Delarosa accepts his fate with a tired smile.
Riker comes to a halt, his shiny new cane somehow balanced against a slick patch of ice. His focus tracks from the blown-out window, to me leaning against the SUV, to Delarosa being at a crime scene he wasn’t invited to, to the bloody trail leading into the alley—and then, naturally, back to me again. As his jaw tightens, a large vein bulges on his temple, and his lips purse so hard it’s a miracle they don’t detach from his face.
“Calvin Kinsey,” he thunders out, so loud it dampens the freaking wind, “what the fuck didn’t you understand about Stay in the SUV?”
I muster a sheepish grin. “Funny story, Captain. You see, there was a Wolf, and…” I suddenly remember something rather important. “Marcus, that little shit!”
Using the side of the SUV as support, I shamble over to the back end of the vehicle and peek at the light pole where Marcus was invisibly loitering before Donahue’s attack. He’s not there anymore. Instead, his now visible self, decked out in a stylish pea coat and a plaid cap, is rounding up all the bystanders outside Stein’s using hand gestures that imply more than simple suggestion. By that, I mean his fingers are literally sparking with magic as he casts some kind of compulsion spell to lure in all the onlookers so he can wipe their minds of the whole grocery store debacle.
I growl out, “What a tool.”
Riker says, “Excuse me?”
“That bastard Marcus heard Donahue attacking me—he must have, with all the noise—but he didn’t lift a goddamn finger to help me. I almost died, and that…” My body winds up for an angry march over to that smarmy wizard, but my captain grabs the back of my coat before I can take the first step.
“I’ll speak with him about it, Cal,” Riker responds. More subdued than I would expect after his show of authority against Marcus at Jameson’s.
“Speak with him?”
“Cal,” Riker says, with emphasis, “we’ll discuss it later.”
“What…?”
Ella clears her throat, and when I glance at her, she nods to something down the street, near the entrance of the bar where Delarosa was binging. And where another crowd of bystanders had been watching the grocery store carnage unfold.
An older man in a long tan trench coat, with a tweed hat and a fancy cane of his own, spectacles perched on his nose, is talking animatedly to the witnesses in front of the bar. And every one of those poor schmucks looks like a zombie. Slack posture. Open mouth. Vacant eyes.
He’s magicking their memories away, same as Marcus is doing to the people outside Stein’s.
I murmur, “Is that…?”
“Wizard Ambrose, dispatched by the High Court.” Riker frowns. “He showed up the day after you were kidnapped and has been hounding the mayor’s office about Halliburton ever since.” He leans toward me and adds, quietly, like he thinks Ambrose might hear from forty feet away (and hell, maybe he could), “I’ll get on Marcus’ ass for his complacency after Ambrose leaves for Europe. Trying to argue with both of them at the same time is like trying to break through a brick wall armed with a spoon.”
“Ah,” I say. “Now I understand.”
“Good.” Riker pats my shoulder, a little too hard. “Now get in the goddamn SUV, and stay there until we reach your apartment.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Chapter Twenty-One
My jailers, Ella and Desmond, accompany me upstairs and down the hall of my apartment building to the little place I call home. When we turn the corner onto my wing of the floor, I spy someone propped against my front door, a blue backpack at his feet. At first, with the thick knitted scarf and matching beanie obscuring his hair and face, I don’t recognize the guy, but as I near my apartment with my teammates hot on my tail, familiar blue eyes glance my way. Cooper Lee raises his gloved hand and waves hello.
“Huh? Cooper?” I trudge the last few steps to my door, hand in my pocket in search of the keys. “What’re you doing here?”
Cooper tugs his scarf down and nods in greeting to the duo hovering behind me. “I got a text that said you were attacked by Wolves again,” he states. “Followed by a request for a sleepover at your place.”
I glance over my shoulder at Ella. “You called Cooper to babysit me?”
“Well, clearly you need someone with you twenty-four-seven, Cal,” she says, “because every time we turn our heads, something tries to kill you.”
“Oh, come on.” I drop my damaged duffle bag of gifts on the carpeted floor. “I’m not five, you guys.”
Desmond snorts. “That argument would be more effective if you didn’t use that toddler tantrum tone.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Ella brandishes the open palm of Shut the fuck up, Cal. “Cooper’s staying with you tonight. Final decision. If nothing breaks into your apartment in the middle of the night and attempts to eat you, then you can boot Cooper out in the morning.” She turns toward Cooper and adds, “Sorry about this. You can mark it as overtime if you want.”
Cooper shakes his head. “No, it’s fine, Ella. I wasn’t doing anything tonight anyway. Archive requests have died down recently, a lot, so I’m actually short on work.” He picks up his backpack, revealing a brown paper grocery bag that was situated behind it. Tapping the bag with his foot, he says to me, “I picked up some food on the way here. I figured since you hadn’t been home in a while”—he cringes, realizing he just reminded me of my kidnapping—“you probably didn’t have much to make fresh meals.”
While Cooper Lee cooking me dinner sounds awesome (because I can’t cook worth a shit, let’s be honest), it bothers me that he spent his hard-earned money on what looks to be a lot of high-priced groceries. “You didn’t have to do that, buddy.” I pat my pockets, searching for my wallet. “Let me pay you back.”
He grabs my wrist. “Cal, don’t worry about it. Really.”
Large hands land on my shoulders, and Desmond’s deep voice sounds off directly in my ear. “Calvin, despite your omnipresent desire to be noble, there are times in life when you should allow people to alleviate their guilt through relatively harmless methods, such as buying you gifts. Food included.”
I pull away from Desmond’s far-too-close face. “Uh, guilt? What are you talking about?”
“Cal.” Ella sighs and leans against the wall. “We let you get kidnapped, tortured, and nearly murdered by werewolves. Nick almost had a complete breakdown; he started hyperventilating in his office after we found Liam’s body. Amy punched out a window and had to get twelve stitches. Desmond probably paced a noticeable dent in the floor of the task room. And I…um…”
Desmond throws in, “She may or may not have threatened to pull one of our detainee’s intestines out through his mouth.”
Cooper finishes, in a soft voice, “I cried myself to sleep two nights in a row.” His cheeks flush pink, and he looks anywhere but my immediate vicinity.
I try to think of something profound and endearing to say to these people who apparently care so much about me that they nearly drove themselves insane in my absence. Naturally, all I manage to produce is an awkward, “Oh…”
Ella punches me in the arm. Lightly. “Yes, Cal. Oh. We’re your friends, whether you like it or not, and we worry about your well-being.” She rustles the duffle bag thrown over my shoulder. “So take the gifts, Cooper’s food included, get some rest, and for god’s sake, stop acting like everything should pick up exactly where it left off before the Lombard attack. You need time to heal, physically and mentally, and we need time to put our nerves back together before we all end up on the same tiny sofa in a group psych session.”
Desmond points at my door. “We’ll come by to see you when there’s more downtime in the case. And we’ll even bring Chinese takeout. Until then…”
Cooper catches the unspoken cue and moves out of the way, dragging the apparently heavy grocery bag behind him. Ella then nudges me forward, and, with a repressed groan, I yank out my keys and unlock the door. It swings open to reveal the famili
ar one-bedroom I’ve lived in for the better part of three years. Narrow hallway. Reasonably sized living room. Decent kitchen, if not a tad short on counter space. And a bedroom fit for a Queen—because a King-size mattress leaves me with less walking space than the gap between economy-class seats on major airlines.
Everything in the apartment is as I left it.
Which is more than I can say for the rest of my life post-Wolf nabbing.
I step into the tiny foyer area and slide the duffle bag off my shoulder, setting it up against the rickety table where I keep my loose change bowl and a couple of faded, framed pictures from my college years. Then I whip around and raise my hands in a gesture meant to say, Satisfied now?
Ella and Desmond quickly glance from one end of the hallway to the other, like they’re worried another werewolf might come barreling out of the shadows the second they move beyond a five-foot radius of my person. But all they see is one of my elderly neighbors shuffling toward the laundry room with an empty clothes basket.
“Good enough, I guess,” Ella says, before she flicks Cooper’s arm and grins. “Take good care of Cal now, okay? Make sure he doesn’t stay up past his bedtime or eat too much sugar.”
Cooper giggles.
“Hey!” I frown. “You’re pushing it, Ella.”
“Aw,” Desmond says in a falsetto as he mimes pinching my cheeks, “look at him trying to act all mature. They grow up so fast.”
“Guys!”
Everybody bursts out laughing, except me. I stand there with a kindergarten-worthy pout plastered across my swollen face, bandaged arms crossed so hard they ache, until Cooper drags his groceries into the foyer and my teammates finally retreat toward the elevator, cackling like idiots all the way.
Grumbling, I shuffle into my living room and sink onto the couch. I grab the quilt draped over the back and bury myself in it, then mutter curses as it takes three tries to wrap my mummified fingers around the remote on the coffee table.
Cooper shuts—and locks—the door behind himself but doesn’t come join me in the living room. As I flip through the channels, searching for something not entirely boring to watch, I train my ears on the sounds of Cooper moving around my kitchen. The paper bag crumples loudly as he unloads the groceries and searches for the right places in my cabinets and fridge to store everything. Belatedly, I realize that I have no identifiable methodology for storing food—aka, I’m a damn slob in the kitchen—which Cooper must notice. I’m too afraid to look, but I swear to god it sounds like he takes everything out of my cabinets, throws half of it away, and then creates a brand new system of food storage, all in the time it takes me to settle on an episode of The Walking Dead.
About fifteen minutes into the episode, just as I’m starting to nod off while the zombies eat people for the third time in a row, Cooper pokes his head over the back of the couch. “Hey, Cal. You hungry? I know you’ve only had cafeteria food for the past few days, so…”
I haven’t really thought about my stomach much recently, but now that he mentions it, I realize I’m starving. McKinney gave me just enough sustenance to not die of thirst, and after my rescue, I spent half my time in the infirmary either drugged to high heaven or unconscious. It feels like I haven’t eaten a real meal in years.
I open my mouth to reply to Cooper, but my stomach answers for me with the loudest growl ever.
Cooper laughs. “I’ll take that as a yes. What do you want? I’ve got steak, spaghetti, pork chops, chicken…or, would you rather have something easier on the stomach? I can do soup.”
“No, I need something filling, man,” I mutter into my worn couch pillow. “Meat. Bread. Vegetables. The whole lot.” I peek up at his inquisitive face. “If, you know, you’re up for that.”
Cooper smiles down at me, blond hair falling over his eyes. “If there’s one thing you can count on, Cal, it’s that I’m up for cooking. Because it’s one of the main hobbies I use to control my anxiety. I spent all my off hours during your abduction baking cookies and brownies. I made so many I ran out of neighbors to feed, and I had to donate the rest to local churches for…” He clears his throat. “Anyway, a big, hearty meal it is.”
“Thanks, Coop.” I file away that new bit of info. Cooper plus cooking equals anxiety cure.
Maybe I should come up with a hobby of my own to manage my PTSD flashbacks.
I hear woodworking is fun.
“No problem.” He pats the top of the sofa. “You look a little sleepy. You want to take a nap? I’ll wake you up when dinner’s ready.”
“Sounds good to me.” I cut the volume down on the TV as a yawn works its way out of my throat. Donahue trying to kill me again may have been all the entertainment my battered body can handle today. I snuggle deeper into the blanket. “And Cooper…”
He stops on his way back to the kitchen. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
A long pause, and then:
“Anytime, Cal. And I mean that.”
Approximately forty minutes later, according to the info bar on the TV, I wake up to the smell of a home-cooked meal emanating from a kitchen where the microwave is usually the main source of nourishment. I’m comfortable wrapped in my quilt, and my heavy lids beg me to go back to sleep, for a little while longer—you know, like, ten hours. But I hear the telltale clacking of silverware and plates as the skinny kitchen table I bought at a yard sale is being set. Cooper must be nearly finished with cooking, which means he’ll be over any minute to shake me awake and entice me to the dark side known as overeating. So, with that in mind, I rub my tired eyes, stretch very carefully to avoid tugging any of my stitches, and sit up so I can—
Somebody knocks on the front door.
I freeze, fist clenched into the sofa fabric. Cooper, visible through my kitchen entryway, halts on his way to the table, a pot of something steaming in his oven-mitted hands. We trade nervous glances; anyone from DSI would have called ahead if they were coming over. Did Donahue somehow round back to my neighborhood on his flight from Stein’s, passing under the radar of the auxiliary teams out hunting for him? Or…?
The person knocks again, this time more insistently. And in a pattern. A pattern I recognize and that only one person could know—because we created that pattern in case we needed to be sure of who was on the other side of either of our doors.
I strip the quilt off my aching body, haul myself up with the aid of the couch, and stumble down the hall. Cooper mouths, What are you doing? And I dismiss his concern with a nonchalant hand wave, indicating that, this time at least, there’s no threat to our lives hiding behind my front door.
Reaching said door, I slide the bolt back and unlock the knob, then crack it open enough to poke my head out and greet the person in the hallway.
Erica the witch.
She glances up from her phone screen and examines my face, after which her eyebrows arc sharply. “Gods, Cal. If that swelling doesn’t go down soon, I’m going to have to start calling you formerly hot Crow.”
“Funny.” I open the door all the way, ushering her inside. “Didn’t know you’d be dropping by.”
“I texted you about half an hour ago.” She adjusts her large purse on her shoulder and slips into my apartment, shedding her shoes on my welcome mat so the dirty snow in the treads won’t stain the floor. “Did you not get it?”
I close the door securely behind her and check the locks three times before I turn around. “Nope, didn’t see it. McKinney destroyed my phone. I got a replacement from the office, but it was fresh out of the box, so it has three thousand updates to grind through before it actually becomes useable. The office software is so bloated.”
“Ah, I get that.” She exits the browser window on her phone, but not before I catch a headline from a news article: Brutal Brawl at Stein’s! Five Arrested in Grocery Store Showdown.
“Reading up on current events, I see.”
She waves her phone at me. “Were you there?”
“Yup. Almost got killed. Again.”
“Sorry,” I reply. “Don’t think that’s in the cards this time. Too many injuries with the word broken in the name.” I point my thumb at the door. “So if that’s the only thing you came for, you might want to reconsider your visit.”
“If only all my trips were for pleasure only.” She fakes a pleasant sigh and hangs her coat on the rack, along with her scarf and earmuffs. “Alas, this trip is strictly business. Since you got grabbed by the Wolves, I haven’t been getting steady updates from DSI.”
A blond head pokes out of the kitchen.
“Uh,” I say, “about that, Erica…”
“Yeah,” she scoffs, “Riker was totally uncommunicative during the time you were missing. Told me off when I called and then wouldn’t answer any of my texts. I understand he was worried, but the Jameson case didn’t grind to a halt just because his subordinate got kidnapped. As soon as Ambrose showed up…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Erica,” I say, peeking through the fingers I’ve slapped over my face, “you remember Cooper Lee, right?”
Erica whirls around to find Cooper half in, half out of the kitchen, still donning an apron I’m pretty sure is not mine. (Where the hell did he find that?) Witch and archivist stare at each other for one of those long, silent, awkward moments that make you want to melt into the wall. Erica’s left hand twitches like she wants to smack herself—she didn’t consider I might have company because I never do—while Cooper glues a plastic smile to his face because he’s never spoken a single word to this woman, despite the fact he knows I’m sleeping with her.
Shade Chaser (City of Crows 2) Page 19