being normal, you’re a lot more likely to understand one another.”
Pausing, she added,
“I heard that thing talking to you. It sounded like it knew you.”
Dags’ frown deepened.
“Me being strange doesn’t mean I know the rules on every strange thing in the creation,” he grumbled. “I already told you, I don’t know anything about whatever this thing is. Or who it might be possessing now. Or how to stop it. Or kill it.”
Feeling his jaw harden at her skeptical look, he growled,
“I can’t even figure you out. Much less the thing that seems to be following you.”
“Me?” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “It seems just as likely to be following you, Mr. Jourdain. I’m not the one who’s had two people die in my house.”
Dags frowned.
That was more or less exactly what Kara said to him, less than an hour before.
When Dags talked about Phoenix being in danger from whoever killed Jane, Kara practically laughed in his face. According to K
ara, the only person she could see at the center of all this blood and murder was him, meaning Dags himself.
Dags couldn’t really argue the point. But it still annoyed him.
As if she read his thoughts, Phoenix shook her head.
“I heard everything that thing said to you last night,” she repeated, for the third time at least. “Whatever the hell this is, it seems to be hung up on you. And it seems to know a lot about you.” Snorting, she added, “It seems it might know more about you, and what you are, than you do yourself, Mr. Jourdain.”
“Dags,” he said, giving her a hard look. “Call me Dags.”
“Fine, Dags. Which is a really weird name, by the way.”
“Okay, Phoenix X,” he said, giving her a sideways look.
“I’m an actress,” she reminded him.
“So what’s your real name?”
She didn’t answer that, exhaling as she leaned back into the ribbed leather seat.
“Don’t you want to talk to it?” she said, motioning with a hand, that harder look back on her lips. “The demon, or whatever. Why didn’t you talk to it more last night? Find out what it knows? Maybe it can tell you what you are.”
Dags was already shaking his head.
“No.”
“Why not?” she said.
Something about the way she asked made Dags look at her.
Studying her face, the worried look in her eyes, it hit him that she might not be asking only for Dags himself. She might be asking for herself, too. Remembering the weird comments the demon dropped about Phoenix, Dags frowned.
“I don’t think that thing is a reliable source of information,” he said, gruff. “Maybe it does know what I am.” He gave her a pointed look. “…or what you are. But I wouldn’t trust it to tell us what we really want to know. Even if it technically told the truth, I suspect it would twist it in some way. It would probably just confuse us even more.”
Flushing, she folded her arms in front of her chest. Nodding to concede his point, she let her head fall back against the seat, exhaling in a short burst.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“We’ll have to try and figure that out on our own,” he said. “But later. After we stop this thing. Or at least figure out what the hell it is. And what it wants.”
I, Angel Page 18