Third Time's the Charm

by K. J. Emrick

  “’Course…we do.” He gulps, and now I can see his face is turning purplish red from Harry’s thick legs constricting the blood flow. Or maybe from lack of air. “Can I…get up…please?”

  Harry looks at me with an eyebrow arched. I think about it, and then shrug. “Well, he did say please.”

  Pushing his finger down hard on de Blanco’s forehead to remind him who is in control here, Harry slides himself back and then off. Getting to his feet he comes to stand with me, his arms crossed and the sleeves of his jacket tight around his biceps. He’s not even flexing.

  De Blanco sucks in several long breaths until his naturally tanned color returns to his cheeks. He rolls to his side, and then up to a sitting position, but one glance from Harry keeps him from going any further.

  His eyes move over to where his gun is laying but my future-sense tells me he’s going to sit right where he is. Good boy.

  I cross my arms over my chest the same way Harry is, but I doubt I look half as intimidating. “All right. You were saying your little gang didn’t steal Dachiana’s necklace. Convince me.”

  With a cough, and a sneer, he waves his hand dismissively. “Because we ain’t stupid. We’ll get rid of those rich, entitled cabrones our own way. We’ll drive them out. Only a matter of time.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I tell him, because I know what the Dachianas turn into in full moonlight. “But answer me this. Wouldn’t stealing from them be the perfect way to drive them out? Take stuff they value, threaten to sell it if they don’t leave. Or, promise to give it back if they pack up and go?”

  Turning his head, he works up a gob of saliva and then spits it on the ground next to my feet. “Don’t even know what necklace you’re talking about.”

  “All you had to do was follow them for a while and you would have seen it. And your gang has been following all of the family, haven’t they?”

  He doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t have to. We both know it’s true. So they did know about the necklace. They would have seen it around Kurt’s neck. They would have followed it right to Molly’s apartment and then just waited for their chance to steal it.

  “Still want to tell me you don’t have it?”

  “Chica,” he says, “I’m a lot of things. I’m a drug dealer, I’m a gang banger, I’m a helluva fantastic lover, and I’m a real bad dude. But when I swear I’m telling the truth, you can take that to the bank. I swear, we ain’t going to waste our time stealing little pieces of jewelry from those rich folks. We’re going to get rid of them. Our way.”

  An honest gangster. That’s one I would never have seen coming. Not even with a three second warning.

  “My lady?” Harry asks me. “What do you make of it?”

  Yeah. That’s a real good question. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  “Still don’t believe me?” de Blanco asks with a sneer. For a guy who just got sat on by a seven-foot-tall genie, he’s getting awfully cocky again. “Then let me ask you a question, chica. If we took this necklace like you think, all to get these gilipollas out of our turf, then where’s the ransom note, eh? If we went to all that trouble why wouldn’t we follow through? Eh? Tell me that. You think we got time to dick around just kicking back with some freaking necklace?”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but that was actually a very good point. Nobody had contacted the Dachiana family to claim responsibility for the theft. I knew from Parker that nobody could pawn the Garoul Necklace. Not easily, anyway. Either way it would only work if the thief got a message to them to say what they wanted. The Northside Demons didn’t strike me as the patient sort of people. More like the act now, worry about consequences later type of people. They would have been all over using that necklace as leverage the minute it was in their hands.

  And the other thing my mind had started to wonder about was this. The Garoul Necklace was a nice piece of jewelry to look at, but it certainly didn’t look expensive. Not when the Dachianas were wearing things like that chain of diamonds I saw around Ulva’s neck. That’s something a gang would steal to sell. But the only thing taken from them was the charm that Kurt needed to stay human.

  Yeah. Whether I liked it or not, de Blanco made some very good points.

  Looking down into his smirk, I consider kicking him the same way I did his buddy. I would get an immense amount of pleasure from seeing him with several less teeth in that stupid grin. It wouldn’t get me any closer to finding the necklace though, because I apparently hit a dead end with the Demons.

  Which meant I was going to have to go back to the Dachianas. This time, I was going to start with Molly and Kurt. You know. The sane ones in the family.

  “Let’s go, Harry.” I give another passing thought to kicking de Blanco in the face, maybe give him a black eye to remember me by, but again I take the high road. There’s just no reason to sink to his level.

  “You just going to leave me here?” de Blanco blurts out. “Dude, you popped all the wheels on my ride. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Walk,” I tell him without any sympathy. “You might need to carry your buddies, though. Or call them an ambulance.”

  I’m almost to Roxy when de Blanco is up on his feet, yelling after me. “You can’t do this to me! I am Jorge de Blanco, and I will break you in tiny pieces for this insult! You hear me? I’m gonna tell every one of my gang to look out for you and your giant friend there and there’s going to be no place that you can hide from us!”

  Harry and I stop, and turn back, and I don’t have to see my friend’s smile to know it’s there.

  I pat the tassel on my belt.

  Harry poofs out of sight with the smell of fresh flowers spreading around the spot where he had just been standing. He settles into the twisted braid of rope, making it swing and tap against the lip of my pocket.

  De Blanco’s eyes go wide enough that I can see the whites all the way around. His jaw drops. He looks all around, turning in a slow circle as if Harry might have managed to pirouette behind a tree or something without him noticing. When he turns back to me, he makes the sign of the cross over himself—forehead, navel, left shoulder, right shoulder.

  “Good luck telling all your friends to look out for someone who was never here, Jorge,” I taunt him. “What are you going to say, you were attacked by a girl and a ghost? They’ll never have a lick of respect for you ever again. Your own shadow won’t follow you after that, let alone your wimpy little street gang.”

  Harry and I leave him there, still speechless, still with a car on its four rims, his buddies on the ground, and we simply drive away. I’ve got more important things to concern myself with then wanna-be bullies.

  Chapter Eleven

  Everyone assumes when you’re a private investigator working a case—or two cases, like I am now—that you spend every single minute of your life trying to solve it. Running down clues, talking to witnesses, planning your next move, sitting on stakeouts, or whatever. The real fact of the matter is that private investigators are people too, and we need to do people things. Eat. Sleep. Wash our face. Catch up on the news of the day.

  Feed the goldfish.

  Spot is swimming circles in his bowl, waiting for me to drop in the flakes of food to him. Fish got to eat, too.

  “How was your day, Spot? Did you have any visitors? See anything interesting out the window?”

  He glubs a little bubble of air at me and then snaps at the colored food flakes floating above him on the surface of the water. Since I don’t speak fish, I don’t know what that means, but I hope he had a good time while I was away. I know a few people in the building have dogs but my life is a little too chaotic to bring a dog into it. Gone for hours at a time. No chance to take them out to play or go for walks. That’s no life for a dog.

  But it’s the perfect life for a solitary fish in his bowl, sitting on top of my dresser, with the city just outside the window.

  “Okay, Spot. That’s enough for you. I’m going to feed myself a little something now, and take
a shower, and maybe veg out to some mindless TV while my brain works on all the puzzles I’m supposed to be figuring out.”

  Another little glub is all he has to say to that.

  There really is a lot on my mind and I really am thinking about my cases while I’m here in my apartment doing all the little mundane but necessary things that take so much time out of the day. I’ve found that when you have a problem you can’t solve right away, usually it helps to take a step back and disengage, and just let your mind work at it. Sometimes action gets in the way of progress, believe it or not.

  The Northside Demons had been a waste of time. Nothing there.

  So where did that leave me? With Kurt’s own family.

  Why would someone in the family steal the Garoul Necklace from Kurt? They had to know what it would do to him. Was the werewolf throne really worth it? Kurt’s sister and brother both stood to gain by him being out of the way. Ulva directly as the next in line, and Lowell indirectly as the one in line after her. I would have thought killing him would be a whole lot easier, but I’ve never been a werewolf myself. I kind of don’t have any idea how they think. Maybe doing nasty things to each other, for them, is worse than death.

  Or maybe it was like Ulva had said, and the family blamed Molly. Maybe this was their way of getting her out. Ulva had said almost exactly that, in almost exactly those words. They wanted Molly out of the family. Framing her for the loss of the necklace would be a sure way to make that happen. They were purebloods after all, and Kurt had taken up with someone outside their species. That was bound to upset a few apple carts.

  But even that led me right back to the family members. Ulva. Lowell. My two suspects.

  The big question was…how did they get past Molly’s spells? She was obviously more powerful than she thought. Blowing that lamp up at the Dachianas was proof of that. So I had no doubt the spells she said were on that box would do exactly what she said. How could Ulva or Lowell get past them?

  How could anyone?

  Trying to figure out werewolf politics was making my head hurt. I didn’t understand American politics, and I’m supposed to unravel all this? Yeah, Sidney. Good luck with that.

  I needed lots more time to think, was what I needed. Of course, time wasn’t my friend right now because it was coming up on sunset and that put me one day closer to Chen’s deadline on his case. Of course, his was close to being solved. I knew exactly who stole his statue…I just didn’t know how to find him.

  Well. Nobody ever promised me that a career in private investigations was going to be easy.

  The throbbing in my head was getting worse the more I thought about things. Dinner could wait. What I really needed right now was a nice hot shower to ease my aching, cramped muscles, and give my mind time to recharge.

  Stepping into the short hallway outside my room I called down to where Harry was working his magic—figuratively speaking—in the kitchen. “I’m going to soak my head for a while. Can you hold dinner?”

  “As you wish, my lady. Try not to drown.”

  “I’ve been taking showers since I was a little girl. If I get into trouble I’ll scream, okay?”

  “I could come and hold the soap for you now,” he offers.

  Heh. Funny guy. “No genies in the bathroom when I’m showering, Harry.” I don’t care if he is my friend. That’s something I’m saving for the next guy who can stand to date Sidney Stone, private eye, werdane, and proud user of her unique gift…future-sense.

  Not exactly a Tinder profile I expect a lot of guys to jump at. For now, I shower alone.

  The water pressure is fantastic in my building, and I can adjust the temperature up to scalding, which is just the way I like it. I’m already stripping off my clothes and letting them fall to the floor as the steam fills the room and I am really looking forward to this. Yes. This is going to be glorious.

  I’m down to my cotton panties, and about to pull those off too, when I know there’s going to be a knock on the door.

  Sure enough, I hear knock, knock, knock, and I roll my head back on my shoulders to stare up at the ceiling. Well, that’s just great. Perfect. Wonderful. Shower’s going to have to wait, I guess.

  Harry has all his rules for being a genie, but I have a few rules for him, too. Like, no genies in my bedroom. No genies in the bathroom while I’m showering or doing other girly things. No wild parties in his rug. And, no answering the door. The last thing I need is for anyone to see me living with a gorgeous foreigner with pillow lips and deep, deep eyes. Wouldn’t that just set the rumors flying?

  Snapping the shower off, I start throwing my clothes back on. I don’t bother with the socks. Or Harry’s tassel. Or my bra, either. Just my shirt and my jeans because by God, I’m coming back here and having this shower whether the universe wants me to or not.

  I stomp my way through the living room, trying unsuccessfully to get my bare feet to make noise. Harry’s not in the kitchen. He’s disappeared into his rug like he knows he’s supposed to but—bless his heart—he’s left a plastic serving tray loaded with sandwiches on the table. My stomach growls at the smell of sliced turkey and ham on brioche bread. Like I said. The guy is magic.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “I’m coming! Hold on!”

  Whoever this is better have a great reason for being here. I could look through the peephole to find out who it is, but I’ve got a better way. My future-sense will tell me who it is, and what they’re selling, and if I even want to open the door. Although, I guess it could be Molly coming to talk to me. I was going to go see her before coming home but I felt like I needed to regroup for a while first, so I pushed it off. Molly might not have been able to wait. That’s fine. We can get all my questions out of the way and then I’ll have the rest of the night to relax.

  Reaching for the door handle I see ahead into the future and who will be there when I open the door…

  Chris. It’s Chris. What’s he doing here?

  “It’s all right, Harry,” I call out to him. “You can come out.”

  He doesn’t, but that’s all right. He’s probably in his library, deep in the rug somewhere, picking out a good book to read. I’m sure he’ll come out when he’s done. There can’t possibly be any other reason why he’d hide from Chris.

  I make sure to open the door before greeting him. “Hey, Chris. I wasn’t expecting you. Did something come up? Did you find something out about Kato?”

  His smile is smug. “Who’s your favorite detective, huh?”

  “Columbo,” I tell him, “but you run a close second.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know. Well, I found something you’re going to want to hear.” Then he looks past my shoulder, into the apartment. “I’ve got the folder downstairs in my car. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  “Why didn’t you just bring it up with you?”

  I forgot it.

  “I forgot it.”

  Even hearing it twice, it sounds a little odd to me. Chris is too organized to forget things like that. His desk is always cluttered with paperwork and casefiles and things like that but even in the clutter, there’s an organization to his chaos. He knows where every single piece of paper is. He doesn’t forget things. He doesn’t go anywhere unprepared.

  “I don’t have any socks on, Chris.”

  He looks down, seeing my naked toes, and that cocky smile is suddenly a little goofy. “Uh, okay. I mean, I’m not judging. I always wear socks when I’m at home, but whatever makes you comfy, I guess.”

  “That’s because you’re boring,” I tease him, “and I’m adventurous.”

  “Spend a day in my life and tell me how boring you think I am then.”

  “Live a day in mine. We’ll trade stories.”

  “Fair enough. Come on. Throw your sneakers on and grab your jacket. I won’t tell anyone about your socks.”

  His gaze skirts the front of my shirt, just a quick glance, but I think maybe he knows I’m not wearing the bra, either. Whatever.

 
I roll my eyes, and just for good measure I stick out my tongue at him. The shower can wait, the food can wait. I’ll run down with Chris and find out whatever he has on Samuel Kato and then come right back up here, kick my shoes off again, and grab half a ham sandwich to eat in the shower. It’s my apartment and nobody can tell me not to. Spot gets to eat in his bowl so I can eat in the water too if I want, is the way I look at it.

  There’s no need to tell Harry I’m leaving. The relationship we have with each other allows him to always know where I am. He can close his eyes and point to where I am, anywhere on the globe. He’s going to know I’m gone but he’s also going to know I’m just in the parking lot.

  Chris’s unmarked police sedan is in the spot next to Roxy. That’s actually reserved for the people in apartment 1C but they’re hardly ever here. Freelance photographers, or something like that. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen them.

  He uses his fob to unlock the doors and then reaches in for a manila envelope. “Okay,” I tell him, “what do you have for me?”

  “A shot in the dark, really. I couldn’t find anything on our Mister Kato, so I tried it another way. I put out a bulletin to be notified if any burglary cases came in that involved the perp making entry through spaces that seemed impossible by human means. Anyone getting through locked doors or tiny windows or narrow pipes. That sort of thing.” He hands me the envelope, and then tucks his thumbs into his pockets while he waits for me to open it. “You’re welcome.”

  I don’t quite understand what he’s talking about until I pull out the pages from inside and look through them. These are police reports, three of them, about unsolved burglaries to businesses in the Midtown district. In each case the thief apparently got in through skylights that could only open a few inches wide. Absolutely impossible but the forensic evidence was certain. Reading between the lines, and it was obvious the police were stumped.

  All three businesses were in a three-block radius, and all of them occurred within the last few hours. One was a clothing store, and I guess that makes sense if Kato needed a change of clothes after the police confiscated everything in his apartment. The second was a grocery store, and I guess even snake people wearing fake faces have to eat. The third place…