PsyCop Briefs: Volume 1

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Maybe the type of trust you hear about in schmaltzy songs doesn’t even exist, not in the real world. Jacob sat back and looked up at me, and even now, after all this time together, I was a total sucker for those smoldering dark eyes, that pleading look. The chink in the armor. The notion that I wasn’t the only one venturing into some scary trust territory.

  I trailed my fingers down his cheek and considered my options. If we tried to slot ourselves into that bottom bunk together, I’d brain myself on the top bunk for sure, so I dragged the mattress off and threw it on the floor. It was more of a cushion than a mattress, just a thin, waterproof pad. A couple of daddy longlegs staggered away from the commotion like a pair of drunks at closing time, and Jacob brushed them toward the door, grabbed the top mattress, and added it to the pile.

  “Not exactly a five-star hotel,” I said.

  Like Jacob could care less. His eyes were dark with need, and the word INVESTIGATOR on his thigh was distorted by the prominent tenting going on up front. He settled back and dragged me down on top of him. Our breath was coming fast as we jockeyed for position in the narrow space. I knelt between his legs and pulled down the sweats, and his meaty cock thwacked his stomach, ruddy and thick. I found it with my mouth while he clutched my head, and despite our desperate scrambling, we managed to fit ourselves into place without anyone losing an eye.

  I jammed down hard. The hugeness filled my mouth, my throat, my whole awareness. Fake witnesses, silly playing cards, even mandatory Auracel, all of those concerns shrank down to pinpoints of light I could ignore if I simply unfocused my attention. The only thing that mattered was the massive cock plunging in and out, in and out, and the taut, muscled body arching up into me, trembling with the need to shoot.

  I slipped a hand under his sweatshirt, reached up and raked my fingers through his chest hair, toying with one nipple, and then the other. Beneath me, Jacob squirmed and moaned, and nudged my hand down to stroke his balls while I blew him. As I wrangled the sweatpants out of my way, I found my hand caught up in the wrong side of the pocket. That was when I noticed a telltale hardness a heck of a lot smaller than the one pummeling my throat. More significant, too. Because if I know anything, it’s pharmaceuticals. And that little bulge I felt through the pocket’s fabric was the exact shape and size of a Neurozamine tablet.

  It was easy enough to put my body through its paces. When to suck, when to ease off. Where to tug and exactly how hard. What sorts of throaty sounds of encouragement would hasten the big finale. I could do these things with one hand tied behind my back—or with most of my conscious thought occupied with wondering what Jacob had hoped to accomplish by ditching his meds.

  I had no doubt he’d tried Neurozamine before. Heck, Auracel too, for that matter, though we’d never specifically discussed it. I didn’t know how much antipsyactives disagreed with him, and whether or not he could even tell that his shielding capabilities were compromised. Maybe he had serious concerns about traipsing through unfamiliar territory at a disadvantage—or maybe he just wanted to make sure he collected more cards than anyone else. Either way, he hadn’t seen fit to let me in on his reasons. And so, as he shot down my throat and I quelled my lazy gag reflex and allowed myself to swallow, I decided that two could play at that game. I’d keep my discovery to myself.

  My tactical advantage was shortlived. I still had his dick in my mouth when a knock at the door sent us both flying. I leapt to my feet and yanked my pants up in a single fluid move, and Jacob followed suit—but as he did, a certain little pill launched out of his pocket and landed on the plastic matt between us. “Who is it?” I called out.

  “It’s Jack.” Apparently Bly thought we were on a first name basis. “You busy?”

  “Nope,” Jacob called very, very casually. He picked up the pill, gave me an inscrutable look, and stuck it back in his pocket. “Just a sec.”

  While he tossed the mattresses back onto the bunk bed, I patted down my sweatshirt and wondered exactly how obvious it was that I’d just been sucking cock. I stuck my head into the closet-sized bathroom and mashed down the hair that, mere moments before, Jacob had been ruthlessly pulling. My lips looked swollen and ruddy. Not collagen-injection swollen, but noticeable enough if you were checking for that sort of thing.

  But why would he?

  Unless being on Neurozamine made Bly especially observant, and he was trying to fill the void where he usually picked up the feelings everyone around him thought they must be hiding.

  Bly came in and sat on one of the plastic chairs. His pale gray contacts were out and it was disconcerting, seeing his old eyes in his new face. Between that and the sweatsuit, he looked less like an actor playing a g-man in a low budget thriller and more like a regular guy. “I found an old map of the campsite in my cabin, tucked into one of the jigsaw puzzles. I think if we team up, we can crack this thing.”

  “Why?” I didn’t see the point of going all overachiever if no actual crime had been committed. “Is someone keeping score?”

  Bly said, “Someone is always keeping score.”

  “We can pool our cards so one of us finishes first.” Jacob suggested.

  “Right,” Bly said. “But they’ll probably hold back the key piece of information until tomorrow. That way, nobody finishes the exercise too early. So we’ll need a rendezvous point. And a plan.”

  “We’ll meet up after the last lecture and piece together the narrative as a team,” Jacob said. “Whoever has the most cards gets the win.”

  “Agreed.” Bly stood and stretched, and his gaze fell on the top bunk mattress—which was pointedly askew. I can mask my thoughts well enough in front of a telepath with jingles and nursery rhymes and obnoxious catch phrases from TV shows I don’t even watch. But masking your emotions in front of an empath is another thing entirely—and I was suddenly convinced he knew we weren’t exactly playing Yahtzee when he stopped by.

  But if he really was privy to my embarrassment, he didn’t show it. He tipped the mattress into alignment with an absent shove on his way to the door. “I’m gonna turn in early. We’ll touch base tomorrow.”

  We waited until his footfalls receded, then Jacob pressed his mouth to my ear and said in a voice so low I could barely hear it, “Did he actually take that pill?”

  He must have, because I was embarrassed enough to make a porn star blush and it hadn’t registered with him. Though for all I knew, that only proved Bly was really good at hiding his reactions.

  4

  We started our day with another brisk trek into the woods. While I was burning to know why Jacob was cheeking his pills, we both knew better than to discuss it inside the cabin, which was probably bugged. But the good part about the compound was that there were lots of places electronics couldn’t live. Not for long, not with exposure to the weather. If we broke our own trail through the thin, brittle snow crust, we could find pockets of space where no one had been since the last snowfall, or maybe even all winter. My ankles were none too pleased with me for veering off the beaten path, but I was willing to endure clammy socks for the sake of privacy.

  And so we struck out early to have a little chat. Even running my lines to put myself to sleep in that lonely top bunk, I still hadn’t come up with anything very bright. “What the heck?” I whispered.

  “You seriously thought I’d walk into an unknown situation with my single advantage blocked?”

  “First of all, stop fishing for compliments, you’ve got every advantage and you know it. And second, it’s not an unknown situation, it’s a training exercise. Laura said.”

  Jacob’s response was a single raised eyebrow. Trust between the two of them didn’t run deep. Once he’d discovered Laura’s sidearm was Roger Burke’s murder weapon, any chance of the two of them being chummy evaporated, even if it wasn’t really Laura who’d pulled the trigger, not exactly. Even when she was herself, Jacob couldn’t trust her. Funny thing was, given that I fully believed her when she said she wouldn’t send me into a haunted situation on
Auracel, apparently I did. Huh.

  “Maybe we should stick together so I can keep an eye on you,” Jacob said. “If you’re on Auracel….”

  “Then a ghost is gonna leap out of the trees and hop on for a ride? That makes zero sense. It was psyactives that made me boundary-challenged. Not Auracel.” If anything, I was safer from getting hijacked while my talent was dampened. But then I caught that predatory gleam in Jacob’s eye, and realized his logic was working just fine. He didn’t seriously think I was vulnerable to possession—he wanted my cards. “Nice try. See you at breakfast.” I turned toward my designated witness-gathering territory and tromped away.

  I fully intended to find my spot, stay there and bide my time, but let’s face it, without landmarks or street signs, trees and snow look as similar to one another as the hallways of the FPMP headquarters. I followed a trail comprised of all kinds of boot tracks, some ATV tires, paw prints, and the occasional yellow dribble dimpling the snow. When I looked up, I found I’d somehow circled the woods and popped out on a snowmobile trail. And there, hunched on an ice-covered bench, was a familiar WITNESS. She cringed a little at the sight of me emerging from a side trail, then recognized me and allowed her shoulders to relax, and said, “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I joined her, figuring my butt probably wouldn’t conduct enough heat to melt the ice if I kept my visit brief. “You’re here early.”

  “Whatever.” She shrugged. “I need all the money I can get. Dropped my phone last week and the screen totally shattered.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t particularly kind to cell phones myself.

  “You got a name?” she asked.

  “Vic.”

  “Not Officer So-and-So or Captain Whatever?”

  I hadn’t quite imprinted on Agent Bayne. Not after all the years I’d spent as a homicide detective. “Just Vic. What about you?”

  “Allison.”

  “Allison,” I repeated. Sometimes it helps me remember, sometimes not.

  “I used to get hand-me-down phones from my sister. She’d save up her paychecks and upgrade the second the new model came out. She even camped out in line for the last one.”

  We sat together in silence and watched our breathing stream in and out, pale in the early morning light, and I said, “Cell phone cases are supposed to withstand all kinds of damage. Apparently not falling off the roof of your car, then being run over by a garbage…truck.” I turned my head to find her holding out a card marked weapon that showed a drawing of a hunting knife. “It’s okay, you don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

  “Yeah, right. You just hit the three rapport-building skills we’re supposed to look for this morning—give me your first name, let me go off on a tangent, and take a personal interest.”

  Weird. Now if only I could score cards for playing solitaire on my phone or picking paint off a windowsill, I’d be in business. I tucked the card away and shifted down a few inches to stave off the inevitable wet butt.

  “Aren’t you gonna run off and find another witness?” Allison asked.

  “Nah. I’ll let my partners have ’em.” They were the ones with something to prove, after all. Not me.

  In a few more minutes, I had to report and take my pill, anyhow. What did it say about me, that I went along with the program while Jacob skirted the rules—that I was going soft? Or that he’d never been as much of a Boy Scout as I’d always presumed?

  The thing that bothered me the most was the idea of being played for a sucker. But if I was on to the fact that taking meds on command was a sucker thing to do and I played along because I was biding my time for the sake of building up a veneer of trust, that was actually clever.

  Right?

  Maybe. Or maybe it was just easier to go with the flow. When pill time came, I watched Jacob and Bly around the rim of my coffee cup. They both appeared to be swallowing their meds, although if anyone thought to shine a pen light in Jacob’s mouth, he’d be busted. But no one did. He hid the Neurozamine all the way to the dining hall, until he could wipe his nose on a paper napkin, palm the pill, and jam it in his pocket. Given that Bly went right for the coffee, I’m guessing he’d swallowed.

  So had I—but not because I’m a sucker. If I carried an Auracel this far, I’d be tasting it for the rest of the day, and I was in no mood for pill-mouth. That’s all. I would’ve told Jacob as much, given half a chance. But breakfast went right into lecture, and lecture led to another wild goose chase as INVESTIGATORS dashed off in search of more trading cards, and I regretted the fact that tromping through the snow would pretty much kill the single Auracel’s floaty kick.

  Outside, there were a couple of people in WITNESS sweats chatting by the side of the building, but I could see by the way the male was leaning against the siding like a cool guy and the female was batting her eyelashes that any intrusion on my part would be less than welcome. Besides, making an actual effort to obtain cards would imply that I cared about this fake crime scene. Which I didn’t. I liked to reserve real concern for real problems in the real world. Heck knows there’s enough of them to worry about.

  I circled the building aimlessly a few times, then decided to go see if there was still any coffee to be had. Allison must’ve had the same idea. I found her trying to tip the last bit of coffee out of the urn while pressing the spigot and holding her cup underneath. Without an extra pair of hands, she wasn’t having much luck. I held the urn at an angle while she coaxed out enough for us each to have most of a cup. She handed mine to me and said, “Someone told me they don’t clear down right away, so I figured….” She pocketed a bagel. I decided it wasn’t such a bad idea and did the same. It must’ve put her at ease when I helped myself, because once I did that, not only did she stash away three more, but she grabbed a big bran muffin to wolf down on the spot.

  Voracious appetite? Maybe she had a metabolism more like mine than Bly’s, and she could carbo-load all she wanted. But given the deteriorated state of her sneakers, my guess was that she needed to save food for later. Sad, but you can’t go around giving people money. They tend to take offense. Same for advice. All you can do is not judge, and I like to think I’m okay at that.

  I took a cranberry muffin so she didn’t have to eat alone, and said, “Take your time. If anyone bothers us, I’ll say it’s part of the interview.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she relaxed. “My mom used to make us breakfast. Not anymore.”

  Social skills aren’t in my repertoire, but even I could see there was a big story behind that statement. Whether she actually wanted go through with telling me about it was another matter entirely. And so I pretended I was really interested in picking out walnuts and let Allison speak, or not, as she saw fit.

  I picked. She ate. We both drained our coffees. And as I started searching for a good exit line so I could disengage and leave the poor kid alone, she said, “Two years ago, Sarah—my sister—left. Up and left. Not a word to anyone. Just…gone.”

  My stomach sank. “You’re sure she…?”

  “I don’t know. Not really. But the sheriff checked out her boyfriend and he was just as upset as anyone else, plus he was at work the whole time. So that’s their best guess, that she moved away. Dad was so upset he started sleeping all the time, like fifteen hours a day. Lost his job. Mom says it’s just a matter of time before we lose the house.”

  Maybe Sarah really had moved away, for love or drugs or a dozen other reasons. Or maybe her raped and beaten body was rotting in a shallow grave. Whichever it was, I doubted either answer would bring her family much peace.

  Even so, knowing is better than not knowing. Wasn’t that the big reason my latest Auracel prescription was just sitting there in our medicine cabinet untouched?

  To swallow or not to swallow when my next dose of Auracel came…my apprehension was beginning to overtake my urge to lay low. But with the missing girl, all the baggage attached to being a good little soldier and following orders felt like a much bigger burden.

  Lunchtime rolled aro
und. Whatever Bly told management must’ve made some kind of difference. Salads and fruit had appeared alongside the sandwiches and cookies, though he still stared longingly at my chocolate chip. I don’t see what harm a single cookie would’ve done him. Unless…I shifted my vision to see if anything noncorporeal was behind that sugar craving. Nothing I could see. Not on Auracel. Though it was interesting the antipsyactive didn’t dampen my impulse to try.

  Jacob was in hyperfocus mode, scoping out the room. He and Bly spoke in low, overly casual tones about who among the other trainees had the most cards, and where they’d been scoring them. I tuned out, thinking. Neither of them noticed.

  I probably couldn’t get the driver to swing by Allison’s house on our way back to Chicago, not without making a big fuss over something that might turn out to be a bust. Besides, I wasn’t even sure Sarah had still been living at home back when she went missing. Plus, if there was a spirit, if she even was dead, it was probably lingering wherever she’d been planted. Or wherever some sick bastard had grabbed her. Or where he’d taken her and…I pressed my knuckles into my eyes and tried to erase the disturbing mental images I’d conjured, though I didn’t have much luck.

  Midway through lunch, I abandoned my turkey on rye to go to the can. Ostensibly. But somehow I found myself lurking around a window that faced the parking lot where the sweatsuited WITNESSES were getting orders. A deck of cards was being passed around, phony clues tucked away in fleece pockets, and the herd was divvied up and deployed. Allison went in the direction she’d been pointed until she hit the tree line. Then she picked out a small, overgrown path and slipped away. When I received my official lunch dismissal, I followed.

  I found Allison maybe a hundred yards down the trail, perched on a tree stump. She tried, and failed, to light a cigarette. I ambled over, opened up my coat, and provided additional windbreak for which she was profoundly grateful. She handed over the latest card she’d been given without even bothering to do a fake interview. This one had a frowny face drawing and the word depression. I tucked it away with the other two. “Sarah taught me to ski up here.” Oh. So that’s what the flat lines on the trail were. “She was sixteen and I was twelve. You can walk here from our house if you’re willing to cut through some brambles. We felt so grown up the first time Mom let us come here by ourselves.”