by Cory Barclay
“This couldn’t have been a random murder,” Steve added. He realized he was talking to himself, though. Annabel was still too distraught to speak, but now her tears had dried and her face had glazed over. She stared blankly ahead.
Steve tapped the steering wheel, trying to think of what to do. He was worried Annabel would want to leave now—like any sane person would. What reason did she have to stay on this murderous, messed up planet?
His thoughts came back to the Druid. What kind of secrets did she take with her to the grave? he wondered. He glanced over at Annabel, worried what he might see. He spoke softly, trying to remain calm. “Listen, Bel . . . if you want to leave now, I totally understand. I probably would too, were I able to . . .”
Annabel was shaking her head before he even finished. “No,” she said firmly, “I’m too involved in all this now. I want to find out the truth—no, I need to find out who is doing these terrible things.” She faced Steve with a hardened resolve, her pity and wallowing thrown to the wind. “I’m not leaving until we get to the bottom of this.”
Steve couldn’t help but smile. When he’d first met Annabel, she was so distant and noncommittal, if that was the right word. She was hesitant to interact with Steve and Dale. And for good reason, Steve figured—she was probably freaked out about suddenly appearing on this plane. Up was down and left was right. It must have been a confusing time.
But, slowly, she seemed to come around. Steve wondered if some of his and Dale’s personalities hadn’t rubbed off on her. She was more open and talkative and direct. She didn’t hang around in the corner of the recording room anymore . . . she wanted to take action.
Steve admired that.
“It could be dangerous,” Steve reminded her, as if that wasn’t already on the forefront of Annabel’s mind.
She confirmed his worry, saying, “I’m aware, Mister Steve.”
Steve chuckled. “Okay, then what do we do? Do you think there’s any way the succubus could have done this . . . to her own mother?”
Annabel sighed.
“I mean, did you see all the blood in there? That was brutal,” he added.
“No. I doubt it. Unless there’s a much deeper history of family strife between those two we don’t know about. But I have a feeling we won’t be able to find out now. Those secrets are likely lost to us . . .”
“Poor Scarlet,” Steve muttered. “Probably doesn’t even know yet her mother has been killed. Should we tell her?”
Annabel didn’t have an answer to that, but a question. “What I want to know is . . . did you see a body, either inside the tarot shop or being taken to the ambulance?”
Steve “hmm’d” out loud as he thought about that. He’d seen the blood, but . . . “No, I didn’t, actually. There wasn’t a body anywhere, but Detective Richmond said they had a body, and even identified it . . .”
“Detectives can say anything to appease reporters and curious people,” Annabel reminded Steve.
“Yeah, but how would he have been able to identify her without a body?”
“Good question.” Annabel leaned back in her seat. The car still hadn’t moved from its parking spot—they were scared to go anywhere without a destination. Now Annabel was tapping her fingers on the old leather upholstery of the car, too.
Then she sat up, quite abruptly. Her face lit up.
“What is it, Bel?”
“Remember how January said when a Mythic dies on Terrus, they cease to exist?”
Steve squinted, then nodded. “Yeah, she said their record of employment disappears, their life history, all that . . .”
“Right, and wouldn’t that mean their bodies, also? It would explain why Tumbleweed wasn’t in the morgue when we looked for him. It would explain why January wasn’t there, too . . .”
Steve scratched his chin, thinking of the ramifications of that theory. “So where do the bodies go, then? Back to Mythicus?”
“That’s my guess,” Annabel said.
Steve held his breath inward. When he exhaled, it was a long sigh. “What a trip. And how quickly do they disappear? I mean . . . Detective Richmond wouldn’t have been able to identify January without a body, so she must have been there at some point. Unless this thing goes way deeper than we originally thought, and the cops know about the Mythics on Earth. But I don’t even want to go there.”
Annabel shrugged. She obviously didn’t have the answers confirming or denying a hypothetical police conspiracy.
And before she could try to answer, Steve’s phone went off in its regular fashion; the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water.”
Steve checked the screen. “It’s Henry, my . . . lawyer,” he finished, fumbling for the word. He suddenly felt guilty he hadn’t been to an AA meeting in a while. He figured he’d need to hit one up soon, especially in light of all the recent traumatic events.
“Henry, what’s up?” Steve asked as he pressed the green button.
“Hey, Steve, what are you doing? Are you busy? I need you to get down to my office,” Henry said.
Steve leaned back in his seat. “What’s going on, man? You sound frantic.”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I just got done working out. But I just got a call from someone . . . from Shannon Barton.”
“So?”
“She’s headed to my office and wants to discuss something but wouldn’t talk over the phone. She’s going to be charged with Reckless and Dangerous Driving, it looks like, so we’re going to have to form a defense. And I don’t think ‘brainwashing’ is going to be a very convincing argument.”
Steve nodded along as Henry spoke. Then he said, “That’s mighty interesting, man, but what does any of that have to do with me?”
Henry said, “She’s requested you come to the meeting. Says she has something to show you.”
“Me?”
“Asked for you personally, bro. I’d get down here, ASAP.”
Steve sighed. “Ten-Four,” he said. “I’ll be there in fifteen. But I’m bringing a friend, so if you have any attorney confidentiality stuff you need to take care of, get it out of the way before we get there.”
“Wait, who are you bringing, man? That’s not—”
Steve hung up and started the Lexus.
He pulled away from the curb just as he heard the sirens of the ambulance start up, and he and Annabel watched as the emergency vehicle sped off down the road.
Most likely without a body inside it.
THEY PULLED UP TO THE parking lot of Henry’s four-story office building on Kline Street in La Jolla. It was just after 2:00 p.m. As sort of a déjà vu and bad reminder of recent events, a Wells Fargo bank was on the other end of the parking lot from Henry’s office building.
Oh, how he wished it had been a robbery at Wells Fargo in PB, and not the death of January Amos he’d witnessed.
But what’s done was done. Life goes on. He needed to be proactive from here on out.
He and Annabel walked up the rickety staircase toward Henry’s office. Like a microcosmic reflection of the rest of La Jolla, Henry’s building was very nice and lavish, but the infrastructure, like the stairs, was falling apart.
When Steve knocked on Henry’s door, the good-looking, sober attorney answered the door looking anything but sober. His eyes darted around the hallway like a tweaked out stalker. He took one look at Annabel and frowned.
Then, reluctantly, he let Steve and Annabel inside the office.
He slammed the door shut when they were inside, almost catching the hem of Annabel’s dress—she’d gathered it from Aiden’s house after the event at the morgue—in the door, so quick was he to shut it.
“Thanks for coming,” Henry said. He spread his hand out at a woman sitting on a couch across the way. “You remember Shannon Barton.”
“Of course,” Steve said, nodding to the pretty woman. “How are you holding up, Mrs. Barton?”
The blonde shrugged indifferently, but her face told a different story. Like she was troubled, wo
rried . . . had something to hide.
Steve didn’t like it.
He already didn’t trust this woman—attempted vehicular manslaughter had a tendency to cause severe trust issues.
“We’ve learned recently the wonderful detectives of San Diego are reneging on their original estimation and are going to be charging Mrs. Barton with Reckless and Dangerous Driving,” Henry began. He motioned to two chairs opposite the couch, and Steve and Annabel took their seats.
“What caused them to change their minds?” Steve asked.
“Footage from Buddy’s Diner—they have a CCTV camera with a street-wide view out front of their building, since they’re open 24/7. Catches everything, including the crash.”
Steve’s eyes went wide. “No way—they do?” It was news to him. He tucked that away in his memory bank for future use . . .
Henry nodded.
Shannon spoke up in her defense. “They refuse to acknowledge I was trying to avoid someone who ran a red light in the cross street before the crash—on Ingraham Street.”
Henry nodded. “That’s our defense. She lost control, tried to correct herself, but there wasn’t time. That’s when she went careening toward the alley. It wasn’t her fault.”
Steve frowned. “How do you know that’s what you did?”
Shannon furrowed her brow. “Excuse me?”
“You said you lost your memory, remember?”
Shannon looked embarrassed. She crossed one leg over the other and stared at the ground. “It’s strange, but when I woke up today, it’s like a fog was lifted. I’ve started remembering again . . .” she trailed off.
Steve and Annabel shared a look. They both seemed a bit curious about that. How had Shannon’s amnesia suddenly been lifted? Had she been lying about it the whole time?
They could read each other’s body language without needing to say it: there’s some connection here between Shannon Barton’s memory and January Amos’ death.
“That’s why I’ve asked you to come, Mister Remington,” Shannon said. She was fidgeting now.
“I’m listening,” Steve said, trying to coax out whatever she was reluctant to say.
Shannon looked up from the ground, to Steve. “When my memory started to return today, I found something in my phone. You’re not going to believe it—”
“Try me, Mrs. Barton.” Steve was stone-cold serious.
Shannon stammered. She gulped loudly and had to look away from Steve’s hardened face to continue. “Well . . . I found pictures in my phone. Pictures I didn’t know existed until today—because I didn’t think to look through them until now, I suppose.”
Steve had an idea where this was going. “Pictures?” he said, playing innocent.
“I thought you might have some idea what to make of all this . . . That’s why I called you. There’s two pictures . . . of my, of my—” she leaned forward, talking in a low voice as if Henry’s office was bugged. “Of my ‘targets,’ I think.”
Steve was nodding. Yes, he thought. Two pictures of the people you were meant to kill. But he wanted to be sure—to set the record straight. He said, “You have pictures of the two people you were meant to kill, you mean, in that car crash?”
Shannon leaned back and nodded furiously. “I think so.”
And those pictures are of me and Annabel, Steve thought.
Shannon took out her phone from her Gucci purse. “Here,” she said, after scrolling through it for a while, “Take a look.”
Steve took the phone and looked at the image. He knew what to expect.
But it wasn’t what he expected. He squinted his eyes, unsure if he was seeing correctly. With a baffled expression on his face, he turned the phone, so Annabel could see the picture. Then her face twisted in similar confusion.
“The next picture is just a profile picture of the same person,” Shannon said to her stunned audience. “It’s a bit out of focus.”
The first picture was a little grainy, and was taken during night . . . but the subject was clear:
Yellow bandana, tall, with an afro . . .
Tumbleweed stared back at Steve.
And as shocking as that was, there was something else that surprised Steve. The second picture was not just a profile picture of the same person. It was actually focused on someone next to Tumbleweed.
Pancho.
Steve narrowed his eyes and turned the phone to Annabel. “Who do you see here?” he asked—a seemingly random question if there ever was one.
Annabel glanced at Steve like he was crazy. She took the phone and scrolled through the two pictures. “Two pictures of the same guy, but like Mrs. Barton said, from different angles.”
Annabel and Shannon only saw Tumbleweed in the pictures. Steve saw Pancho, though, too.
So, what January Amos said is true, Steve thought. Only I can see Mythics when they haven’t been transferred to this world. Only I can see Pancho in this second picture . . .
To him, it was clear as day. Someone had taken these pictures knowing Steve would see them—or possibly even meaning for Steve to see them.
He was dumbfounded.
He and Annabel had not been Shannon Barton’s “target.”
Tumbleweed and Pancho were meant to get killed. But whoever took these pictures didn’t take into consideration Pancho hadn’t been transferred to Terrus yet, so Shannon’s car had gone right through him—like he was a ghostly apparition.
In fact, Steve thought, delving deeper, does that mean whoever took these pictures is a Myth Seeker, too? How would they have seen Pancho at all? Or known to focus on him?
He was starting to confuse himself. Maybe the person who took the picture was just trying to get different angled shots of Tumbleweed, and accidentally snapped Pancho, unknowingly. It was possible.
But, either way, this revelation was shocking.
Why try to kill Tumbleweed and Pancho? What’d those guys ever do, other than loitering?
“Mister Remington, are you all right?” Shannon asked after he’d been staring at the pictures for a good two minutes. “Your face has gone white.”
Steve tried to recover. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, this means you weren’t trying to kill me after all. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. Why would you want to kill this homeless guy?”
Shannon shrugged. “My answer is still the same to that. I don’t know. I remember bits and pieces of the crash, like driving toward your studio . . . but not specifics like that. I did it for—”
“Love,” Steve interjected. “Right.” He stood. Annabel followed his lead and stood also.
“Where are you going?” Henry asked.
“There are things we need to take care of,” Steve said, indicating himself and Annabel. He leaned forward across the table and handed the phone back to Shannon. “Thank you for showing us this, Mrs. Barton. It means a lot.”
“You’re welcome. No hard feelings?”
Steve flashed her a quick smile. Then he started walking toward the door, but before he reached it, he turned back around, a wistful expression on his face. “Oh, and I wouldn’t worry too much about the Reckless and Dangerous Driving charge.”
“Why’s that?” Henry asked.
“Because it’s gonna be pretty hard for them to prove anything without a body.”
Henry and Shannon looked at each other, both baffled.
“What the hell does that mean, Steve?” Henry called out.
But Steve and Annabel were already out the door.
Before they got halfway down the hallway, Henry came bursting out of his office and chased after them. When he got to them, Steve quietly explained what had happened at the morgue, and the missing body of Tumbleweed.
Henry was exuberant. He ran off to tell his client the good news.
“What do we do now, Mister Steve?” Annabel asked as they walked back down the rickety staircase.
But Steve was already on his phone, talking to someone.
“Hi,” he said, cordiall
y. “Can I please talk to a manager? Oh. Great. My name’s Steve Remington, and I used to own the music studio next to your diner. It’s recently come to my attention you have security cameras set up on your property, overlooking the street. Well, I was wondering if you still had footage from yesterday, around dusk. Yes, the same day my studio burned down . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Steve and Annabel were back in the car, leaving Henry’s place of business. Clouds started to roll in and shadowed La Jolla, as if eluding to some ominous prodigy. The sun struggled to fight back.
Steve wasn’t too happy and it showed on his face. He clenched his jaw as he started the Lexus.
He’d just gotten off the phone with the manager on duty at Buddy’s Diner, only to learn the security tapes from the night his studio burned down had been handed off to the police department, since arson was expected as the cause of the fire.
“Do you have copies of the footage?” Steve had asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” the manager had replied. “Our tapes overrun themselves every week—the cops are lucky they even got what they did.”
Steve didn’t like talking to the police. It came back to that old adage: nothing good can come from talking to cops. Hence Miranda Rights. Hence “You have the right to remain silent.” Hence “Anything you say will be used against you . . .”
Annabel sat quietly in the passenger seat, her mind clearly on something else.
“What is it, Bel?” Steve asked as they drove away from the office building, into the gray afternoon.
“I’m just wondering . . . if Tumbleweed and Pancho were Shannon’s ‘targets’ . . . why?”
“Hmm,” Steve said.
“What’s their connection to all this?”
Steve shrugged. He had already pulled his phone out of his pocket and was dialing a number.
“You shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive,” Annabel said. “The cops will give you a ticket.”
“I’ll just tell them I’m talking to one of their own.”
“What—”
Steve raised a finger, cutting her off. “Yeah, is this Detective Richmond? This is Steve Remington.”