He looked at her in confusion, but she didn’t elaborate. He could see the lights on in the storefront, and the curiosity he’d squelched when she’d mentioned it the night before when they’d agreed to meet came roaring back in full force. “May I?”
Whatever thought she’d been lost in vanished and she snapped to. “Of course! This way.” She took the beer from him and stuck it in the fridge as they emerged behind the white marble countertop.
The store looked like he’d expected, part head shop, part wizard’s tower; all it was missing was the dramatic music. And while he expected the cheesy tinkly music on the speakers overhead, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the local classical station. “Could I get a tour?” he asked as he set the pizza and manila folder down on the marble. He also shrugged out of his suddenly over-warm suit jacket and hung it on a hook behind the counter.
“Of course!” she agreed immediately, linking her arm through his and taking him to the first glass cabinet.
Nico asked questions, a lot of questions, as they proceeded through the store, and for every answer Nahia gave him, he had three more. It was a habit that made him a thorough investigator, but he could see where it would get annoying quickly. “I’m sorry for the third degree.”
She shrugged and the smile never left her lips. “No worries. I’m going to assume a good Catholic boy like you probably has had very little in the way of pagan education.”
Wow, she’d pegged him but good. “You’d be right about that.” When she turned to open another glass cabinet, the streak of chalk caught his attention again. “Hey.” She turned to face him with a raised eyebrow, and he took her chin in his hand. “Hold still.” With his thumb, he gently rubbed her cheek until the chalk disappeared. And he was paying absolutely no attention to how soft her skin was or the way her lips parted at his touch. None whatsoever.
Nahia stepped away when he finished, rubbing the back of her wrist against her cheek once more for good measure. She looked as affected by his nearness as he felt by hers. “Thanks. Sorry. It gets everywhere.”
“So if not ants, what’s it for?”
She leaned against the closed door of the cabinet and dug in her pocket, coming up with a small leather pouch with odd writing on it and chalk streaks. “It keeps the peace here. This and salt have a long history of magickal uses, including sealing an area from outside influences and attacks, as well as binding. I keep it handy due to the nature of the store and the customers. Not to mention the ghost hunts. It’s a lot easier to keep them out than to get them out, you know?”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He looked at a few more things, finding an odd beauty in the crystals, runes, and tarot cards. She kept the store immaculate and extremely organized, given its smaller size, and he could appreciate her attention to detail. They found their way back to the counter and she disappeared into the back of the store only long enough to come back with another wooden stool for him to sit on.
“It’d be a shame to let the pizza get cold,” she said with her ever-present grin. It seemed to him she was always happy and smiling, and he had to admit he found it kind of endearing.
While he dished up the plates, she got into the mini fridge for the beer. Looking at the top with a frown, she said, “You know, I could actually open these with my teeth, but I don’t want to upset you.”
He blinked at her, not sure what to do with that information, and more than a little concerned. “Thank you? I think? Regardless,” he dug out his keys and jingled them until he came up with what he was looking for, “I came prepared.”
“I do like a man who plans ahead.” She perched on the stool regally, posture perfectly straight and dignified as hell, even with her silver toes curled over the lower railing of the chair. The crazy thing was she looked like that was her natural pose.
“And I’m sure your dentist will be thankful as well.”
She winked in response and they both fell into their pizzas. He was actually quite pleased overall, since he was able to show off a bit by getting a gourmet pizza from a place up north that he loved, and she seemed to enjoy the food.
“So are you a witch?” he asked after wiping an errant spot of grease from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
She blotted her mouth with a napkin he’d brought, though her full lips were still a bit shiny. “Not actively practicing. Kinda like a Christmas/Easter Catholic, you know? I hit the holy days, I keep track of the rituals and use a few of them,” she gestured with a piece of pizza toward the door and windows she’d worked on, “semi-frequently, but other than that, not so much. Does it bother you?”
“Not at all.” Nico could understand her position. With a schedule like his, that was pretty much all he had time for in terms of Mass, too. And her religious preference wasn’t unexpected, given how they met. “I guess you do a good business.” He looked around at the numerous locked glass cases and their high end contents.
Nahia nodded, and sipped her beer. “It’s not bad. I do special orders, too, for some customers, and I have an online presence. It keeps a roof over my head.”
He toasted her before draining his beer. Her modesty was refreshing, since his last few experiences with women outside of work had consisted of a great deal more about themselves than any other topic. Though, he had to admit, he could sit and listen to Nahia read a phone book and be content, but that was not something he intended to share.
When she saw his empty bottle, she took it from him and tossed it in the recycling bin on the floor behind her and knelt down to grab another from the fridge. “So, I didn’t find a whole lot today as far as the house goes.”
“Ah! Then you will love what I came up with.” He thanked her for the bottle she handed up and grabbed another few squares of pizza.
Nahia tried not to look overeager as she slid the pizza box off the folder he’d carried in with him. The food had been amazing, and she would definitely be eating more of their food, if their pizza was any indication, but it was the company that had her flustered. She wasn’t normally impressed by guys in suits. They weren’t her speed and usually were more than a little uncomfortable with her choice of occupation. However, when they filled out said slate suit as nicely as Nico did, she could be moved to change her mind.
Her enjoyment of his company wasn’t merely predicated on the fact that he was really, really hot with his dark hair and eyes and those shoulders. She generally wasn’t that shallow. It was the conversation, she admitted with a sigh. He was great to talk to, and she didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to him about her work and hobbies, topics that had run off more than a couple people in her life. And while she attributed some of that comfort to the circumstances of their meeting, the subsequent interactions had been no less awesome.
“So what am I looking at here?” Nahia absently pawed underneath the cash drawer before her fingertips found and dragged out her reading glasses. Though she was loath to wear them most of the time, it had been a long enough day, and she could use the help.
Nico quickly boxed up the pizza and set it aside so she could spread the folder out between them, and dragged his stool over next to hers, sitting close enough to bump shoulders. Nahia closed her eyes and resolved to keep herself to no more than two beers, lest she start feeling a little freer to act on her impulses, whatever they may be.
“This,” he said as he pointed to the middle of the first page, “is the tax history of the house. It’s goes back to just before WWI.”
It was hard to pay attention when he smelled more enticing than even the pizza. “Okay. Should you even be showing me this?”
He gave her a sidelong glance and a wry smile. “Eh, probably not, so you can’t keep this. But! This isn’t even the interesting stuff.”
The next page was a handwritten genealogy chart on yellow legal-ruled paper in Nico’s blocky, confident scrawl. She picked it up for a closer look at the history of the single family going back to at least 1901, with notations like ‘stabbed in the house’, ‘drowne
d in the pool’, and ‘fell down the stairs’. She set the paper on the table between them and removed her glasses. “Is this right? Almost all of the McManus family that had been in the house died unnaturally?” She hoped she didn’t sound too excited when she asked. Excitement over someone’s untimely death could be thought a little unseemly for someone who didn’t hunt.
If Nico minded, he didn’t appear so. “And a lot of them did so in the house. I put a check next to the male members of the family, since the voice we heard was male.”
Nahia leaned over to look where he was pointing on the page, and when she glanced up, they were suddenly close enough that she became instantly ensnared in eyes were almost coffee brown with gold and black flecks. She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth right before he leaned in to do what she didn’t have nerve to ask of him.
It was a tentative brush of his lips against hers, experimental and much gentler than she would have anticipated from him. A quick touch and he was gone again. The second kiss was longer, his hand cradling her face while her own found purchase on his shoulder and braced against his knee as she leaned closer to him. When his tongue swept across the seam of her lips seeking entry, she gave in immediately, melting against him as he deepened the kiss.
Nico had known this had been coming from the moment they’d shaken hands. Her lips slippery soft, her mouth spicy hot, she tasted like heaven, a mix of beer and pizza and perfect. His hand found its way from her cheek to her hair, and he memorized each and every sensation. Her gossamer skin as she leaned into his touch, her sigh when he pulled back to change the angle of the kiss and take it deeper.
He swallowed her breathy sigh as he touched his tongue to hers, reveling in the bite of her nails in his shoulder. His free hand slid from her knee to her waist, moving her closer at the same time she swayed into him. The stool she was sitting on began to teeter precariously, and at the last moment he pulled her to him, pressing her flush against his body between his legs as the stool gave way and crashed to the floor.
They both looked at the fallen chair behind her as it rolled on the ground like it was writhing in pain. His arms were still tightly around her, a hand on her back and one cupping her neck. For her part, she’d yet to move away from him, her cheeks flushed, and touching her swollen lips with a look akin to wonder tinged with a bit of confusion. It started with a snort, his or hers, he didn’t know, a contagious hint of laughter that gave way to full blown giggles as she stepped over to right the chair.
“Okay then, now that we’ve got that out of the way,” she quipped, tucking a stray turquoise strand behind her ear and grinning shyly. She set the stool in its original spot, but didn’t take her seat right away, her hands hooked into her back pockets.
“I think I should say I’m sorry.” He met her speculative gaze with a steady one of his own. “Except I’m not.”
Her smile grew briefly, making her dark eyes sparkle for a second before she looked down at the chair. “Good. I’m not either.” She hopped back up on the stool and put her glasses back on, effectively putting some distance between them, though she was still sitting as close as before. “So what are your thoughts on curses?”
The change in topic was a little jarring, but not unexpected. The kiss had bordered on mind-blowing and Nico needed time to process, so it stood to reason that Nahia would, as well. He shifted in the chair to face her, grabbing his mostly empty beer and swirling around the contents. “In theory or in practice?”
Nahia closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest with a rueful grin. Of course he would just go with it. Nothing else about her life had scared him off, so why would she have thought this would? “In theory at this point. There are a lot of people who’ve died in that house in weird, unrelated ways. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
He shrugged and downed the rest of his beer, tossing it in the recycling bin behind her with very little effort. “Odd, yes, but I think it’s the last notation you want to see.” He flipped the list over to reveal the next page, which documented the last five people to die in the residence– a man, his wife, their two children, and the gardener.
As she perused the list, the story got stranger and stranger. “With the hedge clippers? Jesus.”
Nico nodded, eyes large with some unspoken horror. “Oh yeah. 1978. That was an ugly one. The clipping’s in the file if you want to look it over.” He paused after he said it. “No pun intended.”
When he said it that way, she was almost afraid to see it. “The whole family died in the house on the same day? Home invasion or something?”
Nico hummed and grimaced, rising from the stool and going to the pizza box for another small slice. “Murder suicide.”
“Jesus.” Well, if she was looking for a reason for the haunting, that would definitely qualify. It would also explain why the spirit was so restless and unhappy. It was also so much easier to deal with than a curse or voodoo. “And the house has been abandoned since then?”
Nico nodded. “Yeah. The bank foreclosed a long time ago, and most of their belongings were sold at auction. No one wanted to live in a place like that.” He reached over and pulled out a stapled sheaf of papers. “I got you the articles and the police reports so you could look through it, if you wanted.” He slid it across the counter to her.
Her fingers touched his as she reached for it, and she caught the quicksilver grin that ran across his lips. She closed the folder, intent on taking it with her to read at home. “Thank you so much for all of this.”
Nico shrugged and rose from the stool, tossing his jacket over his arm and grabbing the pizza box. “You’re very welcome. I’m happy to do it. I’m sorry we didn’t get to review everything tonight.”
As much as she wanted to find a reason to prolong the evening, she knew there wasn’t a lot she could do. Plus she now had a lot of reading and planning to do, in addition to reviewing the evidence. “No worries, I’ll get to it tonight when I get home.” She bent down to pull the remaining beers from the fridge, but froze when she felt his hand on her back. She looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow, finding him making a valiant effort at not staring at her ass. “Yes?”
He closed his eyes and took a step back with a look of self-recrimination. “Keep the beer.”
Nahia stood with smile. “Thank you again.” She could feel the uncertainty radiating off of him as she walked him to her back door. The last thing she wanted was for him to think the kiss wasn’t incredible. Sure, she went straight back into the work. It was that or be reduced to swooning. Still, it hadn’t been a rebuff. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, “Look, I—”
“Let me take you out. Tomorrow night. After work.”
They both laughed nervously at their jumbled simultaneous conversation. He looked at her inquisitively, and she held her hand up for him to continue. “I mean it. You, me, dinner, maybe a movie, whatever you want.”
She didn’t need to think about it, but made a show of staring at the ceiling and tapping her chin with a finger. “I don’t know…”
Nico rolled his eyes and leaned against the door. “You’re killin’ me, here, Nye.”
Nahia melted a little at her name on his lips, like a special caress to her ears. “Okay, Nico. Tomorrow night, call me when you get off and we’ll go from there.”
He smiled triumphantly and cupped her cheek briefly. “You won’t regret it.”
She held the door while he stepped out into the night. Sighing after she locked it, she leaned against it and stared at the ceiling. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Hoping for a mellow day, Nico was greeted with the first of two missing autistic, non-verbal children of the day. It was a double-edged sword for him, because they were hard to work, due to the fact that the victims tended to vanish like ghosts and didn’t speak, not to mention it was at least two hours once they found them to complete all the paperwork involved due to the coordinating agencies. It did not bode well for his date tonight.
H
e was able to catch his breath about four hours later, child located at the candy store eleven blocks from his house and happy as a clam, harried parents calmed, and the Urban Search and Rescue disregarded. Just paperwork left, but first, dinner reservations.
A little Italian place he knew, where the owners were practically his family, quiet and unassuming, with the best chicken piccata he’d ever had outside of his grandmother’s kitchen. He liked the idea of taking Nahia out, seeing her outside of the confines of the weird little side case they were now working. She was interesting, in addition to being gorgeous, and he wanted to know more about her. Though the kiss from the night before told him plenty.
Nico could remember everything about the moment it finally happened, her dark eyes wide and full of nervous anticipation, her soft lips, her scent like spicy citrus and jasmine mixed. The way her hand gripped his shoulder, her breathy little sigh when he— dammit. It was like a cascading loop in his brain that kept running at the most inappropriate times and playing hell with his ability to focus. He scrubbed a hand down his face and blew out a deep breath. He would see her tonight. That was all.
He was elbow deep in his report when his desk phone rang. He grabbed it, shoving it between his chin and shoulder without even looking at the caller ID. “Missing Persons, Detective Verrazzano.”
“You have no idea how much I love hearing that,” the happy voice sighed on the other end of the line.
“Ma!” Nico sat up in his chair on reflex, adjusting his posture after years of admonitions to not slouch.
“So you remember who I am, that’s a good start.”
“Jeez, Ma, I’m not that bad.” His three sisters all lived in the same neighborhood they’d grown up in on Staten Island, not very far from his mother, and thus saw her all the time with their spouses and bevy of grandkids. Though he called every Sunday night, Nico was convinced his mother would be happy with nothing less than daily calls from him, preferably twice. “How’s it going?”
Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) Page 4