Touching Silver

by Jamie Craig

  She pulled a robe on and slipped out of the room to check on Tiberius. She opened the door a sliver and looked in on him. If they’d disturbed him with all their noise, he didn’t let on. Tiberius looked up at her with big brown eyes, blinked and then buried his muzzle between his paws.

  Shutting the door, she padded into the kitchen. She was parched. And now that she was awake, hungry. She grabbed leftovers from the fridge and two beers, figuring Isaac might want something too. She thought she gave him enough time to tell Nathan he wasn’t, in fact, dead, but when she returned to the bedroom, Isaac was still on the phone.

  “No, no, that’s good. If he needs eight girls, then we’re safe. He’s only got six. That gives us breathing room.” He saw her hovering in the doorway and waved her in. “Olivia’s back. Hang on.” He held the phone out to her. “Nathan wants to talk to you.”

  Olivia frowned. “What does he want to talk to me about?”

  “I told him what happened to you. With the coin and your vision quest. He wants to ask you a few questions.”

  She was almost tempted to tell Nathan she’d call him back. Isaac might not mind chatting in the middle of the night, but her brain was mush, and she just wanted to crawl back into bed. But this was important. She deposited the food and the beer on the bed, freeing her hand.

  “As long as he knows I’m not thinking clearly right now.”

  Isaac put the phone back to his ear. “Did you hear that? She’s still glowing, so don’t expect genius here.”

  Olivia took the phone and pushed a bottle of beer into his hand. “I like you better when your mouth is full.” He only smirked and popped the top off. “How’s Argentina?”

  “Hot. Isaac told me about the coin. But he wasn’t too good in the way of details. Can you tell me what you saw?”

  Perched on the edge of the bed, she started her story. She decided to tell him about both visions, hoping it would result in fewer questions so she could get off the phone faster. She didn’t leave a single detail out—the sounds, the way the girls had smiled, the heat of the jungle. He listened without interrupting until she mentioned Remy disappearing.

  “Where did she go?” Nathan demanded.

  “I don’t know. She was just…gone.”

  “Did somebody hurt her?”

  “No. I didn’t see anybody. But that was the end of the first vision. She was just…gone.”

  Nathan was silent for a long time. “Maybe you were seeing events that already happened.”

  “Maybe.” She was suddenly sorry she told him anything at all. “Did you already visit the temple?”

  “No. We haven’t seen any temples.”

  “It’s right there in the middle of the jungle. And it’s big. You can’t miss it if you see it.” Olivia paused. “I think the markings on the entrance are the same as on the coin, but I’m not sure. I don’t recognize them.”

  “Did she go into the temple?”

  “I…I don’t know. She was walking toward it, but then everything went black. Nathan, I’m sure that it didn’t really mean anything. I mean, I’m no psychic. Or it could be one of those visions full of symbolism. Aren’t visions and dreams supposed to be a bit surreal?”

  “I don’t think I like any of the possible meanings behind Remy suddenly disappearing.”

  Olivia looked over to Isaac. He was listening intently to her side of the conversation, but from the look on his face, he knew exactly what Nathan was thinking. Nathan was scared and Isaac was worried about him.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Don’t touch the coin again if you can help it. We don’t know what it’s capable of, and I don’t want you to get hurt or…”

  “Disappear into thin air?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think I would?”

  Isaac sat up, his eyes questioning. She held up her hand. Don’t worry.

  “I have no idea. But we don’t want to risk it, do we? Speaking of risks…”

  “What?”

  “Has anything else happened to Isaac? No more dead animals or pictures or anything?”

  “No, not today.”

  “It’s not Gabriel.”

  Olivia took a deep breath. “No, I didn’t think it was. It’s not his style. Do you have any idea of who it could be?”

  “No. I wish I could give you a lead to follow, but I’ve been a bit busy. Remy’s been…well, she’s worried about those girls. But I know it’s not Gabriel.”

  “I’m hoping to have something back from forensics soon, though I know it’s a long shot. But I’m taking this seriously, even if Isaac isn’t.”

  Isaac rolled his eyes. It’s Gabriel, he mouthed.

  “Sometimes Isaac only sees what he wants to see.” Nathan sounded tired. “Don’t let him get himself killed, please. Usually it’s my responsibility to make sure nobody guns him down, but I guess you’ve got to take care of that while I’m gone.”

  “Oh? Does he regularly have people gunning for him?”

  “Yes. Believe it or not, Isaac can be rather difficult to get along with.”

  Olivia smiled. “I hadn’t noticed. I was going to start looking over his old cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just somebody with a grudge.”

  “We’re coming back soon. If you don’t have anything by then, I’ll be more than happy to help.”

  Olivia thought about spending time with Nathan and getting to know him better. She wanted to know him better. She wanted to know everything Isaac loved. “I might need it. Somebody with a grudge doesn’t exactly narrow things down.”

  Nathan laughed. “I’ve got to go before my card runs out of time. Please don’t keep him from answering the phone next time. He about gave me a bloody heart attack.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Bye.”

  “Adios.”

  She disconnected the call and handed the phone back to Isaac. “Well, I think we’ve managed to ruin Nathan’s morning.”

  Instead of tossing it back onto his jeans, he set it on the nightstand, taking another swig of the beer. “I wasn’t even thinking about the Gabriel stuff,” he admitted. “And Nathan always assumes the worst. I broke one of my biggest rules, ignoring his call.”

  “Perhaps that’s not a rule we’ll break in the future then.” She opened a Styrofoam box to pick at its contents. “So do you never ignore calls in general, or just never ignore calls from Nathan?”

  “Truth?” He laid back against the pillows, his hand pulling at her robe to expose her bare thigh to his touch. “The only calls I get are from Nathan or work, so it’s usually in my best interest to answer. And I don’t usually have such nice diversions to give me better options than doing that.”

  Olivia didn’t want to pry too deeply into his life, but she was curious. She knew he was more or less married to his job and his social life was lacking, but he didn’t have any other friends? Or a family? Was Nathan the only friend he had?

  “No family to call you at inconvenient times?”

  He shrugged, but the ducking of his eyes said more than his casual answer. “We’ve got a longstanding agreement. They don’t bug me, I don’t bug them. It works for us.”

  Olivia gestured at the food, her appetite gone. “Do you want any of this?” He shook his head, and she cleared it away, setting it on the floor to be thrown out later. She straddled his lap, her nipple sliding against his chest as her robe fell open. “Well, I hope Nathan will be okay. He sounded…not happy when I told him about my dream. Or whatever it was.”

  His large hand caressed the underside of her breast, a lazy back and forth of his knuckles that never strayed higher. “He loves Remy. He doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”

  What must it be like to love somebody with a story as wild as Remy’s? She did believe it, but would she be able to live like that, knowing the very forces that brought Remy back in time could send her flying away again? Did Nathan have that hanging over his head every day?

  “It must not be easy to love somebody
like that.”

  Isaac shook his head. “No, for Nathan, loving somebody is the easy part. It’s the letting go that’s so tough.”

  She ran her thumb over his lips. “What’s the easy part for you?”

  “Holding on once I’ve found someone. It’s the finding someone I trust that usually fucks me up.”

  If Olivia hadn’t already been very aware she was falling hard for this man, she would have been surprised by the surge of warmth that filled her. She used her tongue to follow the path she took with her thumb over his lips, and he buried his hand in her hair, pulling her into a deeper kiss. She sighed into his mouth and closed her eyes. Had she ever known anybody who could kiss like Isaac?

  His arms wrapped around her, rolling Olivia onto her side. “Know what I’m looking forward to tomorrow?”

  She grinned. “Breakfast?”

  He snorted in amusement. “Waking up with you. You’re very wake up to-able.”

  “So are you.” She pulled him into another kiss. He fit so well against her body, in her bed. And in her life. It was good he was happy to be there, because she was already looking forward to the next night, and the night after that, and the one after that.

  Isaac swallowed the scalding coffee in two gulps, ignoring the way it burned the back of his tongue. Caffeine was more important since he had slept in. Again. For the second morning in a row. Except this time he and Olivia hadn’t woken up until nearly eight-fifteen, forcing them to have to battle rush hour traffic in order to get to the station by nine.

  They raced through their disparate routines, circling each other with an unexpected ease to get ready as efficiently as possible. There wasn’t even time to appreciate those seconds between dreams and waking, with her form warm and heavy against him, where all he could feel and smell and hear were the rhythms of her body. He put the coffee on while she ducked into a quick shower. Then she took care of Tiberius for the day while Isaac ran his head under the tap and threw on his clothes.

  He stuffed his pockets with his badge and phone by eight-forty, watching Olivia put the finishing touches on her make-up in the mirror.

  “So do you want to meet up after work? Because until you give me a key…”

  “Yeah. I should be done by dinner.” She dropped her lipstick in the top drawer of the vanity and turned to face him. “I’ve got some work to do on a case not involving Gabriel today.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  She followed him out to the living room where Tiberius waited, watching them with his tail thumping against the floor. Isaac gave him a distracted scratch behind his ears as he passed and slipped on his sunglasses before opening the front door.

  “I’ll call you. We’ll figure out…”

  His voice trailed off. The sight of his car in the driveway drove him to a halt.

  “Hey, if you don’t shut this door, Tiberius will make a break for it.” Olivia gave him a gentle shove.

  He took a step forward automatically, but it wasn’t soon enough. Tiberius rushed out of the house, barking furiously, and raced toward the hedge fencing Olivia’s yard. The dog’s behavior stunned Isaac, and he momentarily forgot about his car. Tiberius had always been well-behaved, even mild-mannered. But the dog attacking the hedge was neither.

  “Tiberius, heel.”

  Tiberius turned to look at her, then looked back to the hedge, but finally heeded his mistress’s order and pranced back to the porch. She met him on the bottom stair and hooked a leash on his collar. Tiberius yelped and turned back to the hedge, practically dragging her in his enthusiasm to investigate. Isaac might have joined them any other time, but now he was drawn to his car.

  Or what remained of his car.

  The tires weren’t just slashed. They were in shreds, rubber strips more than anything else. Shards of glass littered the drive where the windows had been smashed in, and the windshield was a concave spider web, only held in place by the molding of the car. Isaac approached the Toyota slowly, picking out the fresh dents in the side where somebody had obviously kicked it in, and glanced inside to see the dash gutted, a gaping hole where the stereo used to be.

  He barely heard Olivia’s sharp breath behind him. He was too busy trying to tamp down the fury rising in his gullet.

  Tiberius surged forward, trying to investigate the driveway. Olivia yanked him back, away from the sharp shards of glass, and fished her cell phone out of her pocket. “Don’t touch anything.”

  While she made the call, Isaac circled the car, searching for other signs of vandalism. No window had been spared, no panel wasn’t kicked in. There were even scratches along the hood where someone had keyed the dark paint.

  “I guess getting that new car just took a top priority,” he complained when Olivia snapped her phone shut.

  “I can’t believe they did this right outside my house.” She repeated the revolution around the vehicle he’d just taken, her eyes constantly darting around, not missing a single detail. “Did you hear anything?”

  His answer came through gritted teeth. “No. Not a peep.” He scanned the calm street. “We should question the neighbors. See if they saw or heard anything suspicious. Have you had any other reports of vandalism in the area?”

  Olivia shook her head. “This is a really quiet neighborhood, Isaac. We’re just a block from an elementary school. Most of these people are retired or young families. We’ll start knocking on doors as soon as the uniforms show up.”

  Isaac shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. “So much for getting to work on time. No offense, but there are parts of this week that I wish I could shove up somebody’s ass. I take a step forward, someone shoves me two steps back. It’s getting a little annoying.”

  She put a comforting hand on his arm. “We’ll figure out who is responsible for everything. And we’ll stop them.”

  Everything. He stared at her, incredulous. “You think this is part of Gabriel’s mindfuck?” He waved at the car. “This is kids looking for fun. Gabriel wouldn’t bother smashing the windows out of my car. He’d blow it up.”

  “Isaac, you’re a smart guy and a good detective, but you are the most stubborn man I have ever met. You’re right. Gabriel wouldn’t bother smashing the windows out of your car. And he wouldn’t kill your fish. And he wouldn’t take pictures of you while you slept. Gabriel is not responsible for any of it.”

  He wasn’t stubborn. He was finding a solution in the only way he knew how. None of his active cases would merit the bothersome treatment he’d been getting all week. The only one who had any reason to worry about him at all was Gabriel. He had gone after Remy and Nathan, hadn’t he? It made perfect sense for him to go after—

  Except he hadn’t. Everything that had been going on in Isaac’s life was petty compared to the thugs that had been sent to dispatch Remy and Nathan before they left for Argentina. Dead fish were nothing compared to a dead police officer.

  “So if Gabriel didn’t plan any of these attacks,” he said carefully, his voice low and angry, “who the hell did?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Remy gazed down at Nathan’s naked body as he slept, resisting the urge to trace over the scars on his chest with her fingertips. She knew them, each and every one. She knew them better than her own body. Some of them were nearly invisible, others so puckered and vivid she still occasionally winced when she saw them. Knowing he’d suffer every injury over again, if it meant saving her from harm, amazed her.

  He loved her that much. And to this day, she had little idea what she had ever done to deserve the second chance the Silver Maiden had given her.

  Remy knew more about the coins than she had when they had first arrived in the village. The meeting with Cora had been invaluable. They knew what Gabriel hoped to do, why he went after those girls, the power he hoped to gain. Gabriel’s quest for more power made the most sense to both her and Nathan. For Gabriel, power was the absolute.

  But the answers she had hoped to find for herself were still elusive. Sure, she had a
better idea of why she had been dragged through time. Desperate and terrified, she’d wished to be free of the life she’d had in D.C. She knew the power of the coins made it possible. But she didn’t know why. Most importantly, she didn’t know if it could happen again.

  She rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb Nathan. The village bustled with activity as the sun reached its zenith. Though she longed to lie with him and pretend none of the outside world existed, she couldn’t think when she was still. She needed to be moving. She needed to get out into the sunshine, beyond walls trapping her within her meandering thoughts, and sort it all out. While she had the chance. The clock was winding down on their time in Argentina, and she worried that once she left the answers would never come.

  She dressed quickly in jeans and a tank. Nathan stirred once and she paused, watching him steadily to make sure he wasn’t going to rise. If he joined her in her walk, he’d worry about her inability to settle. She didn’t want him to worry. She wanted him to rest.

  When she was convinced he wasn’t going to get up, she picked up her shoes from the floor and carried them out to the porch. The sun scorched her skin, and she squinted against the brilliant light as she sat down and pulled on her boots. Smart move would be to go back inside and get her sunglasses. But sneaking into the room would mean running the risk of waking Nathan again.

  Shielding her eyes, she scanned the horizon. The dark shape of the jungle made her stop.

  The jungle would be cooler. She could take the same path Cora had shown them the day before. It would be perfectly safe, she’d have privacy to think and she wouldn’t need her sunglasses.

  Villagers smiled as she passed, and though Remy returned the greetings, using the halting Spanish Nathan had taught her to get by, she didn’t linger. Each step was surer than the one previous, as if the path had been laid out before she’d set to it, so that by the time she reached the jungle’s edge she didn’t even consider where she was going. She moved on instinct. The rest of it was insignificant.