The gate out of the Nursery looms up ahead, and I’ve never been happier to run through a door in my life.
Four Months Ago . . .
I’m lying on my back in my bed, and Amber is curled in the crook of my arm, her leg draped over mine. We’re both naked, and the covers are pulled up over us. We huddle together to stay warm. The air has a cold bite, even inside. My apartment is too old, too drafty to keep warm without paying obscene amounts of money.
“I want you to meet my family,” she says.
I chuckle. “Are you sure? They’re not going to be very impressed.”
She taps me playfully. “They’ll love you.”
I don’t know what to think. I’ve never been super comfortable around other people’s families. My brother has been gone for years. I don’t know where my mother is, though I have her phone number but no idea if her phone is even still connected. I don’t remember my dad. From how Amber has talked about her family, they are close. That’s a dynamic I don’t understand.
I haven’t had much success with the families of my friends before, either. I was always the one that parents didn’t want their kids hanging around. Amber’s family will feel the same, I suspect, but for the first time in a long while, I want to make a good impression.
It goes better than I expected. I meet her sister, brother-in-law, and their two young kids. The brother-in-law, Sam, he dismisses me pretty quickly. He’s a foreman with a construction company that works on commercial properties. When he hears I’m studying art, he loses interest in me. I’m pretty sure we actually have a few things in common, but I don’t get the chance to prove it.
I fare a little better with Amber’s sister. She likes me, though I’m sure it’s mainly because Amber likes me. I figure I could be the world’s biggest loser, but if I treat Amber like a queen and make her happy, I’ll be good in her book. I like that a lot.
But where I really excel is with the kids. I’ve always gotten on well with children, and this time is no exception. I end up spending most of the night playing games with Amber’s six-year-old niece and four-year-old nephew while Amber chats with her sister. I end up playing countless games of Go Fish and tic-tac-toe. They ask when I’m going to come over again—always a good sign with kids.
I love kids; I love their enthusiasm and the way they look at the world. Everything is a new and all-consuming experience. I attempt to revert back to that when I work on my art, that wide-eyed fascination with taking in all details. To me, there’s nothing better in the world than a child’s happiness.
Chapter 20
If I never see another kid again for the rest of my life, it will be too soon,” I say with conviction. The other detectives grunt or nod in agreement. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to look at a child without fear for the rest of my life.
It’s a few hours after our ordeal in the Nursery. The main room is much quieter than usual. One of the officers that had escorted us into the Nursery is now being reassigned as a ghost. His body was too damaged to be repaired. I had imagined there would be a big send-off of some kind—I dunno, a wake or something. But everyone is quiet, subdued, and looking everywhere but the now-empty desk out in the main room where the guy used to sit.
For once, my brain is working just slightly ahead of my mouth. I let the matter drop and don’t ask any questions about it. Seeing how everyone treats ghosts, tolerating them at best, flat-out ignoring them most of the time, I recognize it as a sensitive subject. To have your coworker go suddenly from buddy to second-class citizen is probably a lot to process. I don’t understand why it should matter, but that seems like a topic for another time.
We close the door to our shared office. None of the detectives were seriously injured on our trip to the Nursery. Marsh got the worst of it with his shoulder injury, but other than tearing a hole in his shirt, he doesn’t look any worse for wear. I have a thousand questions I want to ask, any number of directions I could go. It’s an itch that I can’t scratch. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else if I don’t at least ask. Leaning across the desk, I whisper to Marsh, “Your shoulder. It looks like nothing ever happened to it. How is that possible?”
Marsh is leaning back in his chair. He shrugs. “I told you, kid, it’s will. I just will my body back into shape.”
I understand it’s not something everyone can do. Still, I’m curious. “How much damage can you take?”
He sighs loudly. “Look, kid, let me spare you the back and forth. This isn’t complicated. I can do something—let’s call it, regeneration. Most of us in this room can do it. Except Greystone, of course. It means I can make my body repair itself. From just about anything. I just need time, and I need to concentrate. And it makes me crazy hungry. OK?”
“But, like how badly can you—”
“For the love of . . . What is it with you? I dunno. I haven’t met nothing yet I can’t walk away from. Bones take longer to regrow than muscle, which takes longer than skin and hair. I break some bones, and it’ll take a few hours to heal up. I lose some fingers or toes? Maybe a little longer. It’s not exactly something I try and measure.”
Man, he looks grumpy about explaining this. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him this uncomfortable. “Anything else, Green? Any other questions stewing in that damned lump of lard you call a brain?”
“Can you speed it up if you have to?”
“Yeah, sure, if I want to be sick and miserable for days. Or go completely hunger crazed. Or I’ll have to re-break it or regrow it again if it don’t take right. Now shut it or we’ll see how long it takes you to heal a broken jaw!”
He glowers at me, daring me to call his bluff. There are a hundred more questions I want to ask, just off the top of my head. I want to know more about how quickly he can heal. But we have more pressing matters. I lean back and ask another question, but this time, I do it to the whole room, hoping I’ve found a loophole that will sidestep a serious beating.
“Why don’t you put those kids, those things, into the Pit or whatever you call it? Why are they just packed in the Nursery like that?”
“You want to do it, mate, knock yourself out,” Burchard snarls. “Best we can do without getting half of us ripped apart is to just contain them there.”
Marsh didn’t leap over the desk and try and strangle me. Maybe if I address my questions to someone else, he’ll calm down. I try another line of inquiries. “Why was Davenport there then? And why was he killed?”
A few shrugs and mutters answer me. I get up and walk over to the chalkboard where we have taped photos of all the bodies. I stare at them. “We just started asking him questions, and he’s dead. Maybe someone didn’t want us talking to him.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Finnegan snarls. His feet are propped up on his desk, his head propped on his hand, elbow resting on the armrest of his chair. If he were any more relaxed, he’d ooze out of his seat. “Someone could just be pissed he was complaining about being stapled.”
“Maybe it was demons,” Clark mutters. Snickers and half-hearted laughs sound out around the room.
“We still don’t have anything that connects all these victims,” Meints points out reasonably.
“Uh, yes I do,” I reply, realizing I had never had a chance to fill them in on what Annabelle had pointed out to me earlier.
Stunned silence greets that one.
“So help me if you say demons . . .” Kim starts, but I wave that concern away.
“I spoke with Annabelle down at Warner’s. All of our victims used to be regular customers there.”
All the detectives relax at that. “I suppose you’re going to tell us they all drank beer too,” Clark scoffs, shaking his head. “Holy shit, the bartender’s been offing the worst tippers in town.”
“It is Warner’s we’re talking about,” Marsh grumbles, deadpan.
Well, at least they didn�
��t collectively laugh me out of the room this time. I want to tell them about Frank, but rather than get mocked relentlessly, I resolve to go ask him some more questions on my own time.
“Look, I realize it’s not much. It’s something.”
“Right, it’s something,” Burchard sighs. “Just nothing useful.”
I turn and look at the photos on the chalkboard some more. Maybe if I stare at them long enough, something will jump out at me. I hate being the dumbest person in the room. Or, to be fair, the least experienced. It hasn’t been conclusively proven I’m the dumbest.
The muttering and comments behind me abruptly go silent, and the temperature drops about ten degrees. I turn to see Captain Radu standing in the doorway, looking in on us. I swear the room is darker than it usually is too. I don’t know how he does it, but it feels like he is looking directly at each of us with his undivided attention, all at the same time.
“Another body,” he says softly, though everyone hears him just fine. His eyes are glowing red deep in their sockets. “An officer down. And what do you have?”
I sure as hell am not saying anything. No one else does either.
“I am most displeased,” he fumes after a few seconds, then turns and floats away. I can see him moving, but it’s like his legs aren’t touching the floor; he flows down the hallway.
“Right,” Marsh says, looking at all of us from his desk. “Let’s hit it again.”
Several hours of hitting it pass by with no leads, no progress. Tempers are getting short. We’ve looked through the files on each of the victims. Except for my “lead,” of all the victims frequenting Warner’s, nothing seems to tie them together. None of them have been investigated for anything serious, and none of them seem to have known each other. They work in different places, in entirely different fields. They don’t belong to any of the same groups, clubs, anything that we can find.
Gradually the other detectives leave to follow up on leads or to just call it a day. Pretty soon it’s only Marsh and me.
“C’mon, kid. Let’s call it. We’ll tackle it again tomorrow,” he says.
I lean back in my chair, putting down the pen I’ve been holding.
“No,” I say, seriously. He stares at me, curious. “Marsh, I feel like a joke on this team. I don’t have any training, any knowledge. I have no idea why I’m even here.”
Marsh shrugs. “The captain wants you on the team. You’re on the team. At least until you screw up colossally.”
“I’m serious, Marsh. This.” I motion to the paperwork. “I think this is the only place I can help. Maybe I’ll see something by pouring over notes. Maybe for every nine obvious things I point out, I’ll find something that is worth looking into.”
He nods, grabs his overcoat and drapes it over his arm. “OK. Fair enough. Greystone will help you get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The precinct is never closed; there are always people here no matter the hour. But for next little while, I’m alone in the office. There are two or three boxes of files for each victim: notes on prior infractions, logs of past surveillance and reports, interviews with friends and family. And I can’t find anything that stands out.
At least this time I sense her coming.
“You’re still here, Detective Green,” Greystone says as she floats into the office. “Your body needs sleep, unlike most everyone else here.”
“I’m trying to find a way to pull my weight around here.”
“A laudable goal,” she replies, nodding. She floats over to the board, looking at the bodies, studying them. “Have you made any progress?”
I sigh heavily. “No. The only thing I see is the connection to Warner’s. I think there’s something there, but the others keep dismissing it as trivial. And there’s something off about that guy in the back room.”
She turns to look at me, her regard is severe and matter-of-fact. It’s slightly unnerving, but I try not to let it show on my face or in my feelings. “The captain assigned you to this team for a reason, Detective. Never before has a living person found their way here. Not once in all our history. And you just walked in. You have skills and abilities we have not seen before. If you think something merits your attention, I would advise you to listen to that instinct.”
I’m getting a pep talk from a ghost. I don’t know whether to feel proud or depressed. If someone dead is trying to cheer me up, I don’t know how much further down I can go.
I need a break, so I change the subject.
“Ms. Greystone, how is that officer doing? The one whose body was destroyed today.”
She stiffens up. “Why?”
“Because I’m curious how he is adjusting,” I reply, puzzled. “I know I don’t understand all the implications, the nuances of everything that is going on, but it seems like a tough adjustment to make.”
She doesn’t move, but stares at me, quietly. “Officer Jenkins is having a difficult time. Not all can cope with the transition. If he can accept his place on our team, he will be an invaluable asset to the police force. But it is a rare thing.”
“I don’t understand why. You all are working towards the same goal. We’re a team. Why the hostility to ghosts?”
“It, forgive me, this is difficult to discuss. It is not a polite topic of conversation. I am not used to serious inquiries about the matter. I suppose for most of the returned in the city, it implies a lack of willpower. If we were stronger, we could form our bodies. That we can’t . . .”
I nod, pretending like I understand. This damned link between us though, I’m pretty sure she knows I don’t get it, but she doesn’t elaborate.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” I say. “Maybe he wasn’t directly in charge of protecting me, but he went in to help us. I’d like to repay that in some way if I can.”
I register the shock coming from Greystone; she is surprised at my offer. I continue on, a little embarrassed.
“What do you think, Ms. Greystone? Davenport was in here all the time. He has boxes of complaints and charges he’s filed over the years. You think it could be a reaction to one of those?”
She chuckles. “Davenport was an odd one, wasn’t he? He used to drive Detective Olsen crazy.”
“Detective Olsen? Who’s that?” I ask.
Greystone is silent. She is staring down at the floor. “I was his liaison for nearly twenty years.”
Oh, wow. This is the mysterious partner that I’ve heard about.
“If you don’t mind, Detective. I’ll be going.” She turns and starts to float away.
The thought hits me so hard I jerk violently, almost leaping out of my chair.
“Wait!”
Greystone turns in surprise. She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear in an unconscious manner that speaks to something she must have done all the time she was alive. Her hair certainly doesn’t fall out of place now.
“Ms. Greystone, this Detective Olsen. He dealt with Davenport?”
“Yes, as I said. Many times.”
“So, Olsen would have filed reports on Davenport?”
Greystone sighs patiently. “Again, yes. Davenport filed numerous complaints with Detective Olsen.”
“None of them are here,” I say confidently. “There are no files about Davenport filed by Olsen.”
She cocks her head slightly to the side, confused. “You must be mistaken, Detective.”
“No, I’m not,” I say, careful not to interrupt her twice in a row. I’m relieved she let me get away with it the first time. “I’ve been through these boxes all day. I’ve read every report, every complaint Davenport filed. None of them are from Olsen.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Where is Detective Olsen? Can we ask him?”
Greystone’s expression doesn’t change, but she says very quietly, “
Detective Olsen is no longer here.”
Before I can ask a follow-up question, she continues. “He is,” she pauses, and I watch her swirl a little, “in the Pit.”
That would make it hard to speak to him. I’ll have to ask about that later. But I’m too excited to let that stop me.
“Did he keep notes or files? Anything?”
She thinks this over for a moment. “Yes, he did keep notes. Follow me, if they are not here, then they will be in our storage room.”
She is floating quickly, and I have to hurry to keep up. She at least does me the courtesy of not floating through any walls along the way. We make our way down numerous flights of stairs to I-don’t-know-what sublevel. I’m surprised at how far down this place goes. We’re at least five floors underground when she exits the stairwell and leads me into a maze of dark hallways. We pass dozens of identical doors evenly spaced in the featureless corridor. Greystone better not lose me down here, or I might not be able to find my way back. She leads me to a dimly lit doorway in a little-used hall. I open the door, and Greystone has to wait while I light an oil lamp. I look at a massive storage room with shelves piled to the high ceiling with boxes of files. It’s like a Home Depot in here. And it’s one of their storerooms. How many dozens of doors did we walk past that lead to rooms just like this one?
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