1 Grim Tidings

by Amanda M. Lee

  Aidan furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I grew up in this life,” I explained. “I’ve always known what this life entails. This stuff shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Aidan hedged. “It’s more like you’re conflicted. That’s not the same as being surprised.”

  “Conflicted?”

  “Like you don’t know whether you really want to be claiming these souls.”

  “I don’t think that’s what I’m feeling,” I replied. “I know that these souls have to move on; otherwise they’ll be tortured for eternity. I know it’s an important job. It’s just that … there’s something off.”

  “Then what are you feeling? That this is an important job … and then what?”

  “Honestly?”

  Aidan nodded, spurring me on.

  “I feel like I’m disappointing myself.”

  Aidan moved his lips to the side, biting the inside of chis cheek. It was a familiar expression, one I’d seen for twenty-odd years. “Because you’re doing what Dad wants us to do?”

  Did that make me shallow? Did I care? “Yes.”

  Aidan’s charming smile graced his handsome face. “I know the feeling.”

  This was news. “You do?”

  “Do you think I wanted to join this business?”

  “Why did you?”

  “It seemed like the easiest avenue.”

  That didn’t sound like my brother – any of my brothers, for that matter. “Really? That’s why you did it?”

  “We were bred for this, Aisling,” Aidan replied. “It’s not like a family law firm or a family restaurant. We’re born with special abilities. They’re minor, but they’re still special. When I thought about doing something else, the idea of shirking my responsibilities was too much to bear. So I did what I was born to do.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  Aidan considered the question. “No.”

  “Do you think I’ll regret it?”

  Aidan wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to my temple. “That’s my biggest worry right now.”

  That wasn’t an answer. I didn’t point it out, though. “Do you think Dad is really happy that I finally joined the fold?”

  “No.”

  I cracked my neck, mostly because I was looking for something to do that didn’t include ripping my own hair out, and tried to fight my aggravation. “Why not?”

  “Because you got out.”

  His answer stunned me. “What?”

  “Cormack Grimlock is many things, Aisling,” Aidan explained. “He’s a reaper. He’s a leader. He’s a bureaucrat.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  “He’s also a father. He doesn’t want you to die like Mom did.” Aidan’s words were simple, but his tone was heavy. “He’s all for family pride, but he’s more for family safety. If you were to die … if something were to happen to you … well, he barely survived mom’s death.”

  Aidan’s sentiment stunned me. I couldn’t form words.

  “He couldn’t survive your death.” Aidan’s voice was barely a whisper. He tightened his arm around me and then forced the serious look from his face. “Let’s cut through this alley, check the apartment again, and then call it a day, shall we? I need a drink.”

  It took me a second to find words – and the ones I discovered weren’t going to help our situation – so I grasped for something to lighten the mood. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “That’s not possible. I look like Socrates.”

  I snorted derisively and followed Aidan into the alley, my thoughts jumbled and my heart clenched in my chest. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m reading the situation wrong -- where my dad is concerned anyway. Most of the time, though, I think he’s in the wrong. When someone like Aidan stands up for him, though, I wonder whether I’m not as perceptive as I think I am.

  Aidan picked his way around a pile of garbage as we navigated between two apartment buildings. I had lost my bearings fifteen minutes ago. I had no idea where we were. I could only hope Aidan wasn’t in the same boat.

  “Gross, what is that smell?”

  Aidan glanced at the rusty metal door to our right and sniffed. “Day-old Chinese?’

  “That killed my appetite for broccoli and beef for a week.”

  “How about egg rolls?”

  My gag reflex reared up and I clamped my hand over my nose to fight the stench. “Don’t be cute.”

  “I was born cute.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says everyone.”

  I wasn’t going to feed his delusions. “I say we call it a day. The rancid Chinese is making it a necessity.”

  “What do you think we’re doing?”

  “I don’t … oomph!”

  With my attention focused on Aidan, I hadn’t been watching where I was going. I found myself momentarily suspended in the air, the ground rushing toward me, before I crashed to the pavement and grunted in pain as the gritty cement ripped through the knee of my jeans.

  It took me a second to recover once I hit the ground. It took me a few seconds to gather my senses, and when I finally got my bearings, I wished I hadn’t. I was on the ground, favoring my left side, when my gaze fell on what I had tripped over.

  It was a body – and not the one I had initially been sent to investigate.

  “Is that … ? Oh crap.”

  Six

  “We should go.”

  Aidan’s hand was in my face and he was waving it around in an attempt to snap me back to reality.

  He wasn’t entirely successful. “I just tripped over a dead body.”

  “Bummer. We should still go.”

  “We can’t go,” I protested, finally taking his hand and letting him pull me back to my feet. I dusted off my jeans, checking carefully to make sure there weren’t any errant bodily fluids marring their blue surface. “We have to call the police.”

  Aidan raised his eyebrows and fixed me with his best “are you crazy” glare. “That’s a really bad idea.”

  “We can’t pretend we didn’t find him,” I argued. “He’s obviously been … cripes, are those stab wounds or burn marks? That’s really nasty.”

  “Yes.” Aidan seethed through gritted teeth, trying to pull me from my spot and move me out of the alley. “We don’t want to be part of this.”

  “I think it’s too late.”

  Aidan and I froze, slowly turning in unison to see who had joined our nightmare.

  The man standing right behind us looked interested in our conversation – and mildly suspicious. His brown hair was several inches long and brushed back from his angular face. His dark eyes, the color of molten chocolate, were sharp and curious, while his mouth puckered in an unreadable expression. He was dressed in simple blue jeans and a brown leather jacket that was as rich in color as his eyes. His hands, which looked like they were always busy, were placed firmly on his narrow hips as he waited for an explanation.

  He was obviously a cop – or possibly a drug dealer. I looked him up and down again, zeroing in his shoes. Nope, he was definitely a cop. Sometimes you just know. Crap.

  “Um, hi,” I greeted him lamely. “We, um, we found a body.”

  The cop glanced to the ground behind us, taking in the entire scene, before shifting his gaze back to us. “I see that.”

  I didn’t dare glance at Aidan, but I could feel his unease as he shifted next to me. “We didn’t do it,” he said. “I just thought you should know.”

  “That was going to be my next question, so I’m glad you cleared that up.” The cop’s tone was droll. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  Don’t answer. Don’t answer. Don’t answer. “I think he was stabbed – or possibly burned,” I offered. Crap. Why did I answer?

  Aidan kicked me, but I had already realized the stupidity behind my statement on my own.

  “What makes you think he was stabbed?”

  I looked the cop
over again. He didn’t have any identifying marks that proved he was one of Detroit’s finest, but I was still sure I had pegged him right. He was playing it awful cool, though. “Those holes in his chest were my first hint.” Two could play that game.

  “And who are you?”

  “Aisling Grimlock,” I replied, squaring my shoulders. I refused to let his dour nature freak me out.

  “And your boyfriend?”

  Aidan and I exchanged a look. “Gross,” we said in unison.

  The cop waited for further explanation, clearly not amused with our twin response.

  “This is my brother, Aidan.”

  “Ah,” the cop said, turning his full attention to the body on the ground. “I guess that would explain why you look alike.”

  “I’m much better looking than her,” Aidan said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that really important now?”

  “It’s always important.”

  “Yeah, I see the family connection now,” the cop said, squatting next to the body and using a pen to poke around on the ground next to him. “He was definitely stabbed. You were right about that. I guess you got up close and personal with the victim?”

  I ignored the question and watched him for a few more minutes, my impatience finally getting the better of me. “And who are you?”

  The cop straightened back up. “My name is Griffin Taylor. I’m a detective with the Detroit Police Department.”

  “Yeah, we figured that out.”

  “You figured out I was a detective?” Taylor rubbed his hand over his square jaw. “How did you do that?”

  “Well, given our location – and the fact that there’s a dead body here – it was either cop or drug dealer, and a drug dealer wouldn’t be caught dead in those shoes.” Sometimes I babble when I’m nervous.

  Taylor glanced down at his black New Balance sneakers. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

  Oh, where to begin. “Nothing,” I lied. “If you’re going to the gym,” I muttered under my breath.

  He looked me up and down a second and then smiled. “Are you wearing zombie Converse?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re making fun of my shoes?”

  “I’ve told her about the shoes,” Aidan agreed. “She doesn’t get it.”

  Taylor narrowed his eyes as he regarded Aidan. “You told her about the shoes?”

  Aidan scowled, which only made me smirk harder. He couldn’t hide the fact that he was gay even when he tried – which wasn’t very often. “Can we go? This clearly doesn’t involve us, and we have plans for the night.”

  Detective Taylor snorted. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re going to be late for dinner,” Aidan replied.

  “Well … I have a few questions.”

  Taylor was playing a game, I realized. He was waiting to see how we reacted, and I think we were giving him a real show. Most people would be freaking out after stumbling over a body. Since we saw at least three a day, though, it wasn’t exactly traumatic for either of us.

  “Questions about what?” Aidan’s incredulous tone is pretty impressive when you consider the fact that a frowning cop is facing him down, practically daring him to make a fuss.

  “Well, for starters, how about the body?”

  “We didn’t do that,” Aidan said. “We just cut through the alley and my clumsy sister tripped over that guy’s foot. We probably wouldn’t even have noticed him if she would watch where she was going. I can’t take her anywhere.”

  “Hey!”

  “Well, you’re clumsy,” Aidan grumbled, but he looked apologetic.

  “You tripped over the body?” Detective Taylor focused on me.

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “Did you touch the body?”

  “No. Gross.”

  “Did you get any evidence on you?” Taylor was circling me, looking me up and down.

  “I better not have,” I said. “That would totally bum me out.”

  “And we can’t have that,” Aidan said. “We are going to be in so much trouble when Dad finds out about this.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. If he thought my first day on the job was a disaster, this was going to send him through the roof.

  “What does your father have to do with this?” Taylor asked.

  “He’s our boss.” I realized my mistake too late.

  “Your boss?” Detective Taylor looked interested in my slip-up. “And what do you do?”

  Crap.

  “We’re antiquities dealers,” Aidan said hurriedly.

  “Antiquities dealers? In Detroit?”

  “There are a lot of older homes here and some of the belongings in them are worth money.”

  Taylor didn’t look convinced. “In this neighborhood? You were working in this neighborhood?”

  “We work all over the region,” I said, stalling for time.

  “And you had an appointment around here?”

  “No,” Aidan broke in. “We were going to have lunch down here after we finished up an estate job in Grosse Pointe Park.”

  “In an alley?”

  “No, we were actually going to have lunch at Giuseppe’s.” My brother can lie with the best of them. Giuseppe’s Italian Bistro is a gem in this neighborhood, and people are known to go miles out of their way for their baked lasagna.

  “Giuseppe’s is two blocks over.”

  “We were taking a shortcut.”

  “Why would you park over here?”

  “The parking lot at Giuseppe’s is really small and I didn’t want to risk my car being dinged.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “It’s a vintage Corvette.”

  It was like watching a Wimbledon final. Detective Taylor still looked suspicious. “I think, just to be on the safe side, we should all go into the precinct and get all of this on record. You know, just to make sure things are on the up and up – not that I don’t believe you or anything.”

  Double crap.

  “Why?” Aidan was starting to get his hackles up. He hated all authority, but Taylor’s attitude was chafing more than usual.

  “Because you’re the first on the scene of a murder. That’s just standard operating procedure.”

  “You don’t know it’s a murder,” Aidan pointed out. “He could have killed himself.”

  “He stabbed himself in the chest four times?”

  Aidan shrugged. “You don’t know; he could have been dedicated.”

  Now that I looked at the wounds more closely – which was the last thing I wanted to do – the stab marks looked more like really long claw marks. That was a disheartening thought.

  Taylor’s lips thinned into a cross between a sneer and a grin. “Well, I still think that some questions are in order.”

  “Well I think … .”

  “Let it go, Aidan.” I accepted the inevitable defeat. “We don’t have a lot of choices here. Let’s just get it over with.”

  “You should listen to your sister.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Aidan grumbled.

  Aidan and I took an involuntary step back as the alley suddenly flooded with emergency personnel. Detective Taylor kept his eyes on us while he issued a few orders and then motioned for us to follow him. Aidan and I fell into place behind him and trudged back out of the alley.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Seven

  “So, let me get this straight … .”

  Yeah, my father wasn’t taking our update very well.

  “You lost a soul – one that was going to Hell, by the way. Do you have an idea how much paperwork this is going to entail?”

  “He rabbited,” Aidan said, shoving a stuffed mushroom from the plate he had relieved the maid of a few minutes ago into his mouth. We had been detained at the police department for four hours , but Aidan was acting like he hadn’t had a meal for four days. “We couldn’t stop him.”

  Dad gave Aidan a withering look. “Then, while y
ou were out looking for the soul, you stumbled over another dead body and instead of immediately leaving you stayed long enough for the police to discover you there.”

  “We weren’t there that long,” I argued. “I think he would have seen us there regardless.”

  My father ignored my interruption. “So you went to the police station and submitted yourselves to hours of interrogation – without legal representation, which is just stupid – and not only are you still considered suspects but this cop … .”

  “Detective Griffin Taylor,” I offered. I can’t help it. I like the way his name sounds rolling off my tongue, a mixture of mystery and strength all rolled up in a handsome package. Too bad he’s a cop.

  “Detective Griffin Taylor,” my father said through gritted teeth. “He also confiscated your personal scepter, if I’m not mistaken.”

  I shrank down in my spot on the couch. This wasn’t good.

  “We told him that it was a recent acquisition but he didn’t believe us,” Aidan said around a mouthful of mushroom.

  For their part, Redmond, Cillian and Braden were all sitting on the couch opposite Aidan and me and keeping their mouths shut, which went completely against their nature. They couldn’t hide their occasional snickers – and humorous glances – as they listened to our tale, though.

  “This is not funny!” My father exploded when Cillian poked Redmond for emphasis at one point.

  “It’s kind of funny,” Redmond said, not even trying to hide his wide grin.

  “How is this funny?”

  “I really like the part where Aisling tripped over the dead body,” Braden said. “That’s so her.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “My favorite part was when she identified the cop because he was wearing New Balance tennis shoes,” Redmond offered. “I can just see this guy’s face when she told him that.”

  “You don’t even know what he looks like,” I scoffed.

  “He’s hot,” Aidan said, taking a break from his mushroom gluttony long enough to swig from a bottle of imported beer. “He’s all muscles and brown hair. He’s got these really intense eyes. I bet he looks good naked.”

  My other three brothers rolled their eyes. They had long ago become accustomed to Aidan’s boy-crazy nature – but that didn’t mean they liked to hear about it.