Fables & Felonies

by Nellie K Neves

  “Order up!”

  The call came from the back kitchen, but Asher was in no hurry to move. “Except this was life and death, Morgan. And she really died.”

  He was nearly hysterical, and I was glad Morgan was there to comfort him. Meanwhile I was stuck on her story, stuck on the words that might lead me to new clues.

  “Did you look in the closet? Was there something there that might have freaked her out?”

  Morgan shrugged as she hugged the sobbing Asher against her shoulder. “I’ve been in there since, but I haven’t seen anything like a death threat. Maybe someone erased it?”

  “Can I see the closet?” Maybe I knew more, maybe I could see something she couldn’t.

  “Yeah, of course.” Morgan tried to peel Asher from her. “Charlie won’t care.”

  Asher stayed behind, face buried in his hands as I followed Morgan past the stage into the back. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. A dimly lit hallway turned off to the left until it led to the manager’s office, but to my right at the bottom of the stairs the path dead-ended into a closet. Morgan jogged down the stairs and stepped inside. Chalk messages marred the black interior. Pick me ups, well wishes, nothing negative in the least, nothing at first glance to call for alarm. White dust smudged where the words had been written over the top of other notes.

  “She was standing just like this,” Morgan faced forward, “staring straight ahead.”

  “Thanks.” An eerie feeling crept over my skin while looking down at Morgan in the same way she’d looked at Honey B. “Do you know, did she have any fans that pushed things too far? Any admirers or even a boyfriend?”

  Morgan stepped out of the closet to make room for me. “I didn’t talk with her much. Guys really liked her. She didn’t have a huge following, but I noticed quite a few coming in at the end of my set last week, and they weren’t there for me. I know I overheard her bragging about a record deal about three weeks ago. Some producer picked her up at another club. She was sure this was all beneath her because of it.”

  I stepped into the closet and Morgan took a seat on the stairs to give me space. “Now I feel bad because she’s dead. It’s wrong to think mean things about dead people, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the social construct,” I agreed, unsure of what to say to make her feel better. My eye bounced from message to message, most completely benign, others heavily coded with words and symbols I couldn’t understand. But one phrase caught my eye.

  Never forget.

  You’re mine.

  –Mack

  Chapter 8

  I had every intention of accosting him the second I walked in the cottage door. After all, writing threatening messages on the wall where his alleged victim worked? It doesn’t get much worse than that. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the cottage. Panic clutched my chest. Where could he have gone? Had he run? Did his faith in me run out? Or was he simply guilty and knew freedom was like a ticking time bomb?

  I started up the trail to my car, past my parents’ house, ready to search out the whole city or even the state if necessary. I was just passing the kitchen window when I heard it. The gentle rolling laughter of the con man I’d once known as James. He was with my mother.

  “So I said to her, go ahead, try it yourself.” His jovial voice peaked, nearly giddy with the story he was telling. I pulled the screen door open and stepped inside. The kitchen door had been propped open, Amos sat at the table, my mother kitty corner, and Mr. Stone, the neighbor, seated to his left.

  “And Lindy actually starts running her own shell game. Wouldn’t you know it, she was better than I was. By the end of the night she’d made triple.”

  My mother barely caught her breath between gasps of laughter. Even Mr. Stone was chuckling at Amos as he mimicked my hands swirling about on a card table, shifting the imaginary shell.

  “Then there was the time we infiltrated the museum downtown, pretended to be collectors, and nearly bought the skeleton of the blue whale they keep hanging in the rafters.” Amos caught my eye as I walked through the doorway, but showed no remorse as he plowed through his story. “Lindy had them convinced that the whole set up was a fake. She did a quick sleight of hand to switch out the bone powder for baking soda. When she splashed the vinegar on it, the whole thing foamed up right nice. Somewhere in the middle of the con she made them believe she was actually undercover FBI there to investigate hidden fake artifacts. Had them sweating bullets. Isn’t that right, love?”

  I pressed my lips together for a moment before I nodded. “Yes, I guess it is.” We’d accomplished three cons in one that day. He’d never been so proud of me.

  “I can’t even imagine you doing something so silly, Lin. I mean, playing pretend? You didn’t even do that as a kid.”

  Pretend? She called running a con playing pretend? The naivety was nearly palpable.

  “Oh, I just assumed this serious bit she does was a new thing? She’s been like this her whole life, then?” Amos asked.

  “Mostly,” Mom agreed as if I were not in the room. “It got worse with the diagnosis, but—”

  “Mom!” Nothing about my MS was considered public information, and yet she was sharing it in front of not just Amos, but the neighbor I didn’t even know.

  “Honey, I don’t know why you’re ashamed of it. I mean, after all—”

  “Amos, I need to talk to you,” I said before she could finish the thought.

  “Uh oh.” Amos smirked at his captive audience. “I think I’ve been called to the headmaster’s office.”

  The other two played along, a chorus of oohs following us until we were out the door. I resisted the urge to shove him, but just barely.

  “I told you to stay in the cottage. What were you doing?”

  He trounced off the steps as if nothing were wrong in the world, as if prosecutors weren’t breathing down his neck hoping to lock him away for his foreseeable future.

  “She came and got me. Nice mum you have anyway, Sparrow. You must take after your dad.”

  “I do,” I snapped, trying to ignore his implication that I was a horrible person, the exact opposite of my angelic mother. “And that makes me good at my job.”

  “Did you find something then?” He kicked a pebble. It ricocheted off a tree trunk near the path. “You didn’t even tell me where you went.”

  I wanted to see his reaction, so I didn’t beat around the bush. “I went to Starved for Art. Have you heard of it?”

  A slight tightening around his mouth was all I discerned, but it wasn’t surprising. I’d seen him lie through worse. “Yeah, it’s come up, I guess.”

  “Ever been there?”

  His shoulders bounced out a shrug. “Maybe. It wasn’t really remarkable.”

  The nonchalance infuriated me. The shove I’d been holding back exploded through my arms. Amos stumbled and stared at me with wide eyes.

  “What was that for? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Stop lying to me!” I shouted, not caring who heard. Ranger could be on the front lawn for all I cared. At this point he could haul Amos away. I refused to be lied to anymore.

  “I’m not lying.” He rubbed his arm as if I’d hurt him. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to know.”

  Despite the trembling in my hands from the unadulterated rage flowing through my veins, I managed to pull my phone from my pocket. I thrust the picture of the message I’d taken of the closet in his face, insisting that he see it up close and personal.

  “This, do you remember this?”

  “Yeah.” He appeared rattled for the first time. “Yeah, I wrote that, but why are you so bloody unhinged by it, Sparrow?”

  I couldn’t let the name get to me. I couldn’t let it pull free the memories. I cringed, but shoved it deep again. “Never forget you’re mine? And you’re the number one suspect in her murder? The other singer said Honey B stared at the wall, white as a sheet. Honey B told that girl she knew was going to die, and you don’t know why I think it’s rather inc
riminating?”

  Amos stuttered a moment, unable to find the words he needed until he blurted out, “It’s a wolf and a rabbit, Sparrow. You’ve got to see that, don’t you?”

  “What?” The word fell out of me just as desperate as I felt.

  “The story of the wolf and the rabbit.” Again, he said it as if I should know and yet I did not. “Look, from the rabbit’s side, the story is simple, she leaves her warren exposed, and the wolf steals her baby bunny. It’s a cautionary tale of always remaining vigilant. But you hear it from the wolf’s side, her child is hungry, could die, and at the last moment she finds food because of providence, and the same story become a tale of faith and endurance.”

  Amos had a tendency to live his life in fables, but I had no patience for it anymore.

  “So which are you in this little analogy? The wolf or the bunny? Because I have my own opinions.”

  “No, Sparrow, you aren’t getting it. I’m not either. The idea is that it’s all about perspective. You’re reading that ditty on the board as if I’m guilty, so it sounds like a threat.” His lips pressed tight as he pleaded with me through his eyes. “Read it again, but like a producer. Never forget. You’re mine. Hallie got freaked out on stage if her mind got the best of her. I tried to calm her down, that’s all. Remind her that she had a record deal, and none of the small gigs mattered anymore. That’s all it was. I promise.”

  “That’s easy enough to say now, but no one is around to refute it. How do you explain her fear? How do you explain the fact that whatever was written there had convinced her she was going to die?”

  “I don’t know, but I can promise you it wasn’t what I wrote. It must have been something else she saw.”

  It made sense.

  I hated that it made sense, but it wasn’t the first time Amos had talked his way out of things. When I had dated James, he had a story for everything, an excuse for different cars every time he picked me up, a reason why his family cancelled last minute before meeting me, a reason why we could never go by his place. His lies were believable, and it made him dangerous.

  “I need to get ready for tonight.” I pushed past him into the cottage. “This time, you need to actually stay home.”

  Wheels crackled in the driveway, and I watched Amos’ head turn to the sound. “Eh, your dad is home, party’s over anyway.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The TV chattered through my closed door. Amos was using it to self-medicate, a coping mechanism at best. I stared at my phone, talking myself out of calling Shane, or worse, Ryder. I wanted to hear his voice, just once, just a hello. I was sure I could go on another week without him. But it wasn’t possible, and I let PI Net open instead.

  My new username had been accepted. I scrolled through available jobs. A few were tempting, quick background checks for an interviewee, and a couple insurance checkups in the surrounding area.

  “You’re busy,” I said aloud and kept scrolling. I waited for Avery to ask who I was, or worse, figure out who I really was, but even as I entered the chat room, no one paid me much mind. ‘KatiePEye’ was not a handle that attracted attention. I had to admit, plenty of investigators were added to the site daily, and I never noticed. My gaze rolled over the list of people in the messaging center of the site and stopped hard on one name.

  Sleuth28.

  I scrolled over the transcript of the chat room. He hadn’t said anything, not once, and according to what I read, he had entered the room at least an hour ago. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe his mom had his phone and had activated the app accidently. Maybe I was wrong and Sleuth28 had never been Ryder.

  Against my better judgment, I clicked on the username and let a private message pop up. All I could think to write was, “Hi.”

  Three little bubbles popped up on the screen, then the reply, “Do I know you?”

  I couldn’t tell him, I’d promised to keep him safe, but I had to know if it was him.

  “My name is Katie. What’s yours?”

  The bubbles appeared, then vanished, then appeared again, as if he were deciding whether or not to answer. Then it came, the best two words I ever could have hoped for.

  “Ryder Billings.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes. I could hardly breathe. We were talking. I didn’t even care if he didn’t know it was me. We were talking. Most importantly, he could talk!

  He asked the question again. “Do I know you, Katie?”

  I wanted to write my name, to tell him everything, but I had promised, and I had to keep him safe. Triggering his memories too soon could cause permanent damage. I had to lie.

  “No, I’m new,” I wrote. “But I noticed from your profile that you’re pretty new too.”

  The bubbles appeared before he wrote, “I’m not a PI.”

  The desire to know what had brought him to PI Net in the first place burned in my fingertips, but there was more at play. I needed a way to talk to him without anyone knowing. I had to make him trust me. Thankfully, Katie was far more endearing than Lindy could ever hope to be.

  “That’s okay,” I wrote. “I’m mostly just looking for a friend. This job is pretty lonely and other investigators can’t wait to stab—” Knowing that he still had the stitches from a psychopath’s blade, I erased and rewrote the sentence. “Other investigators can’t wait to use any weakness against you.”

  I waited for him to write back, hopeful that we could have some kind of contact. Finally the bubbles appeared, and then his reply.

  “I could use a friend right now. I’m actually in the hospital. Long story. Don’t want to talk about it.”

  I had to play pretend. I couldn’t let on that I knew anything.

  “We don’t have to. Are you sick? Are you getting better?”

  Right after I pushed send I realized that I was forcing him to talk about the one thing he had just told me he didn’t want to talk about.

  Still, after a short pause he wrote, “Not sick. Got stabbed. I don’t remember much. It’s hard. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it. Where are you, Katie?”

  I fell back on the bed, clutching my phone as if it were my pet, or the most valuable treasure that had ever been found. Maybe by my standards that’s exactly what it was.

  “California,” I wrote before I thought about it real hard.

  His answer was quick. “I have a friend working there right now. She’s a PI too. I just got a letter from her today.” I was about to write something when a second message popped up on the screen. “She’s the reason I’m on this app anyway.”

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask. How did he react to the letter? Why did he describe me as just a friend? What did he remember if he could remember PI Net?

  Finally I typed, “Why the app?”

  Ryder wrote back, “I’m not sure. Like I said, my memory is fuzzy, but I know she uses this. She logged in yesterday. I was hoping to catch her today, ask her some questions, but she’s not around.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  “She went to help her ex-boyfriend,” he wrote. “He’s in trouble, and she’s good at her job. I guess I get it.” I stared at the phone, knowing full well by his tone that of course he didn’t get it. Finally he wrote, “I just wish she was here.”

  “Ryder, it’s me, it’s Lindy. I love you.”

  I typed in the words and stared at them, but I couldn’t press send.

  The bubble appeared for a second before it vanished into more words.

  “I have to go. Physical therapy. I’ll talk to you later, Katie.”

  And he was gone. Like cutting out a rollercoaster mid-loop, no more track, just tumbling into despair and depression.

  Gone.

  Chapter 9

  There was likely some sort of girl dress code that went along with Aces, the dive bar-slash-karaoke club-slash-open mic bar I was headed to. But if there was, none of that was preprogrammed into my social protocols. But it’s not like fashion ever has been. That’s Eleanor’s department. I’m better at
reading people, and if I had to pick, I’d keep my talents over having hers.

  The lights were low, and the cover charge was under five bucks, and for that I was grateful. I thought about sitting, ordering a soda and listening to a few of the acts, but I figured there had to be a better way. Spotting the table with someone official and a small sign marked ‘check in,’ I moved in that direction. I plastered on my most winning smile, the one Aunt Stella had once told me looked like a dog baring its teeth, and twirled my hair to soften the blow.

  “I want to sing,” I said to the bald, dark man behind the table. His arms looked like they were the same circumference as my thighs. Snap me like a twig flashed through my thoughts, but I stuck to the persona that didn’t know any better. “How do I get to sing?”

  I was funny to him, a cute walking joke. “You got a guitar hiding up a pant leg?”

  I pushed my lips forward into a deep pout. “I thought I could sing Acapulco or something.”

  “Acappella?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “Whatcha got? Itsy bitsy spider?”

  “My guitarist is coming,” I assured him, “just put me at the end. People won’t even be around by then. Please? Please, please, puuhhhleeeese?”

  Long ago I had memorized Eleanor’s perfect begging routine that was only turned down ten percent of the times she’d ever used it. I’d seen it successful on even the most hardened university professors. I didn’t have her raw talent, but thankfully, I had enough to get by.

  “Fine, you’re at the bottom, go on back. I’ll send your guy your way when he gets here.”

  I grinned, and for once it was authentic, maybe not sincere, but definitely authentic. The back room was crowded, nothing like I might have expected. Granted, life was rarely like the movies. I expected rows of vanity lit mirrors and girls getting ready for show time. Instead musicians crammed into the dark, humid space, guitars thumped against each other as they tried to warm up, voices cracked and broke as their owners worked out the cobwebs. It was a veritable mess, and I immediately doubted my choice to fake my way through.