by Schulte, Liz
Chapter 4
How or why we were supposed to solve a ninety-year-old case was beyond me, but the signs did seem to point in that direction. Someone was shot in that room. Who and why was what we had to figure out. The woman with black hair had been spotted in two different dresses. Had time overlapped? Had we witnessed two separate moments? Is that why I’d heard two individual songs? Maybe the killer was never caught or maybe the wrong person had been charged. But why did any of it matter after so long? If all of Boone’s visions were this jumbled, it was amazing he could tell me as much as he did. Even though I stood in the midst of the party, I still didn’t have a clue about what I was seeing.
The nagging feeling flooded back: we needed to discover the source of Boone’s guidance sooner rather than later. I’d never had a vision until tonight, and it wasn’t like psychic powers were catching. All of this was suspicious. I was afraid someone was pulling strings—and if we didn’t get in front of this, they might lead us right off a cliff.
The moment I stepped foot back into my bakery all I could hear was jazz coming from the café side. The first song at the greystone was playing on repeat in here. None of this happened before I got the mirror. It had to be the links. Something on it was connecting me to whatever event we stay in the house.
I stood in front of my reflection, inspecting it. Maybe a ghost came with it—but how could the ghost be in both places at once? I had heard that somewhere that ghosts could get stuck in mirrors, which was all fine and dandy, but that didn’t explain how it could both haunt my mirror and the house. After a few minutes of staring into the mirror and getting nothing, I gave up and decided just to enjoy the music. I had baking to do—though I mentally vowed on the way back to the kitchen to solve this mystery fast so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life listening to the same song.
As I worked, I mentally made a list of everything I needed to do.
Research ghosts
Research the house and the woman who owned it
Pick desserts for the buffet set up
Plan the mystery for the evening
Tell Phoenix and Boone about one another
Figure out what I want
Maybe I could take care of two of the problems at once. If I could find this spirit some closure, perhaps I could use the same mystery for my party. After all, there was a gunshot and a ghost with an unresolved issue. It had murder mystery written all over it. However, I also knew that after this long, the truth would be nearly impossible to find. That wasn’t going to stop me from doing everything in my power to figure out what happened that night, though. I had to have seen the vision for a reason. There must be something I could do.
“How was your evening?” Phoenix asked behind me, making me jump and drop the bowl I was mixing. Batter splattered across the floor. Perfect.
I scanned the room until I found him, standing next to the door by the café. For the first time since I had gotten back, I couldn’t hear the music at all. It had disappeared when Phoenix arrived. Why was that? “A little warning next time. You scared the crap out of me.” I stooped to retrieve the bowl and started to wipe up the now ruined batter.
Phoenix smiled ever so slightly as I put the dish in the sink and turned back to him. “How was your night?” he asked again, his voice low and dark. Alarms fired off in my head. Something had happened. Immediately I was on edge. Phoenix stood still and passive, but his shoulders were tight and drawn up toward his ears.
I shook my head ever so slightly, waiting for the bad news to drop. Was it Olivia or Holden? Had someone attacked the club? I wished he’d say something, not just stand there waiting for me to answer. “Fine. How was yours?”
“I’ve had better,” he said, not moving toward me.
Concern consumed me. Something happened at the club. Or…oh, no…his parents. Had something happened to them? Was he hurt? I scanned him for injury, but he looked like he always did: black jeans, black Henley shirt, and a black leather jacket. Not that I would be able to see any injury on him—short of cutting their head off, a jinni could heal from most wounds. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“What did you do tonight, Maggie?” I finally recognized what I was hearing in his voice. It wasn’t sadness or fear. It was cold, hard anger, and it was directed at me. Concealed, but barely. I had seen Phoenix a lot of ways, but really truly mad, like he was now, wasn’t one of them.
We stared at each other for several long moments. I didn’t know how to respond. I had only done one thing that I could think of that could have possibly pissed him off. I went on a barely-date, but still a date, with Boone. Had Phoenix found out and charged over here to give me a piece of his mind? He had a lot of nerve, considering we had never even gone on a real date. “Why?” I finally asked.
He gave me a dark look. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
My eyebrows shot up. Phoenix couldn’t tell me what to do. Mr. I-Don’t-Want-To-Define-Anything could just get over whatever bug crawled up his butt. I crossed my arms. “I had a date.”
Holding my breath, I waited for his reaction. Would he be jealous? Did he want more and didn’t know how to say it? This possessive crap wasn’t going to fly with me. He needed to learn how to use his words like a big boy if that’s the direction we were headed. And even if we did start officially dating, which I wasn’t sure I wanted, Boone was going to stay in my life. Phoenix would just have to trust me.
“That’s it?” he asked.
Now I was really confused. Wasn’t that enough? Why the hell was he here? This wouldn’t be the first time Phoenix had me spied on, but he couldn’t possibly think I had slept with Boone. Looking at his annoyed face though, I wouldn’t put it past him. “You didn’t…we didn’t define what we are doing. I didn’t think you’d care if I went on a date with someone else. It’s not like we have ground rules. If you expect something different, you need to say so. I assumed you were still seeing other people.”
Phoenix pressed his lips together in a thin white line.
“Nothing happened.” My hands moved as I spoke, my emotions rising. Guilt that I might have somehow injured him made me all the more defensive. I didn’t like hurting people. “And even if something did happen, you don’t get to be mad about that. Every time I bring us up, you shut down. How am I supposed to know what we are? We’re living in the moment—whatever that means.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Maggie.” He took a deep breath, obviously struggling for patience. “Tell me everything you did after I left today.”
Oh. I ticked off everything that happened throughout the day as he listened. When I finished, I shrugged. “That’s it. Why? What happened?”
His jaw tightened. “Someone was in my house.”
I took a moment to process that. All of this fuss over that? Good God, I thought something tragic had happened. “And you thought it was me?”
“I don’t know what I thought.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “I’ve gone to great lengths to keep my residence private and now…” A somewhat frightening smile spread over his face.
I walked around the island, avoiding the spill, and stood in front of him. His leather jacket was soft and supple beneath my hand as I placed it on his forearm. “I haven’t told anyone where you live.”
He didn’t quite meet my eye. “I know.”
Why didn’t I believe him? It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Phoenix and I might have been unclear on a lot of things, but I liked to think we were at least friends, even if it was a strange, unsettling sort of friendship. I slipped my other hand beneath his jacket. “Phoenix.” I waited until he finally looked at me. “I wouldn’t.”
The back of his hand brushed over my cheek. His eyes darkened as they lingered on my lips. “I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do with you.” His voice was much softer now.
His proximity was already starting to go to my head. I struggled to stay focused on what we were talking about.
“As unlike
ly as it is, I trust you more than anyone else. What I can’t decide is whether or not I’m a fool for doing so.”
“So you thought you’d accuse me of breaking and entering?”
He scowled. “It was the simplest answer. You are nosy.”
“And men say women are confusing.” I rolled my eyes. Maybe I was a tad nosy, but that didn’t mean I had taken to spying on him (something he couldn’t say) or committing felonies.
“It was worth a shot. I have an increasingly annoying problem and this would have solved it. You knew where I lived. No one else can say that. If it was you, then…” He shrugged.
The blood drained from my face and I dropped my hands from him. Was I the increasingly annoying problem? That was a less than flattering thought.
He caught me before I could take another step. His hand wrapped around my waist, and he stepped forward when I resisted coming back to him. “That’s not what I meant. Not you. You’re an increasingly interesting problem. The annoying one is something else entirely.” The curl of his lips made my heart beat a little faster.
But he didn’t continue. “Then tell me what’s happening?” I asked.
“I wish I knew.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against mine in what felt like an apology. “We don’t need to talk about it though. I’ll figure it out.”
I kissed him back, knowing full well I wasn’t going to let this go. I took a couple pulls from his darkness because, well, he was here, and also because I knew it would light the blue flames in his eyes and I took no small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that I was the one who got under his skin and challenged his control. “You came all this way to accuse me of breaking into your house. The least you can do is tell me exactly what’s happening.” I pulled a couple batches of cupcakes out of the oven, then led Phoenix into the café. Sitting on the couch with my back resting against one arm so I’d be able to face him, I patted the seat in front of me.
“Don’t you have things you need to do?” he asked, refusing to sit while edging toward the door. “Because I know I do. I should really go.”
“Yes, I have a lot of work to finish,” I said. “But right now, I want to be here for you more than I want to bake.” I patted the cushion again. “I feel like you owe me this.”
He sat down, giving me a perfect view of his side profile. I smiled to myself, more than tempted to lean forward and kiss his cheek, but I resisted. “Now, tell me about your troubles.”
His eyes flicked toward me, then away. “It isn’t your concern. I’ll handle it.”
“I don’t mind getting involved. I want to help you. You just have to let me.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maggie,” he said in a warning tone. “I don’t push into the parts of your life that you don’t want me in. The least you could do is offer me the same courtesy.”
Lies! He had done nothing but force himself into my life. He had me followed. He constantly showed up uninvited. “You have a selective memory.” He was trying to make me mad to distract me. I released my breath. “And I never said I didn’t want you in my life. I do. Besides, I’m not going to dive head first into your problems.” But we both knew I would. “I just want to hear what’s going on. Sometimes talking about things makes the answer easier to see. Why does everything have to be a secret? Whatever is happening is obviously personal to you. It won’t be to me. I’ll have a cooler head, which means I might see something you can’t.”
He sighed.
“What did the person take? Could it have just been a random burglary?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. As far as I can see, everything is accounted for. Nothing was disturbed at all.”
Hmm, that was strange. “So they were looking for something?”
“I assume, but I don’t know what or where they looked. Nothing appears to have been touched. Apart from the scratches on the lock where it was picked, it’s actually pretty clean. Including fingerprints. I only found mine and yours.”
“You have my fingerprints?”
“Yes. I lifted them after the first time I took you there.” He pursed his lips, glaring down toward the floor.
How could he live the sort of life where fingerprinting your girlfriend was a normal thing? I shook my head, but let it go. “I guess that leaves out a jinni. They wouldn’t need to pick a lock. They’d just transport in.”
He glanced up. “I don’t keep anything inside my apartment…as you know.”
He didn’t keep anything work related there, that was true. But he had plenty related to his past. And in someone’s past, there was always weakness. Maybe that was the problem. He was looking at this from the jinn point of view and he couldn’t find a reason someone would target him. But what if this had nothing to do with that. “Is the apartment in your name?”
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Is the name you used completely unconnected to you or did you choose something more sentimental?” Phoenix didn’t seem like the sentimental type on the surface, but the fact he still went by his real name told me maybe everything wasn’t as it appeared where he was concerned.
He didn’t answer.
“Is that the only thing that’s happened?”
His mouth pursed. “What are you thinking?”
Baby steps were the best I was going to get with getting him to share information. “Could this have less to do with whatever you are doing now and more to do with something from your past?” Not that I could imagine the dorky kid in his yearbook as the type to have enemies, but Phoenix wouldn’t tell me how or why he became a jinni. That wasn’t a decision that could be made lightly. Something bad must have happened to make him choose to make a deal with a demon. Only he could know if that was also something that might be catching up with him now.
His eyes narrowed as he stared off into space. Finally, he shook his head. “Probably not.”
“What name is your apartment under?”
He turned to face me more directly, placing his hands on my knees. “None of your business. But thank you for helping. Now, I need you to listen to me. Stay out of this. No matter what happens, you stay out of it. I don’t need or want your help.”
I had way too much on my plate already, but… “What if I want to help you?”
The desire wasn’t completely innocent or self-sacrificing. I also wanted to know more about him and his conversion. He’d let me see him before he was a jinni and I knew who he was now, but I didn’t know the journey he’d taken to get here. It seemed infinitely worth hearing, especially if we were going to move forward together.
“Maggie…”
“Hear me out. I’m useful. You can’t really use your jinn employees unless you tell them where you live, which sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? And you probably have more than enough jinn business to keep you busy for the next hundred years or so. I think you have to face the fact that while you might not want to, you need me.”
He stood up and stalked toward the center of the cafe. He stopped abruptly and turned directly toward me, crossing his arms. “What do you imagine will happen to the person who did this? What do you envision my next course of action to be?”
I blinked at the sudden intensity in his voice. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Exactly.” His fists clenched and released, then clenched again. “I can’t, Maggie. I’m not ready for whatever we have to end and I don’t think you are either. This,” he gestured between us, “it’s good, isn’t it? Mutually beneficial, not too much pressure, or too many expectations. Let’s not change things. Just let them stay as they are and stop trying to poke holes. We have our own lives, but still have each other. That’s the only way we work.”
I uncrossed my legs and dropped my feet to the floor. I didn’t understand what his speech was really about, but I tried to follow the line of thought. We would investigate and find the person who broke into his apartment. Once the man or woman was cornered or trapped, what came next? In the human world, t
he cops would be called or something equally bland. There wasn’t justice like that in the Abyss. People took care of their own squabbles. I watched Phoenix for a few moments. What would he do?
Well, I was willing to bet he wouldn’t give the person a stern talking to. There was really only one choice if the person actually was a threat to him. Phoenix would have to kill them. “Had it been me, what would you have done?”
He sighed. “That’s different and you know it.”
“Humor me.”
Phoenix’s head dropped back and he focused above me. “Nothing. I would have found out what you wanted, then let it go. You have value to me.” His eyes fixed on an object on a nearby shelf and he blinked a couple time, his eyebrows pulling down. “Did you keep my lamp from the fairytale world?”
I didn’t let him change the subject. “I have value?” I had been used before. I wasn’t interested in being valuable to anyone. “As in what you think I can do for you or as in your feelings for me?”
“It’s my genie lamp, isn’t it?” He stubbornly held on to his tangent about the random object on a shelf.
“Phoenix, just answer the question.”
“You are valuable to me in both ways. I don’t mean that to offend you. Yes, you have great potential to be useful to me, but I have feeling for you too.” Phoenix reached over my head and pulled the lamp off the shelf. “This is my genie lamp from the fairytale world, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Why did you keep it?”
I stared at the dented, tarnished lamp in his hand. “I didn’t like the idea of anyone being able to control you again.” I looked at my hands. I swore I wouldn’t try to change him, but I also swore I wouldn’t let him use me either. “Maybe if you find who’s doing this, the person will have a reason. If you listen to the reason, maybe it can be resolved without violence. I know it isn’t the best plan, but—”
Phoenix paced away once more, still holding the lamp. “Maggie, you know that isn’t possible. I have to kill whoever is doing this. It’s the only justice we have. I can’t leave enemies to keep coming after me or everyone in my life will be in danger. Every single person, including you. It isn’t just about knowing where I live. There are other things too. Whether or not you help me will not change the outcome.”