“A little bit.”
“Anything weird?”
Jirel shrugged. “Guess that depends what you define as weird. She got tossed around the foster care system for most of it. Why?”
A slight frown crossed Xander’s face. “I finally got a hold of her records from Mattson. There’s an entry from ages 16 to 18 that’s been retracted.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means something had been in there originally that someone took out.”
Jirel gave him a heavy blink. Xander had a habit of poking fun of the fact that Jirel’s English was not very good when they first met. “I know what retracted means, jackass. In fact, I know what it means in two languages.”
“It means something happened during those two years that could have kept her from joining the Society, but for some reason it was removed from her record.”
“What keeps you from joining the Society?”
Xander shrugged. “Criminal record, mostly. Mental illness. Like the military we reserve the right to keep you out if we think you’re crazy.”
“Someone has to know, obviously. If it was that serious she couldn’t have joined, let alone get a position as a detective,” Jirel said. He paused for a moment. “I mean, I know everyone thinks she’s crazy, but obviously if she really was…”
“I’m sure Mattson knows. He was her Informant from day one. She was eighteen when she joined the Society, did you know that?”
Jirel shook his head, though it did not surprise him.
“Tested straight into the detective billet, almost nobody does that. No wonder she was already experienced when she did that undercover gig at twenty-one or however old she was.” Xander shrugged. “If it’s been retracted it wasn’t that big a deal. Probably something that looked bad on paper but had a good explanation for it. I was just curious if she’d mentioned anything to you.”
“Nothing specific. She doesn’t seem to be very enthusiastic about talking about the past.”
“Good, you two are made for each other then.”
Jirel eyed him for a long moment before he rose to his feet and picked up the travel approvals off the printer on the other side of Xander’s desk. Watson laid his head down on the floor with a forlorn face.
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Hey,” Xander said before Jirel got a chance to get to the door.
Jirel looked back at him from the doorway.
“You talk to Jayne lately?”
“Why should I talk to Jayne?”
Xander resisted a scowl. “Because I’m tired of you two walking around here pretending to ignore each other. Kiss and make up already, will you?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Jirel said. “If she is interested in talking to me she can pick up the phone. I don’t have anything to say to her right now.”
Xander said something under his breath that Jirel didn’t quite catch, but it sounded like it included profanity.
“You could have said no,” Jirel said. “When she asked to trade partners.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d be taking it like this, still.”
Jirel held his hands out in an exaggerated shrug. “You know I’m the one who got the short end of the stick on that bargain.”
“There is no stick,” Xander said, shaking his head. “There’s just your job. Be an adult and do it, or go find someplace else.”
There was a long silence while the two stared at each other. Both of them knew that Xander’s threat was an empty one—he would fight tooth and nail before he let his best detective walk out the door especially over something so petty. Xander sighed.
“Look, I know this is an ass pain. Usually detectives are vetted and there’s personality tests and time to get to know a new partner. Two detectives from two different offices usually aren’t thrown together like this. So I’m sorry that’s how it worked out. This was sort of an emergency situation. You’re both on the defensive and nervous about losing your jobs. Give it a little time. Give me two cases with Aviira. If things aren’t working out by that time, we’ll talk about you going solo again.”
Jirel still didn’t say anything. He had a feeling that if he complained about Aviira and dumped her as a partner, her career was as good as dead. She might have done good work with the undercover case and had nearly ten years of experience, but she was still walking on thin ice while he had several important people in the Society to back him up. Somehow, it didn’t feel fair to him.
Xander raised his eyes to him again.
“Deal?”
He wasn’t sure, but still he said, “Deal.”
***
After visiting the Human Relations Department to get someone to track down the identities Devaney supposedly had, Aviira stopped at the computer lab in Special Ops. Jensen was seated in front of a computer with a pair of headphones on, transcribing what looked like audio files.
He didn’t notice her when she stepped up behind him, so she lifted the headphones off his ears.
“Hey.”
Jensen immediately snatched them out of her hand, glancing over his shoulder at her with a scowl. “Excuse you,” he said. “I’m in the middle of something.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Sor-ry,” she said. “You’re the one who left me like eight thousand messages this morning. I assumed it was something important.”
Jensen shook his head. “Nope. Nothing big.”
Aviira put her hands on her hips, glanced around the room. There were a couple IT guys working at other computers. “Okay. Well, I’m going out of town for a couple days. Call you when I’m back.”
He paused whatever he was listening to and turned in his chair. “Where were you last night?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked where you were last night.”
“Since when is that any of your business?”
Jensen stared at her. “I was just asking.”
“And I’m just telling you it’s none of your business,” Aviira said. “’Sides, how do you know I was anywhere?”
“You left your phone in your apartment and you weren’t there at eight o’clock, two things you usually don’t do.”
“So that led you to believe I was somewhere else last night?”
He shrugged. She shrugged back.
“Maybe I was. What’s it to you?”
“Just curious if I’m not the only person you’re fucking.”
The techs on the other side of the room glanced over. Aviira’s eyes narrowed and she stared at him for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and had the edge of cold steel.
“Get up.”
“What?”
“I said, get up.”
“Why?”
“Because my arm really hurts and I don’t want to waste the effort using it to drag you out of this room."
He scoffed, flicked his eyes toward the other two people in the room, like he was calling her bluff by the virtue of there being two witnesses. “Yeah right.”
She reached down and grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him out of his chair to his feet, pushed him out of the room before he had a chance to respond. In the hallway, she shoved him not lightly against the wall and stood within inches of his face.
“Let’s get one thing straight right now, Jensen, in case you hadn’t figured this out already. I’m not your girlfriend. I know you’ve been telling people that you finally bagged the crazy redhead, and if I hear it again you’re going to be sorry you ever knew me in the first place. I’m not even your exclusive fuck. I want to sleep with someone else, I can sleep with someone else, and it’s none of your business. Kay?”
Jensen pushed her away from him with surprising strength. “You came to my house yesterday morning because you needed a friend. I’ve always been there for you and the only thing you seem to want me for is when you need me to do you a favor or fuck you. Make up your fucking mind already.”
“Make up my mind?” she echoed, her face a dubio
us expression. “I know exactly what we are, Jensen. You’re the one who seems determined to get feelings involved in it.”
“Three years we’ve been doing this, Aviira. You trying to tell me you don’t have feelings?”
“Uh, yeah. You have always known that I don’t get into relationships, Jens. I’m sorry if you started to think otherwise. I have never been interested in a relationship with you.”
His face got still, and he was quiet for a second. “Fine. Then fuck it.”
Aviira rolled her eyes. “What, now you’re going to act like a baby?”
He shook his head. “If you don’t want a relationship that’s fine. But don’t expect me to be your friend and take you to bed whenever you feel like it.”
She held her hands out wide. “Well excuse me for thinking that we had a friends with benefits situation going on. That’s all we’ve ever been, Jensen. Where the fuck is this coming from all of a sudden?”
“It’s the new partner, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t what?”
“You were with him last night. I know he lives in your building.”
Aviira laughed, but the sound wasn’t very amused. She backed away from him and put up her arms. “You know what, fuck this, Jensen. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need to tell you who I’ve been with, whether I’m sleeping with them or not.” She started walking away, and then turned back. “And for the record, I’m not sleeping with him. But I’m glad he makes you jealous enough to think so.”
Jensen scoffed. “Jesus, I was wrong about you.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. I thought we were pretty good friends.”
“We’re not friends, Jensen. We’re just fuck buddies. Got it?”
His golden eyes turned hard, and Aviira sensed that she’d crossed a line. His jawline got stiff and he nodded. “Got it,” he said quietly. He pushed past her and walked back into the computer lab.
She watched him for a second and then walked down the hallway, rolling the tension out of her bad shoulder and readjusting the collar of her shirt. When she emerged out of the hallway back into the main lobby of the field office, Jirel was leaning over the desk of a computer, checking something on the screen. He glanced up at her, gave her a once-over.
“Hey. You okay?” he asked when she got closer.
“Fine,” she said, though she knew her voice said otherwise. “Why?”
He shook his head a little. “You look a little flustered.”
“I’m fine. I just—yeah, no. I’m fine. What are you doing?”
Jirel gave her another long look, trying to find the source of her agitation, then gave it up. “Just pulling up a map of this place where Aiden Dannels is supposed to be.”
Aviira nodded. “Good. You got the travel approved?”
“Yeah. Talk to Human Relations?”
Another nod. She saw Jirel’s eyes move toward something behind her, and when she turned her head, Jensen was approaching with a large envelope in his hand. He threw it on the desk in front of her and gave Jirel a look that was nothing short of scathing before he turned his eyes toward Aviira again.
“You’re welcome. Not sure why I even bothered.”
Aviira rolled her eyes as he started to walk away. “Don’t be an asshole, Jensen. It doesn’t suit you.”
He looked back at her over his shoulder and kept walking. “Fuck you.”
He disappeared into the hallway. Aviira cleared her throat quietly and tried to maintain a straight face as she turned back to Jirel. The few people in the room were glancing in her direction and everything had gotten very quiet. She fidgeted with the collar of her shirt.
“Ready?” she said quietly.
Jirel handed her the envelope and nodded, and she led the way up the stairwell in a thick silence. She climbed into the passenger seat of Jirel’s car and looked at the envelope Jensen had thrown at her and wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in it.
He got in the driver’s seat and looked over at her.
“We can…we can wait if you need a few minutes.”
Aviira shook her head. “It’s all good.”
After a second, Jirel started the car. He had no idea what to say. “Is everything okay?”
“He’s just starting shit,” she said softly.
“Does he think—me and you—” He left the question hanging, apparently too afraid to ask it himself.
“Apparently he thinks I’m loose enough to go to bed with someone a few days after meeting them,” she said in a bitter tone. Jirel didn’t respond. After a second she added, “He seems to think we’re in a relationship, which we’re not. Just…friends with benefits.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jirel said.
“Yes, thank you. I mean, isn’t that what guys want? I thought guys were all about screwing around without attachment.”
He pulled into traffic in lieu of finding something to say. Aviira was still looking out the window, shaking her head to herself. Finally, she took in a deep breath and opened the envelope. A picture fell into her lap when she tipped it open. Her heart did an uncomfortable roll through her chest.
Jirel had propped his elbow on the windowsill, letting one finger trail along the rubber track around the glass. He glanced at her after realizing that she had been quiet for a while. She had a funny look on her face.
“You okay?”
She cleared her throat. “I, ah, mentioned my sister last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Jensen found her.”
“Really?”
Aviira looked at him, but her eyes were focused on the thick white veins that traveled from the inside of his wrist all the way into the crook of his elbow where they disappeared under the cuff of his folded sleeve. For half a moment she began to wonder where else those brilliant white lines traveled on his body before she caught herself and threw that erratic thought away.
“Yeah. I mentioned to him yesterday that she’d been in my dream and he…offered to find her for me. I didn’t think he’d be able to do it that fast.” She flipped back to the photograph again and her stomach tightened. It was a driver’s license photo and uncharacteristically flattering. Liisha looked just like her, except she’d been lucky enough to get their mother’s cornsilk blonde hair. The blue backdrop behind her made her bright blue eyes pop even more. She had matured immensely in the nearly ten years since Aviira had seen her; she was no longer the wide-eyed, pale-faced little girl she had remembered who’d always trembled and cried when they’d had their visits. She looked happy now. Aviira wondered if she ever thought about her.
“I feel like an asshole,” she murmured.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Because he did this for me and then I picked a fight.” A long pause. “Though I guess he didn’t have to come at me like such a dick.”
“I’m sure you can smooth things over when we get back.”
Maybe, Aviira thought. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to smooth things over, not if Jensen was bringing feelings into the whole thing. And telling people that they were an item, which made her furious. She thumbed through a couple of the papers inside the envelope, found a current phone number and address.
“She lives like fifteen minutes away from me,” she said quietly.
Jirel looked over at her. He couldn’t help but think her reaction was a little more subdued than he would have expected after realizing her sister was minutes from where she lived. Aviira glanced up at him, and maybe as if sensing his thought, forced a smile and put the papers back into the envelope.
“I’ll call her when this is all over,” she murmured. “Too much to think about right now.”
He nodded. “Probably a good idea.”
Aviira turned her head and looked out the window as the city flew by. She propped her elbow on the window and fidgeted with the scar between her lips. It was buzzing with an uncomfortable burning sensation.
***
Just under two hours later Jirel and Avii
ra were driving through a tiny mountain town called Estes Park, which was tucked up a winding river canyon northwest of Denver and sat right at the mouth of Rocky Mountain National Park. The downtown strip was lined with T-shirt stores, ice cream parlors, and souvenir shops filled with rustic home decor and elk paraphernalia, but the spectacular view was far more impressive than the shopping. It was clear that the charm of the town was in the getaway, the private wooded lots climbing into the back country that hid cabin rentals situated right next to the river that offered peace and quiet and in some cases, little to no cell service.
“Isn’t this place where the hotel that inspired The Shining is or something?” Aviira asked as they turned off the main drag when the GPS indicated.
“Yeah,” Jirel said. “Right there.”
He pointed out the window as they rounded a corner at a set of sprawling white and red buildings that sat nearly alone in front of a spectacular display of trees and rocks. The main building, the hotel proper, did look relatively ominous in the sharp afternoon light that was starting to dip into the mountains in the west.
He looked over at her. “You’ve lived in Colorado your entire life and you’ve never been up here before?”
Aviira lifted her sunglasses and watched the hotel pass by her window as they drove. “Yeah, somehow with being shuffled around by protective services my entire life I never really found the time.”
“Touché.”
“So that’s this little place’s claim to fame? A haunted hotel and a bunch of elk?”
“Apparently so.”
“Couldn’t get me to live here year round,” she murmured.
“I don’t know, I think it’s sort of charming.”
She looked at him. “Charming?”
He shrugged. “Get out of town without getting out of cell range, you know, that sort of thing. I grew up in country like this though.”
“I thought you grew up in New York.”
“I did,” he said. “Upstate.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“I hear there’s a Starbucks,” Jirel said with a small grin. “So you’d probably make it.”
“Mm, I like my civilization, thank you very much,” she replied as she set her sunglasses back on her nose. Jirel laughed a little.
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