by Lori Drake
It was a room he knew well, the foyer of his parents’ home, the house he’d grown up in. An impulse seized him.
“Mom?”
He found her in her office, a large room lined with floor to ceiling bookcases and glass cases containing priceless antiquities from around the world. She sat in one of the room’s wing-backed armchairs, a blanket across her lap. The television tucked into a wall unit was tuned to the local news, but she wasn’t watching it. Head bowed, she sat there, looking down at her lap.
“Mom!” He exclaimed, elation filling him as he finally found someone familiar, some connection to himself in this strange place. Dismay supplanted that elation when she didn’t look up. She couldn’t hear him either. He drifted closer anyway.
Adelaide sniffed softly and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She was crying. He’d never seen his mother cry. Adelaide Grant did not cry—it simply did not happen.
Her hand lowered once more, the tissue tucked underneath with her thumb while her fingers fanned out to stroke the blanket in her lap. It wasn’t a lap blanket, draped across her thin legs for warmth. It was a child’s blanket, pale blue and patterned with tiny diapered penguins.
Memories flooded him.
He didn’t remember much about his birth parents. They had both drowned in a boating accident when he wasn’t quite two years old. Even now, he could only pick them out in photos because he had been told, over the years, who they were. But he did remember that blanket. It had come with him when he moved from Seattle to San Diego, and for years it had been his constant companion. He’d carried it everywhere, until the housekeeper had lost it in the wash. Losing it had left him inconsolable, in the way that children who are attached to such things can be.
Only, the housekeeper hadn’t lost it in the wash, had she? Adelaide had taken it from him, finally breaking his dependence on the thing. But she’d kept it, and now—nearly two decades later—she was the one crying over it. The universe had a cruel sense of irony sometimes.
“Mom, it’s okay… I’m here. I’m right here!” Chris said, dropping to his knees beside her chair. He reached for her carefully, concentrating on putting his hand as close to her arm as he could, just barely touching her skin.
She looked up when he did it, and for a moment he thought she was looking at him.
“Addie, it’s time.”
Chris recognized the familiar voice behind him, but glanced back anyway. His father stood in the doorway, expression sympathetic as he looked in on his wife.
Adelaide blew her nose, then dropped the tissue into the waste can by the chair. Rising, she folded the blanket with care, collected herself, and draped it over the arm of the chair.
“Have you heard from Samuel?” She asked, walking toward Reginald.
“Yes, everything’s in order.”
He opened his arms, and she walked into them. He rubbed her back in soothing circles. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We can handle all of this over the phone.”
“I’m not picking my son’s coffin out of a brochure.” Her voice dripped with disdain.
“Of course not,” Reginald murmured, kissing her temple. “How silly of me.”
They moved as one, out the door and out of sight.
Chris stood there staring, trying to process what he’d just seen. What he’d just heard. His mind raced as he began putting the pieces together. He looked around the room, then down at his insubstantial hands. There was only one conclusion he could draw, no matter how difficult it was to wrap his brain around it.
“Holy shit, I’m dead.”
Joey and Jon stopped on the way back to the house for ice cream therapy. Joey didn’t indulge her sweet tooth very often; ballroom dancing costumes were not very forgiving when it came to a few extra pounds. Today, she was willing to make an exception. Plus, she’d barely eaten breakfast and skipped lunch again. When she’d noticed the sign up ahead, she’d all but begged Jon to stop for a sundae.
Jon was still rubbing at a spot on his tie with a napkin when they stepped inside the house.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get hot fudge out of silk?” he complained.
“You can hardly see it,” she assured him, fighting a smile as his fastidious nature got the better of him.
“Maybe you can hardly see it. It’s right under my nose!” he protested.
“Well, maybe if you didn’t have such a big nose…” It felt good to tease him, as if it were any other day. She laid a hand on his arm, giving it a light squeeze. “Come on, there should be some club soda in the kitchen. I’ll help you find it.”
A quietly cleared throat interrupted them before they could get far. Joey paused, glancing over to find Sam standing in the archway that led into the formal dining room. He was leaning one shoulder against the wall, his arms folded across his broad chest.
“I think he can handle it,” Sam said, meeting his brother’s eyes briefly.
As if they had some silent man language, Jon hesitated only a second before nodding. “Yeah, it’s fine.” He moved off toward the kitchen, leaving Joey and Sam behind.
Joey frowned at Jon’s back as he moved off, and stuffed her hands in her pockets. Her levity quickly faded. “What’s up?”
“I’ve got something for you,” Sam said. He straightened and motioned with his head for her to join him as he turned.
Curious, Joey followed him into the dining room. He stopped at the table and pulled out a chair for her. Sitting on the table was a manilla envelope with a white label in one corner. When she drew closer, she leaned over and peered at the label. It read: Martin, Christopher. Case ID# 16-92812.
The envelope wasn’t flat; it contained more than paper.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Sam said, moving off again.
Joey stared at the envelope, her mouth suddenly dry, but she sat anyway. After a long moment, she reached for the envelope. It was sealed shut with anti-tamper tape, so Sam hadn’t already viewed its contents. Her fingers traced the edges of the envelope, hesitant to open it. Uncertainty swirled within her. She wondered if this was how Pandora felt before she opened that box.
Taking a deep breath, she broke the seal and emptied the envelope’s contents onto the table. Pocket detritus spilled out. Her breath caught in her throat. It was Chris’s personal effects.
Swallowing emotion, she made herself go through it. She had bought him that wallet for Chrismas, the previous year. Not Christmas with a T, but March 10th. That was Chris’s birthday… they’d been calling it Chrismas since they were kids.
This is getting pretty worn. I’m going to need to get him a new one. Wait. No, I won’t.
Sighing, she took everything out of his wallet. The police had no doubt gone through it, but maybe there was some sort of clue they’d missed. Chris rarely carried cash, so finding none wasn’t a surprise. It backed up the mugging theory, as far as the cops were concerned. Credit cards, bank card, driver’s license, library card—that one surprised her. She hadn’t seen him read a book since high school.
Whether she’d known about it or not, he’d had one and it was something she hadn’t known about him. She wouldn’t have thought there was anything at all she didn’t know about him, but even in death he managed to surprise her.
She continued sifting through the contents of his wallet. He was two punches away from a free coffee at their favorite coffee shop a few blocks from the studio. He had a dry cleaning ticket for something or other; she’d need to pick that up.
Her eyes caught on something in the back of one of the pockets, old and frayed. She extracted it carefully. It was a photo of the two of them from probably six years ago, in full costume and makeup, posing before the first professional competition they would go on to win. They’d done the Argentine Tango that year, and had struck a pose in hold, as if the photographer was catching them dancing. As with most events, the photographers there would entice the couples to take photos and try to sell them later. They’d laughed about it and, she’d thought, decided not
to buy anything. But it seemed that Chris had. Another thing she hadn’t known.
Pushing the other items aside, she put her head down on the table and closed her eyes, trying not to think. Trying not to cry. She’d spent so much time that day trying not to cry, but worried that if she started she wouldn’t be able to stop. So she sat there, eyes closed and head resting on the table until she realized she could hear the clock on the wall ticking. Once she had, it began to grate on her last nerve.
Opening her eyes, she sat up and started to put everything back in the envelope. She didn’t bother restoring his wallet’s contents, just shoved it all into the envelope. When she got to his keyring, she paused, frowning.
His keys were there.
Plucking them from the table, she went through the ring, ticking them off one by one. The apartment key was right where it should be.
“Sam?” she called, suspecting he was probably still lurking somewhere nearby.
“Yeah?” he called back, and she heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the adjacent room. Twisting in her chair, Joey looked toward the doorway, which her brother soon appeared in. She held up the key ring and jingled it.
“You… want to go somewhere?” he said, clearly not getting the point.
“These are Chris’s keys,” she said, spelling it out for him.
His eyes widened in sudden understanding, and he walked over to reach for them. She hesitated, but handed them over.
“Is the house key on here?”
“Yeah. Both of them.” Meaning, of course, the apartment key and the key to the family home.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said, studying the keys with a thoughtful expression.
“Is it? I mean, someone was still in our—my—apartment.”
“Yeah, but at least they don’t have the key.”
“If they’re that good at picking locks, does it really matter if they have the key?”
Sam shrugged in response and offered her the keys. “Did you find anything else of interest?”
“No,” Joey said, discreetly tucking the photo she’d found under something else. It’s not that it was relevant to the investigation, or particularly private. It just felt personal, for whatever reason. And while everything else ended up back in that envelope, she tucked the photo in her back pocket to take upstairs with her as she rose to her feet.
“Did you hear back from your police contacts yet?” she asked, lingering by the table with her hands curled over the top of the chair’s tall back.
“Yeah, but I didn’t find out anything new. We should visit the…” He looked away, as if reconsidering.
“Crime scene?” Joey guessed and he nodded. “Where is it?”
“An alley, downtown.”
“What part of downtown?”
He fished out his notepad, flipping through it until he found the right page. “Fifth and Ash.“
Joey thought about that briefly, then nodded. “That’s not far from Santiago’s.”
“Hm?”
“Santiago’s. It’s a dance club we go to on the regular. Chris was there the night he died. That reminds me, I need to follow up on a lead…” She fished her phone out of her pocket and sent Rico a quick text to ask if Selene was at the club.
“What kind of lead?”
“A woman Chris danced with at the club. She might have been one of the last people to see him alive. We can go by the club when we go to the crime scene.”
“We don’t have much time before moonrise.” Sam glanced at his watch.
Joey’s phone beeped and she checked the time along with the message. “We’ve got a couple of hours, and Rico says she’s there. Let’s go.”
Joey grabbed Chris’s envelope from the table. “I’m gonna run upstairs and grab a picture of him we can show around, maybe someone else saw something.”
“We’re going to be cutting it awfully close… you know Mother won’t like it if we’re late.”
“We won’t be, and even if we are it’s not the end of the damn world. Just bring the truck around okay?” She didn’t linger for him to protest, only turned and strode for the exit as if the matter were closed.
Joey jogged up the stairs and down the hall to her room, where she stashed the envelope in a desk drawer and grabbed a photo from an album. On the way out, she nearly collided with her mother in the hallway.
“Mom! Sorry,” she said quickly.
Adelaide stood there with a hand over her heart, clutching her pearls in spirit if not actuality. “Good grief, Josephine. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“Going with Sam to look for leads,” Joey explained quickly, still moving. She’d discovered long ago that the best way to extract herself from a conversation with her mother was to keep physically moving away.
“At this hour?” Her mother frowned and glanced down at her wristwatch. “You’ll miss dinner.” Not that she’d been slaving over a hot stove all day, or anything. They had staff for that.
“We’ll grab something while we’re out, I promise. This is important. We’ll be back before moonrise.” She darted down the stairs before her mother could further delay her, but she could hear Adelaide calling after her nonetheless.
“See that you are!”
Sam had pulled his truck around from the back, and he was waiting with the engine running when Joey emerged from the house. She bounded down the steps and sprinted for the truck, hauled open the door and threw herself inside. “Gun it, before she changes her mind.”
He didn’t have to ask. Or, if he wanted to, he kept it to himself. Either way, the tires did spit a bit of gravel as he punched the gas and the truck lurched forward, carrying them away.
9
Joey stood on the sidewalk across the street from Santiago’s, waiting while Sam fed the parking meter. A sense of unease had begun gathering in the pit of her stomach when they’d rounded the corner and she’d gotten her first glimpse of the club’s bright pink neon sign. Knowing that Chris had ben at Santiago’s the night he died cast the club—which had long been a favorite haunt—in a new, unattractive light. Knowing it might be the last place anyone saw him alive, well, it’d never be the same.
She shifted her feet and lowered her prickling eyes to the concrete in front of her.
“You okay?” Sam asked, clearly picking up on her discomfort as he joined her. “I can handle this, if you want to wait in the truck.”
Joey’s eyes snapped up, locking on his. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
The implication that she couldn’t handle it rankled her, but it also gave her the impetus to push aside her emotions and focus on the task at hand. As they crossed the street, each step hardened her resolve. The full moon helped, even though it remained below the horizon. She opened herself to its influence, letting it clear and sharpen her mind.
By the time they stepped into the darkened club, she’d managed to put some distance between her mind and her aching heart. Her sensitive nose tingled as familiar scents washed over her. She quickly tuned them out. With the full moon mere hours from rising, she couldn’t afford that distraction either. As cavalier as she’d been back at the house, she wasn’t eager to court her mother’s wrath. Adelaide would be livid if they were late, tonight of all nights.
“Slim pickings,” Sam murmured, as they paused just inside the door to get the lay of the land. There were a few couples on the dance floor, but otherwise the place was mostly deserted. Even the bouncer wasn’t at his usual post yet.
“It’s early,” Joey said. “The only food around here that isn’t a drink garnish is stale pretzels, so it’s more of an after dinner destination. On the upside, Rico won’t be too busy to talk.”
“Rico?”
“Come on.” Smiling faintly, Joey motioned with her head and struck off in the direction of the bar.
Sam trailed along behind her, letting her take the lead. His deference both surprised and pleased her, putting a little extra confidence in her step.
“Hey, Rico!�
�� she called out, steps slowing as she approached the bar.
Rico looked up and started to smile when he spotted Joey but his features quickly clouded, expression settling somewhere between concern and sympathy. “Joey, hey…”
The thin blonde woman he had been talking to—the sum total of the bar’s current patrons—turned to look behind her. Features pinched, she turned the rest of the way and closed the distance in a single leggy stride to pull Joey into a tight hug.
“I’m so sorry, Joey… Christ, we’re all floored. Completely floored.”
Joey stood there dumbly, lifting her arms belatedly to return the hug. “Thanks, Mel.”
“I’ll let you guys talk,” Mel said, releasing Joey and stepping back to claim her bottle of water from the bar. “See you ‘round cutie,” she said to Rico, before sauntering away with a sway to her hips that had both Rico and Sam’s eyes lingering as she went.
Smirking, Joey coughed lightly into a fist to reclaim their attention and stepped up to the bar with Sam beside her.
Rico’s sympathetic brown eyes met hers. “Here to talk to Selene?”
Joey nodded. “If she’s still here. This is my brother, Sam. Sam, Rico.”
The two men shook hands over the bar.
“I guess you already know about…” Once she started, she didn’t really want to finish. Fortunately, she didn’t have to.
“Yeah, yeah. Boss called everyone in early tonight so the cops could talk to us. I’m sorry as hell, chica. I know you guys were close.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, looking down as that invisible hand squeezed her heart again. At least she didn’t have to break the news. She looked up after a pause, collecting herself.
Sam took out his notepad and stub of a pencil. “Do you remember what time Chris was here that night? The night before last.”
“Not exactly,” Rico said, rubbing the back of his tattooed neck. “It wasn’t this early, things were pretty busy by then. Maybe seven thirty or so?”
“How long was he here?” Joey asked, while Sam scribbled in his notebook.
“Maybe an hour? I’m not sure, I didn’t see him take off. Tony might know when he left.”