“Precisely. We’re gonna do that.” Mags tapped on her touchscreen for a moment before holding the phone to her ear.
We? What we? Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Mags held up a finger to forestall her questions.
She sounded cheerful and bright on the phone, like she was made of sunshine. Nahia was immediately concerned. “Hey, babygirl! Yeah, I know I promised we’d go out tonight, but I’ll make it up to you. I need a favor.”
Nahia raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as her friend began to gather her purse and cup of tea. Not wanting to be intrusive, but needing to know, she mouthed, “Favor?”
Mags nodded and began to make her way into her upstairs domain. Right before she disappeared behind the curtain, she mouthed back, “I have a plan.”
And then she was gone. Solitude didn’t normally bother her, in the store especially. It was her home away from home. A place she’d nurtured from the ground up and was now reaping the reward, and yet, being alone right now made her feel…what? Anxious? Bemused? A little of both?
Against the backdrop of impending doom and unthinkable danger, her emotions were running free all over the place, and that wasn’t pleasant for her. Her normal sense of control, equilibrium, had been rocked with the new ability and the new reality of her life with Nico. Add to that his connection to the house and the spirits there, and she felt herself veering very close to basket case territory.
She sought out her cards from their spot on the shelf, turning to them as she often did in turmoil. They were like a trusted friend and just having them in her hands, shuffling them, made her feel more centered and at peace. Cutting the deck with one hand, a trick she was proud of given their awkward size and her smaller hands, she set the deck down and dealt out her customary three for her spread.
The seven of swords was the first card she saw, and feral smile crossed her lips unbidden. McManus had thought he was getting away with something by committing suicide. As if death could somehow put him beyond the reach of the universe’s karmic scales. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
The next card made her wince, as she could see now what Mags’ plan was, at least in part. The Magician was a card of power and skill, action and resourcefulness. In the back of her mind, she always knew someday she’d have to go toe to toe with McManus, if for no other reason than pride— no one threw furniture at her and got away with it— but she hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Or maybe she had, since she’d come directly to Mags after all the revelations of the past couple days. Something for her to ponder at length, for sure.
The last card, though, sent a feeling of relief through her, relief tinged with strength of purpose. Justice, for the victims, for Aurelio, for Thea, his wife. Nahia would see to it that their deaths were not in vain, and would not be unavenged. Her Flaming Sword of Righteousness would have to be put away, since the bell over the front door chimed, signaling a customer.
Nahia turned her attention fully on the customer who had a question about a particularly lovely and expensive altar set. It wasn’t a chore to smile. She’d been trying to sell it for ages, but all she could hear in her head was Nico’s grumbled comment last night. “Famous Last Words for $300? Hell, let’s just make it a true daily double.”
Nico’s day had been a revolving door of condolences and repeat offender runaways. It was frustrating, but he eased back into work with few problems. He’d fielded a few calls from his mother, wanting to do lunch before they left tomorrow (he’d gone and actually enjoyed it), and his Nonna, wanting her and Richard to get together with Nahia and him another time before they left the next day.
He’d laughed at her eagerness, happy to know his woman had an ally in her, the matriarch of his family. He also knew Nahia would be just as eager to hang out with his grandmother, so the love fest was mutual. Together, they were just too cute, and it made a solid counterpoint to his mother’s firm disapproval. He understood her reasoning even if he didn’t agree, and though it hadn’t been brought up today at lunch, it had definitely been the dark undercurrent at the table.
The bright spot had been when Jules pulled him aside at the airport as he unloaded her bags from his trunk. She specifically wanted to tell him she liked Nahia, and he damn well better be good to her. Last time his sister issued a threat like that, his shins had been bruised for weeks, so he knew better than to cross her. He knew regardless of what their Ma had to say, his other sisters would go by her recommendation, and Jules’ favorable opinion only added to his desire to make Nye a more permanent part of his life.
She was thinking along the same lines, apparently, since before he’d awakened, she’d left a key to the apartment taped to the bedroom door with a sexy little note he still had in the inner pocket of his suit. ‘His to keep’, according to the missive, which she’d thankfully left unscented, if for no other reason than he didn’t want to explain why he smelled like a flower shop to his coworkers. The days of his personal life being up for public discussion were well over, and he wouldn’t miss them.
His desk phone rang, bringing his reality back into focus, including his seemingly endless report on a juvenile whose 18th birthday in two days Nico would be celebrating at a private party for one, involving him and a bottle of merlot. God, it’s times like this that he gave serious thought to a transfer.
“You gonna get that?” Nigel snarked from across the room. He was three croissants into his late afternoon not-quite-dinner snack and got twitchy any time someone mentioned the words ‘tuxedo’, ‘place setting’, and ‘waistcoat’.
He didn’t even look at the caller ID as he picked up the phone and wedged it between his jaw and shoulder. “Missing Persons, Detective Verrazzano.”
“Hey you. Not taking my calls anymore?” Her playful voice brought a smile to his lips even as he plugged away on his work.
He looked askance at the handset before pressing it back to his ear. “Clearly not, since we’re talking now. Why do you ask?”
“Well, neither you nor Nigel is answering your cells; I figured it was something I said. Maybe my breath, I don’t know how the male mind processes such things.” She was having fun with this, he could tell from her tone.
“You didn’t call.” Even as he said it, he fumbled his way into the pocket of his suit jacket on the back of his chair, checking for his cell. One look at its dark screen told him all he needed know. “Well, hell. I’m sorry, Nye. I turned it off at lunch with my parents, and I must not have turned it back on. I can’t speak for Nigel, though.” He didn’t mind throwing his cranky friend under the bus with Nahia; hell, it might even improve his mood. His phone chirped and beeped like a possessed child’s toy as texts, emails, and voicemails came rolling in en masse.
“Nice. How are your parents?” If he didn’t know her as well as he did, he’d have missed the hesitation.
He felt horrible that her first meeting with his parents hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, but he was willing to chalk it up to the heightened emotions surrounding the funeral. Plus, he knew there’d be time to try again. “Not too bad, Jules flew out today because she had to be back to work tomorrow, so you know how that goes.”
“That I do. I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with her. Your parents are still in town, though, right?” She sounded almost eager, and he would have believed her if he didn’t know her as well.
“They are,” he affirmed cautiously.
“Maybe we can have dinner together before they leave. I mean, if you wanted to.” Her reluctance was clear, but he could tell she meant what she said.
He was still unsure whether he wanted to put her through that kind of inquisition again, but greatly appreciated her gesture. “Maybe.”
“Good,” though her tone suggested it might have been anything but. “Anyway, I just wanted to know what time you’d be home tonight.” He caught the slip even before she started backpedalling. “I mean, what time you were planning on heading over to my place. I think of it as my home, which it is, so th
at’s why I said that. But what I meant was—”
“Really?” He couldn’t let her continue to flounder. It was sad, and was nowhere close to the emotion her little oversight had kindled in him. Apparently he wasn’t the only one thinking in longer terms these days, which pleased him to no end. Maybe more than the key was ‘his to keep’ after all. “It’s okay. I’ll be home around five. Work for you?” He liked saying the word ‘home’ because of all the wonderful connotations in his mind. Joy, affection, dinner, molten hot sex…really, no downside that he could see.
“Absolutely. Bring Nigel with you, okay? I’m gonna have a few people over. I have something I want to discuss with both of you.” Her speech pattern picked up speed after her initial agreement, and something about it didn’t sit right with him, but he wasn’t sure enough to call her on it.
Nico was definitely bummed because at least the last part of his initial thought process was tossed out the door immediately at the mention of Nigel. He liked the guy and all, but some things he just didn’t feel like sharing. “Will do.” He hit ‘send’ on his report and leaned back in his chair. It was a quarter to five now, so he felt comfortable cleaning up his desk in preparation for leaving. “See you in a bit.” They said their goodbyes, and it was only through conscious effort that he didn’t tack ‘I love you’ on to the end. Figured discretion was the better part of valor in this case. At least for now.
Once he’d collected his effects, he wandered over to lean a hip against Nigel’s desk. In the three days or so he’d been out of the office, his buddy had put on at least five pounds and was probably pushing ten the way he was demolishing the pastries. “You think you might wanna slow down on those, bud? I mean,” he glanced at his watch, “Nahia’s having dinner at the apartment in like ten minutes.” Actually, she’d never mentioned dinner, but he figured dangling a carrot in front of her best friend would be the trick to luring him away from the box from Long’s.
Nigel leaned back in his chair and absently brushed crumbs from his face and chest. “My croissants and I are happy for you.” He stuffed the corner of another one into his mouth and tore it off defiantly.
“It wasn’t a request. Nahia wants us at the apartment for some…thing. I don’t know, anyway, she told me to bring you with me, so c’mon. Let’s go.” Thinking he made his point, Nico pushed off and headed for their office door, assuming Nigel would follow him. About ten steps into the corridor leading to the elevators, he knew he was alone, and turned on his heel.
He found his errant friend still at his desk and just two pastries shy of killing the box. As much as it appeared he was working, he was actually checking Facebook on his phone and YouTubing videos while it charged. The reason he didn’t hear Nico’s approach was because of the ear buds he wore to preserve the unblemished silence of the office. Enough was enough.
Hooking a finger in one of the ear bud wires, he flicked it out of his friend’s ear and onto the desk. “Nigel Gooch, put down the croissant and back away slowly. This does not have to end badly.” He felt like an ass with his halfhearted attempt at negotiating with his partner over his snacks, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do short of dragging him out at gunpoint. Showing up at Nahia’s without him was simply not an option.
Nigel blinked in shock, completely unprepared for the shift back to reality. He blindly reached for the bakery box in question, but Nico was quicker. “Uh uh. These are with me. Now, come on, we have somewhere to be.”
Nahia was setting out pizza boxes and getting plates out of the cabinet when she heard the knock at the door. Her other guests were already hanging out in the living room, desultorily arguing over the remote and the choice between ‘Bones’ and ‘The Mentalist’ reruns while they waited for the food and the boys to arrive.
She clambered down off the stepstool and practically sprinted to the front door, just in time to hear Nigel grouse, “What? I’m an emotional eater.”
Immediately suspicious, she opened the door further and looked him over. If the crumbs everywhere weren’t the giveaway, the box held protectively under Nico’s arm sure was. “You have been since you were eight years old and we saw Old Yeller. What’s going on?”
Her best friend’s eyes bugged out of his head comically as he looked between her and Nico, who simply leaned down and kissed her cheek before stepping into the apartment. “I trust you two can work that out amongst yourselves. Excuse me.”
She giggled involuntarily at the kiss and cupped his cheek before moving aside to let him past. Then she focused on her friend, her best friend since childhood, the first person she could remember outside of her family. “What is going on with you? You don’t answer your phone, you’re slaughtering croissants like you got a personal vendetta against the Pillsbury Doughboy. I mean, damn, bro.” Stopping short of telling him to brush himself off and have some dignity, she stood quietly with her arms crossed over her chest trying to outstare him.
Predictably, he caved first. He hadn’t won a staring contest with her since the fourth grade when she got sand in her eyes, and that victory was still under a cloud of suspicion. “It’s just, Jesus, this wedding. Imani’s been out of town at a sales conference in Akron this week and she’s still crazy with it. Chicken or fish? Inside or outside? Vests or cummerbunds? What happened to ‘just show up showered and sober’?”
Nahia snorted and held her arms wide to embrace him and take him into the house. He needed love…and a supportive thwack to the back of the head. “And comments like that make me wonder why she decided to marry you in the first place, Ni. Now get your ass in here.”
He followed her inside after a hug at the door, and she directed him over to the pizza and plates on the counter and then to her armchair in the living room. Nico had made himself at home on her couch with a plate of pizza and a beer, talking to Mags and her girlfriend Amelia, who looked like an extra from the original cast of ‘Hair’ with her flowing wheat blond tresses to her waist and her cruelty-free clothing.
“Apparently, introductions aren’t necessary,” she commented lightly as she grabbed a couple slices of her favorite kind of pizza and tossed them on her plate.
“Of course not! I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for some time now.” Mags had been hot to see if Nico in person was the same as the impression that she’d gotten of him at the store. From her gleeful expression when Nahia took a seat on the floor next to him between the table and the couch, she could see it was.
Not wanting to draw his attention to her friend’s obvious amusement at their expense, she turned her attention to Mags’ girlfriend. “Amelia, I really appreciate you coming out for this. I know you and Mags had plans.”
“No worries. It was just dinner and a movie, and we can always reschedule,” she responded graciously. Mags was lucky to have found a woman worthy of her, and it pleased Nahia to no end.
Her friend looked to her, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “So, Nahia, Nico was telling me you and his grandma are two peas in a pod.”
“A troublemaking, poorly behaved pod,” he supplied around his bite of food.
She shrugged and opened her beer, leaving the cap on the coffee table next to her. “Yeah, she’s kinda fantastic. I hope I get to see her again before she leaves to go back to New York.” She looked up at Nico for confirmation, and he just grinned like the Cheshire cat.
“She called me today wanting the same thing. Was gonna tell you about it once I got home.”
Nahia felt the heat in her cheeks rise at the sly grin that lit up Mags’ face at his use of the word ‘home’. And Nigel looked like he’d just swallowed a whole pineapple, pointy side first. Yeah, her initial use of the word hadn’t been intentional, but neither had she taken it back. The more they both used it, the more the idea grew on her. She knew he’d return to his house after his family left, but she was enjoying the charade as long as it lasted.
She put her plate aside on the table and nibbled on a slice of goat cheese and heart of palm pizza. “I’m all fo
r it. In the meantime, the reason we’re all here, and I apologize for the awkward segue, is we’re losing daylight and we have something we need to take care of.”
Nigel looked between them with a lascivious smirk. “Oh, really now?” He looked far too pleased with himself, the bratty ass.
“Shut it, perv. This is not about that.” She hesitated as she thought it over. “Okay, not directly.” She waited until everyone had finished chewing to continue. “Nico, I know you were not pleased when I didn’t talk to you about going back to the house. Ni, I know you weren’t happy about being a party to my breaking and entering.”
“And subsequent theft, can’t overstate,” he interjected while sipping his beer.
Her lip curled into a snarl as she glared at him. “‘Borrowing’, dang, how many times do I have to say it? I’m not going to keep the letters.”
“The point, Nye?” Mags prompted, turning her finger in a circle, indicating she should wrap up the intro.
“The point is, we’re going back tonight to finish this. Tonight. The moon is new and Litha is almost upon us, so the timing is perfect. All of it, McManus, Aurelio, everything ends here, tonight. I can’t let a work crew go in there with power tools and run the risk of something truly heinous happening. I also can’t let Aurelio and Thea continue to suffer; it’s as inhumane as how he died.” Somehow Nico and Nigel’s plates had joined hers on the coffee table while she’d spoken. She wasn’t itching for a fight, but she also had no intention of backing down.
Nigel had his eyes squeezed shut as he leaned back in the chair and massaged his forehead with his fingertips. “I’m sorry. I clearly misheard you. You want us, all of us, to go back into the house. The house where something threw furniture at us the last time we were there.”
She nodded once. “Yes. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”
“Did you miss the part about the furniture? Because I sure as hell remember a wardrobe flying right past us and shattering. A 400 pound wardrobe that was reduced to matchsticks and splinters, and I haven’t even gotten to the damage it did to the wall. And you want to go back there?”
Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) Page 20