“Not until you bring her home safe.”
Well, that didn’t go as planned. I was hoping to take his money and be free to do my own thing afterward.
“Charlie, there are things I’m gonna need. I’ll need the cash first.”
He shook his head. “No.”
Little bastard. He had to wait until now to grow a brain and backbone.
“Half now, half when I find her.”
He shook his head, wiping his nose again. “Three hundred now. The rest when you find her.”
I thought about punting the kid across the hall and looting the house. He’d seen my face though and had my number. Wasn’t worth the trouble.
“Fine. You drive a hard bargain kid. Three hundred now, the other seven hundred when I find her.”
Nodding, he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of hundreds. There was definitely a thousand bucks there. Little bastard had been ready to pay it all up front if he had to. I’d been played like a sucker. He handed me the three hundred and stuck out his hand. I took it, shaking hands with the better man this round.
“Thank you, Deckland.”
“No problem, kid.”
He walked me back downstairs and held open the front door for me. Frank tried to run out. Charlie used his foot to keep the little Frenchie back. I nodded to him as I left and walked out to my car. Getting in the Stang, I fired up the engine and sat for a few minutes. I didn’t have a ton of information to go on. I knew I was looking for Veronica. I knew she had a friend named Cat, and I knew that she disappeared with some mystery man the night before. I needed info, and I had a good idea of where I could find out more about a twenty-something girl who liked to party.
I put the car into gear and idled down the street.
6
Never underestimate the power of a library card. For one, they’re ridiculously easy to get a hold of. All you need is an ID and a piece of mail proving you live in the county. You can get that for about a hundred bucks under any name you choose if you know the right people. I have library cards in fifteen different counties all over the west coast. You never know when you’re going to need information quickly.
It took me forty minutes to get to the library, between the weather and traffic. I wasn’t really pushing myself to get there in any hurry. When I arrived, I parked on the street out front. I walked into the hushed building and headed down the stairs. The downtown library has a massive indoor garden which I’m told is award-winning. Apparently, there is a library association that hands out the equivalent of library Oscars.
I ignored it all as I headed for the computers. I signed in and put my card in the little holder taped to the top of the monitor. The librarian was kind enough to turn off the safe search filters for me when I asked. I’m sure she thought I was there to enjoy the filthier parts of the internet. I wasn’t, but seeing as how I had no idea of knowing where my search would lead me; I didn’t want to have to stop to find someone to turn them off later if I ended up needing to wade through some of the filth.
I pulled up several pages and started to roam through social media. I have dummy accounts on all the major players. I don’t have a real page of my own. For one, I’m a man on the run from a group of shadowy killers who are out for blood. Second, I’m a grown ass man. My life isn’t anyone’s damn business. The amount of information people put about their personal life out for anyone to see is shocking. It’s a wonder more people don’t get kidnapped.
I did a quick search for Veronica. Her name popped up on all the usual suspects. Most of her accounts were private, but a few of them were open to anyone’s prying eyes. I scanned through the basic info. She had a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the local university. She was also on a spiritual journey, lovely. There wasn’t a link to a boyfriend’s page. The relationship status listed her as “widowed.” That meant a break-up if I had to guess.
She posted a lot of animal videos, song lyrics, and videos of people making food that no one should be eating, like a cake made out of donuts and cookies. I did click and email the recipe to myself for that one. Who knows, maybe I’d find myself in need of a tasty dessert some day.
I pulled open a friends list and searched for every combination of Cat or Catherine that I could think of. I didn’t find anything relevant in the list of four thousand friends. Cat could be a nickname. In which case, I would never find her in the list. I also had no idea what she looked like. I’d have to remember to call Charlie and ask if he had a pic of her.
I ran through a few other sites. Most of them appeared to be linked together judging from the identical posts. I sighed. I’d been hoping that it would be easy. A quick search, find the girl and pocket the rest of Charlie’s cash guilt free. Little bastard had to give me hardly any info on a sister who appeared to be socialite of the year.
“Come on, Deckland. Focus. He just wants his sister back.”
I sighed. It was time to search through thousands of photos. I got comfy in the chair and started in. Every photo that wasn’t some nature scene of a sunset was either a plate of food or what appeared to be some sort of party. Veronica looked to be in various states of enjoyment in most of the photos while she was out. That was juxtaposed by a fair amount of selfies with overly dramatic captions.
Her platinum blond hair was shoulder length and straight. It had a habit of changing colors quite dramatically. I saw teal, red, pink, blue, black, black with blonde streaks, blonde with black streaks, and a half a dozen other combos. I had a feeling some them had to be wigs. When her hair was plain old blonde, she wore it down most of the time, but I saw a few pictures of ponytails and workout gear. She was pretty, young, and worldly. From what I could tell, she liked vodka, a lot. Good for her. Not my first choice, but hey, I’d never turn it down either.
My throat started to itch at the thought of a drink. I swallowed some spit and kept looking.
As I looked through everything, I saw that a lot of the recent photos were all taken at the same place. I didn’t recognize it. I wasn’t big on the bar scene anymore. Carl ran a tight ship when it came to healthy living. Hell, I had to sneak donuts when he wasn’t watching.
Usually, it would have been a pain in the ass to guess where she was based on the inside of the building, but thankfully, Veronica had been kind enough to check-in everywhere she went. Again, it’s a miracle more people don’t get kidnapped. The bar was called Sanctuary, and luckily for me, they had their own page. It looked overly trendy and had a whole wall of whiskey. God help me if I ended up having to go inside. I filtered the photos that she’d posted while being tagged at Sanctuary.
I clicked through them quickly. I passed by one and immediately doubled back. I’d noticed something and had to be sure. The caption read “me and my Kitty Cat.”
I looked at the photo again. There definitely wasn’t a cat in the photo. Instead, the photo was of Veronica kissing the cheek of another woman. This one was a study in opposites of Veronica. Cat had dark auburn hair that had hints of blonde dyed in it. It tumbled about her neck and shoulders in loose, flowing curls. Her face was angular, her red stained lips were full and pressed into a kissing motion at the camera.
Her eyes shone black in the low lighting of the bar. They were shadowed and outlined in thick liner. Her skin was the color of coffee with a dash of cream. She wore a small black dress that showed enough to keep you guessing but wanting to know more at the same time.
Something inside of me, something I tried to smother and kill every chance I got, let out a whimper. Whoever Cat was, something about her reminded me of someone that I did my best to forget. I closed out of the window and pushed the chair back, looking down at the floor. My heart was pounding, and I could feel a wave of lightheadedness coming on. A drop of sweat slid down my ribcage.
I was fighting down the horrid pangs of guilt that always came with thoughts of Elena. Elena, the love of my life. The wife I’d given up everything for. It had been over a hundred and fifty years since I’d sa
t at her bedside, since I’d sold my soul to save her life, only to have her die anyway.
My throat burned. There was only one way to get Elena out of my head, that was to get blackout drunk and wake up too hungover to focus on anything other than how awful I felt. I got up from the computer. I made it twenty feet before remembering my library card. I stumbled back in a haze, grabbing the card and putting it back in my fanny pack. I pushed through the rows of books and found the front door. I burst out of the musky library into the crisp winter air. The chill cut into my open jacket and bit at my eyes. I wiped a hand across them to see that they were glistening with tears.
I walked on autopilot, almost getting run over as I crossed the street. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. I couldn’t find my keys. I searched my pockets and came up empty. I turned around and looked in every direction, trying to remember where I was. Carl’s coffee shop was only a few blocks from the library.
I stumbled in the snow as I started walking. I tripped over the curb as I stepped out of the street. I went down hard on my knees, feeling the pain as the vibrations shot up my legs. The rational part of my brain, locked away somewhere deep down, knew that the woman in the photo hadn’t been Elena. She didn’t really look that much like Elena, but something about it was just too substantial to ignore. I sucked wind, trying to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.
Elena was dead. Whoever Cat was, she reminded me of my wife too much for anything else to matter. I stood back up, trying to focus on the pain in my legs.
I have no idea how long it took me to reach the coffee shop. I walked in a fog. By the time I did walk in, the heated air and smell of coffee couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. My throat burned, and my face stung with frozen streams of wet tears. Bleary-eyed, I trudged to the counter.
Carl took one look at me when I walked through the door, and the smile he had on his face vanished. He came up and over the counter, rushing to my side.
“Deckland? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, standing dumbly. Carl put a hand on my shoulder and moved into my eyesight.
“Deckland?”
He snapped his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked. He came into focus. I shook my head and looked around, seeing where I was. I ran a shaking hand over my face, wiping away the tears.
“Deckland what’s wrong?”
“I…”
I couldn’t go on. I turned a circle, looking for somewhere to sit down. I found an empty leather chair and collapsed into it. The cushion let out a sigh of air as I landed, and I felt the air go out of my chest in much the same way.
Carl moved over, squatting down in front of me.
“Have you been drinking?”
I looked at him, shaking my head. “No. Why, you got anything?”
He smiled. He was still worried, I could see it in his eyes.
“You promise me you haven’t had a drink?”
“Scout’s honor,” I muttered, throwing up two fingers.
My brain was starting to reboot. As I looked past Carl, I could see people around the coffee shop looking over. I’m sure I looked like a wreck. Cold sweat covered my body, and I realized that I’d walked the entire way with my jacket open, my hands ungloved and my beanie sticking out of my back pocket. I was freezing, and my already pale skin was white as a damn bone.
“I’m gonna need a coffee, Padre,” I said. “A big one.”
Carl looked at me. Concern still etched his face, but calling him Padre seemed to set him at ease, if only just a little.
“I think I can manage that. You want cream and sugar in it?”
I nodded my head.
“If you got a Redbull back there, I’ll take that too. Also, a couple donuts if you can spare em. You know, if you have some that would get thrown away if no one ate em.”
“Give me a minute. Fresh out of Redbull, but I can do something about that coffee. I’ll look into the donut situation too.”
He stood up and walked back behind the counter. A girl with vibrantly blue hair stood behind the counter looking in my direction. She wore thick-framed glasses and a habit of staring from what I could tell. Several other people were looking at me. Most of them had the decency to look away once they saw me looking.
I took a breath and leaned my head back against the leather chair. I closed my eyes. Cat’s face filled my mind, or was it Elena? I tried to focus in on the image of my wife’s face and the more I tried, the more the details seemed to fade away. I’d lost her face in the almost two centuries since I’d seen her last. Something inside of me ached at the thought of forgetting her face. After all, I’d sold my soul to try and save her, and now I wasn’t sure if I could actually remember her. What kind of man did that make me?
I sucked in a breath through my nostrils and tried to empty out my mind. My hands were shaking, but not nearly as bad as they had been before. I wiggled my fingers, trying to get some feeling back in them. It didn’t work, so I pulled them up to my face and blew hot air on them. My nose was an iceberg attached to my face. The cold was wreaking havoc on me.
“Coffee delivery.”
I opened my eyes. The blue-haired girl was standing next to me, oversized mug in hand like some sort of tattooed goddess of caffeine and energy. I smiled and reached for the cup. She set it in my hands, her fingers brushing the back of my hand as she did. They felt warm against my frozen skin. The smells of coffee filled my nose, and I could have kissed her at that moment.
Now that she was standing close to me, I could see that she had shaved down the sides of her head. The dark brown hair underneath the blue was little longer than my own, and she had shaved what appeared to be spider webs into her hair.
“Nice webs,” I said.
She looked at me, cocking her head.
“Your hair,” I said, pointing at the side of my head. “Spiderwebs look great.”
She smiled, blushing. “Thanks. I’ve always wanted to but never had the guts. My friend talked me into it last night.”
I looked into the mug she’d brought me. It was black enough to see my reflection in the dark liquid as steam wafted off of it.
“No cream or sugar?” I asked, much louder than I intended.
Her smile faltered. “Oh. I’m sorry. Carl said you wanted it black.” She said, looking back to the bar.
“He does,” Carl said.
“Sadist.” I muttered.
Since I’d quit the booze, Carl had started to get on my case about my health in general. He wasn’t a fan of refined sugars, or dairy, or fun as far as I could tell. Even if he had been, it turned out the Godly bastard had a strange love affair with coffee and non-alcoholic beer. Since he was worried I’d down five hundred cans of O’Douls to try and get a buzz, he’d gone hard on the coffee. Everything was cold brew, nitro brew, hand roasted, single-sourced Arabic nonsense.
The blue haired girl laughed and walked back behind the bar. I couldn’t remember her name. It was to the point where I’d met and talked to her enough times that I should have known it though, so I wasn’t about to ask. I settled back into my chair and tried the coffee. It tasted like steaming ash and about two degrees below boiling. I sipped it gingerly, not wanting to burn my tongue on top of all of it.
I looked around the shop again. Now that my senses were starting to return to me, I could see that the place wasn’t as full as I’d thought. There seemed to be a bell curve for snowfall and coffee house attendance. Too little and people didn’t stop in to escape the weather, too much and they didn’t even leave the house in the first place unless they had to. Even as I thought that, I noticed a table in the corner. It was covered in books, papers, and a laptop. The woman sitting at the table was blonde, wore glasses, and dressed in a tight black sweater that she did a decent job of filling out. Again, not one for blondes, but she could make a man reconsider his positions in life. Her hair was up, and her eyes darted back and forth between her laptop,
her books, and Carl. I also her caught her glancing over in my direction, but she looked away quickly, embarrassed that I’d caught her looking at me.
As I watched, I saw her and Carl catch each other’s eyes. They both looked away at the same time. Carl turned his attention back to me. I gave him the biggest grin I could muster and a thumbs up. I almost spilled coffee on my lap in the process. I’m about a hundred percent sure Carl would have given me the finger if he wasn’t a holy man. Advantage Deckland.
Shaking his head, Carl finished making a drink and came out from behind the bar. He plopped into the chair next to mine, looking over at the blonde.
I followed his gaze. “You know, I’m pretty sure there could be a complete whiteout, and she would hike down here with all that crap just to sit in here and get the chance to stare at you.” I said.
Carl stopped staring, looking back at me. “How’s the coffee?”
“Black,” I said. “Don’t try and change the subject.”
“I’m not!” Carl said.
“Please.”
“She’s a graduate student. She has work to do, and her roommates like to watch movies really loud.”
“Oh really?” I asked. “Been talking to her, have you? I assume it’s because you care deeply about her soul and want to make sure that she doesn’t spend eternity in the great below.”
“Exactly.”
I snorted. “You should ask her out.”
Carl gave me a look.
Carl and I are opposites in almost everything except for one; we’d both felt responsible for the death of our wives. At least that’s how I saw it. Carl’s wife had died of cancer several years earlier. It could have been caught in early screening, but Carl had convinced her not to see a doctor when they first had trouble having kids. If I had to guess, I think he’d been able to forgive himself. I wanted to hate the bastard for it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it any more than I could forgive myself for Elena’s death.
I shook my head, pushing thoughts of Elena out by burning my tongue on some smoldering coffee.
80 Proof Hex Page 5