Evie Jones and the Rocky Roulette: An Evie Jones Novella

by Amie Gibbons

  EVIE JONES AND THE ROCKY ROULETTE

  AN EVIE JONES NOVELLA

  AMIE GIBBONS

  Copyright © 2016 by Amie Gibbons

  Cover art and design © 2016 Oleg Volk

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2016

  Gremlin Publishing

  Nashville, TN.

  https://amiecuscuriae.wordpress.com/

  For my kitteh

  Because he knows how to calm me down

  And when to let me spaz

  “It’s my pleasure to burn,” I said in a low growl, leveling my gun at my captive’s chest.

  “Damn, that’s creepy coming from you,” Chet said from behind me. “Why aren’t you shooting him?”

  Dr. Wolf kept his hands up, gun useless at his feet, eyes bouncing between us. Poor goof dropped it when I got the drop on him.

  “We’re taking him prisoner,” I said.

  “There are no prisoners in paintball, Evie,” Chet said, walking past me, the plastic mask over his face not obscuring the giant grin.

  I giggled. “There are when I play.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s right,” Wolf said, light Serbian accent coloring the words. “It’s not in the rules. You shoot, you get points; you get shot, you’re out of the game. You get extra points for capturing the other teams’ flags. Team with the most points at the end of the game wins. That’s it.”

  I shrugged. “Says who? Not like there’s a ref during paintball games.”

  Wolf snorted. “No wonder my wife likes you.”

  “Oh yeah, we love your wife up at the med center. Won’t stop me from shooting you though. Chet, grab his arms, tie them behind his back with your belt.”

  Wolf grinned, shaking his head. “I know that’s against the rules.”

  “I’m still fuzzy on why we’re taking him prisoner,” Chet said, pulling the belt off his camouflage suit.

  “We’re going to put him up on the bandstand in the middle of our territory with a sign, wait for the geologists to come investigate, half of us will ambush them and the other half will go into their territory and look for their flag.”

  “You are so sexy when you’re diabolical,” Chet said, tying up the doctor.

  “Why were you quoting Bradbury?” Wolf asked.

  “Our team’s motto,” I said, pumping the fist on my free hand. “Go Anthro-Fires.”

  We frog marched Wolf back to our side of the field. I sent a text explaining the plan to the rest of our team once we were safely under cover in our team’s shed. The sheds were the home bases for teams, where they couldn’t be shot… if everyone was following the rules at least.

  “What makes you think putting Dr. Wolf up on a platform will make the geologists come for him?” Kane texted back. “I know this is faux-war, but I don’t see people coming to rescue their Captain.”

  “I’m going to piss them off with a little help from Sheldon Cooper,” I said out loud as I wrote it. “I think they’ll at least want to come close enough to see… and get offended.”

  We put Wolf up on the platform and Chet covered me while I shot my gun on the giant slab of wood behind him to paint out a message.

  We backed up once we were all ready and Chet burst out laughing, bumping me with his arm. “You are way too hot to be this dorky.”

  I snorted. I’d written, “Geology isn’t a real science! Love Sheldon Cooper.”

  # # #

  “To Evie, and her ability to piss people off as only a lawyer can,” Kane raised his drink over the dinner table and his girlfriend Mandy giggled.

  I held up my martini. “To beating the Geology, BioChem, Computer Science, and Physics departments in the U’s fifth annual Science Bowl.”

  “To hot guns and the hotter women that shoot them,” Chet said.

  “Hear hear,” our team said, clinking glasses. Mandy and I grinned at each other. As the only girls on the team of ten, we knew who they were talking about. Even with scars lining half her face from being thrown off my dad’s roof last Halloween, she was still beautiful.

  To compete, the departments had to put together teams of ten with at least two girls. The Anthropology guys were led by their department head, Dr. Kane, who got a few other professors and doctoral candidates and filled out the group with one of the girl TA’s husbands, me and Mandy. Apparently none of the women in the department wanted to run around on the field in the March chill, getting dirty and sweaty with the boys and getting shot with paintballs.

  Didn’t make sense to me. Paintball was a blast! As long as you didn’t get shot by the other side. Those things hurt.

  “Oh sure, rub it in,” Wolf said, smiling wide and sweet. He and his wife Rose joined us for dinner, hard feelings nonexistent once the game was over.

  “I still can’t believe you tied my husband to a pole out in the open like that,” Rose said, shaking her head. “You are a cold woman, Evie Jones.”

  “What?” I grinned. “The other teams were too confused to shoot at him. He wasn’t even hurt.”

  She leaned over and kissed her husband before giving me a wink. “If they had, I could’ve patched him up. I would’ve still been pissed.”

  Rose was a dermatology attending at the University of Utah Med Center where I worked as an assistant privacy officer. I’d hated the job when I first got it because it was a step down from my past job as an assistant general counsel, but I’d met some truly awesome people working at the university.

  “I am fine, lovely,” Wolf stroked his wife’s cheek, staring at her so intently it made me grin. “I would not object to being treated by my doctor tonight, though.”

  Rose and I both blushed and I turned to look at Chet. He took my hand, kissing the knuckles.

  “I still need a cute pet name for you,” Chet said. “How do you feel about marshmallow snuggle monkey?”

  I burst out laughing and shook my head. “Way too long.”

  “Well I-”

  Clink clink clink clink clink, the glasses clattered on the table as one. I jerked my hands away and stood up so fast my chair fell over. The table vibrated, shaking the drinks and plates of bread. Drinks fell and the others scrambled back from the table.

  “Under the table,” Wolf said, pulling his wife down. Chet and I followed, scuttling under.

  The earthquake shook the world for a few seconds and crashes thundered through the restaurant.

  I peeked out when the earth calmed and it didn’t look like too much damage, some broken glasses and plates, a mess sure, but nothing terrible.

  Corey’s cell phone went off near me and I looked at him. He was the husband of the girl TA. I couldn’t remember her name since she never hung out with us. He was also a detective.

  A detective’s phone going off was about as bad as a doctor’s.

  I grabbed it off the floor and tossed it to him. He caught it midair on his knees.

  “Yes sir?” He nodded a few times, muttered a few more, “Yes sirs,” and hit the phone to turn it off.

  “What it is?” I asked. “Did the earthquake cause more damage somewhere? Wait, there’s no way they’d be able to get to the scene of whatever this fast.”

  He shook his head, eyes switching back and forth across the floor like he was in REM sleep. “No.”

  So why did he look so horrified?

  “We have a dead body. He was found in his office at the U about an
hour ago… still wearing his paintball suit.”

  I grabbed my necklace and a hand rested on my shoulder. I didn’t have to look back to know it was Chet’s. “Who?”

  “Sean Quart.” Corey’s voice broke and he looked just south of my eyes, not enough to hide the shimmer over his. My heart sank.

  No.

  “Oh god,” Chet said. “Man…”

  “Do we know him?” Rose asked.

  “He’s one of Corey’s best friends,” I said when Corey didn’t answer. “He’s a friend… was a friend of a lot of us in this group. Paintball, poker, drinks after work. He fixed my car last month. Corey, you can’t investigate your buddy’s death.”

  “They don’t want me to investigate,” he said, voice even and flat as a pancake. “They want me to identify the body, if I can.”

  “If you can?” Rose asked.

  “He said he’s missing his face and hands.”

  # # #

  “You can’t come into an active crime scene,” Corey said as we followed him onto the professors’ offices’ floor in the geology building.

  “We’ll stay outside the office,” Chet said. “Just don’t want you to be alone right now, man.”

  “We’re going to a crime scene. I won’t be alone. Tons of people at crime scenes. You’d be surprised how many of us they can fit into a tiny room.” His voice echoed off the linoleum, making it more hollow and empty than it already was.

  Shock. Had to be.

  It wasn’t hard to tell what office was Sean’s. A group bunched at the end of the hall, standing on tiptoes and trying to see over each other.

  Corey pulled out his badge and flashed it, ordering the crowd to move without a word. They parted for the badge and grief stricken man like the Red Sea.

  I pulled up a perception spell and scurried after him, keeping close to his back so I’d get through with him before the crowd closed again.

  Chet made a sound and I glanced back at him, shaking my head and winking.

  I wasn’t truly invisible, just imperceptible. People would see me, but they wouldn’t realize it. Far easier to bend people’s perceptions around you than to make yourself invisible. That required a knowledge of light bending and physics I certainly didn’t have.

  The human brain is designed to filter, otherwise we’d be overwhelmed with sensory input. This spell told the brain I was unimportant and therefore it didn’t need to waste time on me.

  Which is why Chet still saw me. His brain was sure of the fact that I was important. I was okay with that.

  The uniform at the door held up the yellow police tape for Corey and he walked under, eyes forward and face stony. Cop face, I guess. The body lay under a sheet next to the desk, too straight to have not been moved since he was found.

  A woman wearing jeans and a silk top stood with her back to us off to the side with a detective; other than that, the room ran with blue. Cops, detectives, people who must’ve been CSI.

  The detective pressed his hand to the woman’s back and half shoved her out into the hall. I couldn’t see her face but something seemed familiar about her swinging black hair and the way she stood.

  What the?

  I plastered myself against the wall next to the door, hoping I wasn’t leaving anything forensic that’d throw them off, or direct them towards me.

  Maybe entering an active crime scene wasn’t my best idea, but if a friend, even a casual one, was dead, I wanted to know why.

  And more importantly, who.

  The cops exchanged words lost in the din of the active crime scene. Who knew they were so loud? A dozen people talking and moving in a small office was as loud as a law school house party, just without the music.

  Corey kneeled by the body and one of the others pulled the sheet back. I glanced around and darted across the room between groups of cops, pressing against the wall next to the them.

  His face was gone, leaving a red mash of a mess, like someone had cut it off.

  I gagged and clamped a hand over my mouth for a second, breathing through my nose.

  Death clogged it and I gagged again, breathing through my mouth.

  His suit jacket was off, leaving a black tee over strong arms. When he’d worked on my car I’d teased him and Chet about geeks having such big guns. They’d worked out a few times together since our little clique formed last winter.

  It was like the male version of shopping.

  His hands were gone along with his face, like Corey said. How the hell was he supposed to identify this?

  I gagged again and hauled ass out, shoving past the crowd and dropping the spell once I was in the middle of them. They were so fixated on the office, they’d probably think I had been in the little crowd the whole time.

  I hit clear air and barreled into Chet. He caught my arms, rubbing them and kissing my head.

  “Evie?” someone said from behind me.

  I turned and froze.

  “Ashley!”

  My friend stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.

  She’d had her hair smoothed and straightened since I saw her maybe two weeks ago and she looked casual and young outside her usual work suits, but still.

  “What were you doing in there?” I asked, rushing forward and hugging her.

  “I…” she looked down. “I kind of shoved my way in. The cops wouldn’t listen to me!”

  “About what?”

  “That’s not Sean!”

  I did a double take. “What! Wait.” I held up a hand. “How do you know Sean?”

  “Um.” She looked down again, cheeks darkening.

  Corey shuffled up to us, staring at the ground. “I couldn’t. Let’s go.”

  “Who are you?” Ashley asked.

  “This is Corey. He’s a friend of Sean’s and ours,” I said. “Ashley, what do you mean that’s not Sean?”

  “What?” Corey looked between us, hope shinning so bright from his eyes it was practically corporeal.

  “I saw an arm when I pushed in there, before the cop shoved me out. It’s not him,” Ashley said.

  Corey shook his head. “I don’t… don’t understand. Sean doesn’t have any identifying marks. No tattoos or obvious birthmarks.”

  “Yeah, no marks, right?” Ashley said, the dark skin not masking the blushing.

  “Right.”

  “So, it’s not him.”

  Corey narrowed his eyes. “If you don’t stop beating around the bush, I’m going to get seriously pissed off.”

  She looked at me and I shrugged. “Just say it. We’ve got a dead body. I think you can live with a little embarrassment.”

  “Okay, good point.” Ashley sighed, looking back at the ground. “I know it’s not him because I was with him last night. If there are no marks, it’s not him. Trust me. I know how long my… marks last.”

  “Marks?’ My eyebrows flew up. “Ohhhhh, marks.”

  “They were fucking, I get it,” Corey said, making Ashley flinch. “Nail marks don’t last that long unless you really carved him up.”

  “Not nail marks,” Ashley said. “I ummmm, I bite. And he, um, has a very high pain tolerance. He lets me bite as hard as I want. Trust me, he has marks. He’ll probably still have them in a week, but he definitely has them right now.”

  Corey’s mouth worked and he stared at her until she looked up.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Positive. I’d be a lot more upset if I weren’t. That body isn’t him.”

  Corey whooped and grabbed her, pulling her into a bear hug so hard I was afraid he’d break her beanpole body.

  “Guys,” Chet said. “I don’t want to ruin this moment, but, that does beg a serious question.”

  “Yeah,” I said as Corey let Ashley go. “We have a dead man, with identifying marks removed, dressed in Sean’s clothes and close enough to his body type to make people think it’s him.”

  Ashley’s eyes grew wide again. “So, why?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. If someone wants us to th
ink Sean’s dead, at least until the cops can get DNA results, then why? And where the hell is Sean?”

  “What do we know?” I asked once we were all back to my place. “Sean’s gone. Someone put a guy with a similar build in his clothes, in his office, and removed identifying body parts.”

  Ashley flopped down at the island counter and the guys stood next to her. I pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and held it up.

  “Yes,” Ashley said so emphatically it made me almost smile.

  “Beer?” Corey asked.

  “No beer, but I have harder stuff. Scotch, rum, vodka or gin?”

  “I love you.”

  “Is I love you rum or scotch?”

  “Scotch.”

  “They must’ve taken him,” Ashley said, looking from the guys to me. “Right?”

  “It’s an assumption, but it makes sense,” Corey said as I poured him a drink. He was the one who thought his friend died, he got a drink first. “Otherwise why place a decoy?”

  “Do you know what Sean was working on?” Chet asked, hopping as my giant Maine Coon Gremlin jumped on the counter in front of him, sitting with his back to him in a clear demand for pets.

  “His specialty was earthquake detection,” Corey said, reaching over to pet Gremlin too. My cat pulled his head back before padding closer and rubbing Corey’s hand with his head. “He was doing experiments with vibrations and movement.”

  “And we just had an earthquake,” I said, pulling out wine glasses. “No way that’s a coincidence.”

  “Um, unless they’re using him to cause earthquakes, not sure how it could be anything else,” Corey said. “That took some set up. They took him before that earthquake hit.”

  “What exactly was he working on to do earthquake detection?” I asked, pouring glasses of wine and pushing them to Ashley and Chet, careful to go around the twenty pounds of black fluff taking up the counter.

  Gremlin meowed and I smiled.

  “Not sure, I’m a cop, not a scientist, but he did say he had a little machine that shook a small area to test his equipment.”

  “So an itty bitty earthquake generator?” I asked as I grabbed my baby’s food, pouring him a bowl. He abandoned the guys in favor of food and crunched away.