Karma (Karma Series)

by Donna Augustine

“Okay, I'll just hang up and wait here then.”

  When Fate had called, it had appeared pretty quickly. I pocketed the phone and looked around. It suddenly appeared in the middle of a gully, the armored guards standing next to the doors knee deep in water. The door guys probably didn't realize they were in the middle of water.

  I looked around to see if anyone noticed the huge doors or the medieval-looking guards standing next to them. Nothing. Not even the girl who was lying in the door's shadow seemed to be aware of what was going on.

  Okay then, looks like I was good, except for one tiny detail.

  “Is there any way to shift this thing to the left? Just about ten feet or so?” I pointed to the spot I thought would work on a nice mound of dry sand.

  Both of the guards shook their heads.

  “Is it a technical problem or something?”

  Another shake.

  I got it. Apparently, some people were a little put out about getting hailed on last time.

  “You have to know, the hail was an accident. I didn't realize I'd cause a storm.”

  One armored hand raised and pointed to a dent in his helmet. They had been pretty big hailstones.

  “I swear, it won't happen again.” That might be a lie. It could possibly reoccur. “Intentionally, anyway.”

  His partner raised a gloved hand to point at a dent in his shoulder.

  “Come on guys! They're barely more than dings.”

  Nothing. No response and it was tough to read an expression through a masked helmet.

  I kicked off my sandals and rolled up my pants. Looked like I was going to be wading.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fate was sitting in a corner booth at the luncheonette located at the address I was given.

  He watched as I entered. If he was surprised, he didn't look it. He was relaxed back in his chair, a half eaten sandwich of some type in front of him.

  “Why are you soaking wet?” He popped a fry in his mouth as he perused me.

  Not, why are you here? or how did you know? Maybe even a, sorry, I'm a complete ass on so many different levels.

  “The door guards are still a bit miffed over the hail. Why didn't you tell me?” I yanked back the chair and made a horrible little squishing noise as I sat across from him.

  “He'll be here any minute.” He pointed to his plate. “Want a fry?”

  I leaned across the table, ignoring the fry he picked up and tried to hand me, trying to lull me into a side order distraction. “Don't try and disarm me with fries.”

  “It's just a potato.” He dropped the offending fry onto his plate.

  “What do you know and why didn't you tell me?” My stomach growled. They certainly smelled good, but I couldn't eat one now.

  “I don't know anything, yet. I just got a glimpse.” He shrugged and tapped a finger on the table. “I don't even know if it's your guy.”

  I nailed him with an accusing stare but said nothing.

  “What do you want me to do? Drag you around on every vision I get just in case it ties in?” His eyes darted to the side as the waitress approached.

  “Just coffee,” I said as a she came to the table.

  Fate watched her retreat before he spoke. “I don't even know what this is yet.”

  “Bullshit. You left me out on purpose. Me and you? We're partners. All or nothing. You want to suck my psyche dry, whatever exactly it is you do, for information and past life stuff, then you’d better be prepared to share.” I might have ruined my hard ass approach when I took a fry off his plate after my speech. I should've grabbed lunch before I left.

  “Fine.”

  “You go? I go. You know? I know.” I just needed one more fry.

  “I. Get. It. Jesus, you're like rain man. I'll tell you if you promise to shut the hell up with the I go, you go shit?”

  Feeling smugly confident I'd gotten my point across, I gracefully ceded the floor so I could eat the rest of his fries.

  “I got a lead on this guy and I thought he might be tied into this somehow.”

  “How so?” I had trouble getting those two words out as one of the fries decided to put up a fight on the road to my stomach.

  “I don't know yet or I would've said. I know, you know,” he mocked in a false falsetto as he pushed his soda toward me.

  The coke wrestled the rest of that stubborn fry down.

  “Why do you think he's connected to me?” I asked, now that I could speak easier.

  “Because you were there as well.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “I don't know. Nothing really.” He looked away, agitated at the question for some reason.

  “I don't get it. Was it a vision? Where was I?”

  “It was more...dreamlike.” He cleared his throat looking everywhere but me.

  “Was I talking to him or something?” Why was Fate acting so oddly about a vision, or dream he had?

  “It wasn't that clear!”

  “You don't need to get all testy. I just wanted some details.” Sleeping on the couch was making his mood worse than ever.

  “I don't have any. Just follow my lead. No crazy moves or breaking necks. Agreed?” Now that he was calling me a murdering freak, he had no problem making eye contact.

  “No. Not agreed. This is a mass murderer we're talking about. Isn't my job evening the score? Why wouldn't I? If he's the guy, he deserves it.”

  He leaned forward, halfway across the table now. “No. Killing.”

  Something about this scene jarred my brain and I had one of those perfect moments of clarity. The kind where, just for a few crystal clear moments, your biases and delusions drop away and you see your reality for what it truly is.

  And mine scared the hell out of me.

  His eyes jerked quickly to the side and then back to me, a thankful distraction from the truths I'd almost been forced to contemplate.

  “What?”

  “He's coming. Don't look.”

  That was fairly easy, since my back was to the door. The waitress placed a coffee in front of me and I tried to busy myself, so I wouldn't stare or scream “bloody murderer” across the room.

  Fate's hand gripped my arm briefly. “Look now,” he said.

  I glanced toward the man sitting a few tables away. Mid-fifties, balding and wearing a gray suit. If I were a normal human, I wouldn't have looked twice at him. But I wasn't anymore and there was something slightly off about this man. He was like that odd piece of broccoli that showed up in my pepper steak order every now and then.

  I looked back at Fate and squinted my eyes in silent acknowledgment. His face reflected my own expression.

  “You ever seen him before?” he asked.

  “No, never.”

  “You're sure?” There was a heaviness to his words.

  “I'm positive. Why?”

  He looked back at the guy and then me again. “When he walked in, it looked like he recognized you.”

  “Don't squint at me like I'm lying.”

  He leaned forward. “You’d better not be.”

  “Great, here we go again with the threats,” I said mockingly, to hide the slight worry he'd instilled. I didn't know the guy, but what if he got it into his head I did? The clarity I'd felt moments before leaked over on to him a bit. I treated our situation like I knew Fate, as if there was a level of safety there, because we worked together. In truth, I knew very little and the more I found out, the less comfortable I felt.

  We looked at each other, coming to some unspoken agreement. I didn't trust him and he certainly didn't trust me. Our cards were finally on the table. As weird as it was, it was the first solid foundation we'd had.

  Our guy was sitting, minding his own business, at his table when Fate stood and pulled a couple of bills out. He laid them on the table and nodded toward the door.

  I looked at the guy, then shook my head and didn't get up.

  His eyes widened, a silent come on already, I have a plan.

  Fine. I got up and follo
wed him out.

  I stopped right outside the door. “Why are you trying to leave?”

  He stopped as well. “Because I want to search his car.”

  “Ahhh, okay. That's a good idea.”

  “It's that dark gray Camry.” He pointed toward the luncheonette. I followed him, eager for some clues who this guy was and maybe why he'd decided to kill hundreds of humans in one fell swoop.

  “Watch for him.” Fate opened the passenger door and then turned and looked back at me again. “You're supposed to be watching the guy, not me.”

  “Why? He can't see us and I want to look too.” I tried to step around him to get to the glove box but he blocked me.

  “Searching his car right now has nothing to do with a job. His fate isn't out of whack, or his karma. There is no camouflage.”

  His logic would make sense except for one problem. “No one saw the door guys and that had nothing to do with me fixing someone's karma. You just want to have all the fun.”

  “The door guys are the exclusion. They never get seen, ever. Will you watch the guy, now?”

  I saw a woman carrying a child walking passed us, about twenty feet away. I smiled at the toddler in her arms. The child smiled back.

  “You believe me now?” Fate said from behind me.

  “Fine. Hurry up.”

  He turned back to the car as I stared through the windows. I could see the corner of the man's sleeve as he sat at the table.

  “Got something,” Fate said behind me. “Come on.” He grabbed my arm and tugged me after him toward a Chevy Impala.

  “Is there a particular reason you feel the need to pull me around after you?”

  “I don't do that,” he said and then looked down and realized that was exactly what he'd been doing. He dropped his hand. “You walk slow.”

  “No, you're just bossy.”

  “Get in.”

  “What? No Porsche?”

  “Going for low key.”

  I slid into the front passenger seat. “What did you get?”

  “He's at a hotel a few blocks from here,” he said as he started the car. “We need to come to an agreement.”

  “What kind of agreement?”

  “I don't want him killed. Not right away.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I'm going to help you, but that's my condition.”

  “What does any of this matter to you?”

  “He's not a normal human. I want to know who he is.”

  “Okay.” I didn't think that was the end of the story. I knew if I were planning to stay on, I'd want to know about people like him. As far as explanations went, I could live with it. “But he goes before my time is over.”

  We pulled into the hotel parking lot a few minutes later. Fate killed the engine.

  “You stay here and call me when you see him,” he said.

  “Why don't you stay here and call me?” I suggested as I got out of the car. “Why do you get all the fun stuff while I'm supposed to be the watch?”

  “Because I know what I'm doing.”

  “He's a curiosity case to you. He's my murderer. I want to know 100% you don't miss anything.”

  “I'm not staying down here.”

  “Neither am I.”

  We stood in the middle of the lot staring at each other.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “Take turns at the window?”

  “Agreed.”

  We entered through a back door of the building as a guest was exiting.

  “You know the room number?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just checking.”

  I followed him up to the third floor.

  “This is it,” he said as he stopped in front of room three-fourteen.

  “How do we get in?”

  “If we were on a job, it would've just opened. But we aren't. Luckily, it's an old fashioned lock or this might've been a problem.” He pulled out a small metal pick from his pocket and held it up to show me.

  “Do you normally carry those types of things around?”

  “Only when I think the occasion might arise.” I watched as he inserted it into the handle. He made surprisingly quick work of the lock.

  The room was classic moderate hotel, from the prints on the wall to the patterned coverlet. The guy was neat; not a thing was left out.

  “I'll take the closet, you take the drawers.” I didn't give him much of a choice as I was already standing in front of it. Gray, gray, gray – the guy sure liked his gray suits. Or perhaps he just liked to blend.

  It was hard to tell exactly how long he was staying here, since there were four suits. With four, he could've brought a suit for every day or been having them laundered regularly, because he liked to pack light.

  I felt in the pockets for any stray receipts but came up with nothing. A small safe was tucked into the corner of the closet – shut. I turned to where Fate was searching through the drawers.

  “Got any tricks for safes?”

  He turned to answer me just as we both heard a sound in the hallway. His eyes stared at mine. As if of one mind, we were packed into the closet together less than a second later.

  Now, if we had just played nice, and one of us had actually taken window duty, this all could have been avoided. But neither of us wanted the shit job, and as penance, were forced up against each other in a goddamn closet.

  It was easier and worse for me. Being smaller and shorter, I could stand normally. It was worse because Fate was taller and larger, and in order to fit, he was wrapped around me.

  The door closed and any squirming or shimmying either of us wanted to do was frozen. We'd left the closet slightly ajar, as it had been when we got there. It cut back on our room but also let us hear better.

  Keys were tossed onto a hard surface, skidding slightly as they landed. A few steps further and a jacket was being shed. The springs of the bed compressed and shoes dropped, one after the other, to the floor. The T.V. was turned on. The only bright side was he must have had bad hearing, because the volume was turned way up.

  This had the potential to take a while.

  At first, he couldn't seem to settle on one channel. I tried to get as comfortable as I could, with my back to Fate's front. His left arm was around my waist, simply to avoid having it bang into the closet door. This would've been an awkward moment no matter what, but after the kiss in the forest, I was that much more aware of every point of contact we had. The way his forearm grazed the underside of my breast or when he shifted and I caught the graze of his stubbled jaw along my neck.

  It still might not have been that bad if the moaning hadn't started. Porn, and from the sound of it, classic eighties stuff. Please tell me this guy was not really going to watch porn right now?

  I shook my head and looked up. I only saw the closet shelf but it would have to do.

  “This is payback for the forest, isn't it?” I mouthed the words, barely a whisper escaping.

  I was pressed up against a guy I barely knew and didn't exactly like. Of course this didn't seem to deter my attraction to him, against my better judgment. At least it was dark, so he couldn't read the unease all over my face.

  “Who are you talking to?” His lips were right near my ear as he whispered, causing a funny reaction through my body.

  “No one. Shhhh.”

  I felt him try and shift his large frame away from me but there was nowhere to go and he ended up closer, if that were possible. This set off my own tight space maneuvering.

  “Stop squirming.”

  His arm tightened around my waist. Great. More contact. Just what I needed.

  “I'm uncomfortable,” I replied. The sound of the moans and accompanying music shielded our own noise.

  “Stop.” There was a husky edge to his voice that made me think he was becoming agitated. Like I wasn't?

  “I'm claustrophobic. I'm doing the best I can.” It felt like he was actually holding me closer, but it was probably just my heightened awareness of him, which I w
ouldn't have had if he'd kept his hands to himself the other night. Okay, that was a lie. I was always aware of him, it was just worse now that I had a feeling sex with him would be as good as I suspected.

  Fate was like getting a big present with a bow and finding out the gift inside lived up to the packaging. I've received big presents before. They almost never measure up to the hype.

  Fate was moving behind me, trying to rearrange again, but every shift seemed to bring him in further contact. His thighs were against mine and I felt his breath along my neck. If I hadn't heard him rejecting me with my own ears, I would've thought he was doing it on purpose.

  My breath was getting ragged and the more I tried to calm down, the worse it seemed to get. What was wrong with me? Not dead even a month, with a fiancé and family left behind grieving, and I'm ready to play seven minutes in heaven with the first hot guy I'm near? Maybe this was why Luck always looked well tumbled. Was dying some sort of aphrodisiac or was I just turning into a bit of a harlot?

  The T.V. was suddenly muted, alerting us to a change in circumstances in the room and saving me from rubbing myself up against Fate in the next few minutes.

  With the new silence, I heard his phone ringing.

  “Yeah.” The man's voice was average and blasé, just like everything else about him. “No, I wasn't able to arrange it.”

  I could hear him moving around the room and my breath caught in my throat, my heart beat hard against my chest, waiting for him to open the closet door. I felt Fate's hand shift slightly, as if trying to gesture it was okay, which seemed so out of character for him.

  “Because this isn't as easy as the other.”

  He stopped talking and I could hear the noise coming from his phone, even in the closet, but I couldn't make out the words.

  “No. I wasn't saying anything of the sort. I'll get it done.”

  Another pause.

  “You know the other one? She was at the cafe but I didn't approach her. There was a guy with her.”

  What?

  Fate's hand shifted and his arm tensed around me, but it wasn't in reassurance this time.

  I heard the phone hit a hard surface and then some grunting that made me think he was bending over to put his shoes on. Five minutes later the door slammed again.