PsyCop Briefs: Volume 1

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Jackie’s admonitions to make sure I take my lady out for a real sit-down dinner somewhere other than McDonald’s began to fade as I crossed my courtyard, and by the time I started up my stairwell, I was alone again—at least for the amount of time it would take me to tiptoe up three flights. When I slipped back into my kitchen, the coffee was just about done brewing. I probably didn’t need to be so stealthy, since Jacob was capable of sleeping through an air raid siren. But I’d managed to well and truly spook myself and I wasn’t about to take any chances.

  I filled my favorite mug, a cheesy workplace birthday gift that announced It’s Coffee O’Clock! in wobbly lettering. I consider it my favorite not because it dredges up any sentimental feelings—we’re always being hit up to toss in a couple bucks for some occasion or another, and no less than five other guys down at the precinct owned that same mug. I just liked the way it held an extra few mouthfuls. I tried a sip that nearly melted my nose hairs, dumped those extra few mouthfuls back into the carafe, then cracked open the fresh new half & half and attempted to dilute the napalm.

  About the last scenario I envisioned for myself was pampering a guy by bringing him breakfast in bed, complete with a cutesy tray and a bud vase holding a single flower. Or a mimosa in a fancy glass, heavy on the champagne, as Jackie suggested. But waking someone gently with a big cup of coffee? I could handle that.

  Jacob was sprawled belly-down in a perfect diagonal, with one foot wedged between the mattress and the wall, and the opposite arm shielding his head with the elbow grazing the headboard. The top sheet and comforter were wound around him like he’d purposely reeled them around his naked body in a strangling spiral, and both pillows were bunched under his face.

  He was adorable.

  I set the coffee on the corner of the nightstand and perched on the unoccupied corner of the mattress. Detective Jacob Marks, a pervy perp’s worst nightmare. I hadn’t really considered he might be having nightmares of his own. And leaving the lights on wouldn’t do much to dispel his bad dreams; his place had been lit just fine when he took a soul-devouring incubus to bed.

  I cleared my throat a few times, realized the subtlety was lost on Jacob, then gave him a gentle shake and said, “Hey.”

  He mumbled, groaned, and rolled onto his back. One pillow slid to the floor and the sheets wrapped around him even tighter. His eyes were puffy and pillow-marks creased his face where the goatee left off.

  Still adorable.

  He squinted at me. “Hey.”

  I considered telling him his hair looked nice. But that would be weird.

  He zeroed in one hundred percent on me and whatever had been haunting his dreams fell away. His shrewd, dark eyes went big and liquid as he beheld me in all my unassuming glory. We coexisted in that moment without too much awkwardness, just looking at each other. He was a puzzle to me, and he had plenty to learn about the way I operate too—such as, don’t paw through my shit and throw it out, at least not without saying something first.

  Given all he’d been through recently, I supposed I could let it slide. This time. “Brought you some coffee.”

  “Thanks.” He got an elbow under him, tore his focus away from me and considered the mug. “Maybe you should take this one. I drink it black.”

  “Try some before you make any rash decisions.”

  He took a sip. Winced. And nodded.

  “Sleep okay?” I asked. Because maybe mornings had always been an ordeal for him, even before…everything.

  He gave me a fleeting leer and said, “Can’t complain about the nightcap,” then forced down another few sips of my coffee. The man was clearly made of stronger stuff than most.

  I searched for a way to tell him that he didn’t need to live out of his car. My crappy apartment was small, but we’d make do. Since my workload had recently conspired to make space in my life, the least I could do was figure out how to make room in my closet.

  I’d never asked anyone to move in with me before. Hell, I’d never even nudged anyone toward spending the night. As far as I was concerned, once we’d both had our jollies, a guy was more than free to leave.

  No doubt this arrangement between Jacob and me was just temporary. He had a condo on the lake. If he didn’t want to live there, he could sell it in a heartbeat and find some other picture-perfect showcase to call home. But would it really be so bad to play house with him, just for a little while?

  He began extricating himself from the tangle of covers, and paused to trail his fingertip across the back of my wrist. I tamped down a shiver, not quite successfully. He conveyed all the dirty, dirty things he wanted to do to me with a single naughty grin, then took another tentative stab at the coffee.

  No, seeing more of him wouldn’t be bad. It would be the opposite of bad. That’s probably what I was so afraid of. Once I got used to having him around, how could I feel reasonably content alone?

  Both of us were scared. Him of an exploding incubus, me of venturing out of my comfort zone. I supposed I could cut him some slack. Maybe I’d seen so many ugly spectral surprises I hadn’t been terribly scarred by the thing that went splat in his bedroom, but any normal person would’ve been totally unnerved.

  “So,” I said, “what’s the verdict?”

  He forced down another sip. “I need to treat you to some better beans.”

  I half-laughed and went to pour myself a cup. In the kitchen, it was tempting to fling open the trash lid and be reminded that he’d thrown away something that belonged to me, but all the steam had gone out of my indignation. He’d seen it as a way of “treating” me. Was it his fault I had no idea what it was like to be pampered any more than I knew how to pamper someone else?

  Most people have a still, small voice that tells them when something is worth pursuing. Not me. Mine was murmuring, Better not get used to it.

  Undoubtedly that voice had saved me from plenty of disappointment over the years, yet I could also see the value in striking while the iron was hot. Not only was Jacob inexplicably taken with my creepy psychic talent, he was also currently unwilling to sleep in his own bed.

  I’d be an idiot to let that opportunity slip through my grasp.

  I sifted through my junk drawer. Twist ties and rubber bands, gummy old masking tape and half-dead batteries. I went through everything twice, was on the verge of giving up, when I located a little something that was sure to make a big impression: my spare keys. But before I could present them in a totally casual way, emphasizing it was absolutely no big deal, I tucked my new hazelnut creamer onto the highest shelf I could reach, well out of Jacob’s line of sight.

  Maybe I was reckless in ignoring that still, small voice that insisted I should probably run the other way, but I knew better than to tempt fate.

  Thaw

  I’m the last guy in the world who cares about sports, whether we’re talking about the Cubs, Sox, Bulls or Bears, or for that matter anything even remotely athletic. So I was a little surprised when Jacob suggested that we take a trip downtown to go ice skating. But nowhere near as surprised as he was when I told him I thought it was a great idea.

  What Jacob didn’t know was that I’d played pee-wee hockey the winter I was eleven. (I didn’t give a rat’s ass about hockey. I had a crush on the goalie.) And what I didn’t know was that the ice rink would look so cool after sunset. All the bare trees along Michigan Avenue had been wrapped in white Christmas lights, and the whole Chicago skyline blazed behind them. Millennium Park was insanely cold, but it was gorgeous.

  Jacob must have figured out that I could skate before we even got out on the ice. Not only is he smart that way, but I’m about as easy to read as a billboard. Even so, he still spent more time checking me out than he did enjoying the scenery. It’s weird, the way he stares. He doesn’t stop when I catch him at it. He just smiles a little.

  And what a smile it is. Jacob is drop-dead handsome, dark haired, dark-eyed, with an immaculately trimmed goatee that’s just this side of supervillain chic.

  H
e watched me lace my skates as if I were doing a strip tease for his benefit, and then gave me a hand up. He didn’t let go of my hand once I was on my feet. It almost felt like he’d pull me against him and kiss me—right there beside the bench, with people milling all around us. Straight people, I was willing to bet, at least for the most part. Families. Kids.

  I gave his hand a squeeze and he let go. “You ready to see some action?” I asked him.

  “Oh yeah.”

  I launched out onto the ice and glided into the stream of skaters. Y’know that expression they always use, “It’s like riding a bike!” It never made much sense to me, since I was a crap bike rider at any age. But skating? It came right back.

  My black wool peacoat wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, but it didn’t matter. My legs were longer now than they had been when I was eleven, and the blades bit into the ice with a satisfying crunch when I pushed. I veered easily around the tottering couple in matching yellow parkas trying to support each other. Another skater, a fit looking woman crouched low to the ground, caught my eye and smiled, glad to see someone else on the ice who was willing to turn up the speed. She looked serious, lycra leggings and all. I bet I could beat her.

  But then someone caught my elbow. I turned. Jacob was there, sexy as sin in his leather jacket and Indian patterned scarf. “Vic—want to know what I’m thinking?” he said. His scarf covered his mouth, but I could tell by his eyes that he was smiling.

  “Is there a G-rated version?”

  “No.”

  There was a long gap in the crowd in front of me, so I spun around to skate backwards and watch Jacob watching me. The white lights sparkled behind him. The night was magic. Even though car crash victims that only I could see wandered around on Michigan Avenue like Night of the Living Dead, if I tilted my head at just the right angle, I could block them out and pretend my whole world was just Jacob, Christmas lights, and the dark night sky.

  I turned back around to avoid bodychecking an innocent middle-schooler and let Jacob glide up beside me. He slipped his arm through mine and slowed me to a pace less likely to put someone’s eye out. Other couples were arm in arm, but none of them were two men. Unless you counted the kid dragging along the runny-nosed brat who looked to be his younger brother.

  I tugged my arm to see if Jacob would disengage. Nope.

  Oh well, why not? If anyone wanted to be a prick about the two of us skating together, I was sure Jacob would be happy to subdue them with a withering look. And if things turned physical, I could always skate away really fast while Jacob taught them some manners. But other than the transparent cabbie with a crushed face who stood half-in, half-out of a light pole, no one even made eye contact with me. Jacob and I skated together under the Christmas lights for a good hour until I started to shiver, and Jacob steered me off the ice. He seemed to enjoy watching me remove my skates just as much as he had staring at me as I laced up.

  It’s nowhere near as much fun to slide across the ice without skates on, especially if you aren’t doing it on purpose. On our way back to the El I hit a slippery patch, shot forward a few feet, arms flailing, then caught myself and staggered upright.

  “We can go back if you’re not done,” said Jacob.

  I ignored the remark, even though he was grinning at me, trying to goad me on. “I was way faster than you,” I said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “With better moves.”

  I waited for a zinger, but there was none. We both stopped and looked at each other. He was still staring, still grinning.

  “Wha—?”

  Jacob grabbed me before I even finished the word and dragged me into the recessed doorway of a deli that was closed for the night. He spun me around, backed me into the door handle, and covered my body with his.

  His lips tasted like winter. His face was cold, even his mouth, but his tongue was hot as he pressed it against mine. My hands in their thick gloves fumbled around his neck, pulling him against me. Jacob blotted out the rest of the world—other than the door handle, which could be ignored, at least in the short term. The whole night with him felt like something stolen out of a much simpler, much happier life. Only it was actually mine. I sighed into his kiss while he drew back reluctantly, lingering over my mouth until the unmistakable sound of people crunching through frozen slush drew near.

  “Do you know how happy you make me?” he said.

  Good thing it was too dark in that alcove to get a good look at his eyes. That would’ve been way too much. I swallowed hard, the metallic taste at the back of my throat from skating and exertion mixing with the cool flavor of Jacob’s kiss. “Same here,” I said.

  I pushed Jacob back onto the street and fell into step beside him as I did my best not to go all head-case on him, though the realization that I was actually happy had hit me pretty hard. I moved a little closer to Jacob, and slipped my awkward gloved hand into his. He gave my hand a squeeze.

  Mind Reader

  I leaned over the display case and stared down through the glass.

  “Pretty messed up,” Crash said.

  I thought for a second that he was reading my mind, but then I realized he was talking about the display. I shrugged. The mummified babies were just some brown, withered husks. I’d seen worse, lots worse.

  “What does it say about a culture, that they’re so obsessed with their dead that they go through all this preparation and ritual to preserve the body?”

  I glanced up at a small sign on the wall I’d noticed that said something about it. “They, uh, thought they’d need this stuff in the afterlife. Just being thorough, I guess.”

  A female security guard watched us with the same expression she probably wore while she was waiting for a load of laundry to dry. Crash petted the pocket of his leather jacket as if he was jonesing to have a smoke right then and there. “I take it you can’t find any Egyptian ghosts to talk to.”

  “Nope. They’re probably in Egypt, not in a museum in Hyde Park. And they probably didn’t stick around more than a few dozen years after they died. I hardly ever see ghosts that are more than a century or two old.” Then again, there weren’t many white people in the Midwest before that, and maybe all the Native Americans were smart enough not to stick around once they’d died.

  “If you can’t see mummy ghosts, then there aren’t any to be seen.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it’s true. I can’t wait to blow a hole in ScienceFiend’s theory that the whole mummification process ties the spirits to the physical realm.”

  “ScienceFiend.”

  “It’s an online nickname.”

  I knew that. It just sounded stupid when Crash said it out loud, especially because he said it like he cared about what someone thought of him even though they’d never actually met in person. “You never know,” I told him. “Mummification might keep a spirit around a lot longer than normal. Say a ghost was going to stick around for ten years, and instead it stayed here for fifty.” I shrugged. “You’d need some newer mummies to test that out.”

  “They mummified a guy in Baltimore in 1994.”

  They? Who were They? I thought it was better not to know. “Too recent. Plenty of ghosts have bodies that died in ’94. You’d need some mummies from the sixteen, seventeen hundreds.”

  We turned a corner and found ourselves in the gift shop. Mummy keychains. Gummy mummies. No ghosts.

  “And this concludes our tour,” said Crash. “Unless you see any spirit activity in here….”

  I thought I felt a cold spot, but when I looked up I saw an air conditioning vent set into the ceiling. “Nope. What if I just make something up? Will you be happy then? There’s a Sherpa in the corner chewing on some ectoplasmic yak fat.”

  “No use lying to an empath, even a lowly level-one like me.” He took another look around the gift shop. “What about that doorway? We haven’t been in there.”

  “That doorway” led to one of those museum displays that looked like they’d been con
ceived by the cheapest guy on the board of directors, then executed by the apprentice display makers on a day they were all hungover. It consisted of a narrow passage with some signs in it that were covered in tiny little type, and a few faded photos.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said.

  Crash narrowed his eyes. I looked again. Maybe I really had missed something. He was the empath, right? Maybe he had a feeling about that room.

  I stepped into the cramped space. It felt close and overly quiet, a windowless corridor in the center of a building.

  “No. I don’t hear anything eith—”

  Crash shoved my back against the display wall and planted his hands on either side of my head.

  He’d say something nasty, I was sure. It was always push and pull with him. He’d begged me to drive him to the Oriental Institute and look at mummies, and yet he’d followed that up with some remark at me about being too narrow-minded to do it. He’d cranked my passenger seat all the way back and sprawled in it with his leather jacket hanging open and his hips tilted up in such a way that it looked like he’d shoved a pair of socks down the front of his jeans to get my attention, and yet he’d scowled at me every time I looked in his general direction. And now, here we were in the most awkward position I’d been in since I could remember, and it was only a matter of time before….

  He kissed me.

  I stood there. I don’t think I kissed him back. I was too floored to move.

  His mouth didn’t feel like Jacob’s. His face was clean shaven. His lips were warm and slightly wet, as if he’d just licked them. And he hadn’t come at me as hard as I thought he might, as if he’d changed his mind at the last second, decided that maybe this kiss wasn’t such a hot idea after all, but the momentum had built up behind it so long that there was no way he could put the brakes on even if he’d wanted to. Or maybe he was just more gentle than I figured he’d be.

  Neither of us had closed our eyes. His were open wide, and they looked as surprised as I felt. Maybe he had herded me into that room with the intention of putting the moves on me, but if so, I don’t think he’d planned it out all that carefully. I searched for something to say, but the look he was giving me had me pinned to the wall, helpless to do anything but stare right back.