He looked at me through squinty eyes as if the daylight pouring in through the window behind me was painful. “What else did you dream?” he asked. His brow had furrowed with suspicion. Which is very interesting indeed. Perfect Mr Storm was hiding something.
Beastie took this moment to leap back onto the bed and make her way onto Storm’s lap as if she owned it. She walked around and around on his thighs, patting with her paws. Storm looked at her with horror, as if sure she was going to dig her claws into him at any second. I wouldn’t have put it past her. She might be an angelic-looking pure white fluff ball, but her grumpy little face said everything you needed to know about what she was really thinking.
She seemed to deem Storm a worthy cushion because she settled down on top of him, making him look even more horrified. Chuckling at his predicament, I removed the empty water glass from his hand and dumped it into the sink.
“You mean what else have I dreamed of about to you?” I purred, fluttering my eyelashes. “Are you sure you want to know? I wouldn’t want to make you blush. Or maybe I would…”
Storm exited my bed so swiftly that Beastie yelled in surprise as she dropped off his lap. She hissed to show her displeasure. As Storm looked around for his shoes, I made one last ploy to find out what he was hiding.
“Come on, Storm. If you don’t tell me what is going on with you then I will just end up dreaming it. You know I will.”
This wasn’t entirely true. I couldn’t control my visions and dreams or what messages the wordless psychic song of the world chose to send my way. My psychic ability had almost never shown me anything to do with the lives of the people I actually knew and cared about. This was a very frustrating fact, and one that Storm didn’t need to know about.
Storm had found his shoes and was pulling them on.
“Well?” I said, going to plant myself firmly between him and the door. This brought to me within touching distance of him. He put his hands on my waist and firmly guided me sideways so that he could reach the coat rack on the back of my door. Seeing that his jacket was not there, he looked towards my couch. It was not there either.
“You’ve got me intrigued now,” I said. “You might as well tell me because I never give up once I am intrigued. I’ll be making sure to have as many dreams of you as possible from now on.”
I shouldn’t have goaded him like this, but I sensed that if he didn’t spill it now than he wouldn’t spill it ever. And how was I supposed to help him if he wouldn’t spill it?
Storm had spotted his jacket. It was on the small table near my window that I used as both my dining table and my desk. It was right on top of the files that I had left there yesterday evening, and which I had completely forgotten to put away.
Before I could stop him, Storm picked up his jacket. As he began to put it on, his eyes fell onto the files. He froze with one arm in his jacket and one arm out. I winced. I wasn’t supposed to take the files out of the office, and this situation was worse than that.
As he picked the files up, I went over to snatch them from him. Or I would have, if he’d let go. He held onto them with an iron grip, damn him.
“What the hell is this?” he said.
“Look, I know I am not supposed to bring files home—” I began.
He interrupted me. “I’ve been gone from the office for less than a week, and already you’re breaking the rules?”
My attempts to ease the files out of his hands only made him more interested in them. As his eyes dropped downwards, I gave a sharp tug. Naturally this made matters worse. The files spilled onto the ground, and all of the contents fell out. Case notes, photos, autopsy reports. Everything.
“Darn it! Look what you’ve done!” I chided him.
Now Storm could see exactly what they were and his faced turned dark as thunder. “What the hell?” he muttered. He crouched to rifle through the papers.
“I was going to tell you,” I said. “Maybe.”
He scowled up at me. “Maybe?”
“Ah, you know. On a needs to know basis. If you needed to know, then I would have told you.”
I gave him a cheeky grin. Maybe it was the irascible supposed Angel of Death in me that was making me enjoying this so much. Not that I had been able to confirm if I was the Angel of Death or not. Theo’s magic spell had been supposed to combine the two warring separated sides of my personality, but I had also hoped it would cure me of my amnesia. It had not. There was still a big blank spot in my head where my memories of the first fifteen years of my life should have been.
Storm snatched up the files and waved them at me. “What the hell is this, Diana? These are not the files I gave you.”
“Aww. There’s no point being upset.” I batted my lashes at him. “I was bored with the ones you gave me. There was only one good one and I have been investigating that one. I swear. But if you really want me to close cold cases you should let me look at absolutely everything in the archives, don’t you think?”
He waved the top file at me, probably the most forbidden of these files. I had kept coming back to this one over and over these past few days. It’s song had been a persistent and irksome thrum, jibing at me that it was important. Storm looked very annoyed to find it in my possession.
“This one is not a cold case,” he said. “It’s a closed case.”
I took it from him and opened it up. “See this file is a weird one. Half the contents are missing. Where are they gone? And I couldn't even find a mugshot of the suspect, this Steffane Ronin guy—”
“What do you mean, they’re gone?”
“They’re gone. Absent. Incomplete. When I found the file it was mostly empty. There isn't even a log of it on the computer system. Isn’t that weird?”
Storm frowned. He tried to take the file from me but I held onto it. “That’s unexpected right?” I insisted.
He unwrapped my fingers from the file in order to remove it from my grip. I rather enjoyed the feeling. He was much stronger than me, and annoyingly it wasn’t long before I was forced to surrender. In other circumstances I think I would have enjoyed surrendering to him, if only he’d make use of those other circumstances.
“I’ll look into it,” he said grimly.
I chuckled. Damn, I wish he would look into it. I’d make sure he had fun negotiating the terms of my surrender.
Sadly Storm was unaware of the cozy scene inside my head and he stuck stubbornly to the topic at hand. “This Ronin case is closed. Steffane Ronin was convicted. If you’re going to have dreams you can damn well have them about the cases I gave you. Not about any damn case you choose to stick your nose into. Is that clear?”
Wow. Two damns in one breath. That must have been a record for Storm.
“Yes, boss,” I murmured, still enjoying my alternative train of thought. “But you're not exactly making the best use of my skills here. I’m drawn to what I am drawn to. You should let me loose at all those badboys. Even the ones you think you’ve already closed.”
“And have you unleash hell and undo years of hard work? I think not.”
“C’mon,” I chided. “What have you got to fear? You’re a good agent. It’s the sloppy agents who should be worried.”
“I worked this Ronin case,” he said shortly.
My eyebrows flew up. That did surprise me. There was something off about the Ronin case. I just didn’t know what it was yet. It was not like I could investigate just a vague feeling of mine, which was why it was so annoying that all the photos in the case file were missing. I liked photos — I found them easier to work with. They sometimes sparked fleeting but helpful visions. The next best thing would have been to actually speak to Ronin, but it was not like I could march into the sort of super-max prison that they held otherkind in at my leisure.
But if Storm had worked the Ronin case there couldn’t be anything wrong with it. I sighed. “So maybe some of these other cases?” I said.
“No,” he said firmly. “Stick to the ones I assigned to you. The last thing I
need is to ruffle the feathers of the other departments.”
“I don’t care about them. I didn’t think you did either.”
“It’s my job to care about them. That’s why I’m a supervisory agent and you’re…” He stopped, Probably worried about hurting my feelings.
“A mere consultant?” I filled in. “Ain’t no shame in that. I prefer being a consultant. Less red tape to tangle me up.”
“The red tape still applies whether you like it or not. And you should be worried about being a consultant. It means the Agency can fire you in a heartbeat. Is that what you really want?”
“I trust you to have my back,” I said glibly.
My attitude did not reassure him. “You’re still seeing your therapist, right?” he said suspiciously. “I missed your signed sheet last week.”
“I left it on your desk,” I told him. “And yes. I have an appointment with her shortly. The things I do to please you. Even though you know what I think about psychiatrists and their like.”
“You need someone to talk to about your… your life. It might as well be a professional.”
He was going to say about my problems. It would have irked me if I wasn’t in such a darn good mood. If Storm had half a clue what my problems really were, his straight-laced side would dump me from my job and from his life so fast that my head would spin. The man was far too into letting his head rule his heart.
“If you like them so much maybe you should be seeing one,” I told him. “If last night is anything to go by, I’m not the only one with troubles.”
“I didn’t lose my mother to a serial killer,” he said.
Those words should have stabbed at my heart. They would have just three weeks earlier. Now they bounced off my sunshiny mood like water off a duck’s back.
“How do you know you didn’t lose your mother to a serial killer too?” I asked him. “It’s not like you found out who killed your mom.”
The look on his face was thunderous. Damn, this mood of mine was going to land me in a bunch of trouble.
“Mine was a long time ago,” he said stiffly. “Yours was just two years ago, and you only buried her three months ago.”
“Three and a half if we’re counting.”
“Don’t be glib,” he said shortly. “Sometimes I think I don't know you at all.” He shook his head as if tired of me.
“We can change that if you like,” I said suggestively.
He didn’t bother to answer. He shrugged into the other arm of his jacket, and with the files tucked under his arm, he headed towards my door. On his way he paused beside my shower cubicle and raised an eyebrow. “What is this?”
“Big enough for two is what it is,” I said with a grin.
He sighed. “I’m serious, Diana. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. I don't need the extra trouble. Promise to leave this one alone?”
He was right next to my door now. He really did look tired. I’d never seen dark circles under his eyes before. They bothered me. Storm shouldn’t have dark circles. Whatever the hell was on his mind was really getting him down. He had taken an unexpected week off work and the rumor was that Storm never took his holidays unless the chief forced him to.
It was too bad that I was the last person he wanted to share his troubles with.
I went over to him until I was close enough for a hug, but I didn’t hug him, much as I thought it would do him good. I placed my hand on the door handle behind him, not seeing that his hand was already on it until my hand landed on top of his. Something flicked through his eyes. Fear? It was gone so quickly that I could not be sure. He jerked his hand away from under mine.
“A problem shared is a problem halved,” I said, offering my services one last time. .
He shook his head. If his back wasn't already up against the door he would definitely have taken a step back.
“Okely dokely. It’s your funeral.”
I opened my door for him, since that was what he so clearly wanted. He exited like a shot. No pretense of anything else. The Diana of three weeks ago might have felt the urge to cry, but not this new Diana. I stayed watching him as he descended the steps outside my apartment without even looking back.
When he was out of sight I flung the door shut. Two minutes later was in my shower singing a song that I’d heard on the radio. “Ready or not, here I come. You can’t hide…”
Chapter 3
DIANA
My therapist’s name was Roopamala. I had googled it, not that I would admit to her that I had taken such an interest in her life. She would have been far too pleased — or far too offended — that I had wanted to check out anything about her. I could never tell with her what her mood was going to be. The name meant ‘blessed with beauty’, which had actually made me laugh. Because I couldn’t tell whether her parents had jinxed her with that name or not. Roopa was all sorts of contradictions rolled into one.
She had agreed to see me on Sunday and Thursday mornings, and as today was Sunday I had been sitting in the room that she referred to as her office for half an hour, saying words without saying much of anything.
Really I couldn’t wait for this session to be over. What I hadn’t told Storm was that I had already taken a photocopy of all of the files that I had snitched from Agency Headquarters. I had planned to take the originals back asap before their absence was noticed. My secret copies were waiting for me at Grimshaw’s magic shop, where I would be going to next, as soon as this early morning inconvenience of a so-called therapy session was over. Storm’s insistence that I must not look into the Ronin case had me even more determined to do so.
Roopa had assigned me a very specific chair. It was one of those office chairs that swiveled around. She had gotten it second-hand off the internet. I liked it a lot. It let me fidget to my heart’s content, and fidgeting was all I felt like doing for the excruciatingly dull hour I had been coming here twice a week for the past three weeks..
The so-called office was Roopa’s smaller lounge. She had two, but I was not allowed into the second larger one that led through to the rest of her small house. I was not allowed to even use the bathroom here, because it would mean going outside of this ‘office’. It seemed that Roopa thought I was not to be trusted.
The first time I had visited she had opened her front door wearing a loose tent-like outfit. She had said, “I must apologise for my attire,” and then she had laughed. It turned out she was wearing her habitual attire. Clearly she didn’t give a damn about what I thought. I liked that a lot too.
Roopa was ignoring me. Her head was bent over her coffee table where she was scribing painfully small patterns onto a two-inch square of very thin paper. The intricate patterns were of her own invention Theo had told me, and they were pure magic, somewhat like the sigils of the magical language. Whatever she was doing took great concentration because the tip of Roopa’s tongue had been trapped between her teeth for the past thirty minutes.
She applied one final squiggle and then heaved a massive sigh and sat up to rotate her shoulders rather vigourously. She didn’t care that I was watching her squirming and wiggling as she tried to work loose the kink in her shoulder that was bothering her. When she was satisfied that the ache was sufficiently gone, she picked up her little piece of paper and squinted at it. She nodded her head in satisfaction.
“You need spectacles,” I told her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “My eyes can see perfectly fine.”
“You can see fine with that thing right next to your nose. But if you had specs you wouldn’t need to bend down so close to the paper.”
“Do you know me or do I know me?” she said tartly.
“In this instance I know you better than you know me.”
“I don’t know why I bother with you, girl,” she huffed. “You’re full of troubles and now you’re bringing me troubles. You speak endless nonsense about your own self and now you have started speaking nonsense about my own self. I can only pray that it won’t be endless too.” S
he brought the palms of her hands together in a gesture of prayer and lifted her eyes heaven-wards, beseeching her God to listen.
“Whatever. If you won’t listen to me then you should go to an optician and listen to her.”
“Am I here to help you, or are you here to help me?” she said sharply. Her singsong English made me smile. Roopa had been living in London for decades, but she was born in Bangladesh and raised by traditional parents. She had an accent and the manner of speaking that took the edge off everything she said no matter how harsh she meant it to be.
“Now I am finished with my work and you can tell me the real things and I will sign your paper and you can go,” she said, not bothering to make me feel that I was any sort of valued client.
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