by Lyn Benedict
“One word. Glory. On the glass of the sporting goods store. Nothing elaborate, a rush job. Just the word. You get anything from that?”
She imagined it. Narrow letters scrawled across the glass. Handwriting, spray-painted, scraggly, and too large. Hurried, even though they had had all the time they could need. Testing the waters. Feeling their oats. Getting bored with the ease of it all.
A faint image came to her, the shape of the group moving toward the stores, one lagging a little behind. “Someone’s feeling ballsy. Teenagers, Lio. You’re looking for teenagers. But I’ll find ’em first.”
He let her go, and she swept out into the main room, found Wright released and drinking cop-shop coffee. He said, “Finally free?”
“I’m not a dangerous criminal after all,” she said, kept moving for the main door. “This visit didn’t even cost me money. Just my head start on a case.”
He gulped down the last of the coffee and hastened after her. “Where to now?”
“Depends,” she said. She juggled her cell phone into her hand and dialed Alex. If Alex could pull the plate information soon enough, Sylvie could beat the cops to the cars’ owners. After a visit from the police, they’d be stirred and defensive.
Just before it went to voice mail, she was rewarded with a series of clatters and thunks, then a sleepy mumble. “Syl? You in jail again?”
Sylvie laughed. “Shaking the dust from my feet as we speak.”
“Then c’n I go back t’sleep?”
“Run some plates for me first? Addresses first, personal info as you can?”
Alex yawned, an audible jaw-cracking contagion that set Sylvie off in response.
“I guess.”
Sylvie snapped her fingers at Wright, hovering politely just out of hearing range. He scowled in response to her abrupt demand for his attention, spread his hands in the universal “what?” gesture.
She bit back her own irritation. Fugue state, ghost, right. Whatever had happened, Wright didn’t remember it. She pointed at his jeans, and said, “Pocket.”
He found the crinkled paper with weary surprise and passed it over. She rubbed her thumb over the elegant script, noticing this time that the handwriting was different. His earlier notes had been squared off, the pencil tip pressed into the paper. That was strange but might fit with a trauma-induced personality shift. Or someone using the muscles of his hand differently.
Cedo Nulli. The memory spiked her adrenaline straight to redline, jolted her heart. How did Wright know about that? If it were the god of Justice poking around in her life again, he’d have dropped by, made sure she helped Wright out.
The government thorn in her side, the Internal Surveillance and Investigations agency, knew about her personal motto inked onto her skin. They could have set her up. Wright could be some sort of poisoned apple. It would be just like the ISI, overelaborate and sneaky.
But Wright seemed genuinely scared. Even now, standing in a sunlit Miami morning, he couldn’t rest. He was all angles, jittery, restless, moving from one defensive posture to another.
“Syl?” Alex whined, waking Sylvie back to the moment. Sylvie read off the plates’ numbers, let Wright’s problems slide. “The ones I’m most interested in are a Navigator and the Subaru. More room for stuff.”
“Did they get stuff?” Alex asked, all disapproval. “You were supposed to keep them from getting stuff.”
“Plans change, Alex,” Sylvie said.
“That excuse is old, old, old,” Alex muttered, but low enough Sylvie could ignore it. She chose to. “Hey, Syl? Speaking of changing plans . . . Zoe took off.”
“When?” Sylvie said.
Alex sighed. “Sometime last night. I’m sorry, Syl. I was running a few programs—updating the office laptop—and I fell asleep. Woke up. She was gone.”
Sylvie sighed. She should have expected it. When she was Zoe’s age, she hadn’t paid much attention to the rules, either. Especially when there was a boyfriend waiting in the wings. “I’ll catch her later. What about the plates?”
“The Navigator’s in the Grove. The Subaru’s in Kendall. The Taurus? That’s a rental, not what you’re looking for, unless you think your thieves are renting a getaway car. The Audi is right at home on the Beach. Got a pen?”
Sylvie cadged Wright’s pencil stub and took down three addresses. “Those are pretty nice neighborhoods, Alex.”
“What? The rich never steal? Tell that to the SEC, Sylvie.”
“Your point,” Sylvie said. “Go on back to bed.”
“Wright still with you?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said, and glancing over, found she was wrong. Wright was nowhere to be seen. “Got to go.”
“Syl—what are you up to?”
“Chasing down my client,” Sylvie said. She scanned the street, found Wright waiting beside a cruiser, leaning back against the hood, idly kicking the toe of one foot against the heel of the other. His fidgeting, his quizzical expression when she waved him back over, reassured her that Wright was in charge, that his wandering off was courtesy and not fugue state.
“I mean, it’s six a.m., you just got out of jail, and if you go sneaking around the Grove, harassing people and breaking into garages, you’re going to end up right back in jail.”
“If I go now, I can beat the cops there—”
“Nope,” Alex said. “No. This is your common sense speaking. Go home. Let the cops handle it. Give them a chance, and if they screw it up—then you can show ’em how it’s done.”
Sylvie hesitated. She hated to cede the advantage when she was being paid to investigate, but she was tired, grubby, and not even sure that following up on the cars would be useful. Only in children’s books and Scooby-Doo would the cars turn out to be owned by the perps.
Alex was right. Let the cops rule out the obvious and save her the effort. Time to get some sleep. Real sleep. Whatever else that sleep spell did, it didn’t leave its victims feeling rested.
* * *
SYLVIE AND WRIGHT TOOK THE METRORAIL BACK TO THE MALL AND reclaimed her truck. She went round front of it, pulled the parking ticket with a curse—Felipe was so damn petty—then asked Wright, “Where am I dropping you?”
He slumped against the door. His face, already reddening in the slanting tropical light, grew red highlights on his cheeks and ear tips. “I wasn’t joking,” he said, quiet. “I got nothing. No money. No local connections. Nothing. This is my Hail-Mary moment. My life’s in your hands, and you don’t even believe me.”
She pulled her sunglasses from the visor, covered her expression with them. He watched her as intently as a dog, trying to read her mood.
Sylvie reached over and pushed the passenger’s-side door open. “Get in,” she said. “There’s a couch in my apartment.”
Her little dark voice growled warning, but what else could she do? Pat him down for cash, call the banks, and make sure he was telling the truth?
She couldn’t leave him at the office. Alex wouldn’t be in until noon, and that left a lot of files open to his scrutiny. She locked the file cabinets as a matter of course, but every cop she’d ever met had a dab hand at popping the usual locks. Her files were coded, but codes were easy enough to crack if someone had a talent for it.
He waited, hanging off her door like some scrawny excuse for a gigolo, nervousness in his expression, leery of her offer. Of her. Maybe even of himself.
Sylvie had a few doubts of her own. The least dangerous scenario Wright presented was that he was delusional, and she was inviting him home. She stifled her common sense, sighed, and said, “In the car, Wright, or you’ll be bunking on the beach. And sand fleas are a real bitch.”
He shook off his own worries, slipped back into the passenger’s seat like he belonged there. Once he was settled, she turned her truck for home, flicking on the radio, and flicking it off when the morning DJs blathered at them. The traffic patterns were just going to have to surprise them.
Wright closed his eyes, and his face aged. Th
e morning light traced the stubble on his chin, half-gold, half-grey; lines of exhaustion pulled his slack face toward sorrow’s mask.
Sylvie took another quick look at the list of cars, wondering if any of them were on her way. Made no sense to pass by if she was just going to have to return later.
“Home, James,” Wright muttered. He reached out a sleepy hand and took the list from her.
She allowed it; she’d seen what she needed to. Each house on the list was a destination, not a drive-by. Instead, she turned the truck’s scarred nose toward her apartment and a couple of hours’ sleep. She sighed. One day back on the job, and she was down to catching bits and pieces of sleep when she could.
The ride was quiet, South Dixie blessedly clear at this early hour, and Wright collapsed into a boneless sleep she hadn’t thought possible in anyone past the age of fifteen. Like a colicky baby, she thought, soothed to sleep by the motion of a car. But if he was asleep and dreaming, his dreams were unpleasant.
He woke when the truck came to its usual coughing halt and squinted at the bright Miami morning, yellow light and haze, reflecting off the white-stucco apartment complex. “Come on,” she said, and he followed her past the cutesy would-be Chinese entry arch, the single stranded Kwan-Yin sculpture left bereft in a rocky alley pathway between the buildings, with only a raised brow for all the kitsch.
“Home sweet home,” she said.
“Thought Florida was all about the Latin look,” he said. He took in the view of tilted-up roof corners, red tile cartoon-bright against the blue sky, the expanses of raked gravel and sand.
“Landlord was trying for the foreign-student demographic,” Sylvie said. “Ended up with something as authentic as grocery-store lo mein.”
Her building was the one deepest into the lot, farthest from the pool. She’d chosen it for the quiet, plus the nice long view of the walkway, which let her see who was coming to visit.
One flight of stairs up, and Sylvie put the key into the lock, jiggling the key as it stuck again. Humidity was a killer. The lock gave after a solid thump, and she ushered Wright in, kicking the door closed. He moved forward with the awkward shuffle of a guest preceding his host, awaiting cues and guidelines.
Sylvie felt tight in her skin, all too aware of his eyes sweeping the small expanse of the living room, the tiny kitchen, the shadowed depths of her bedroom, her bed unmade, sheets still tangled from that final nightmare that had driven her out of town. She’d slept better in Sanibel, defying all logic. Slept soundly and at length, no matter that her most pressing problems were things she’d brought along.
She sidled past him once he had moved beyond the narrow pseudofoyer, and found herself standing awkwardly in the living room. Times like this, she wished she were more of a regular person, with a dog, a cat, an aquarium, even houseplants that needed watering—anything to let her fuss with until she got over that first stranger-in-the-house discomfort.
Instead, she had a nearly bare room, a comfy couch with magazines strewn along one half—Guns & Ammo, Closer, and a month’s worth of inserts from the Herald—newspapers piled beneath and beside the end table, collecting dust. A TV on a cheap stand, DVDs piled beside it. A bookshelf, three-quarters full. A floor lamp at strategic distance from the couch. It wasn’t even messy enough that she could justify a scamper round tidying. Instead, she just did a quick point and show. “Bedroom, mine, thataway. Couch, yours. Bathroom down the hall. Drinks in the kitchen. Help yourself. If you dirty something, put it in the dishwasher. I’m going to shower. I think I rolled in oil.”
Once off the road, out of the truck, in the clean confines of her apartment, the scent lingered about her like a cloud, a reminder of the failed night on her skin.
She grabbed a couple of blankets, one of the pillows from her bed, and tossed them to him. “Don’t worry. I don’t sing in the shower. You should be able to sleep.”
“I’m not that tired,” he said. “We could talk about my case.” He swayed gently, foot to foot.
“In the morning,” she said.
“It is morning. You’re the one who got PO’d I was holding out on you—”
“Know anything new and urgent, like a name?” she asked.
He wrapped himself in his own arms, shook his head. She said, “Then we’ll talk later in the morning. Much later. After coffee. After a spicy breakfast omelet. And more coffee. You need some rest, and I need a clear head.”
Maybe with some sleep under his belt, he wouldn’t look so close to the edge. Whatever sleep he’d gotten in her truck, it had been the opposite of refreshing. He looked strung tight, and worse, he looked . . . crowded, as if the thing in his head, having surfaced briefly, was watching for another chance.
Sylvie shuddered. He might be ready to talk about it; she wasn’t. Enemy, ghost, crazy? Or some combination of all of the above? Sylvie didn’t want to start that round of speculation again. Once had been enough, and nothing had changed in the interim.
“You came to me for help. I’m telling you now. Sleep will help. You can’t think clearly if you’re exhausted.”
“Can’t think clearly when someone else’s using my brain,” he muttered, but nodded agreement. He toed off a sneaker, white leather worn nearly grey with age and use, then the other, and Sylvie found herself shying away from his bony bare feet, the unwelcome intimacy of it. Ridiculous in a city where flip-flops were so common, but there it was. Wright needed help; she didn’t want to give it. She didn’t want to see any further signs of vulnerability—his or hers.
She grabbed a shower, scrubbing her skin clean, trying to purge the guilt over her reluctance to help. It was just bad timing. She’d been truthful with Alex; she wanted a nothing case. Not something that was life-or-death desperate. Wright’s problem was twigging every nerve in her body attuned to Serious Trouble.
The water was hot and plentiful at this hour, before her neighbors rose for work, and Sylvie lingered until the knots of tension in her spine—
What happened to the satanists, Sylvie?
Help me.
Find the thieves.
Save me.
That your gun, Lightner?
—faded away into a dull ache.
She got out, her fingers pruned, the mirror glass steamed and drippy, and dragged on a pair of ’Canes sweats, faded from forest to olive, and a black tank top.
The apartment was silent and dim; Sylvie expected to see Wright a mute, mummy shape of blankets along the couch. Instead, he perched on the edge, bare-chested, barefoot, bent over something small in his hand, something that gleamed with an opalescent shine. He was utterly still, staring into it.
Sudden rage washed Sylvie. She snatched it from his hand, the broken curve of glass leaving a tiny crescent of blood on his skin. He jerked back. “What the hell?”
“Don’t touch that. Where did you even—”
“It was on the couch,” he said. “Memento mori? Didn’t expect you to go in for that sort of thing.”
On the couch, right. She remembered now. That last night before her vacation, packing and repacking and repacking again. All of it centered around a quarter moon of cloudy, broken glass that she couldn’t decide to take or leave behind.
A tiny broken piece of a crystal ball, cloudy with a fragment of a dead man’s soul. She rubbed it in her palms, familiar by now with the sharp edges. She’d left it behind. A fragment of a soul. It wasn’t good for much when the rest of it had been obliterated, devoured by the Furies. She’d slept better in Sanibel? Maybe because she hadn’t taken it with her. She rocked it in her hand now. Sometimes she swore she could see a slice of Demalion’s life in it. A boy in a blazer, raising his head, and facing down a school bully with nothing but arrogance.
Sometimes, in her nightmares, she was child-Demalion’s bully. Sometimes, in her nightmares, she killed him herself. Shot him, hit him, sicced the Furies on him. She shivered, closed her palm around the glass in her hand without looking at it, afraid of seeing that boy’s face in it.
&n
bsp; She dropped heavily onto the couch beside Wright. “It’s important to me.”
Wright pressed on the small slice in his palm until the blood welled up over his fingertips. “Glad to hear it.”
“God, you did a number on yourself,” Sylvie said. She hadn’t thought the crystal was that sharp. “Hold on a moment.” She collected her first-aid kit, pulled out the butterfly bandages, and, after wiping the blood away again, fastened them over the curved wound. She traced the edge of the wound with her fingertip, checking that pressure on the rest of his hand wouldn’t be more than the bandages could control. Tracing that small curve, over and over again.
“Ow?” he said. He folded his fingers inward, out of her grip. “Bad bedside manner, Shadows.”
“You’ve no idea,” she muttered. “Last person I patched up wasn’t even a person.”
When she looked up to see if he was shocked silent, or just thinking, her gaze never made it to his face, caught on that curved scar on his chest. She lifted his hand in hers, brought it upward. The curves matched. Like key in lock. She jerked away, trembling. Coincidence? Or the ISI, playing vicious games with her and using Wright? She touched that spot on his chest, that smooth gap in the arc.
He touched her cheek, fingertips cool against her flushed skin. She twitched away.
“Sylvie,” he said. “You look wrecked.”
“Not your problem,” she said. As she rose, she stumbled, and he drew her back, wrapped her in an embrace that shook, as if the weight of her problems and his combined might break him. It would have been easy to push him away, but it was easier still to rest her head in the curve of his neck, his shoulder bony and flat beneath her cheek. Easy to pretend. He smelled of salt and sweat, and she wondered, if she parted her lips, leaned that tiny increment closer, would he taste of the sea beneath her tongue?
She curved her palm over that evocative scar, felt it cool and smooth and incomplete. A fragmentary wound as cool as crystal. She shivered in his arms. Step away, she thought. End this before she did something she’d regret in the name of comfort. But he was warm and alive, and his arms felt good closed on her shoulders, his breath stirring her hair.