“Then why was I dreaming about those people? I don’t know them! You’ve never talked about them, and I’ve never seen them before. Could it be some kind of past life experience?”
“No, because I actually knew Niklas the younger back when I lived in the Hollows. And . . . you're not him."
Pulling himself back together, Logan ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head in disbelief. Then he gave me a sheepish grin.
“You’re right. I couldn't have actually been this baby Niklas,” he said, trying to convince himself more than me. “It’s not like I was adopted or anything, and I’m obviously not a faerie. That's crazy."
“Well, the Tierstands were elves, not faeries.”
“They’re both fae, right?” Logan clarified, to which I nodded.
“Yeah, but still . . . that would be totally crazy."
And yet, even as the words came out of my mouth, I couldn’t help studying his physical features a little closer. At six-foot-seven, Logan was hella tall for a human, and pretty average for an elf. He didn’t smell like a human, either. He smelled delicious at times.
Actually, he smelled delicious all the time.
And those eyes . . . He had the brightest, bluest eyes. I’d never seen such intense blue eyes in a human before, although it was common among fae—especially faeries and elves.
"But it still doesn’t make sense,” Logan said, putting his hands on his hips in frustration. “It’s like my memories of Niklas as a baby were completely real. I felt like I was right there in the crib. Why would I have memories of this particular baby? He’s more connected to you than he is to me.”
“I . . . I don't have the slightest clue," I replied. Logan still wasn’t letting it go.
“What about some kind of dream osmosis? Could I have picked up on your memories somehow and then dreamt about them?” He shook his head as soon as the words came out of his mouth. “No, that wouldn’t make sense, otherwise I’d be dreaming about your memories, not baby Niklas’s.”
"Sorry about the wait, guys!" Jillian burst into the main reception area waving a few sheets of paper. “I knew it was around here somewhere. Darn thing was buried by about a hundred other documents."
She walked over to her desk and laid down the papers, curiously eyeing my agitated partner. “You'll see Clyde's grave plot right here," she said a polite smile, tapping her nail against the paper. “Plot twenty-three. I hoped to keep the original document, so I’ve made you each a copy if that’s alright. Is two enough?”
“It’s perfect,” I said, taking the copies from her. I turned to look at my partner, who was back to watching the pigeons outside the window. “Logan? What do you say to the nice lady?”
“Huh?” he asked, looking over his shoulder before turning to face us. “We’re leaving? Oh. Well, thanks for your time.”
“Of course,” Jillian said, smiling at him before turning back to me. “Let me know if you have any other questions. I’d love to help you out any way I can.”
“You could put these back on display where they belong,” I said, pointing at the evidence bag containing the handcuffs. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing them again.”
9
Logan
I should’ve been impressed with the brisket dip on my plate—it wasn’t the easiest sandwich to get right, and this Jewish delicatessen had nailed it. I should’ve been grateful that my partner and I had a fantastic lead on our poltergeist in less than twenty-four hours. I should’ve been relived to be rid of Agent Kozlov’s heavy breathing and Agent Johnson’s constant bitching.
But all I could think about was the fact that Elena knew exactly who the people were from my crazy dream.
“I haven’t seen little Niklas since I left The Hollows,” she said with her mouth full of key lime pie. It was in season and apparently so good that she’d ordered a second slice . . . after plowing through the first one in under five minutes. She brushed a wisp of pink hair out of her face, managing to leave a glob of whipped cream in her hair. “I was just a kid, Logan. I don’t remember much about him except that he wasn’t much fun to play with. He spent most of his time with his nose in a book.”
I watched her wash down her mouthful of pie with a swig of Fanta, not bothering to hide my disgust in her favorite choice of beverage.
“What about any particular characteristics,” I suggested. It was met with a blank stare. “Just humor me, will you? Let’s say these were my biological parents . . . do elves have special powers that I would’ve noticed growing up?”
Without missing a beat, Elena shoved another forkful of pie into her mouth and started talking.
“Elves don’t need a lot of sleep,” she explained. “They can take a half-hour nap and feel like they slept all night. And if you had elven blood you’d heal super fast from any injuries. You wouldn’t have broken any bones playing football with humans. Did you ever get hurt?”
“No, actually,” I admitted. “I don’t remember doing so much as twisting an ankle.”
“Plus, you don’t smell like a human,” she said.
I set down my sandwich and scowled at her.
“What does a human smell like?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged, then swallowed the tangy lime filling. “Kinda like salami. Sometimes like a salami that’s gone bad. It just depends on your hygiene.”
“And what do I smell like?”
She stopped licking her fingers and gave me a strange look. If she was expecting me to make some crass comment about a long, hard salami or thick meat, she’d be waiting a long time. She could make all the jokes she wanted, but I wasn’t going there with a ten-foot pole. I knew all about asshole men making the workplace toxic for women, and I wasn’t one of them.
Still, we were sitting next to each other at a little four-top table. All my partner had to do was lean over and take a whiff of me, if only to put my mind at ease.
“Come on, Elena. What do I smell like?”
Her cheeks reddened a bit as she wiped her hands on her jeans. She finally grabbed the napkin as an afterthought.
“Sometimes you smell like cotton candy and creme soda. Sometimes you smell like vanilla and nutmeg. Or caramel swirl ice cream . . . or chocolate-covered cherries and toasted almonds . . . or marshmallow fluff and toffee sprinkles . . . or coffee cake . . . sometimes apple strudel . . . It’s hard to describe.”
All I could do was study the way she fidgeted with her napkin. Finally, either frustrated or flustered, she tossed it aside and scraped the last of her pie off the plate and into her mouth.
“Sounds pretty specific to me,” I said, still watching her. She just shrugged. “I don’t eat any of that stuff, so why would I smell like it?”
“Pubbly cuff oore wee wee fah.”
A faint mist of whipped cream sprayed from her lips as she spoke, landing on the other half of my sandwich. Dear lord . . . was it always going to be like this? Seeing that there was still whipped cream in her hair, I had my answer.
Yes. Yes, it was always going to be like this.
I buried my head in my hand and tempered my growl into a sigh.
“For once, could you just wait until you’re done chewing before talking to me?” I snapped. Elena swallowed her pie, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and looked me in the eye.
“I said, you’d smell that way if you’re actually fae. I’ve never met anyone else who smells like you do—at least, not since I left The Hollows, but I can honestly say you don’t smell like any other human I’ve met. I don’t know how to test you for being fae or not, other than getting bloodwork done back at the lab in Quantico. If you’re having dreams about someone who actually exists, we should find a hypnotherapist. There’s gotta be a few in town.”
I could feel my forehead wrinkling into a skeptical frown.
“You want me to see a hypnotherapist? Here? In Mariposa?”
“Why not?” She whipped out her phone and started typing furiously, smearing her dirty little fingers all o
ver the screen of her astronomically expensive smartphone. “Mariposa’s full of people with nothing but money and free time. If this place can support more than two doggie bakeries, they gotta have a hypnotherapist. Yep. Here’s one. Patrick Hernandez. He looks legit.”
Scooting closer to me, she tried to thrust her sticky phone into my hands. I refused to take it.
“You know what I really want?” I asked, ignoring the name and number on the screen.
“A piece of key lime pie?” she suggested. “‘Cause I’m thinking about getting another piece.” I looked at the whipped cream in her hair and held back a grin.
“Close. I’d like it if we could eat somewhere nice for a change.”
Elena frowned at me, narrowing her brilliant green eyes.
“What’s wrong with this place? It’s great.”
“I mean somewhere with a dress code. Somewhere that’s classy enough that you won’t use the back of your hand as a napkin.” Without thinking, I reached out with my thumb and wiped away the glob of whipped cream in her hair. The move garnered a similar reaction to whenever I scratched Lafayette’s chin.
For a good second or two, I could feel Elena’s head tilt closer to me . . . practically begging to be touched the same way. It was almost like she didn’t want me to stop.
Why had she reacted that way when all I’d done was wipe the food out of her hair? Was she really that starved for human contact, or was it something about me in particular? She did say I smelled like all of her favorite things to eat . . . which happened to be all the things I routinely denied myself. Now that I thought about it, Elena smelled a lot like those things, too. I’d always assumed it was all the sugar she ate seeping out of her pores. Either that, or she wore some kind of creme brûlée perfume. I never asked her because I thought it was borderline inappropriate. For all I knew, maybe it was because that’s how faeries smelled . . . like all those sweets I so rarely indulged in.
But what if I allowed myself to indulge in all of those sweets—all those things that I thought were so bad for me? What if I gave myself permission to taste whatever I wanted?
I thought about what would happen if sweet-smelling, sugar-lips, frosting-haired Elena and I were the only ones in the delicatessen. Would she want to be handled gently, the same way I’d touched her just now? The way I’d touched the wing spurs on her back when we first started working together? Or would she want me to throw her down on the table and dive right in?
My ex used to read tons of trashy romance novels, and left a few of them lying around. I’d read enough of them to get inside her head and understand what women liked about them. My first revelation was that they were basically just porn with a better storyline. Some of them were pretty good. My other revelation was that the more independent and outspoken the heroine was, the harder she’d get fucked by the hero.
Those were my favorite.
Elena was probably the mouthiest chick I’d ever met, so what did that say about her? I could just imagine her in a black leather catsuit and stiletto heels, crop in hand, barking orders at me while I decided whether or not to grovel at her feet.
But what I really wondered, was if she secretly dreamed of being on the receiving end of that situation, possibly blindfolded and tied up while she endured one orgasm after another.
Fuck. Just what I needed—another hard-on.
I took a long drink of my iced tea. It was the closest thing there was to a cold shower.
“When Chief Harris told us we were coming out here, I booked a table at Café Marisol. They’ve got two Michelin stars,” I said before taking another gulp of cold tea. “Our reservation’s at seven-thirty.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. But now that I think about it, I’m not so sure you could handle a place like that. I’ve never seen you get through a single meal without licking your fingers or talking with your mouth full.”
“Pshhh,” Elena scoffed. “Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Take black holes, for example.”
“Or basic table manners,” I smirked. Elena jutted out her chin and pursed her lips.
“Oh yeah? Let’s make a bet. If I forget to use my napkin or I talk with food in my mouth, I’ll buy. If not . . . then you’ll pick up the check. And just so you know,” she gloated, waving her finger in my face, “I won’t be a cheap date. You’ve seen how much I can eat.”
I couldn’t help letting out a laugh.
“I’m well aware.”
“So? Are we doing this?” she asked, scooting forward in her seat.
“Sure. Let’s meet in the hotel bar at seven. Wear something nice.”
Again, sparks of fiery faerie green filled Elena’s eyes.
“What the hell, dude? This is nice,” she scowled, gesturing to her black knit blazer thrown over a wrinkled Johnny Cash t-shirt.
“You’ve worn that shirt two days in a row.” I gave it a closer inspection, noticing a small dried glob of yesterday’s milkshake. “Two words, Rivera—dress code. Let’s see if the lead paranormal investigator can decipher what that means.”
“I’m about to dump the rest of my Fanta all over your head,” she threatened.
“No, you’re not,” I laughed. “You wouldn’t do that to Fanta. Now if it was Diet Cherry 7-Up, well, that’s another story.”
A grin spread across her face as she batted her eyelashes.
“Aww, honey, you remembered.”
Hell yeah, I remembered. I’ll never forget the day she went to get a drink from the soda machine and the only thing in stock was Diet Cherry 7-Up. She made a sound that should’ve come out of a baby pterodactyl. They kept the machine stocked after that incident.
“Speaking of remembering things, don’t forget your wallet,” I added, reaching over to wipe the last of the whipped cream out of her hair. God, she was such a beautiful, hot mess. “I think we both know that you’re going to lose.”
"Oh hell no. Turn the car around. Turn the fucking car around now.”
I pulled into the only parking spot left at the police station and turned to scowl at my melodramatic partner.
"What is wrong with you? We just got here.”
“It’s Kozlov and Johnson.”
I looked past Elena and out the window to where Agents Kozlov and Johnson were waiting for us at the station entrance. Johnson was sipping on a green smoothie and Kozlov was mauling an extra large cinnamon roll that was as big as her head.
"I just can’t with them," Elena groaned. “Johnson’s literally the worst!”
“He’s not that bad,” I said, to which Elena rolled her eyes. “Fine. He sucks donkey balls, alright? What are you going to do about it? Pretend like those two aren’t here to do a job?”
"Yep."
"Well you have fun with that.” I switched off the ignition and got out of the car. All that iced tea I’d pounded at lunch had suddenly hit my bladder and I needed the men’s room, stat.
“Rivera’s in the car. I’ll be right with you,” I said as I breezed past our auditors and made a beeline for the front doors. I took a hard right into the hall that led to Alvarez’s office and ducked into the men's room.
Pushing my way through the door, I saw a series of empty cubicles, but no urinals. I stepped into the cleanest looking stall, locked the door, unzipped my fly, and let loose.
The bathroom door squeaked open, then shut as another guy came in. I didn't think much of it until the sound of his heavy, dull footsteps continued to echo throughout the tiled room. Why wasn’t he stopping at a sink or a toilet?
Even though it couldn’t have been more than sixty seconds, it felt like I was pissing for five solid minutes. All the while, I was starting to wonder about those footsteps. There was something so slow and deliberate about them. Something that sent the hairs on the back of my neck prickling to attention. Instinctively, I looked over my shoulder and down at the space between the door and the tiled floor.
A large pair of dirty leather boots stood right
outside my door.
As if that wasn’t creepy as fuck, they were both facing me.
"Hello?" I asked, quickly finishing my business and flushing the toilet. I hurried to tuck in my shirt and zip my fly. "Who's there?"
I moved to open the door, but the boots weren't moving. I hesitated for a moment, my hand hovering above the lock.
"Who's there?" I demanded. I could just imagine some local deputy trying to prank the bigshot FBI agent. If this motherfucker was making a video, I was going to mop the floor with his face.
No reply. Just heavy breathing. I looked back down at the ratty old leather boots and saw they weren't budging. The sound of hissing water filled the room as each faucet was turned on full blast. The boots slid backwards and the pipes began to rumble inside the walls.
“If this is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s not funny!”
The rumbling got louder and louder. My eyes darted over to the toilet, where the water in the bowl was vibrating. I flung open the stall door just as a geyser shot straight up and hit the ceiling before raining back down on me. I whirled around, hand on my sidearm, searching for the prick who’d pranked me. The old leather boots were gone. All I saw was a row of sink faucets running full blast, and a row of toilet geysers power-washing the ceiling.
Fucking poltergeists.
Why did they always have to be so goddamn melodramatic?
Careful not to show any fear or other strong emotion, I turned off each of the sinks, then washed my hands and my face. Even though I wasn’t completely soaking wet, I’d been covered in a fine mist of toilet water. I wasn’t taking any chances.
One by one, each of the toilet geysers calmed down and returned to normal. After wading through the inch or so of water on the floor, I stepped back into the hall.
"Hawthorne?" asked Johnson while eyeing me up and down. “What happened?”
I took off my wet jacket and inspected my suit. My pants were wet from the knee down, but at least I didn’t look like I pissed myself.
Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2) Page 9