“Hey, you’re new,” a voice said to my right.
It wouldn’t have been nearly so caustic, except it was accompanied with a shove that knocked me off balance. Not that balance was a strength of mine once the lights went out. My vertigo thrived in dim lighting, perhaps being able to see my bearings was all that kept me from tripping over my own feet.
I stumbled and bumped someone nearby. “Who’s this?” the voice demanded, thick with an eastern accent. Hands shoved me again, and I narrowly missed hitting one more act square in the chest.
Feet planted, I resolved not to move again. Bouncing around like a ping pong had never been part of my plan. Hands began pawing at me, inspecting my clothes, touching my hair, snarky comments swirled as if I were surrounded by sharks and my blood was in the water. I was weak to them, fresh meat. My best approach was a direct one.
“I’m Lindy. I’m investigating the murder of Honey B.”
The words built a barrier around me almost two feet in diameter, clearing like oil from water. No one dared touch me, look at me, or speak to me. Their faces weren’t much more than shadows in the dim light, but I could tell they’d all turned away, or stared at their feet. The crowd clapped and a body moved past me to the stage. Moments later the music began, and I swear it held some sort of healing balm to the backstage crowd. Tension faded, and anxiety let go of her prisoners. As long as there was music I had a shot.
“Cops already talked to us.” I recognized the voice as the girl who had shoved me in the first place. “You another detective?”
“Private investigator. I have my own questions, if you’re willing.”
“It’s a free country,” someone said from beyond the shadows, “but no promise that we’ll answer.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Do you know anyone that had a grudge against her?”
A few snickers rippled through the crowd, but I was patient. Someone would explain it.
“She wasn’t good at making friends,” a voice said to my right, masculine, but feminine as well. “No one liked her.”
“We should all be suspects.”
I heard the voice, but couldn’t place the exact location.
“How so?” I hoped she’d say a little more.
“She wasn’t that good, but she landed the deal we all want. At the very least we’re jealous.” Once more it was the original voice. “But we all know she didn’t land that deal on talent.”
That pricked my interest. “What do you mean?”
“She’s a tease,” a man said from near the stage.
“Was a tease,” another guy corrected.
“The way she came on to Mack was shameful,” the original voice said. “She threw herself at him. It’s no wonder he was willing to make a deal.”
“Pound of flesh for a record deal,” the man’s voice spoke again. “Like any one of you wouldn’t do the same...”
That brought on some shoving, but one shove meant many, and stumbling, and falling into each other like a chain reaction of dominos set to tumble.
“But wait,” I said before it could get out of hand, “you said she was a tease? So it was all an act with Mack? She wasn’t interested?”
“She had a boyfriend,” the male voice said. “She always talked about him and how it was a secret.”
“One boyfriend?” the original voice asked. “Try a few. She wasn’t the type to stick to the menu. She was more of a buffet type girl.”
“Come on, Wren,” a voice to my right said, “she’s dead. Can’t you leave it alone?”
Apparently not, because Wren kept talking. “Last I heard she had a couple record deals on the table. That’s why Mack offed her. He didn’t like her shopping around, not in business.” A sneer fouled up her voice. “Not in anything.”
I left the innuendo alone and pushed deeper. “Where else did she sing? Anything the cops might not have known about?”
The guy near the stage spoke first. “She played that diner with all the art, and she played here, some private gigs, and even that place downtown once or twice. I can’t remember the name, though.”
“Club Feugo,” Wren offered, though I doubted it was because of her good nature. It wasn’t often that I met someone even less socially adept than I was.
“Anyone else play there?” I waited for more information. The club had been completely absent from the reports, which meant I had something Ranger hadn’t found yet. I’d deal with the guilt of not telling him later.
Not a hand went up. Not a single voice admitted to it.
“No one?” Trying a different angle I asked, “Are you all too chicken to admit it or—”
“It’s dangerous,” Wren’s companion interrupted me. “Bad side of town. We all figured if she died it would have happened there. It was a shock when Mack killed her.” The volume of her voice dropped to a whisper. “Even though she probably deserved it.”
A room full of suspects, people who seemed to genuinely hate Honey B, and I couldn’t see any of their faces. Still, I wasn’t leaving shorthanded.
“Last question.” I took a deep breath because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. “Do you think Mack did it?”
Every head nodded.
Beyond a doubt they all believed Amos had killed Honey B.
♦ ♦ ♦
By the time I got home Amos was asleep, or at least faking it because he didn’t want to talk to me. Fine by me, exhaustion would have made me a bad conversationalist. No one seemed to want to tell me what had really happened.
Closing my door, I pulled out my phone and clicked on the PI Net icon. The glow burned my eyes in the dark of my room, but I squinted and opened the chat window.
Nothing.
He wasn’t there.
Why would he be?
I kicked myself because it was near midnight and he was healing from a stab wound I might as well have caused. I closed the app and tossed my phone into the folds of my blankets. My clothes peeled from me like they’d been fused to my skin. Too long of a day, too short on patience.
The case made me itchy all over. Not like a bug bite, but more like the unrest that won’t let a person stop and let it go. It was right in front of me. I could feel it. Whatever piece I wanted was literally under my nose, and I couldn’t see it for what it really was.
I opened my window a crack because everything felt too confined. The bed groaned as I sat on the edge, but my muscles twitched like they needed to run. I let my leg bounce from the ball of my foot to shake out the agitation, but to no avail.
Giving in to the exhaustion of my brain, I stretched out over the blankets. The cool air kissed my skin. My body felt exhausted, yet hyped all at once as if I might burst from within my skin, a new person, stronger, better, a butterfly me who didn’t have to wait for him because I‘d given up on love. But no, I kept vibrating beneath my skin because love won’t let go, not even when it might break everything it touched.
Slowly, even while twitching and jerking, I drifted off to sleep, lost in a world of lies and what ifs.
♦ ♦ ♦
The antiseptic burned my nose. Bleached linens bled into the air. The beeps were familiar. I’d spent far too long in hospitals since my diagnosis. That beep had always been the first reminder that once more my heart was beating against the odds, but this time it wasn’t my heart.
It was his.
His skin was only a couple shades darker than his white sheets. That was wrong. He’d always been darker than me, closer to his mother’s more naturally tanned skin. Something had to be wrong. He was supposed to be healing. Why would he be pale?
I expected arms to keep me from the room. After all, I was the problem, I was the key to unlocking his memory, but no one stopped me. I took his hand in mine.
His eyes opened.
Deep, dark and mine.
Always mine.
“You came,” he whispered, voice hoarse with sleep and pain. “You finally came.”
“Nothing could keep me away.” And
it was true. That must have been what made me drive all night to be at his side. Forget the case. Forget Amos. Nothing mattered beyond this hospital room. My world was in this room.
“I missed you, Huckleberry.”
“I’ve ached for you,” I whispered because the tears were choking out my volume. “It hurts me to be away from you.”
“What about the case?” he asked. “What about Amos?”
“I don’t care.” I let my forehead rest against his. “I need to be here with you. I’m no good to him anyway.”
His lips found mine. I kissed him, willing him to find his strength with me, heal because we had a life ahead of us. I didn’t know what it all held, but I knew it had to be together.
“I love you,” I whispered between his kisses, between his thumb brushing over my cheek and the tears that rolled to the end of my nose and onto his skin. “I love you, Ryder.”
His grip tightened, the need to be close to me was strong. I shifted my weight to lean into his kiss. Something clanked free of my top, cold, metallic, but familiar. Ryder pulled back, and we found it at the same time. The sparrow medallion, the one I’d worn inside the compound. The one that had signaled the cavalry to ride in, the one that had started the final war.
His body shrank back, sank into the pillows as if they were devouring him.
“Ryder, no, hang on to me,” I urged him, but the more I clung to him, the deeper he sank. The screams started. Deep, torturous, worse than any animal I’d ever heard. His limbs went rigid, tight and stiff as if dead, but his head shook back and forth, whipping wildly as if he could fling the demons free of his mind with the inertia of his movement.
Nurses tore me from his body, screaming, but I couldn’t hear myself over his cries of anguish. I fought to get back to him, but the women swarmed around him, lashing, belting, until he was fully restrained, arms locked tight, but body racking the bed as if he could break it at any moment. Veins bulged from his neck, blue against the bright red of his skin. His eyes turned black, not mine, not anything like the eyes I found refuge in. And yet he stared at me, hating me, ferociously whispering curses on me and everything I’d put him through.
Rough hands took my shoulders and shook me.
Uncle Shane.
His face was stricken, horrified at what he’d witnessed.
“Why, Lindy? Why did you risk this?”
I snapped awake.
My hands clutched a pillow so tight I’d torn holes along the seams. Immediately I dropped it, as if it held the remnants of the nightmare itself. My palms flattened against my face. It was as if I’d gone running. My face, my clothes, everything was dappled with sweat. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The air seared my throat as it seeped out. I’d screamed myself raw.
The nightmare stuck to me like mud. His black eyes called from my memory. What had I done by contacting him? What had I started?
No more. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t reach out to him. If I loved him, I’d have to let him go.
But that was like promising to never take a breath again.
Chapter 10
I woke up late, but tried to run anyway. My lack of sleep after the nightmare took a toll on my legs. I made it to the end of the road before I gave up and started back. Some days I just lost.
“Giving up early?” a voice called from beyond the fence line as I approached my path.
Mr. Stone, the next-door neighbor who always seemed to be around.
“Legs aren’t interested,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“I certainly have days like those,” he said. His tone changed slightly, more upbeat, even hopeful. “Why don’t you come in a minute?” I’m sure he sensed my suspicion because he added, “I’ve got muffins.”
Thoughts of Hansel and Gretel and candy temptations passed through my mind. I admit I’m naturally suspicious of everyone. My motto might as well be, “Assumed guilty until proven innocent, or until I can figure out what you did.” But my stomach won out with the promise of muffins.
His house smelled weird, but over the years I’d found that most old people’s houses have a distinct smell to them. Mr. Stone’s was a combination of sandalwood, maybe seaweed, and something near a citrus. If the smell wasn’t enough to overwhelm me, his walls would have succeeded. Every square inch was covered with something.
At first glance it was all junk, but it didn’t take long to see that they were curios he’d collected from all over the world. A spoon from Holland, a neon snow globe from Amsterdam, shells in a jar labeled ‘Barbary Coast’; every item seemed to be from a new place, possibly thousands of miles from its neighbor.
“Ginger tea?” Mr. Stone called from the distant kitchen.
“No thank you.” I looked at two hand-carved turtles. Curiosity got the best of me, and I flipped one over. ‘China’ had been etched by hand into the base. It was authentic. The kind of authentic that told me this hadn’t come from the back alleys of San Francisco’s Chinatown.
“Are you sure? It’s good for your brain.”
It was an odd thing to say to me, but I brushed it off. Likely Mom had told him everything, especially the bit about my relapse and my brain turning against me.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I picked up a rock and moved it between my hands. It wasn’t labeled, but obviously it was important. My curiosity burned until nearly intolerable.
“From Stonehenge,” Mr. Stone said as he returned. “Well, nearby. Obviously I couldn’t remove anything from the site, so I walked through the forest and found that little beauty to commemorate the trip.”
“You’ve been all over.” I sank into the armchair diagonal from where he sat on the couch.
“I love traveling.” He set the steaming mug on a coaster. From the aroma I placed the citrusy smell. Ginger with a dash of orange oil. Add three spoons of sugar and I might have considered a cup.
“There’s something about seeing the world through another person’s eyes that keeps the soul alive.”
The most cynical parts of me reared against his words, but deep down I agreed. Even from my line of work I found myself either seeing a new angle or becoming someone else completely, and it sure did a lot to keep me on my toes. Not as poetic as his answer, but true.
“How long are you visiting your parents?” Mr. Stone extended a plate of mixed muffins to me.
“Not sure.” I selected something with loads of brown sugary crumbly stuff on top. “I’m working a case, and until that’s done, I can’t go home.”
“Last I heard, your parents were hoping you’d start calling this home.”
I froze mid-bite. And people called me direct. I didn’t even know the guy and he was already working my parents’ side of things.
“Look, Mr. Stone,” I said, gathering up my shocked bits from off the floor.
“Please,” he interrupted, “call me Jack.”
My smile was fleeting, all reflex. “Fine, Jack, I don’t know what they told you.”
There was something mischievous about him, not malevolent, but impish, like a little boy ready to set a prank at any moment. It made me like him and hate him all in the same breath.
“Let’s just assume I know everything.”
That was not likely. Everything would have to include Jackie and Germany, and heaven knows my parents refused to discuss any of that.
“I’m not sure you’ve had time for everything.” I matched his knowing smile with my own. “They haven’t lived here that long.”
“Ah,” he agreed, “but your mother likes to talk, and she loves ginger tea.”
He was right about the talking part. I had to admit I wasn’t sure about the tea, but sit with Mom at a table and nod and you might find that hours have gone by before you can slide a word in of your own.
“So what is this? An ambush?”
“Hardly,” he said. “It’s muffins. You can’t ambush with muffins. They’re too squishy.”
I started to laugh, slow but building, because w
hether he meant to be or not, he was rather charming and disarming and nearly impossible to stay mad at. But something caught my eye. I’m sure to anyone else it would have been benign, just a navy blue pouch, not much bigger than the clutch Eleanor had loaned me for prom my senior year. But I had the same navy blue pouch, and I knew what went inside.
“What is this?” I nearly dropped my muffin as if it were poisoned.
“Mu-ffins,” he said slowly, as though I might be a little slow, but I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Not when he had the same pouch that held the same injection equipment I’d used for years.
“So did they buy the house because the next-door neighbor had MS?” I noted arm braces against the back wall for the first time. There were other clues. A planner like mine for tracking injections and mapping symptoms. A cane hooked over his lamp. The magnet with the advice line I’d been instructed to call if something went wrong with my injections.
“No,” Jack said, still far too happy for my taste. “I was a happy coincidence.”
“So they told you.” I glared at him. “They told you that I have MS, and maybe they thought you could convince me to move back.”
“They told me your diagnosis,” he said, “but I don’t care either way if you move back.”
“So why the muffins?” I asked, completely suspicious of his every move.
“I had no idea people had to have an ulterior motive to eat breakfast pastries.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I’d slipped to the edge of my chair, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. “Why take an interest in me? Why be so nice to me? What’s your motivation?”
“Why not be nice? Our brains are rotting right out of our heads. Do we really want to waste time being mean, Lindy?”
“Not buying it.” I rose to my feet, but still I waited.
His head tilted as if weighing my words. “It was something your mother said to me, that you’re careless. I guess it caught my concern as someone that’s been down your path.”
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