by Stacia Kane
“Naw. Think I’ll stick here, aye? Wait up, keep an eye out.”
She waited until she’d gone through the heavy double doors to call Lex back.
“Hey, tulip, where you hiding?”
“I’m at the Church. What’s up?”
“Thought you was gonna wait and I go with you. Stay there, aye? Lemme come talk.” He said something else, but static drowned it out.
“What? No, Lex, you can’t come here, Terrible’s here, he can’t see you—”
“Ain’t no fear.” Followed by a series of gulped syllables as the signal cut out intermittently.
“Yes, but, please, don’t do this. Not now—Damn it!” The phone went dead. Hands shaking, she tried to redial, but the signal was gone. Stupid rain. Stupid thick iron in the walls and ceiling. It was necessary, of course, but it made satellite signals difficult to get, and she didn’t want to step back outside. Terrible might not ask who she was calling—of course he wouldn’t ask—but the thought made her uncomfortable just the same. She’d just have to try and hurry things up and get out of here before he arrived.
The empty hall enveloped her, but the sense of security she’d always felt on entering the building had disappeared in the terrified haze of the night before. Sadness sunk through her chest into the pit of her stomach. This building and her home had always been safe. Been sanctuaries. Now neither of them felt that way and might never again.
She tapped on Elder Griffin’s door, but he was either not in or not answering, and it was locked when she tried the knob. He might be up with the Grand Elder, or maybe back in one of the other offices. Worth a try. She might as well check with Goody Tremmell, too, and see if anything new had come in on the Mortons. Sometimes the advanced computer background checks took a few days.
Voices murmured somewhere in the warren of rooms, but Goody Tremmell’s chair sat empty. Shit. Chess wasn’t in the mood for more dirty looks, but she had to see that file—had to see it now. Her life quite literally depended on it.
Most files started with a call sheet, on which Goody Tremmell took the initial complaint and ran the name through the computer. Financial, police, and employment records all came up within a few minutes, and were printed and added to the file. Then it was copied, the copies handed to whichever Debunker was next in the rota to start casework, and any information they gathered was added to the master file. All the Debunkers kept were the initial reports. It all worked very smoothly, at least in theory. In practice … not so much. Goody Tremmell famously played favorites—hence Doyle getting the Gray Towers job when it was supposed to be Bree Bryan’s turn.
Of course, that was partly how she’d ended up with the Morton file, wasn’t it? Elder Griffin had given it to her without checking whether or not it was her turn.
Chess licked her lips and pulled her thinnest lockpicks from her bag, glancing around one more time as she did. This was serious, more than stealing the key to the Restricted Room or even snorting speed on the stairs. This was a crime. A big one.
Her shoulders tense, she slid the picks into the lock. Those few seconds were the worst; expecting a heavy hand to fall on her shoulder, expecting an alarm to sound or the lights to dim or—something, anything. Expecting to get busted.
But nothing happened. The lock clicked, the drawer opened, and Chess pulled the Morton master file and started thumbing through it. She hadn’t even had a chance to analyze the photos she’d taken the other night, either before or after she dropped off the copies here.
The thick stack threatened to slip out of the file altogether, so she cleared a space on Goody’s desk and set the stack down. Her hands shook a little as she flipped through them. The living room, the kitchen … all that plasticware.
The stairs, family pictures and genealogy. Chess picked the photo up and held it under the light. Was a picture missing? A pale space showed between one of a chubby toddling Albert and Mr. and Mrs. Morton at some sort of party. A short space, as though a smaller picture had been taken down and the other two moved to hide the empty patch where it had hung.
She set that photo aside and kept going. Albert’s room, now. His porn. Horny little bastard. His science books, his film books, his camera equipment and projecter, the walls, the odd Dream safe behind his bed …
It was an odd bag, wasn’t it? Might be strange for a regular sleep charm, but if it was made to ward off something in particular, a Dreamthief, for example, an entity more powerful than a regular ghost … and thus worth more money …
She pulled her notepad out and flipped through the pages. Black salt, a crow’s talon, pink knotted thread. But in the photo it looked as if something else had been in the bag as well. Two things. A single black hair. And a tiny, almost invisible flake of copper.
It had caught the flash, which was why she noticed it now. As for why she hadn’t when she was there, she didn’t even need to think. By the time she’d photographed the Dream safe she’d been antsy, ready to leave. Only one picture followed it, a confused shot of Albert Morton’s bedside table and the space behind it.
But that piece of copper, copper like the amulet, and that black hair that didn’t match anyone in the Morton family, those were important. Just as important as the realization that the black hair in the Dream safe could have come from Doyle.
Chess tucked the Dream safe photo and the one of the empty space between pictures in the staircase into her bag and closed the file. Just the safe alone might be enough to implicate Doyle, at least enough to make the Grand Elder take her seriously when coupled with the amulet.
She turned to replace the file in the cabinet and almost tripped. Her toe caught on something heavy, something that made an odd chinking noise. Goody Tremmell’s purse, now lying on its side with its contents scattered.
“Damn it.” Chess glanced around. Still no sign of anyone, but it seemed the voices were getting louder. Bad enough to be caught digging around in the file cabinet, but to be caught with items from the Goody’s purse in her hands, whether or not she was trying to put them back in, probably wouldn’t help her case.
She barely looked at the items as she stuffed them into the gaping leatherette bag. Tubes of lipstick, pens, wadded tissues, the general detritus of any woman’s purse. Chess shoved it all back in, heedless of order, because the voices were getting louder and any minute Goody Tremmell and Elder Griffin would be on top of her.
Keys, the ring a block of Lucite inside which was an amusing picture of a cat. Ha, ha, ha. A little golden disk, emblazoned with “The Bankhead Spa” in pale blue enamel—
Wait. The Mortons had been to the Bankhead Spa. Hadn’t they? Quickly she flipped through the photos again.
Yes. The cookbook. The Bankhead Spa. A little chill ran down her spine, a shiver like the first rush of speed.
She shook her head. Goody Tremmell and the Mortons? No, it wasn’t possible … No. It was. The Goody had been away in September, supposedly to have “a minor surgical procedure;” Chess remembered it well, because Elder Waxman had taken over the allocation of cases and had complained loudly about it the whole time.
How the hell would Goody Tremmell have been able to afford the place? Goodys were paid shit, almost as badly as the base rate for Debunkers but without the bonuses. Yes, the spa catered to a lot of high Church officials, but those were people like the Grand Elder and the head of the Black Squad. Not Goodys. Not even regular Elders.
A bead of sweat crawled down the side of her cheek, tingling and itching. She took a deep breath, dropped the keys back in the bag. A key ring was not evidence. Even a key ring and—Doyle made a lot of money from the Gray Towers case. Money he could have shared with the woman who jumped him up in line and gave him the case.
Okay, look for something more. Even with her suspicions of Doyle, even with the key ring, she’d be laughed out of the Grand Elder’s office if she tried to present a conspiracy. That wasn’t evidence, it was a guess.
But there might be evidence. Evidence she could use. Chess ran her fing
ertips over the carpet beneath the printer tray and pulled out fifty cents and an earring back, then tried again for good measure and caught something else. Paper, it felt like, a paper ball.
This was stupid. Glancing up over the printer to make sure no one had neared the room yet, she shoved the little wastepaper basket aside and pulled the tray out from the wall. This probably wasn’t something from the Goody’s purse, but the way it was uncrumpling in her palm and the fact it hadn’t collected any dust made her curious enough to pull it open.
An invoice for a storage space. Not just any storage space, a storage space in the name of Albert Morton.
This belonged to her case.
Belonged to her case, but had not been in the file, which meant two things. One, that the Mortons had a storage space somewhere in a ware house district that they hadn’t told her about, and two, that Goody Tremmell had for some reason kept the information out of Chess’s hands.
It had to be Goody Tremmell. No one else had access to those files once they were assigned; items were handed to the Goody and she placed them in the appropriate file herself. Yes, the Elders had access, but all the information from the background checks went straight to the Goody as well; she opened the sealed envelopes and filed the contents herself.
She never allowed anyone behind her desk. She hovered over the Debunkers and glowered when they asked to double-check their cases.
And the Records Room was locked when she left for the day, locked and magically sealed by the Elders—even Goody Tremmell herself couldn’t get in without an Elder’s help.
And Goody Tremmell had been to the Bankhead Spa.
There was no other explanation for it; Goody Tremmell had tossed out the invoice.
Oh, shit.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“It is for these reasons that you give the Church free dominion over your body, your property, and your soul.”
—The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 230
She stuffed the invoice into her bag and flung herself at the file cabinet, jamming the Morton file back in just as Elder Griffin, Goody Tremmell, and Doyle rounded the corner.
“Cesaria! Are you all right? What happened to your face?”
Doyle went bright red, his mouth hanging slightly open, but she barely looked at him. She barely looked at any of them. Was Elder Griffin involved in this? Elder Griffin, her favorite? He’d been the one who gave her the Morton file to begin with, hadn’t he? And he’d been the one Randy talked to. So he knew something was happening.
Hard to believe. She didn’t want to believe it. But she couldn’t exactly ask him about it, not with Doyle and Goody Tremmell standing right there, not when Elder Griffin’s hand rested casually on the Goody’s shoulder like they were friends. Especially not when Goody Tremmell’s eyebrows drew down and she studied Chess as if she knew what Chess had found. Her stout arms stretched the seams of her plain black dress as she folded them, and the ties of her cap had come undone. She looked like a woman unraveling, piece by piece, like the tension inside her was shaking all the outward trimmings loose. Chess took a step back.
“Cesaria?”
“I fell,” she said. “Last night, in the rain. The stairs in my apartment building were wet, and I had my hands full, so …” With effort she stopped herself from continuing.
Elder Griffin, can I talk to you for a minute?
Just say it! You have to tell him, you have to tell somebody!
Elder Griffin, can I talk to you?
“Why are you behind my desk?”
“I apologize, Goody Tremmell. I was … I was on my way to the Mortons’ and I remembered I wanted to check something in the file, so I was waiting for you. But then I remembered what it was, and I—I dropped my pen.” Sweat trickled down her side. Elder Griffin, can I … Fuck it. “So I’m going to go now, and, um, good morrow, and Facts are Truth.”
“Facts are Truth,” Elder Griffin repeated, but Goody Tremmell didn’t speak. Chess turned and headed for the hall, trying to keep her gait calm and unconcerned while expecting fingers to close on her shoulder at any second.
“Chessie, wait a minute.” Doyle caught up to her as she passed through the office doorway. Just the sound of his voice made her jump. Did he have a knife or would he kill her with his bare hands? “Can I talk to you? Please? I’m—I’m so sorry, and thanks for covering for me, I don’t deserve it—”
“No, you don’t. Get away from me.” If he was talking about hitting her, he might not know what she knew. She might be able to fudge it, pretend she hadn’t discovered what he was, at least until she got outside. Terrible was outside. She quickened her pace.
Doyle matched it. “Listen, I didn’t mean it. I tried to tell you last night, but you ran away too fast. It was just because I haven’t slept, and you surprised me, it was just a reflex. You know I would never—”
“No. I know you did.”
“Don’t I at least get a chance to apologize?”
“No.” She pushed open the front door and walked out into the mist, increasing her pace as much as she could without running. Terrible’s car was about fifty feet away, off to the side in an effort to be less conspicuous.
“Will you just hold on a minute?” His fingers closed around her arm.
She yanked it away. Her heart kicked in her chest; her skin where he’d touched it felt slimy, as though he’d left a trail of blood on her. Blood from his hands, Brain’s blood. It was hard to speak clearly. “Fuck off, will you? I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want anything to do with you, how do you not get this? You fucking hit me, Doyle, and you’re involved in whatever—What?”
Doyle stared over her shoulder, eyes widening. A strangled sort of gasp left his throat.
Terrible was coming, his gait easy and steady, but the way his gaze fixed on Doyle and the tire iron dangling loosely from his hand were more eloquent than anything else could have been.
Doyle spun away from her, his feet slapping the wet cement as he started to run. Terrible’s pace didn’t change. The tire iron flew from his hand, spinning sideways like a Frisbee. Chess barely had time to gasp before it caught Doyle in the legs, knocking him to the ground.
His scream was muffled in the mist and drowned out by the clank of the tire iron skipping across the cement, but Chess felt it reverberate through her entire body just the same. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Still Terrible did not speed up, did not even glance at her as he passed, moving as purposefully and inexorably as a river cutting through mud.
Doyle had made it halfway to a stand when Terrible reached him, knocking him back to the pavement with a swift, neat kick to the jaw.
They were at the edge of the lot. Five feet away it ended in soft grass, and Doyle, flat on his back like a turtle, flipped over and tried to crawl toward it. He barely advanced an inch before Terrible picked him up and threw him—threw him—onto the grass.
“Wait, wait,” Doyle said, scrambling to his feet and holding up his muddy hands. “I’ll file a complaint, I’ll swear a warrant, I’ll—”
He doubled over as Terrible’s fist slammed into his stomach. Next came an uppercut, flinging him back to the wet grass.
Terrible yanked him up by the hair. Doyle made a feeble attempt to hit back, his arm swinging wide and short.
Another punch, and another. Blood flew everywhere, pouring from Doyle’s nose and mouth, spattering his shirt and the grass. He fell to his knees, his shoulders slumped, almost unrecognizable save the thick, shiny hair on his head. Even that didn’t identify him, she thought, not when from behind he and Randy Duncan could practically have been twins.
Speaking of Randy … Chess glanced in the direction of his cottage. That was all she needed, was for him to be watching. By morning everyone in the Church would know that Chess and some guy had come along and beaten Doyle up; Randy was incapable of keeping a secret.
But then, most people who wanted to be liked as badly as he did were.
Terrible let go of Doyle,
who dropped like a corpse. Only the weak moan pouring from his mouth told Chess he was still alive.
The faint snick of Terrible’s switchblade finally galvanized her into speech. “Terrible, no!”
He didn’t even look at her. Instead he knelt beside Doyle, turned him over, and pressed the blade to his throat.
“You thinking on touching her again?” he asked, low and impersonal, as if he were asking what Doyle thought of the weather or if he could direct him to the nearest gas station.
Doyle shook his head. Chess, unable to look at his fear-white eyes, glanced away and saw he’d wet himself.
“That’s good. You touch her again, I kill you. Dig?”
Doyle managed to nod.
“Chess? You got any asks for him?”
“I-Is Elder Griffin in on it, Doyle?” It wasn’t the question she meant to ask, but it was the first one that came out. Probably the most important, too. She had better sense than she should, staring at Doyle’s ruined face.
“What?” His voice sounded thick.
“Is Elder Griffin in on it? Is he with you?” When Doyle still stared dumbly at her, she crossed her arms over her chest impatiently. “The Lamaru. The Dreamthief. Goody Tremmell. Is Elder Griffin one of you? Did he do the ritual with you?”
“What—the Lamaru? What ritual?”
Terrible pressed the knife harder. A drop of blood appeared at the point. “Ain’t got time for games. Give her the answer.”
“I can’t! I don’t know what you mean!”
Terrible lifted his fist, ready to slam it into Doyle’s face again, but Chess reached out and grabbed it. “Doyle … when did you see the Dreamthief?”
“I told you. I didn’t know what I was seeing until Bruce told me about it. I saw him in my bedroom once, and in a couple of Dreams. Why are you asking me this again? Why are you talking about the Lamaru?”
Chess and Terrible exchanged looks. Doyle could have been lying. He wasn’t bad at it. But would he really be willing to die to protect Goody Tremmell—and Mrs. Morton?