by Livia Quinn
“I think most of this had played out by the time you got to work Monday morning,” Jack said as if reading my mind.
“I know. I just—” wish, I’d started to say. Wishes is what usually brought the Djinn in my family trouble.
“How’s Jordie today?” I asked as I drove out of the mail center parking lot.
“Except for the fact that she wanted to stay home with her new pal… perfect. Like she was never sick. I just dropped her off at work.” There was silence on the other end for a moment. Before it could get more awkward, I said, “Okay, well—”
“Wait. I’m about to take a coffee break. Can I buy you one?”
It sounded like he had more on his mind than just coffee.
“The UPak-It, in ten,” he said. “Gotta catch this, see you there.”
I hadn’t heard any beeps or radio calls on his end, but decided I’d meet him anyway. I was as curious as a cat with five new mouse toys.
Chapter 36
Tempe
Jack handed me the cup of black coffee I’d requested. He’d parked on the side of the building, and it seemed I was the only one brave enough to park next to a cop car. We leaned against the truck. “God, I love this coffee,” he said. “The UPak-It does it just like we made it in service. You’d leave the ops room at 4 a.m., fly out on a sortie, and when you got back that afternoon, it would be just right.”
Jack’s coffee smelled like rotted sewage and looked like drilling mud. I made a face, “I prefer it dark, but not aged like the swill you’re drinking.”
I sipped mine while he stood against the car, tapping the roof with his finger. I figured eventually he’d get around to the reason we were standing outside the convenience store, the objects of quite a few curious glances.
“I, uh…wanted to ask you something.” In the brief time I’d known Jack Lang, I’d never seen him nervous.
“Sure.”
“I’m not good at this. It’s actually a first for me.”
“You’ve got my curiosity peaked.”
He spoke in a rush. “Would you like to go to the Grand Ball with me next Saturday? It’s not normally my thing, but I was thinking…” his voice trailed off.
“Yes?” I stalled, dragging it out because I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. It was like being asked to the prom. Which had never happened to me, or a dance, or a party. I’d better stop thinking about it, or I’d wonder why he was asking me… me, Tempe, to the Grand Ball!
“I’d really like to see you all dressed up.” That surprised me. He placed his hands on my shoulders, “And then I’d like to peel it all off, one layer at a time.” That didn’t. My blood heated and my breath hitched on the next intake.
“Um, Houston, we have a problem.” I looked down, waving my arms. “This is as close to dressy as I have in my closet.”
His chin lifted and he looked away, “I, uh, took care of that. I hope you’re not offended. You can still say no, but I was hoping you’d agree. When I was in Aurora’s back room, I saw a dress, and when I thought about you in it…” he saw my expression change… “No, wait.”
I really wasn’t okay just the way I was. He had to dress me up to make me look better.
“That’s not what I meant, Sweetheart. As awesome as you are in shorts and ankle work boots and no makeup, I can only imagine you’d be the most beautiful woman at that ball all decked out.”
My jaw dropped. “Wow, you’re good. Does that silver tongue get twisted up very often?”
He looked serious and…hurt. “You should know me well enough to know when I’m serious, even if expressing it is new to me. Having a semi-normal person to care about in my life…”
“Huh, you’d better shut up while you’re ahead.” I put my arms around his neck and smiled up at him. “When you can’t say what you mean, or you think you’ve screwed up, just kiss me. You do that really well.”
His mouth covered mine softly, thoughtfully, at first, and then he proved he was an expert at expressing himself with a kiss. His tongue swept into my mouth, dueling with mine, and I lost all track of where we were until a truck coasted by and some teenagers whooped.
“Hey, isn’t that the girl’s basketball coach?” and someone whistled and yelled, “Way to go, Sheriff.”
He placed his chin against my forehead. I could feel the thrum of his heart beating in unison with mine.
“So, about Saturday.” I said. “I’ve got this thing.”
He leaned back looking down at me, the warmth in his eyes dimming. “Look—”
“It’s got to do with River.”
I couldn’t say, I have it on good authority that there will be a Para-moon this weekend. I know you never heard of it, but that’s because you’ve never heard of Paramortals, and I can’t tell you because you not only wouldn’t want to take Cinderella to the ball, but you’d probably run freaking screaming if you even got a glimpse of me in Tempestaerie mode.
I settled for, “I have a feeling if we don’t find my brother by next weekend, it’ll be too late.”
His gaze softened once again, and he took my hand. “And I have one—call it a policeman’s instinct—that says we’re going to find him by then.” He wrapped his arms around me, and I snuggled into his warm strength. The man was a rock. Nothing rattled him.
Still, he was a human rock.
“I’ve never been asked to a dance before,” I said. I desperately wanted to go.
He must have seen the longing on my face because he said, “I won’t go without you. The Mardi Gras ball is just an excuse to see you in that dress. If things don’t work out for us Saturday—we’ll make it another time, soon.”
He walked me to my truck. He leaned toward me, and my eyes drifted shut, expecting another of those mind-numbing kisses but he tilted his head, looking off. “What’s that noise?”
I didn’t hear anything.
“Is your truck running?” he asked, releasing me and walking to the back of my truck.
“No,” I said, curious. And then I heard it. “Er, Jack, it’s nothing—” I flushed.
“Well, it’s something. Sounds like it’s coming from inside your trash bag.”
“Uh, yeah, it is.” My face colored. “Just some… things I bagged up the other night when I was house-cleaning.” And frustrated, I thought. I crossed my fingers that he would let it go.
He didn’t. He grinned at me, lifting the bag to his ear, pretending to try to deduce the evidence. Then his eyes glinted, holding a burning promise. “You might want to save those batteries. Toss everything else.” He set the bag down next to us in the pickup bed, still vibrating.
“You won’t be needing it.”
Tempe
Still giddy from Jack’s invitation, I had to share it with somebody, so I called Montana. I kept my eyes on the wet road as I waited for her to answer. Clouds had rolled in and the highway was dark with only a single headlight in my rear view mirror. The driver probably wouldn’t try to pass with the intermittent rain making the road slick.
“Tempe, what are you doing?” came Montana’s voice.
“Guess what?” I teased.
“I don’t know, but from the sound of your voice, it was un…expected,” she said. Then it dawned on me.
“You knew. That Jack asked me to the ball this weekend.” I said. “Who else knows?”
She chuckled. “Just me. And Aurora, of course. And maybe Katerina, and Shannon.”
“Everybody?” I asked experiencing a bit of a letdown that I couldn’t share my excitement.
“Not Bailey. We were afraid she’d mess up and you’d find out before Jack could surprise you. You were surprised and pleased, I hope. And you’re going?”
“Yes, yes, and…I’m not sure.”
“Tempe,” Montana groaned. “You’re hopeless.”
“I want to go. Really. Montana, I’ve never been asked to a dance or ball. This is a first. Of course I want to go, especially…” Just come out and say it. “Especially with Jack.”
“The ball is Saturday. Aurora said our best chance to connect with River is going to be during the full moon which begins next Thursday night.”
“I see. So how did that go over with the good sheriff?” Montana asked.
I smiled thinking of our conversation. “He understood. He—” it looked like the vehicle behind me was finally going to pass as I slowed at the turnoff to Harmony. I kept my eyes averted slightly so his headlight didn’t blind me.
“Tempe?”
The motorcycle roared past as I turned. “I’m here. Guess I was holding up traffic. Let’s just say Jack isn’t taking no for an answer.”
“Good.” There was a pause on the line and then Montana said, “Tempe, we’ll find River. Have you thought about how you’re going to balance the pretend life that Jack sees, with your burgeoning new life?”
“It’s all I’ve thought about most of my life, Montana. If Jack finds out and leaves me, it’s no more than I’ve expected all along. I don’t have a choice though, do I?”
We both knew it was the truth.
Chapter 37
Dylan
It had been a week, and Lang wasn’t getting anywhere solving the murder or finding River. As a law officer myself I was sure he was frustrated, but he didn’t realize that many of the clues he was aware of were misleading because of what he didn’t know. I called Tempe Tuesday as she was leaving UMC and told her to meet me at the clubhouse at dark.
Ever since our moment at the bar, I’d been nagged by guilt. I had my reasons for the things I’d done—good reasons—reasons I couldn’t share with anyone. But rationalizing or explaining didn’t keep me from feeling lower than a sewer rat when she looked at me with her big stormy eyes. It was like a kick to the gut to realize it hadn’t been false, that I’d come to really care about her. And now Lang was in the picture. I wasn’t entirely sure I liked him.
There was truth in what I’d told Lang though. I am a true friend of the family and whatever I could do to help Tempe find River, I would do. I figured I was much better equipped to track the minutia of creature evidence left behind at the clubhouse. I should have thought about it before the scrubbing the manager had ordered despite Lang’s orders, but it wouldn’t keep me from finding what I needed.
Before she arrived I used the time to sniff around the grounds of the clubhouse. Because of my nature, even after the recent precipitation, I was able to pick up more trace evidence than the sheriff could have.
I wondered if he’d seen the length of flattened grass and the deep nonhuman footprints just the other side of the starting tees. And I was sure he would have been unable to catch the scent of the variant who’d dropped his guard momentarily on the sidewalk near the locker room exit.
I used the alarm code I’d gotten from the club manager, who had not been too happy at yet another violation of his facility. The man threw out a lot of empty threats and strutted around like a banty rooster. He couldn’t be good for business.
The change isn’t something I go through if there’s any possibility of exposure to humans, so I threw out a web of invisibility which shimmered like haunted house mirrors, creating a camouflage affect, much like that of a stealth bomber. Then, I became Finrir. It happened in the blink of an eye but it didn’t feel like it. Time always seemed to drag in those milliseconds my bones and organs were shifting, breaking and reforming. Over the centuries I’d learned to ignore the pain.
On all fours, I licked the surface of the floor, tasting the foul bleach and industrial cleaner. The sheriff was good at his job but he didn’t have the advantages of olfactory perfection, senses so acute they were, well, inhuman. I mentally catalogued the traces of the nonhuman DNA—two variants, including the victim. Not enough evidence to identify the variant’s nature. My guess would be something incorporeal, a possession of some kind.
Nucklavee did fit that scenario. They were very rare. And if he’d been involved with Phoebe, it wasn’t for romance. Their motives were totally self-serving. I was surprised, though. Ray, Sam and Nigel had been checked out and given the highest recommendation. So most likely, Ray the victim, wasn’t the real Ray Meeker, Phoebe’s guardian companion.
I stood up, but couldn’t straighten. The room’s seven-foot doorways were not tall enough for me to walk through. So I ducked through the door leading to the locker room, stopping just inside to allow my superior senses to sift through the cleaning chemicals to the minute traces left behind by the killer.
I opened my mouth to collect dormant or leftover particles from the air in the room, my tongue sifting and sorting them like a living centrifuge. I allowed those senses to lead me around the room, by the bar, the exit door, the entertainment center and finally in front of the locker where the strongest spores remained…
“Dylan! What are you doing?”
I dropped the invisibility cloak, since it didn’t do any good with Tempe anyway, and changed back to human form.
“Checking to see if there was any trace evidence left after the cleaning.”
“Did you discover anything?”
“I believe the victim was a Nucklavee, but I don’t think he was really Ray Meeker.”
I heard a vehicle pull up outside and within seconds, the sheriff entered through the doorway. He looked at me over Tempe’s shoulder. How much had he heard?
“After you two explain what you’re doing here, you can tell me what a nuckle v is, and what you meant by that comment.”
She jumped nervously, maybe guiltily, as Lang transferred his gaze to her. I felt a stab of jealousy when I saw the flash of heat coming from him and the flush that rose on Tempe’s face. The nerves along my back bristled. I fought for control over my Finrir who wanted to tear Jack Lang to pieces.
Tempe
Jack looked mad, but I couldn’t tell if he was mad because he thought we’d once again trespassed on his crime scene and were “sniffing” around—if he only knew—or because he walked in on Dylan and me alone…again… especially after last night.
Zeus’ stars! A thought struck me out of the blue. What if he started thinking the reason I didn’t want to go to the ball was because I had lingering feelings for Dylan. Misunderstandings and assumptions have a way of putting relationships in Splitsville.
“Jack, you startled me.” I wanted to turn him away from any of those ideas.
“Tempe had nothing to do with this, Lang. I got the key from the manager. Looks like he ignored your orders not to have the place cleaned. I asked her to meet me here. I’m looking into a related UMC incident, which was in progress before this happened. If you like, I can fill out an official request but usually, the inspectors work closely with local law enforcement.”
Jack had a first class bullshit meter and paid no attention whatsoever to Dylan’s words, except where his laser focus had remained since he entered. “What’s a nuck..nukl—” he scratched his head trying to remember what he’d heard.
“Nucklavee,” Dylan said glancing at me with a let-me-handle-this look. “A Nucklavee is a small group—” Well, yeah, as in rare faerie, I thought. “—of professional thieves and con-artists. If this man has been involved with Tempe’s mother then he’s up to no good.” I stared at Dylan, wondering at his ability to create alternate truths on the fly.
Jack’s expression didn’t change a wit. It was as if he’d made up his mind when he saw us not to believe anything we said. He studied both of us in that still, predatory way he had. I was getting a bad feeling. He had something on his mind.
“Dylan is just trying to help us connect the dots,” I said.
His sardonic smile should have been a warning, but I still wasn’t prepared. “Oh, right.” Jack said, looking straight at Dylan. “And is your dead father on one of those dots?”
Dylan’s hand tightened on my shoulder. I frowned, put off by Jack’s insensitive words. “What about him? What has my father’s death got to do with this?”
I was sick of him
giving, then withdrawing support, blindsiding me just when I thought I could trust him. Was it some kind of interrogation tactic used by law enforcement to trick the truth out of suspects? Dylan shifted uncomfortably. At the time, I mistook it for worry on my behalf.
Those piercing silver eyes turned toward me. “His death has nothing to do with this.”
I grabbed my hair and growled in frustration. “Then—”
His narrowed eyes met mine. “Because he’s not dead.”
Chapter 38
Jack
When Peggy had given me the news that Dutch Pomeroy was alive, I’d been surprised, and a million questions had bombarded me; but Tempe looked like she’d been hit by a lightning strike out of clear blue sky. More interesting even to me was what Peggy had relayed after that. “I forget that you weren’t here then, Jack. Everyone around here knows that Tempe woke up the day after she found out her father was dead to those bright streaks in her hair.” I ached for her, as I imagined what it would have been like for Jordie to hear her daddy wasn’t coming home, ever again.
Tempe’s skin was translucent; she swayed like a fragile willow on the verge of collapse and reached for the counter, something solid to hang on to. This woman always rolled with the punches, and there had been a lot of them. I hoped this one didn’t send her over the edge.
McGuinness on the other hand was grinding his teeth and sending me laser missiles from eyes suddenly black and deadly. What? I was just the messenger. Oh, yeah, he had his own secrets.
Finally a whisper of a question escaped her, “What do you mean he’s not dead?”
She glanced at the inspector who didn’t return her look, then back at me. She was slowly coming to her senses, like a fighter from a knockout punch. A tear escaped from her flooded eyes and spilled down her devastated features. I could only imagine what she was feeling, having built her life around the belief that the father Peggy said she’d been rarely seen without was dead, and now to find out that was a lie.