by Lisa Olsen
Before too long I noticed a smell in the air… heavy grease from fast food, maybe last night’s dinner, that made my stomach twist with revulsion. It was strong enough to dislodge me from my faerie cocoon and send me into the kitchen to investigate. The smell grew stronger as I got closer to the kitchen and I spotted one of the wrappers tossed carelessly next to the garbage can. Holding my breath, I picked up the wrapper and threw it away, but the smell lingered. Forced to set the garbage can outside, I waited for a few minutes, breathing shallowly through the top of my pajamas, before I risked another sniff. Luckily, the smell gradually faded, only to be replaced with something else… something tantalizing.
Sharp hunger sliced through my middle, and I nearly doubled over at the sensation, clutching the kitchen counter until it faded. All of a sudden I was ravenous, and made a beeline for the fridge, pulling it open a little harder than I’d intended, the bottles rattling from the force of the movement. Rapidly, my eyes scanned the contents, but I couldn’t spot what it was that was tempting my senses. Leftover pizza? Too greasy. Cold cuts? Closer… but not quite right. Macaroni and cheese? Ugh… no thanks. What was it?
Before I could dig any deeper, a knock sounded at the front door.
Chapter Three
I froze in front of the refrigerator as the knock reverberated through the room. Who could possibly be knocking at that time of night? With a twist of fear, I realized I’d left Bridget’s little pink can on the coffee table, and scurried back to scoop it up. Clutching the weapon, I approached the door cautiously, leaning up to look through the peep hole. A man stood on the other side, checking something on his cell phone. While I watched, he reached out and knocked again, a little harder that time, and I jumped in spite of seeing it coming.
“Open up for chrissakes…” I clearly heard him mutter through the door, sounding vaguely irritated. Did murderers get annoyed when their victims didn’t open up? He didn’t look much like a murderer, not that I had a whole lot of experience with criminals at that point in my life.
My gentleman caller had short, spiky, dark hair and a lot of unshaven stubble that might have been meant to be a beard, though I couldn’t see much of his face. His shoulders were at my eye level, so he was definitely over six feet tall. He was dressed in dark clothes with a leather motorcycle jacket. Not a rebel, biker bar kind of jacket, but the kind of guy who rode an expensive racing bike.
All at once I decided I was being ridiculous. A guy like that could probably break the door down if he really wanted to, and I had my mace. He might not even be looking for me at all.
Unbolting the door, I propped it open a crack, relieved when he didn’t lunge towards me. “Can I help you?” My voice sounded raspy to my ears, as if I needed a drink, and I cleared my throat.
“I’ll need to see your license and registration.” His voice was deep, but he sounded bored, like it was a routine question he’d already asked twenty times that night. He looked up then and I noticed he had the most intense green eyes I’d ever seen. Maybe they looked extra green in contrast to the dark fringe of lashes that framed them (Bridget would kill for lashes that naturally thick). The rest of him was just as appealing, from the strong jaw to the broad shoulders, despite the need of a shave. Too bad he looked at me like I was the least interesting part of his day.
And then something in his face changed as his eyes locked with mine, surprise clearly etching his features. I started to get a little self-conscious as he stared back at me. I knew I looked like hell after the night I’d had, but was it really that bad?
“What?” I asked finally, having completely forgotten he’d asked me something and was probably waiting for my response. My question seemed to derail his train of thought and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, finally looking away from me.
“Nothing. Do you have your papers?”
“Papers…” Oh right, he’d asked for my license and registration, that made him a cop and probably explained the boredom and the intense scrutiny. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any of that. I don’t have my purse. You’re here to investigate what happened? Come on in, Detective…” I stood back from the door, giving him enough room to pass.
His head tilted to one side as he regarded me closely again with an inscrutable expression on his face. “Bishop,” he replied succinctly, stepping into the living room. Instead of taking a seat, he made a slow circuit around the apartment, though I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
I decided not to let him rattle me. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight,” I offered, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for me talk to the cops in my pj’s.
“You think?” That earned me a half smile, as I’d clearly amused him. “No, I’m good. If you don’t have your papers here, where are they?” he pressed, picking up a piece of sheet music from the table by the window.
“I have no idea. Didn’t they tell you? Oh, I guess not, I didn’t say much at the morgue. I can’t remember anything about tonight.”
At the mention of the morgue, Bishop lost interest in the décor and returned his focus back to me. “What did you tell them at the morgue?” His eyes narrowed and I felt like I was under one of those bright lights of interrogation like you see in old movies.
“Not much, I had more questions than they did. They told me how I’d been brought in and that I’d… died, or at least they thought I had, and that was about it.”
“And they let you go?” His tone made it clear he found that hard to believe and a rush of guilt flooded me for running out on my civic responsibility.
“I sort of skipped out… I’m sorry! It’s nothing personal, I didn’t feel like a whole lot of questions tonight. I didn’t mean for you to have to track me down like this.”
His brows drew together into a single dark line that stemmed more from confusion than any anger over my response. “Maybe we should go back and start at the beginning.”
“The beginning, right,” I took a deep breath, settling onto the end of the couch. Trying to be as thorough as possible, I took him back to what I remembered from the moment I woke up in the morgue, leaving out Bridget’s involvement, since I didn’t want her to get in trouble for leaving work. I didn’t tell him about the odd things like my sensitivity to sound and light, or the change in my vision, but it was pretty hard to keep the fact that my neck was completely healed from him. I expected him to ask me more about it when I was done, but instead he gave me another irritated look.
“Okay, I get it. That’s a great cover story, and you’ve got the whole wide-eyed innocent thing down pat. But I’m with the Order, so...”
“So…” I stared back at him blankly. Was I supposed to know what that meant? Was it a special tactical team within the police department? “I really don’t know what else I can do. I’ve told you everything I know.”
Bishop sank down on the opposite end of the couch, rubbing his face with both hands tiredly. “You could stop wasting my time and get me your license and registration,” he sighed.
What was with his obsession with those documents? Wasn’t he listening to me? He looked so down though, I started to feel bad for him. Maybe it was one of those cop rules he had to check up on, or his report would be incomplete? “Can’t you pull up my driver’s license on your computer and see that I’m really me? I don’t actually have a car, so no vehicle registration.”
His hands came away from his face, a new look of resolve replacing the fatigue. “Let’s try something else. Where’s your sponsor?”
“Sponsor?” I blinked.
“Let me guess, you don’t remember him either.” Bishop’s eyes closed and I fancied I heard something akin to a whispered prayer cross his lips, but I didn’t recognize the words.
“I don’t even know what you mean by sponsor.” Didn’t they have sponsors in AA? “I’m not an alcoholic,” I frowned. Did he think I was on drugs?
“I didn’t…” He pressed his lips together
, thinking better of what he’d been about to say.
“Look, I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help, Detective Bishop. Believe me, I want to figure out what happened to me even more than you do. I’m hoping my memory comes back after the shock wears off a little. I guess I should go see a doctor tomorrow,” I frowned. That meant I’d have to skip my morning classes.
“No doctors…”
“No doctors? Why not?”
“Oh for the love of…” he pressed a fist to his mouth and I thought he might really lose his temper, but then his eyes widened, focusing on my hand intently. Quicker than my eye could track, he reached out and snatched up my hand, inspecting the ring on my finger. “Where did you get this?”
For a moment I was too distracted by the feel of his hand over mine. There we were on my couch, and the sexiest cop I’d ever seen was holding my hand and hanging onto my every word. Things like that never happened to me, and I started to really regret not having taken a shower or brushing my hair after the ordeal at the hospital. Those cool green eyes kept looking at me expectantly though, and I remembered belatedly he’d asked me a question.
The odd thing was, before he pointed it out, I hadn’t even noticed I was wearing it. The ornate silver ring held a smooth amber cabochon. “Oh… I didn’t even realize I had this on. He must have put it on me along with the other stuff.”
“He who?”
“I told you, I don’t remember. Whoever put me in all the other weird Viking clothes. It’s pretty though, isn’t it?” I admired it openly, fingers tracing over the foreign symbols carved into the band.
“You didn’t mention anything about Viking clothes before,” his voice sounded strange, and I tore my gaze away from the ring to look back at him.
“I thought you knew. They said in the hospital report I was wearing a costume, so I thought you’d already know about that part. I told you I changed, remember? Why, is that important?”
“Where are these Viking clothes now? Do the police have them?”
“No, they’re in my bedroom.”
“Get them.” His eyes blazed with intensity, and I lost the urge to complain over the rude tone of the request. Obviously it was important, or he wouldn’t be so eager to get his hands on them.
“Alright, hold on a second, I’ll be right back.” I rose to retrieve the bag of bloody clothes, more than a little disconcerted when he stood up and started to follow me to my room. “It’ll only take a second,” I frowned, but he kept coming. Writing it off as a cop thing, I let him follow me if he wanted to, glad my room wasn’t a pig sty like Bridget’s. Once we got there, he shouldered past me, going right to the mesh bag next to the closet door without being told where it was. I watched as Bishop pulled the clothes out, rolling the fabric through his fingers and studying the brooches with interest. When he lifted them to his nose for a deep sniff, I started to get a little weirded out. “Um… Detective?”
Another knock sounded at the front door, and both our heads swiveled on cue. I turned back to ask him if I should answer it and he was gone. The flutter of air coming in through the window gave the only sign of where he’d disappeared to. “You have got to be kidding me,” I murmured in the empty room. The knock came again, and I turned my back on the bedroom, scooping up the can of mace for comfort.
That time I decided to be a little smarter about it. “Who is it?”
“The police. Sorry to disturb you so late, I’m looking for an Anja Evans?”
Peeking through the peep hole, most of the view was blocked by a badge, but I could see the man’s blonde hair and white teeth as he smiled at the door as if posing for a camera. He was dressed casually in a pair of jeans, t-shirt, and a 49’ers jacket.
I cracked the door open a few inches. “You don’t look much like a cop,” I said carefully, mace still at the ready.
“How about this? Does this make you feel better?” He freely offered the leather badge holder with his identification behind plastic.
I ran my fingers over the ID, thinking I had no idea what a real police badge should look like, or how hard it would be to counterfeit. It was a plus on his side that he’d showed one though, and I mentally kicked myself for not asking Bishop for any form of identification. According to the ID, his name was Detective Andrew Lucas.
“So, do I pass the inspection? Can I come in or do you want to give your neighbors more to talk about?” he grinned.
“Sorry,” I handed the badge holder back, stepping back to let him in. Once he passed by, I noticed he had my purse tucked under his arm. “Oh, you found my purse! Is everything still inside?” Half afraid I’d find the contents missing, relief swept over me when I found the wallet intact with my license and debit card still in place.
“How else would I have found you? You weren’t exactly Little Miss Information down at the hospital.” His mild reproach was tempered by a playful edge.
“Where did you find it?” Belatedly, I realized I had no idea where I’d been picked up from by the ambulance. There had to have been other clues at the crime scene. Maybe the police already knew who had attacked me? “Did you catch the guy who kidnapped me? Is he in jail?”
“Whoa, one question at a time. Boy, they were right. You’re nowhere near a corpse are you? Do you think I could get a couple of questions in myself? Just for the record?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized automatically. “But um, shouldn’t you check Detective Bishop’s report?”
“Ah, Detective Bishop’s report…” he repeated, his brows rising slightly. “And that would be…?”
“You don’t have a Detective Bishop, do you?” I already knew the answer before asking the question; I’d known it the instant he slipped out the window. And here I’d let him into my home! How stupid could I be?
Lucas shook his head along with me. “Not that I know of, and I’m pretty sure that’s a name I’d remember. You already gave your statement to this Bishop person?”
“Yes, he left right as you got here. I told him everything I remember, which isn’t much. But he did take the bloody clothes I was found in when he left.” I omitted the part where he disappeared out the window.
“That’s… gonna hurt the case,” Lucas frowned, the first serious expression I’d seen from him so far. “I was hoping to take those back with me to forensics.”
“I’m sorry, I thought he was with the police.” Hopefully I hadn’t jeopardized my chances at finding the guy responsible.
“He looked more like a cop than I did?” he asked mildly.
“What? Oh, he did I suppose, though more like an undercover cop I guess. He looked like he could be…” The memory of those intense green eyes swam before my vision for a fleeting moment. The way he walked and the complete authority with which he’d asked for information. I hadn’t questioned for a moment that he wasn’t perfectly entitled to it. The edge to his voice had made me instinctively want to give him what he was looking for rather than face the consequences. “…formidable, you know?”
“Formidable, got it.” He made a show of writing the word down. “We’re gonna need a little more of a description to go on though,” he added dryly.
I gave him the best description I could, walking him through the story. That time I added the parts Bishop asked me about, namely the license and registration, and his interest in the clothes. “Do you think he was involved?” Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to think he was the person who attacked me. He’d seemed as confounded over my memory loss as I was, more maybe. That, and despite his brusque manner, I never felt an ounce of danger from Bishop the whole time he was in my apartment. Sure, it got a little weird at the end with him sniffing my clothes, but I never felt afraid of him. Boy, was I naïve…
“Well, he’s obviously involved in some aspect, why else would he show up at your door in the middle of the night? But was he the kidnapper?” Lucas shrugged. “It’s hard to say. We’ll do our best to track him down and get him to answer a few questions of our own.”
“This
has been the strangest night,” I murmured, looking down at the ring on my finger, twisting it around and around.
“This is one for the books alright. It’s not every day I get the chance to interview a murder victim.” His grin was back. “I’m glad you’re alright, by the way. Did they say at the hospital what led them to pronounce you as dead? I thought you had a pretty bad injury on your neck,” he frowned, and my hand instinctively rose to cover my unblemished neck.
“I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. It must not have been all my blood though, I’m fine, really.” I don’t know how, but I knew it was a lie, even as I said it. It had been my blood and no one else’s on the dress, and I should have a wound on my neck. Just like I shouldn’t have been able to see without my glasses, but instinct made me downplay it.
“Still, you should probably get checked out, I can give you a ride if you like.”
No doctors… Bishop’s words echoed through my mind, and despite his sketchy exit, I still found it to be sound advice. “No, thank you. I really want to get some rest, but I’ll make an appointment tomorrow. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more to go on, but it’s all a blank. What can you tell me about where I was found?”
Detective Lucas hesitated, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he decided how much to tell me about it. “It was an abandoned house, the call came in that there were multiple shots fired, but you were the only one on the scene when the uniforms arrived.”
“Shots fired,” I frowned, frustration mounting at continually coming up against the blank wall of my memory block. “Where is it? Maybe if I could go back there, it might jog my memory?” It sounded like as good a plan as any, but he was already shaking his head, no.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea with all you’ve been through tonight.”
“Detective, I have to find out what happened to me. That guy is still out there somewhere, and I have no idea how he got to me. For all I know, I could fall asleep here in my own bed, he could strike again whenever he wants, and I might end up really dead this time.”