I glance at my phone. Still dead. I nod toward the grocery store. “I’ll make the call and get her some water.” I point to the landscaping ringing the parking lot, which features some chest-high bushes. “Bring her over there and stay low.”
Finn tells me the phone number, hands me some money, and then says. “Thanks, Tess.”
“Just shoot anything that comes too close.” I leave the shotgun with him and head over to the automatic sliding doors.
Air conditioning blasts my face as I walk into the entrance.
I go straight up to the first cashier, who can’t be a day over eighteen, and say, “I need to make a call.”
She cracks her bubblegum and rolls her eyes. “Customers aren’t allowed to make calls. Company policy.”
“I also need a charger.” I take my phone out and put it on the conveyer belt with a hearty thud.
Now she’s looking like she wants to report me to her manager. “Uh, we don’t give out free chargers, lady.”
“Detective Tess Skye, Ragnarok PD,” I reach into my back pocket, like I’m going to pull out my badge. “If I have to call backup down here, your day is going to really suck.”
Panic spreads in her eyes and she rushes out of the cashier’s stall. “Your phone’s different than mine, but I can get you a charger over there.”
“Do that.” I call after her. “And get me some water, a towel, and burn ointment.” Then I add, “Oh, and some rubbing alcohol and gauze.”
She gives me a thumbs up, then disappears into the store. I grab the line and dial the number Finn gave me.
It rings once before there’s a gruff, “Hello?”
“You Robert?”
“Speaking.”
“Miranda needs your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Burns, possible broken bones. Maybe internal bleeding.”
“Miranda should see a doctor.”
“Miranda’s a stubborn lady,” I say, watching as the cashier comes scurrying back like she’s training for the hundred-meter dash.
“That she is. Where is she?”
“Near the Shop and Save on Walnut Avenue.”
“Be there in ten.”
That’s where the conversation ends. I hand the cashier the handset, which she places into the receiver.
“I got you store brand water,” she says. “It’s on special.”
Good service. “Let me see that charger.”
She gives me the package, which I promptly rip apart. I plug into the nearest outlet and hold my breath. Maybe it’s not dead. Maybe it was just sleeping and needed a little charge.
The screen flashes through the cracks.
Score.
Then my phone buzzes.
It’s Javy Diaz. Twelve minutes ago.
The message just says trace signal.
I text back: are you okay?
I wait for a response. The clock is ticking, but I need him to disarm the bombs. I may have learned a lot regaining my memories, but bomb defusal is not among them. The register beeps as the cashier rings up the items. After a couple minutes, nothing comes through from Javy, so I send a follow-up: where are you?
An uncomfortable thought refuses to leave my mind: this is not a text sent by a free man.
I pay for the items and say, “Keep the change.”
The cashier says, “I can’t do that.”
“Let me guess,” I say as I gather up the items. “Company policy.”
She looks at the floor. “Yup.”
“You know what?” I give her a wink. “Fuck policy.” I leave the money on the belt and then head back out to the lot. I make sure to look both ways as I head toward the bushes, but Rillo’s goons haven’t tracked us here yet.
Still nothing else from Javy.
“How’s she doing?” I ask Finn as I round the bushes.
“She won’t wake up, Tess.”
I roll up the towel and hand it to Finn. “For her head.”
“Thanks.” He props Miranda up in the terracotta-colored mulch. Her eyes are closed.
I hand him one of the waters. He drinks half of it in one gulp. “The healer coming?”
“Should be here in about five minutes, give or take.” I pop the cap off the burn ointment and rub it on Miranda’s raw skin. She flinches and moans, but doesn’t wake up. It takes the entire small tube to cover the wound.
I check my phone when I’m done, but there are no new calls or texts.
I show Finn the message. “What do you think?”
“Sounds like someone took him.”
“We’re on the same page, unfortunately.” I pull up the finder app, but it doesn’t have Javy’s phone on it. Figures that government issue hardware wouldn’t be trackable this way.
The nice thing about having my memories, though, is I can draw upon all the people, contacts, and resources I’ve accumulated in my thirty years of life on this planet.
I rack my mind for people I truly trust.
It’s a pretty damn short list that basically starts and ends with Javy Diaz—even now that my memories are back. A few others make the cut: Catalina, Tashy. But those are actual friends. One’s a surgeon, the other a perennial underachiever.
They aren’t cut out for this.
I do shoot them texts, though—their numbers inscribed on my memory by heart.
This is Tess. I pissed some people off. Watch your back.
Catalina’s response: god, slut, you’re so high maintenance. Then, I’ve been practicing with that P365!
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Only time I’ve feared for my life at the range.
Tashy’s is less animated: I’m in Cabo. Festival.
I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s two less people I have to worry about.
But that doesn’t leave me with a long list of trusted allies and confidants.
Luckily, I don’t need to trust Carrie Zane to break into her house. Her and Javy had a thing a year and a half ago. Off, on. Hot and heavy. Lots of fireworks.
One night, while we were out to dinner, she got drunk. Real drunk. Told me that she had a backdoor into the Ragnarok PD’s departmental database—and tracking system.
No wonder she had the highest acquittal rate in a ten county radius.
When I told Javy the next day, he was not happy. That resulted in a permanent “off” status for their relationship. And an ensuing game of whack-a-mole, where he’d shut down her access, only for her to text him with a winky face or some other taunting emoji.
He finally gave up. Not before I heard about it for two weeks.
But now her lack of legal ethics might save his life. Because I can track him down using that very same departmental backdoor.
If you’ll win at any cost, you can become the thing that you despise. That seems like a fair trade to save his life. Everything worth anything always has a price.
And I’m not seeing any other options. My alternative is to waltz into the precinct and use their system directly, which is basically like a rabbit slathered in olive oil and garlic running up to the hunter and saying, hey, I marinated myself to save you the trouble.
I call an Uber and try to think beyond Javy’s disappearance, to the bigger picture.
I dress the cut on my forearm first. The alcohol burns as it washes over the wound.
I wrap it in gauze, then turn my attention to the bullet hole.
The alcohol burns a lot worse splashing over that.
But the reality of the situation hurts even more.
The town is still threatened by Rillo’s psychotic bombs at the dam. That’s gotta be my immediate focus. Putting him in jail is a distant but critical long-term goal.
Our plan’s gone to shit—again. The vial of blood is in my pocket, but the two people initially nominated as candidates to deliver this evidence to the proper authorities—Miranda and Javy—are both out of commission. That leaves Finn. But despite his prior willingness to tag in to help, I’m not sure he’s really an option
given his grandmother’s current condition.
But he’s the only option I have.
I sigh and stare out at the parking lot. “It’s been a long fucking year, hasn’t it?”
“It’s not getting any better,” Finn replies glumly, hair drooping.
I watch over the bushes as an ancient paint-chipped Honda Accord creaks into the lot. I grab the shotgun out of the mulch and steady it against my chest.
The car circles the lot and then drives over to us.
One of the tinted windows begins rolling down.
I prepare to fire.
“Bring Miranda over to the back.” It’s a gruff voice, clearly Robert’s.
“It’s him.” I put the shotgun down and reach beneath Miranda’s shoulders. “Get her legs.”
Finn follows instructions, and together, we get Miranda into the back seat.
Robert says after we’re done, “I’ll call you when there’s an update.”
Finn says, “I’m going with her.”
“I don’t have room for visitors, kid.”
“She’s not leaving without me,” Finn says.
“Then take her out of my car.”
I lean back inside. “Where will you be?”
“That’s for me to know.”
“I don’t like that,” I say.
“My feelings are hurt,” he says. “Now shut the damn door.”
I can see why Miranda requested his help specifically. They have the same bedside demeanor: zero empathy.
I glance over to Finn. He seems resigned to letting things play out with the apothecarial healer, shrugging as if to say this is what Gram wants. “Fine. Don’t let her die.”
Then I slam the door and the Accord peels off.
We watch as it disappears from the lot.
“So, where are we headed next, Tess?”
“I gotta go find Javy.”
“Still no response?”
“Yeah. I think someone took him.”
Finn shields his eyes from the sun as he looks up at me. “Need backup?”
“You know she’s going to kick my ass when she finds out I let you come.”
“I’m twenty-three,” Finn says. “She’s just worried the same thing will happen to me that happened to Mom.”
I don’t have to ask what he means, now that my memories are intact. His mom was killed fifteen years ago. Miranda raised him ever since.
I hand him the revolver, which still has three shots left. “Stay close and shoot early, then.”
“We going someplace dangerous?”
“We’re about to face the worst kind of monster,” I say.
“What kind is that?”
“A defense lawyer.”
Twenty-Two
The car ride is silent. Both Finn and I need some contemplative time to process the day’s event—and our driver is one of those mythical creatures, rarer than Soulwalkers, who has no interest in making small talk with the passengers.
The clock blinks over to 2:32. I settle back into my seat, feeling every second of the day.
Learning about yourself through other people is like your parents explaining who your great-grandparents are by showing faded photographs. It’s more of an idea of a person than the real thing.
Learning about yourself all at once, though?
That’s like a speedball of knowledge straight into your neurons.
I’d always wanted to be a cop. I’ve always been good at reading people—figuring out what they were hiding, the secrets lurking beneath the surface. Probably got that from the old man who was—is—a detective back in Texas. Mom and me, we moved when I was about ten.
I never really understood why. Until I learned who I was—what I was—that night in the Groves a year ago. You’d think I’d have figured it out before, but how many dead bodies does one touch in their life? For most people, it’s zero. For a cop, it’s still not exactly a daily occurrence. And that’s when my powers come alive—with the dead.
So that night was my first brush with being a Soulwalker. Then I knew why we’d run here, to this small town whose only claim to fame was being the location for the Great Reveal. A pretty big claim to fame, if we’re being fair, but otherwise not much going on. Other than the fact it was the type of place where you can disappear.
Then Mom disappeared when I was twenty. Vanished without even leaving a note. I still have the same apartment, even if it’s been ten years. Maybe I’m hoping she’ll come back. Maybe that’s why I became a cop. To track her down. Find out what happened.
I used to think she just left. But after working with Rillo for the past year, I think someone probably found out who she was. What she was. And they grabbed her. Same as he did to me. The reason you never meet a Soulwalker is the same reason elephants are endangered: we’re too valuable to let us roam free.
And if someone did grab her all those years ago, she might be better off dead than alive.
Because bad deeds weigh on your soul. Even when you have no choice.
That’s what I’m grappling with now: the weight of my actions over the past year. It’s said that you only regret the things you don’t do. But I’m not so sure that’s true, knowing what I know—or looking over at Finn, who’s staring out the window at the houses like a sad dog who’s forever lost his way.
That’s what they don’t tell you about doing the right thing—or whatever the fuck you want to call it. There’s a price. Sometimes it’s small.
Other times it’s steep.
And the toll for my deeds on behalf of Dominic Rillo has climbed dizzyingly high.
After that night out in the Groves, Javy and I did go out to check the dam. The bombs were there, just like Rillo had claimed. Javy managed to disarm them. Then we got the video call from Rillo. I can still hear the total confidence in his voice. See his serene expression on the screen.
You will place them back, otherwise the poison will come.
We didn’t believe him. Called his bluff.
It wasn’t a bluff. He proved it with the neveria extract—force-feeding it live to Mike Sanderson, one of the cops on the force.
Suffice to say, we believed him after that. Javy and I attempted to contact the FBI. That was unsuccessful without the corroboration of the Ragnarok PD. Rillo was a rising star, a shining example of American entrepreneurship.
There were no outward signs.
Only the ones that I saw up close.
I couldn’t do the Soulwalks for Rillo and remain a cop. Too much distraction, as he put it. Captain Reynolds took care of that detail, slamming the door shut on my career. Fired. Gone. And despite wanting to avoid distractions, Rillo didn’t pay, so I had to track down deadbeat husbands and cheating wives as a PI in between the Soulwalks for him. But a PI’s hours are flexible. I was available at a moment’s notice.
And those calls came frequently.
If you think nailing someone with their pants down in a seedy motel is dirty work, it’s nothing in comparison to the unpaid internship in criminality I embarked upon over the last year with Rillo.
Not so much breaking the law myself. Just being adjacent to it. Around it. Every day, something new.
He was right back at his house, earlier: I was curious about who I was.
That’s not the reason I acquiesced and performed the Soulwalks for him. I had no choice.
But after a year, the curiosity has waned.
Soulwalk after Soulwalk. Scientists, professors, alchemists, security guards, even a congressman—nothing stopped the bodies from piling up if they had something, or some idea, that Rillo wanted.
And the whole time, working against him, trying to gather evidence for Javy, trying to crack those wards. Two steps forward, three steps back. Erasing my memories with memoria root. Killing witnesses. Employees disappearing.
His empire and bullshit media legend growing all the while.
People will believe whatever story you tell them as long as the product is good. And say what you will about his
methods, but Rillo’s products are unlike anything else.
They make humans feel what it’s like to be more than mortal.
I know that because I’m pretty human, Soulwalking abilities notwithstanding. And right now, I can feel the weight of the day pressing down on me.
It should be enough to crush everything. Exhaustion. Blood loss. Shock.
But I’m still moving forward with the Vitalysm coursing through my veins. The serum that I helped create—assembled through research and secrets stolen from all those dead people’s lives—saved my ass.
And it might be just enough to bring Dom Rillo down.
That’s what they call irony.
Or karmic retribution.
Or something.
I shove my hand in my pocket, feeling the little ward-breakers, smooth as marbles between my fingertips. I now understand what Miranda was feeling: relief, disbelief, and elation. Like walking through a desert hotter than the lowest circle of hell, only to find a crystal clear pool, palm trees, and a cabana serving margaritas. These will stop Rillo from being warned after the bombs are disarmed. And from the neveria extract being dumped automatically into the water supply after the bombs have been defused for thirty minutes.
But he can still poison everyone the old fashioned way: by dumping it into the water himself. He’s the only person who knows where the neveria extract is.
That’s the final key. But first things first: the bombs have to go. And while I heard Miranda’s words back in the Big Zipper, that I needed to figure it out, the truth is, what I need is Javy.
He can do that.
He’s the fastest way through this mess.
And that’s why we’re going through the trouble of tracking him down.
Or maybe it’s because he’s the only person in the world I trust. And the thought of losing him makes my stomach turn.
If we don’t have each other’s back, then I really am no better than Dominic Rillo.
The sedan slows down and drops us off in Northern Ragnarok—the ritzy part of town, where the rich, famous, and city’s elite congregate. I tip him extra for allowing the shotgun to ride freely with us.
Crisp, well-maintained hedges bracket the street. Not a cracked sidewalk or stray piece of litter in sight. I glance at Carrie Zane’s three-story modern. Relatively modest compared to the monstrosities on the block, what with its merely two-car driveway, but has to be a mil, easy.
Drop Dead (Tess Skye Book 1) Page 11