Crossing the parking lot, he saw Edgar standing at the curb near the hotel entrance, gazing at the sky. They had booked adjoining rooms, but he had kept to himself after dinner. Edgar appeared to have aged several years during his ordeal: gray hairs appeared in his mustache, and he had lost at least twenty pounds.
Joining his former partner, Jake followed his sight line to several birds soaring in the sky. Edgar watched them with such intensity that he didn’t even notice Jake.
“How was your night?” Jake said.
Edgar turned to him as if awakening from a daydream. “I spent a lot of it online in the business center, catching up on news. You’ve been a busy man: taking down Prince Malachai’s drug empire, almost getting killed in a spiritualist assembly upstate, and overthrowing Malvado’s government on Pavot Island.”
“It all sounds so simple when you say it.”
“It was hard for me not to call Martin. I miss him so much.”
“You’ll see him soon enough.”
“Tell me again about that cult.”
“The Dreamers. They lured Martin through a science fiction website and promised to make his life complete. Maria and I broke him out.”
“Then their founder, Benjamin Bradley, turned up dead in a Brooklyn shipyard, murdered with Mayor Madigan and some real heavy hitters.”
Jake shrugged. “When you run with the wrong crowd . . .”
Edgar returned his gaze to the birds. “They look so free. Watching them, I can feel what it’s like to fly.”
“Your flying days are over, pal. You try that at home and you’re likely to bust a wing.”
Edgar continued to stare at the birds.
“Come on. Let’s get Maria and have breakfast. I want to hit the road early. We’ve still got a lot of driving to do.”
With Jake crippled and Edgar prone to staring out the car windows at birds, Maria did the driving. Edgar sat beside her and Jake rode in the back.
They stopped for lunch at a diner located at the northern tip of Virginia. Edgar picked at his food.
I could always get some birdseed, Jake thought. He had bought enough of it during the preceding nine months.
“I can’t believe we’re going home,” Maria said. “I’m almost afraid of what we’ll find waiting for us in the real world.”
“It will be good to be back,” Jake said. He felt as though he had been gone for a year, not six weeks.
Edgar looked up from his food. “Do I still have an apartment?”
“You were AWOL for a long time. I covered your rent for as long as I could, but when your lease expired I moved your stuff into Joyce’s basement.”
“Let’s hope she’ll let me stay with it.”
“I’m sure she will. She missed you as much as any of us did.”
“She did more than that,” Maria said. “She spent all her free time looking for you: putting up flyers, posting videos online, joining outreach groups. It’s because she was so preoccupied that Martin fell in with the Dreamers.”
Edgar hesitated before answering. He seemed to process every bit of information that came his way, blinking like the raven he had been. “Thank you for helping Jake get him away from them.”
Maria glanced at Jake. “We weren’t exactly working together at that point.”
“You thought I was public enemy number one,” Jake said.
“I thought you were hiding something and I was right.”
“I’m still finding it difficult to accept you two as a couple,” Edgar said.
“You’re the one who tried to fix us up,” Jake said.
“We went on our one and only date with you,” Maria said.
Edgar’s face tightened even though Maria had not mentioned Dawn DuPre, his girlfriend at the time of his disappearance. The name had turned out to be an alias used by Katrina, the vodou priestess who brought the drug Black Magic and the zonbies it created to the United States. Katrina had also turned Edgar into a raven.
“I’ve lost almost a year of my life,” Edgar said, “plus my apartment and probably my job.”
“You’ve got Martin,” Maria said. “We all have to move on after everything that’s happened. We’ll get through it.”
Jake stayed quiet. The past year and a half had taken such an emotional and physical toll on him that he couldn’t bring himself to tell Edgar everything was going to be all right.
On the road again, Jake took out his new phone and entered a number.
The phone rang twice before Carrie, Jake’s office manager, answered, “Helman Investigations and Security.”
“I’m coming home,” Jake said. “I should be there tonight.”
“Boss, that’s great!”
“Do me a favor and take whatever’s left in petty cash and get some groceries. I won’t feel like shopping anytime soon.”
“What petty cash? This office has expenses, you know.”
“Then use the company card. Live it up.” He had depleted his savings looking for Edgar in New Orleans and Miami, and Maria had depleted hers following him. “I also want you to call Larry Metivier and have him come to the office first thing in the morning. He’ll try to get out of it, but don’t let him.”
“Understood. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Well, you’ll get to see me soon because I don’t have keys anymore, so I need you to stay and let me in whenever I arrive.”
“The good news keeps coming.”
Jake ended the call.
“Larry Metivier the mob doctor?” Maria said.
Jake looked at her. “Well, he is a doctor, but as far as I know he isn’t in the mob.”
“He treats criminals under the table. He patches them up so they don’t have to go to the hospital and report their injuries.”
“He treats cops, too,” Jake said.
“Dirty cops.”
“Do you two want to let me out here?” Edgar said.
They drove through Maryland and New Jersey, and when Manhattan came into view at last Jake drew in his breath. Despite everything that had happened to him there, it was where he belonged. As Maria drove through the Lincoln Tunnel the green fluorescent lights comforted him. The city withstood everything thrown at it; maybe that was why he loved it. It felt the same, but as he looked around he felt different.
Edgar stared at every person, car, and building they passed. “I feel like I was asleep and dreaming the entire time. There are no scarecrows walking around and no breadlines on the sidewalks.”
“The economy’s turned around,” Jake said. Now that the Order of Avademe is gone. But the mention of Black Magic caused him to dig his fingernails into his palm.
Maria took the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into Queens and headed toward Jackson Heights.
“You’ve got to be looking forward to seeing your mother and getting back to work,” Jake said to her.
“My mom’s in AC,” Maria said. “Are you trying to get rid of me already?”
“No way.”
They entered the neighborhood where Joyce and Martin lived: congested streets, jammed sidewalks, and bustling shops. Multiethnic music issued from the open windows of apartments and vehicles, and pedestrians passed each other in the heat.
Maria double-parked. “This is as close as we should get.”
Edgar unbuckled his seat belt while Jake exited through the side door. Standing outside, breathing the aromas from a shish kebab cart, Jake opened the passenger door and Edgar got out. They looked at each other for a moment and then embraced.
Edgar pointed at Jake’s stump. “Take care of that.” Then he melded with the crowd.
When Jake slid into the passenger seat Maria stared in the direction where Edgar had disappeared. “He’s loose,” she said.
Edgar followed the sidewalk to Joyce’s house, which had seen better days. Even though none of the people passing him had any idea who he was, he felt self-conscious, as if he had done something wrong. He spotted a traffic light with a camera at the corner, then opened the gate
and mounted the steps to the front door, which he knocked on. He had rehearsed this scene in his head countless times.
Locks turned and a chain lock clattered against wood. The door opened and Joyce stood there, looking as beautiful as Edgar had ever seen her. They had dated for two years and lived together for two more before splitting, and Martin had come along in the middle of those two periods.
Joyce’s lips parted. She looked like she wanted to speak, but instead she threw her arms around Edgar and held him tight.
He had not expected such an emotional reaction from her, and he patted her back, which produced weeping spasms from her.
“Thank God you’re all right,” Joyce said. Then she let go of him and guided him inside, where she shouted upstairs, “Martin, come down here, please.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Where have you been?”
“It’s a short story,” Edgar said. “I don’t remember.”
A tall boy Edgar almost failed to recognize appeared at the top of the stairs. Edgar’s heart beat faster as the boy’s eyes widened.
Then Martin ran down the stairs. “Dad!” He threw himself at Edgar, who caught the boy and held him. “Where have you been? What happened?”
Edgar’s eyes watered. “I really don’t know.”
“Is Jake with you?”
Edgar faced both of them. “I’ll say this only once: neither Jake nor Maria had anything to do with me coming home. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. As far as you two are concerned, I just showed up here out of nowhere.” He looked at Joyce. “I know you know I don’t have anywhere to stay—”
“You’re staying right here with us. We wouldn’t have it any other way, right, Martin?”
Martin grinned through his tears. “Right.”
Edgar hugged the boy again, then held one arm out for Joyce, who came to him.
Maria drove Jake to his office building on East Twenty-third Street, one block away from the Tower, headquarters to Tower International, and pulled over to the curb. Jake glanced at Laurel Doniger’s storefront psychic parlor. When he turned to Maria, her expression seemed cool.
“Here we are, back in the real world where we started,” she said. “It’s like nothing ever happened.”
“That isn’t true,” Jake said. “A lot’s happened. A lot’s changed.”
“Pavot Island is a long way from here. Hell, even Miami’s a long way from here. We both got caught up in that Caribbean heat.”
“It feels pretty hot to me right here.”
“You know what I mean. We’re two very different
people . . .”
“I think we’re two of a kind.”
“Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not. I’m afraid of this crazy world you live in.”
“It’s the same world you live in.”
“You wanted to bring Edgar back, I wanted to bring Edgar back, and together we brought him back. Mission accomplished. Now we’re home, and our lives have to go back to normal.”
“Manhattan’s hardly a haven from abnormal occurrences. Remember Avademe’s warehouse in Brooklyn? The zonbies you cleaned up? Crazy shit doesn’t only happen on Pavot Island.”
“You killed Avademe. This city is never going to see an invasion of zonbies again because we cut off the supply of Magic. What’s left?”
Jake swallowed at the mention of Black Magic. He was trying to keep his mind off the drug. Then why did I bring up zonbies? “What’s any of that got to do with us?”
Maria looked at Jake. “I just don’t see us working as a long-term item, that’s all. You’ve got your life, I’ve got mine, and now that Edgar’s back the two don’t ever have to meet again.”
Jake leaned over and kissed her. She responded, and when they separated he ignored everything she had said. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Good luck at work.”
Jake got out of the Toyota and took his new traveling bag from the trunk, and Maria drove east. He watched her join the traffic, then turned to Laurel’s parlor. He wanted to tell her that Edgar was okay.
When he and Maria had flown to Pavot Island, Maria carried a romance novel written by Erika Long, who resembled Laurel, albeit with a different hair color and style. Maria told him Long had been missing for three years. He had conducted some cursory research online at Miriam Santiago’s house in Miami, and he had questions for Laurel.
Finding the door locked, he checked the time on his phone: 6:37 p.m., earlier than he had anticipated arriving.
He rang the doorbell but no one answered. Whoever she really was, Laurel never left her apartment.
Something’s wrong.
3
Jake pressed the button for his suite, and Carrie buzzed him inside. He had installed cameras in the building that permitted anyone in his office to see the lobby, stairwells, and corridors of the building. Passing the recessed mailboxes, he boarded the elevator. He hadn’t been in one since his time on Pavot Island.
The door opened, and he walked the long corridor to his office at the end, the dying sunlight behind him casting his shadow over the sign on the door: Helman Investigations and Security.
The door opened and Carrie threw her arms around his waist. “Boss!”
Setting his hand on the goth dwarf’s back, he gazed inside the suite. Ripper, Carrie’s boyfriend, stood by her desk. The Korean man had dreadlocks, and a gold tooth glinted in the fluorescent light. Jake disliked Ripper, and he had forbidden Carrie to let him inside the office.
Carrie released her hold on Jake, took his right arm, and led him into the office. “Nice beard,” she said, looking up. “I asked Ripper to come wait with me since I didn’t know how late you’d be. You don’t mind, do you?”
Jake closed the door. “No, I don’t mind.”
Ripper’s eyes widened. “Yo, what happened to your hand?”
Carrie gazed at Jake’s stump and screamed. “Oh, my God.”
Jake held his arm close to his side. “I had an accident.”
“Bullshit. Who did this to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. He isn’t around anymore.”
She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth wide. “Okay . . .”
“Let me see you in my office before you leave.” Jake passed Ripper and the kitchen and entered his office. He set his bag down and glanced at the floor-to-ceiling cage that ran from one end of the wall to the other. The cage served as an uncomfortable reminder of Edgar’s time in another form.
Carrie entered and closed the door. “I’m sorry about Ripper.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He picked up a four-foot box on the sofa.
“That came by special messenger yesterday. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you.”
The return label listed Jorge De Jesus in Miami, but Jorge did not live in Miami. He had fought side by side with Jake and Maria on Pavot Island, his homeland. Jake set the package down and crossed the room to the safe, which he kneeled before.
“Did you bring Edgar back?” Carrie said.
He hesitated. “No, I found a good home for him in New Orleans.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
He manipulated the three combination locks on the safe. “Were there any security issues while I was gone? Any irregularities with the alarms?”
“No, I would have told you if there had been. Wait. The power went off for about a minute during a storm. Why?”
Inside the safe, a laptop dedicated to Nicholas Tower’s Afterlife project rested upon a small stack of file folders, with memory cards and flash drives scattered around it. Jake scooped out a ring with three keys on it, then shut the safe and spun each lock. “No reason. You can leave now. Lock up.” He took the Glock .9mm he kept in the safe in case he was ever forced to open it by an intruder and tucked the weapon into the back of his khaki shorts beneath his shirt.
“I have some accounting issues to go over with you,” Carrie said.
He had or
iginally hired her to do his bookkeeping before he promoted her to office manager. “Tomorrow.”
Edgar sat on the sofa in Joyce’s living room. He had lived in the house when they were still together before the relationship had gone south. Martin sat beside him with a wide smile.
Joyce crouched before him and touched his cheeks. “You look different.”
“I know. I got old.” He took her hands away from his face but continued to hold them.
“You’ve lost weight, too.”
I ate like a bird, Edgar thought.
“I don’t understand how you can’t remember what happened,” Martin said.
Edgar looked at his son. “Maria and I were working the Machete Massacres case, which dovetailed with the Black Magic epidemic in the city. I was getting close to finding out who was behind it, and that’s all I remember. I woke up in an alley today and made my way here.”
“Black Magic’s gone. So are the scarecrows. There was a big gang war when you disappeared.”
“The big players were killed,” Joyce said. “It was all over the news.”
Prince Malachai and Papa Joe, Edgar thought.
“Do you think whoever was behind those killings abducted you?”
“It’s possible.” Katrina had imprisoned him in her heartless way.
“Are you in danger?”
“No.” He could tell she wanted to press the issue, but she wouldn’t for Martin’s sake.
“Nine months of your life gone.” Her voice warbled. “Have you called Maria or Jake? You have to go to your squad and tell them. The department had so many detectives looking for you.”
“I haven’t called anyone yet. I don’t even have a phone. I just wanted to see you both. I’ll deal with the fallout tomorrow. I want one relaxing night to get my thoughts together.” He didn’t like lying, but he had to protect Maria’s job.
Joyce bowed her head against his thigh. “We’ve missed you so much.”
Martin hugged him. “I really did, Dad.”
Edgar stroked the back of Joyce’s head with one hand and held Martin with his other arm. He had never needed them more.
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