Out of Body coa-1

by Stella Cameron

  She gave a big puff. “A gravel alley. An empty building with a bike rack inside. A bike in the rack. Stuff scattered on the floor. A woman’s stuff, like lipstick.”

  When she fell silent, both Gray and Nat shifted from foot to foot, waiting.

  “There’s a neon sign you can see through the doors—when they’re open.”

  “Huh.” Nat continued to wait.

  “It could be an animal or a bird. I wasn’t sure. Not a girl or a martini glass with a swizzle stick or anything like that.”

  “I see.”

  “The neon was mostly turquoise and yellow and the sign lighted up at the top first then moved down until it was all on. Then it went off for a second. Then it started again.”

  “Yes,” Nat said. “Okay. And this was where?”

  “If I knew that we wouldn’t need you,” Marley said, her voice growing higher. “You get paid to solve these things. All those people you’ve got will have some ideas about where that sign is and they’ll solve it. They’ll find the place.”

  “From a gravel alley, an empty building with a bike rack inside, and a flashing neon sign that could be an animal or a bird? You want to make a guess about how many neon signs there are in the Quarter?”

  “Forget it,” she said and spun away from them. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Gray had her elbow in his grasp before she went five feet. “We’ll do it together and Nat will help. Be reasonable. It’s going to take just the right little memory jog to give us a real lead.”

  “I’m not playing silly games with people who sneer at me.” She shot a look at Nat. “If you’re doing so well on your own, why do you need me anyway? You don’t believe anything I tell you.”

  Gray thought Nat looked like a man in the company of a woman who puzzled him. But then, he was.

  “Okay, everybody, calm down,” Nat said. “I need to put out some information and instructions.”

  While they waited, Marley surprised Gray by putting her arms around his waist and resting her face on his chest. “I’ve got to wake up,” she said in a shaky voice. “I usually have time to get strong again.”

  He didn’t answer, just let her talk while he tried not to let her know how his body reacted to the feel of her layered against him. He surrounded her shoulders and bent down to put his chin on top of her head.

  “I think it’s too late, but I can’t give up until I’m sure,” Marley said.

  “Did you see someone, Marley? Someone else?”

  She rubbed his back. “Yes.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “No. It was too dark. I don’t even know if it was a live or a dead person.”

  They stood under a light and Marley leaned away a little. She turned her hand palm-up and his heart thundered.

  “We’re going to an emergency room,” he said. “My God, Marley. The wound needs stitching.”

  “It looks worse than it is,” she said, and pulled together a tear in her sleeve.

  “Show me that.” Nat took hold of her wrist before she could hide her hand. “When did you get this?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know exactly, but it was this evening at that building.”

  “Who did it to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did they use?”

  She hesitated. “A spine on their skin—or hide,” she said. “As far as I could tell.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nat didn’t sound convinced. “My guys are spreading out. They’ll keep checking in. If what you describe exists in this city, we’ll find it.”

  “I want to be there when they go in,” Marley said.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Because I care. If I’m right, someone suffered there. I don’t want anyone walking all over it like it’s a park.”

  Nat put his hands in his pockets. “My people are very careful.”

  “I want to be there before they go in.”

  “Okay. If they find it, you will be. Now I want you to come with me.”

  Marley frowned at Gray.

  “I’ll stay with you,” he said. “Nat’s a good guy.”

  “I want to go home and sleep,” she said, never taking her gaze from his.

  With me? Sometimes his basic urges carried him away. “Can’t this wait?” he said to Nat. “Marley’s had a long day.”

  “No, it can’t. Unless you insist on my getting an order from a judge, Marley, I’d like our people to run DNA from that wound.”

  Chapter 27

  A steady, warm drizzle fell. Rain and a murky damp had taken turns for hours to make the night as difficult as possible.

  “We’re going in circles,” Gray said.

  “Uh-huh.” Marley hardly had the energy to keep walking. “We are. That’s kind of the point. Eventually I’ll see something I didn’t notice before. I need coffee.”

  Without breaking his stride, Gray landed a hand on the back of her neck and pushed her through the door of a corner café with empty booths along both of its windows.

  Marley slid onto a split, green plastic seat and shook her head. She was glad she couldn’t see what the humidity had done to her hair.

  “Look at those curls,” Gray said. “You could audition for Orphan Annie.”

  She scowled at him. “Thanks, I needed that.”

  His smile made her laugh.

  “You’re bad, you know that?” she told him. “Do you think they have toasted cheese sandwiches here?”

  “You don’t want chocolate syrup on chocolate cake?”

  “That’s dessert.”

  A waitress brought coffee and nixed the toasted cheese. They could have pizza by the slice.

  “Do you have anything else?” Marley asked. “Oatmeal? Grits? Corn pudding?”

  “Nope. We’ll nuke the pizza for you, though.”

  “Six pieces, then,” Marley said.

  The woman rolled her eyes and left.

  “You’re going to eat six pieces of pizza?” Gray said.

  “I’ll share.”

  “We’re avoiding the issue, Marley. This isn’t going anywhere, this hopeless search. You don’t want to hear this, but go back to the beginning and think it through. Second by second, move by move.”

  He was right, she didn’t want to hear it. “Coffee first.”

  “Nat’s still out there, too,” he said. “He’ll keep going and so will his people.”

  “Nat believes me,” Marley said, surprising herself. “I’m not sure when I knew it, but it’s true. He doesn’t think I’m making any of this up.”

  Gray settled his spread fingers on the table and looked at her.

  She inclined her head in question.

  “You’re not making it up,” Gray said.

  Marley formed another comment, but stifled it. Instead, she watched Gray. Slowly, his expression became distant, as if he was moving away and withdrawing into himself.

  The waitress set plates in front of them, then slid a platter of pizza slices into the middle of the table. “That’s more than six,” Marley said.

  “We got extra,” the waitress said with a one-sided smile that shifted with her gum. Her eyes crinkled when she looked at them. “Nice. You make a nice couple. Even if you could use a bunch more good meals. Get plenty of bacon fat in your greens. Gumbo puts meat on your bones. Rice. Beans. A couple a muffulettas for your mornin’ snack.” She looked Marley over. “You got the best hair, though. If I don’t have a perm, I got bleached pumpwater. Yeah, you got the best hair, kid.”

  She left and Marley scooped up a piece of pepperoni and olive pizza with plenty of pesto. She took a big bite and munched. “Heaven,” she said. “Eat, eat.”

  Gray continued to look at his hands on the table. He turned his gaze slowly up to Marley’s face and her tummy flipped. Those whiskey eyes had darkened and his heavy lashes cast deep shadows.

  “Talk,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  She breathed i
n deeply and started again, not touching what she’d witnessed while she’d been joined with Liza because it couldn’t have any bearing on what had happened in that empty building.

  Gray leaned across the table, watching her mouth with every word she spoke.

  “Stop,” he said. “Go back and tell me that last bit again.”

  She followed his instructions.

  “Where was the bicycle helmet?” he said.

  Marley picked olives from a piece of pizza and kept her eyes on Gray’s face. “What helmet?”

  He looked in her direction, but she didn’t think he was seeing her.

  “A pink helmet with writing on the back, near the bottom. A shiny helmet. You saw it.”

  She hadn’t seen any such thing. Where had he got the idea? Marley was afraid to interrupt him.

  “You picked something up,” he said.

  Marley said, “No.” Her head began to ache and a pain centered behind her right eye. She rubbed her forehead.

  “You did,” Gray said. “Did you get rid of it?”

  She swallowed. Had she really made herself believe all the signs that Gray had paranormal powers would go away? They were crowding in on him in front of her eyes and one of them, she was almost sure, was remote vision. Incredibly potent stuff. Marley understood the discomfort in her head. Gray was actively confronting her mind. She knew he didn’t fully understand what that was or meant, but from the speed of his development, it wouldn’t be long. Then he would have to learn a few basic covenants of using paranormal power if he was to survive in a world with unique expectations and responsibilities.

  What she couldn’t prove was that she had set all this in motion for Gray, yet why else would this be the time of his awakening?

  “Marley,” Gray said. “Where is it?”

  She felt irritated. “I don’t know what helmet you’re talking about. Drop it, please.”

  He drew back and his expression showed confusion.

  “Tell me about the sign again,” he said quietly.

  “Long,” Marley said. “Not very wide. A picture of something in neon. Turquoise and yellow.”

  “And some green?”

  Startled, she cast back and isolated the sign. “Yes. Some green.”

  “Leaves, d’you think?”

  “Yes.” She started to get excited. “A border of leaves on the inside. All the neon is pale. Washed out, sort of.”

  He turned his face to the window.

  Minutes slipped by.

  “The sign is on the other side of a high wall,” he said. “A stucco wall, but the plaster’s peeling off.”

  Marley stopped breathing.

  “I can hear the gravel under someone’s shoes. They’re scared.”

  She got to her feet. This was coming from her. Gray had started to read her mind with ease, only he took what he read farther and his senses filled in details she hadn’t experienced, or perhaps remembered.

  “Let’s go,” he said, getting up and pulling her from the booth. He started for the door then paused to fish some bills from a pocket. “Thank you,” he called to the waitress, putting the money on the table.

  “It’s a snake,” he said as they hit the sidewalk. “A yellow snake and there’s a turquoise border with green leaves inside.”

  “A quiet area. Away from the center of things,” Marley said while they ran. “We don’t know where we’re going.”

  “I think we do. That’s the Gold Snake—a hole in the wall. It’s near a club called Alexander’s.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Nat. Meet us at the back of Alexander’s. I’m sure you know where it is. Let’s get there.”

  Gray grabbed a cab that showed it was off duty and the driver agreed to take them where they needed to go because it was on his way home.

  They got out in front of a small club called Alexander’s and Nat walked to meet them. Marley couldn’t see any other cops, but presumed there were some around.

  “There’s a warehouse out back. It opens onto an alley, but goes all the way to the street behind. The warehouse is locked.”

  “Unlock it,” Gray said, holding Marley’s hand and striding past the side of the club.

  “You know I can’t do that without a warrant,” Nat said, keeping up. “We can wake up a judge for that if you’re sure this is the place, Marley.”

  She caught sight of the illuminated sign on the other side of the wall to her right. “That’s it,” she said breathlessly. She broke into a run and they reached the entrance to the warehouse. “Can’t we just get in there? We could say we found it open.”

  “That would be nice and convenient,” Nat said, but with laughter in his voice. “Cops are pretty stupid. They fall for stuff like that all the time.”

  Marley felt mortified and said, “Sorry,” in a small voice.

  Gray let go of Marley and used his sleeve to try the handles on the double doors. He turned his back on Nat, produced a credit card and in seconds the doors swung open.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Nat said. “Some people watch too much television.”

  Several uniformed cops materialized from the darkness. They hesitated as if waiting for instructions.

  “I want to go in there,” Marley said and walked through the open doors.

  Someone pushed a powerful flashlight into her right hand and she shone it around. She broke out in a sweat, but walked forward, moving the beam from side to side, pierced the darkness all the way to the walls.

  “Empty,” one of the cops said.

  “We already knew that.” Nat sounded tetchy.

  “Where’s the bike rack?” Marley said. She started to move rapidly around the space. “And the bike? They’re gone. But they were here. I swear they were.”

  Nat used his own flashlight to look more closely at the concrete floor. “Do you remember where it was—the rack?”

  “No. It was dark and I only found it because I felt it.”

  “Could you have been by the wall, ma’am?” one of the officers said. “There’re pipes in places. And brackets. They could feel like a rack of some kind if you were nervous.”

  “I was nervous,” Marley snapped. “Who wouldn’t be? But I felt a bike rack. And the wheel of a bike. Its seat. It was pushed into the rack.”

  “There’s no sign of any of it now,” Gray said quietly.

  “They were here,” Marley said stubbornly. “They’ve been taken away.”

  “They’ll have to look for evidence of that,” Gray said.

  “It’s late,” Nat said, joining them. “I vote I have my people come back in the morning and look at things in the daylight. I’ll have someone run each of you home.”

  “If you still believed I was telling the truth you wouldn’t leave this place without taking it apart,” Marley said.

  “I…I want to believe you,” Nat said. “In a way I do, but you can’t deny that the things you said were here aren’t.”

  “I don’t understand it,” she told Gray. “Honestly, I saw someone on the ground. I didn’t have a chance to get close.”

  Gray held her arm and Marley sucked in a sharp breath. If this went on with him, she’d have to discuss what it would mean if they…well, if they made love.

  Still holding on to her, Gray went toward the door, but rather than walking outside, he pulled the right-hand door away from the wall.

  “We could wait in here until morning if that’s what Nat wants,” she said.

  “Nat’s going to want a bunch of things,” Gray said. “Look at this.”

  He stooped to pick something up and when he straightened, Marley trained the flashlight on what he held.

  One shiny pink bicycle helmet.

  “This should help,” Gray said. “Must be the brand. We’ll need to follow up on dealers who carry them. Come and see this, Nat.”

  On the back at the very bottom in black script were the words Pearl Brite in the symbol of a lightning flash.

  Chapter 28

  Fo
ur in the morning when temperatures pretended they were cool. It was the coolest part of the day, but it wouldn’t last long before the air warmed and the myriad scents of the Quarter rose about as fast as the familiar noises of the populace getting about their business.

  “How are you doing?” Gray asked.

  They stood outside the gate into the Court of Angels. “If I told you the first word that comes to mind, I wouldn’t sound polite,” she said. “Every one of my muscles aches. I don’t feel I could walk another step. But my mind is doing jumping jacks. I wanted to keep going and at least do something.”

  “I know,” Gray said. Most of all he didn’t want to leave Marley when he doubted he could think of anything else but her. He sure as hell wouldn’t be able to write and he needed to get back to a proposal he was working up for a piece on oil rig workers in the gulf. He didn’t want to think about it.

  “Would you feel comfortable coming in and talking?” Marley asked. “I still don’t feel like I can wind down. Anyway, I don’t know how you’d get back to the Faubourg Marigny at this hour.”

  He looked ruefully at his feet. “The options don’t appeal. If you can stand me a bit longer, I’d love to come in. I’ll make us some coffee.”

  “I’d rather pour us a brandy, unless you don’t drink.”

  “I drink.” He grinned at her. “Not Nat’s Bong vodka, but a glass of brandy would be perfect.”

  She unlocked the gate and led him through a cool, dark alley with gray stone angels tucked into niches.

  The alley opened out into what must be the Court of Angels and he saw how it got its name, even if a goodly number of gargoyles and questionable statues mixed, apparently harmoniously, with some really classy standing angels.

  She put her finger to her lips. “Sykes won’t be here. He’s at his studio almost all the time—wherever that is. Willow and Uncle Pascal are heavy sleepers. But I don’t want to tempt fate—or a third degree.”

  Gray followed her up green-painted metal steps, treading carefully to keep the noise down. He leaned forward and whispered to her, “I’m curious about where you live.”

  She put a finger to her lips again and opened the door into a small hallway. She locked the door behind her, but still tiptoed along. “The living room,” she said, pointing into a dark room on the right. Next she said, “My bedroom,” and another dark cavern confronted him. “There’s a second bedroom like a boxroom where I have my computer and the kitchen’s back here.”