Chapter 12

Friday morning found the squad room dead quiet. The guy leaning on the desk across the walkway from mine seemed a bit dead too. I didn’t offer my opinion. Instead, I reviewed our notes on Christine and toyed with the idea of talking to someone in the representative’s office again.

Really, that’s what I was left with, going over old ground, hoping to turn over something new. Even the mayor’s televised plea hadn’t gotten us anything new. It felt like no one knew anything about how Christine disappeared on a Saturday morning nearly a month ago.

Danny came in looking more than happy, and dropped a series of full-color crayon masterpieces on my desk.

“From the hellions, they’re rather impressed their chemistry set was so important.”

“Uh-huh, so you didn’t tell them it was mostly your brain power that did it?” I asked, flipping through the crudely drawn tokens of love. In each I was depicted with brown wavy lines for hair, holding onto a test tube saving the day. If I could be half the woman Danny’s kids thought I was I’d be pretty amazing.

“Not just mine, it was your idea to go back to the boyfriend. Any other brilliant ideas?”

“What do you think of sending some uniforms to interview the neighbors in Rivermont?”

“Never gonna happen.”

“I was afraid of that. How about you ask me again after I get some coffee?” I held up my mug on my way to the break room. Danny nodded.

I found Lucas inside, tidying up the coffee mess. Now that I knew he preferred men, I could say it was stereotypical but I knew lots of straight men who cleaned so I banished the prejudiced thought away.

“Our boys made it to the big time; I’m having a party for the game. You wanna come?”

He hesitated. “How does your partner feel about that?”

“Danny? He’s more of a soccer fan actually, thinks it’s the real football.” I sniffed at Danny’s inability to grasp the most important game in the world as I filled my Saints mug with the nectar of the gods. Thick, black, rich coffee, the very scent of it making it easier to think, there was nothing better in the morning.

“I meant your other partner, the blond one.” Lucas rubbed his jaw softly and I got it.

“Oh! Yeah, we talked about it. You’re invited. Just don’t try anything.”

“I won’t, Scout’s honor.” He crossed his heart with one hand.

“Great, kick off at six, barbeque at half-time. If you’re picky about beer bring your own.” I went back to my coffee, adding a hint of cream and a tiny bit of sugar. My coffee tastes changed depending on my mood; this morning I wanted something strong.

“Uh, and Mors, about the other thing…”

“The other thing?” I asked not even remembering what the other thing was. More coffee would help. I took a long drink.

“We found another place for the full moon.”

“Good idea.” For me the night had been about the bear and the wolf, followed by the shower, and the kiss afterward that led to bloodshed. For Lucas, what mattered was how he might have been putting the other werewolves in danger. I filed that bit of his character away and headed back to my desk.

“Did your coffee give you the answers?” Danny asked.

“Sadly, no, not this time. You come up with anything?”

“Didn’t someone once say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a new result? I think maybe we need to go another way. What if this was totally random?”

“Then our chances of solving it are about nil.” I didn’t bother to keep the gloom out of my tone.

“Maybe not. We haven’t pulled her credit card reports yet, or her bank records.”

“You’re thinking someone forced her to withdraw money, then killed her in some bizarre witchcraft kind of way, and dumped her body in the river?”

“Yup.”

“Why go to all that trouble?”

“I have no idea, but it’s what I’ve got.”

“Well, let’s—”

“God to you.” It wasn’t the usual greeting we got in the SIU but then the barefoot teenager interrupting me was definitely unusual. The thin zoo t-shirt stretched across his broad chest barely meeting jeans that didn’t come close to fitting. His black hair lay wet and tousled on his head, but this time his thin lips formed an anxious frown not a sexy smirk. He held a badly wrapped wet bundle as if it were the most important thing in the world. As Danny predicted the young selkie from the zoo got out on his own but he didn’t look happy about it.

“God and Mary to you, Sean. Nice to see you,” Danny responded.

“Right, yeah. I’m ready to go, so I’ll be taking my ticket and my passport.”

“So soon?” I asked, not willing to give in to his haste.

“Soon? It doesn’t feel like soon when you’ve spent days going back and forth and back and forth over the same thirty meters, eating the same food, and being on display every fecking hour.”

“I thought it was paradise,” Danny said.

“Na, more like a bloody hell. You do have my passport, don’t you?”

Danny sat silently so I decided to give a bit of dig. “What about the girl?”

“What about her? She’s English in the end, not worth the back and forth in tired water. I’m sick of being closed in, being caught. I want out. And a proper stew, I’ve had nothing but fish for too long,” he whined.

“Uh-huh.” Danny opened his desk drawer and took out the passport. “If you head to my place, Katie can help you with scheduling the flight or you could go to the airport and do it yourself.”

He snatched up the passport, fingering the heavy paper as if it were fine leather. “Some money, then? For a cab?”

I frowned, stunned he could be such a spoiled brat. Danny surprised me by taking out his wallet.

“Here, then.” He held out a piece of cardboard I recognized but Sean didn’t.

“What’s this?”

“Train pass. The house is a mile or two from the station. Have a nice walk.” Danny turned away from the boy’s pout and looked at me. “So pulling the credit reports?”

Sean stormed out in huff. I managed to keep my laughter in until the elevator door chimed shut in the hall.

“Your house is like five miles from the train station, maybe six. You didn’t even give him directions!”

“It’s an Irish mile, they don’t convert so well.” Danny’s grin filled his face and spilled over into his eyes.

“Uh-huh, and it’s still in the forties out. He doesn’t have any shoes.”

“Oh he’ll be fine, a little too fine if you ask me.”

****

The credit report forms were faxed, the bank report forms too, when a call took us away for a few hours. I had a lovely chat with a ghost, telling him even if he was sure it was still his house his widow had sold it and it was time to move on. Ghostbusting wasn’t an SIU job but the case gave us something to do while we waited for the faxes to come back.

By the time we made it back in they were both waiting neatly on my desk. I took the credit card report and handed Danny the bank report. I read with a sandwich from downstairs in my hand, not expecting anything exciting enough to deserve my full attention.

I was wrong. The credit card statement told me more about Christine’s life than both of her parents and her lover. Every expense went on the credit card, from her nearly daily lunches out to her personal trainer’s fees. She shopped at only one store and from the size and dates of her purchases I guessed she used a personal shopper.

I called Anna to get the scoop on the shopper and see if she could help us but ended up leaving a message. Whatever Anna was doing in Texas, she wasn’t picking up the phone. Diving back in, I found Christine didn’t like to cook; she got meals delivered once a week from a service. She didn’t seem to read or paint; no hobbies showed up except the personal shopper and Pilates sessions. Once a month she spent two hundred dollars at one of the best salons in the city.

We switched forms after a few minutes but the bank statements were a lot less satisfying. They told me almost nothing. The activity showed weekly cash withdrawals at an ATM for a goodly sum and two monthly payments, one to the mortgage and one to the credit card. We spent the afternoon with the reports, trying to see if there was more, something that might lead to a murder. Finally, we gave up and switched to trying to establish a pattern.

“Give me a random Saturday,” I decided.

“Okay, December—”

“Not December, that’s Christmas shopping, a more random Saturday,” I clarified.

“Okay a week before she died, how’s that?”

I nodded.

“Goes shopping and spends almost three hundred in the morning. She hits the ATM for cash from the bank and that’s all we’ve got. No details after that.”

“What about another Saturday?”

“Shopping in the morning, the ATM, and then the salon in the afternoon.”

“Another one?” I sorted through some of the pages in front of me.

“Shopping and the ATM.”

“So she has a Saturday routine?” I clutched at the glimmer of hope. A routine meant places where people would recognize her, where they might have seen something go wrong, might have suspected something.

“Looks like it. Three times a month it’s shopping and the ATM, once a month shopping, the ATM, and the salon.” Danny flipped through the pages getting excited.

“Where are those places? What ATM? The salon is downtown, right?”

“And the ATM is next to it, about two miles away from the mall on her way back to her house.”

“What? No, that can’t be right. She needs to stop by Rivermont or cut through there or something.” We checked the statements, and the map. Christine never went anywhere near Rivermont. She had a regular Saturday routine and it completely didn’t fit with where we’d found her car.

Still, it was a break. It gave me the chance to do some real detective work. I could start with the store, maybe find the personal shopper. Then head to the ATM see if there were any cameras around, hopefully with photos showing someone in the background. The public hadn’t given me something to go on but the forms had. I was almost sorry working last Saturday gave me this Saturday off. On the other hand, I’d have something to do on Monday to push away the post-Superbowl blues and that was a very good thing.

****

At home, I called Jakob and invited him over for dinner. Being the demure vampire he was, he declined but offered to make me his favorite meal: hot fresh bread, milk, and cheese. I swooned, professed my love, and begged him to be quick. He laughed and promised to try.

I spent some time on the apartment, looking at it with new eyes now that my case was going along so well. Cleaning brought me to the sample-size box of milk bones I’d gotten from Simon, a joke about my last Saturday’s work. I was debating what to do with it when the scent of hot bread hit me.

I flung the door open and snatched at the towel-wrapped loaf. Jakob wrapped his bread once in a damp cloth and then again in a dry one to keep it warm and soft for the drive over. It was perfect and I sat on the couch to indulge. No vegetables, no fruit, no healthy lean meats, for Jakob this was junk food. For me it was heaven.

“Work went well?” he asked as he watched me gulp down the steaming bread.

“Better than well, I might actually have a chance to solve the case.”

“Someone came forward?”

“No such luck, but I have a few leads for Monday. What about you? How was work last night?”

“The building for Bright Lady Fitness failed its first inspection; the owners want us to put the fees they owe us on hold until the opening happens.”

“Ohhhhh, why do I think you aren’t pleased with that?” Jakob’s firm took a risk investing in witches only, women only, fitness center. I thought it was a great idea but the project was going slowly. Missing the New Year’s Day opening caused Jakob no end of problems.

It seemed gyms made something like sixty percent of their profits in the first three months of the year. With the failed inspection, I suspected Bright Lady Fitness wouldn’t be open until after those three months.

“I’m not,” he agreed. “But it could be worse; they could be trapped in legal delays or some morass of red tape.”

I knew from his tone there was another project, something he hadn’t mentioned yet, stuck in those very delays. I thought about distracting him with sex. His Friday casual outfit included a burgundy button-down shirt. The open buttons at his neck reminded me of all the wonderful hidden places I could kiss him.

I stopped myself, though. Sometimes in a relationship it’s your job to listen, not act. I listened patiently, offered comfort in the right spots, and kissed him goodbye passionately at the door, reflecting on how thinking about living together thrilled me.

My phone rang and I hoped it was Phoebe so I could discuss all the ins and outs of it with her. The nasally voice on the other end told me I hoped in vain.

“Mallory, this is Nancy, Anna’s girl—”

“I remember you, what’s up?” I said it too fast. I didn’t care for Nancy at all.

“Well, Anna said she was going to a modeling thing but her agent doesn’t have her down for anything. Did she tell you about it?”

“Sorry, she didn’t mention anything.” I wasn’t really lying, after all Anna hadn’t mentioned the modeling gig because it didn’t exist. Of course, that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. “Is everything okay? No emergencies, right?”

“No, it’s just…it’s kinda an anniversary for us and I wanted to tell her I loved her.”

“Oh.” I felt even worse. “What anniversary?” How long had they been together? Not long enough for an anniversary, right?

“Three-month anniversary of our first date, kinda crazy, huh? I gotta tell you I didn’t expect us to spend it apart. I was planning a dinner and flowers, maybe something special. Does she like teddy bears? You can get them personalized down at the mall, with t-shirts that say stuff. I was thinking ‘three months and forever’ but with the ‘three’ and the ‘four’ as numbers and the ‘and’ as a plus sign. What do you think?”

“Sounds great!” I was straight out lying this time but I didn’t feel guilt. Nancy’s overly cutesy need to celebrate everything made me want to puke. Hopefully, Anna would like it. I got off the phone as quickly as I could and dialed her cell. She didn’t answer but a few minutes later a breathless Anna called me back.

“Sorry I didn’t pick up. I was, uh, busy.” From the way she sounded I could guess what kind of busy she meant.

“Yeah, right, two things.” Would Anna want to know Raya was manipulating her? The goddess told me to tell her, which made me not want to. “And I’m not even sure I should tell you the second one.”

“Then don’t, I’ve got enough craziness going on inside my own head right now.”

“Okay then, Nancy’s looking for you. She called your agent, then here.”

“Fuck.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I didn’t know where you were. You need to deal with it, Anna.”

“I know. I know.” She repeated the words as if she were convincing herself. “Thanks, Mal.”

“Anytime.” I hung up the phone and waited a minute before I called Phoebe.

We had a good long talk. The phone call made me realize how lucky I was that my relationship made it through the awkward beginning part and into something steady. Struck with a sudden desire to be with Jakob, I called him and offered to be in his bed if he found a way to get off of work early.

****

Saturday, the most perfect day of the week. On Saturday the weekend stretches out in front of you waiting to be filled with things you want to do, not things you have to do. On Saturday there isn’t any reason to get up in the morning, except that you want to.

Saturday, perfection and bliss all wrapped up into one day. I spent the morning on the phone talking with movers, picking dates to move in and getting estimates. Eventually, I went with the people Lucas recommended. Sure, seeing werewolves in the light of the full moon scared me senseless, but when it came to heavy lifting they sounded like the best option.

Actually, I looked down at my scribbled notes, the best option would be to call them back and cancel, moving myself. If I let a charity take a bunch of the furniture Jakob and Mark could handle the rest. Really, I should make Mark do it all to pay him back for calling me the dog whisperer after reading my reports on Tiny.

I sighed and headed out of Jakob’s front door for an afternoon run. My first few steps were heavy with anxiety, but the sun warming my back convinced me no werewolves were going to interrupt this run. After the first mile, my mind shifted into a contemplative running mood. It was February third, Candlemas, a holy feast day for Jakob, and E’s birthday.

In another few weeks, it would Mardi Gras, and the state would come alive with parades. Already the woods were alive with sounds and the weather was back to normal in the fifties. Spring whispered around the edges of the day, the first green shoots coming up, the sun regaining some of its strength. The run made me feel alive, and I finished sooner than expected, pleased with how much easier it was after a few months of discipline.

Back home, after my post-run shower I thought about climbing into bed with Jakob for some fun. Although he could have gotten up, he didn’t, so I headed to the kitchen to fix myself a snack instead. I wiped the wash cloth over Jakob’s counter in a silly circle. Soon this would be my counter in my kitchen. I felt at home here, but somehow having a date, having movers lined up, made it more real. This was going to be mine. My cell phone broke the silence with a happy chirp.

“Mors,” I answered not recognizing the number on the other end.

“Mallory? This is Nancy. I need to talk to you.” I could tell from her voice she’d been crying. Saying yes meant hearing that Anna had told her about the affair or she’d figured it out somehow. I didn’t want to say yes.

“Uh, okay, I could meet you somewhere or—”

“I’m in your driveway.” What? She was where? What kind of stalker woman was Anna living with? I took a minute to get over the shock.

“Actually, I’m at Jakob’s so if you’re at the Eclipse—”

“No, I’m here, right outside.”

“You have his address?” I asked, surprised.

“We sent you a Yule card, remember?” I did remember. Anna and Nancy posed in front of a high blazing Yule fire signed with Anna’s name in Nancy’s handwriting. I’d thrown it away.

“Right, me but Jakob…”

“Of course, he got one too!” she exclaimed as if I’d accused her of murder. “I’ll be at the door in a second!”

“Uh, yeah, uh…” But there was no one to hear me wavering; she’d hung up. The doorbell rang a second later and I lead her to the kitchen. Nancy looked out of place in Jakob’s house, her dyed three tone hair (black with fake red and blonde highlights) and her frumpy jeans with heavy work boots didn’t fit. The same way she didn’t fit with Anna. The way she didn’t dance, and couldn’t talk about fashion. Opposites attract, at least that’s what I’d been telling myself whenever I saw them together.

“So what’s up?” I asked after we dispensed with the usual hellos and drink offers.

“Anna’s having an affair!” she wailed, then added “with a man” as if that made the offense somehow worse.

I tried to look shocked but it didn’t work and Nancy, who I always thought was dumber than a stump, caught it. Her sadness changed to anger in an instant.

“You knew! You knew and didn’t tell me? How could you do this to me? I thought you were my friend!”

“Actually, I’m Anna’s friend,” I said quietly, trying to slip the truth past her.

“What? We’re a couple, you’re our friend.”

“No.” I drew the word out, trying to think of way to be comforting without lying. “I’m her friend, you’re her girlfriend. I like you but we aren’t friends. Here I’ll prove it: what’s my favorite food? What type of movies do I like? What’s my favorite sport?”

“But…but none of that matters…we’re friends!” she insisted.

“No, see my friends know all that and you don’t. You know Anna’s favorites but not mine.”

“It doesn’t matter if you know what sport someone likes or what movies they watch if you love them.”

“Oh my God, you don’t know. You’ve lived with Anna for three months and you don’t really know her.” I was thinking aloud, saying things I shouldn’t have because the anger fading from her face came back with a vengeance.

“I think I know her pretty well, Mallory, like I know how she feels about you.” Her smile was pure malice but it didn’t affect me. Anna let that cat out of the bag ages ago. I knew about her crush and she knew it wasn’t reciprocated. We’d worked through it.

“So do I. We talked about it.”

Again, it wasn’t the answer Nancy wanted to hear. “Well…I…I…you know what? I live with her. I’m there, okay? When she comes home, when she calls, I’m there. That’s got to count for something.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re her roommate, whatever. Nancy, look why don’t you—”

“No! I’m not like a roommate.”

“No, a roommate would pay rent.” Oh, I shouldn’t have let that thought slip out of my head.

“What?”

“Rent? Like half the expenses? Like buying dinner once in a while or groceries? Do you pay for anything? Do anything? Or do you just live off her?”

“I hired the maid. I pick up the dry-cleaning. I deal with the lawn guy.”

“Right, but actually paying for something? Or do something of value like say, cooking a meal?”

“We go out.” Her voice got cold. “What do you do around here, Mallory? Cook a lot? Clean a lot? You can’t call me a, a leech when that’s what you’re doing.”

“I…” I stopped. What did I do around Jakob’s place? Not much. I bought groceries, but he didn’t eat. It was always clean so there wasn’t anything for me to do there. “I have my own place,” I finished.

“Yeah? For how long? How long until you’re just like me? And when he screws around on you the way she did, I hope you go to someone who’s just as nasty and mean as you are.”

Triumphant, Nancy walked out in a huff. I paced. What did I do? What did I bring to this relationship? Why was Jakob with me? The walls pressed in on me, stopping me from thinking straight, trapping me in a cave that used to feel like home.

“Mallory? Is everything all right?” He’d been listening maybe, polite enough not to say so, but Jakob had heard.

“I’m canceling the movers, I can’t move in.” I moved through the house desperate for some way to escape, to get someplace where I could think.

“What? Why?” Jakob looked at me confused.

“I won’t live off you like a leech. I’m canceling everything; I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, you can’t.”

“I damn well can. I won’t live like that: won’t be some parasite. We’ll find some new place and be equal partners…goddamn it! Where are my keys?” I gave up on finding them on the dresser and started going through the clothes in the hamper.

“Then be my partner, be my wife.”

I glared at him furious. “I’m serious. Nancy’s right, I can’t say I hate the way she lives off Anna and then live off of you the same way. I can’t preach one thing and do another. I’m sorry, I just…where the hell are my keys?”

I found them stuffed deep in the pocket of a dirty pair of jeans. Who did the laundry around here? I’d never seen Jakob do it. I’d never even seen a washer. I took it for granted that if my clothes went in the hamper they’d show up folded in the drawer the next time I came over. I was worse than Nancy. At least she picked up the dry cleaning.

I snatched at the keys. If this had been my home there would have been a hook by the door for them, but there wasn’t. Their disappearance and the frustration I went through trying to find them proved the point again. I didn’t even look at Jakob as I stormed out, desperate to get some air.

He caught me by the front door, moving too fast for me to see, faster than any human could move.

“No,” he repeated.

“I…I need to think, I need some air.”

“Then we’ll go outside and talk, but I won’t have you drive when you’re this upset.”

“Fine,” I said, meaning anything but. We ended up on the porch, him sitting in the shade, me pacing in the sunset. “She’s right. I don’t know why you like me. What do we have in common? Besides, I don’t do anything to help around here. I can’t move in with you like this.”

“I don’t like you,” Jakob said, calmly. My head snapped up and I stopped pacing. “I love you. There’s a difference. And what you do is more important than any chore or errand. You bring life to my home. You bring excitement and laughter. You introduce me to things I’d never find on my own. The night I danced with you was the first time I danced in half a century. Without you I work and I sleep, with you I live.”

Aw, how could a girl resist a speech like that? I fought to stay firm even as I walked over to him. “But we’re going to be equals when I move in, right? I won’t be a leech?”

“Never,” he promised, sealing it with a kiss.

“You’ll let me pay half the rent and everything?” I kissed him back, the thoughts of storming out still within reach.

“There is no rent,” he whispered. “But I’m sure we’ll work something out.”

I kissed him, a slow sweet kiss, my fingertips on his jaw, looking into those deep blue eyes. My anger melted away.

“I don’t want to be like her,” I whispered between kisses, my lips moving against his as I spoke.

“You won’t be, ever,” he promised, moving his hands around my back guiding me down to sit nearly on top of him, my legs bent beside his. We kissed in the shadows as they grew longer, as the sun set, kissed and nothing else, his hands on my back, my arms wrapped around him.

The moment seemed to last forever, gentle and sweet, and then it changed, comfort giving way to passion. His mouth moved lower, as he opened the buttons of my shirt to kiss my neck. A second button opened and he kissed to the hollow in my throat, the kisses coming faster. Before I could catch my breath my shirt was completely open and his mouth found my nipple, sucking gently.

I leaned back, feeling his teeth brush me. He was so gentle but I wanted more, begged for more. He teased me with tenderness then stopped, bringing his hand to massage my breast while he spoke.

“Is there something you’d like, my love?” he asked.

“You know damn well what I want.” Tired of waiting I pushed him back on the lounge and stood up to strip. Jakob only grinned at me, shifted into a mist and then shifted back naked, his clothes underneath him. It was a spectacle I’d seen a hundred times but the lightning-quick transformation from one state to the next always stopped me. His hands reached out for me, not willing to wait until I finished gawking, and pulled me close.

His mouth pressed against me lower now, open, painting my body with passion’s fire. Wide open-mouthed caresses floated down my stomach, making me squirm until he stopped, his face above my middle, his eyes locked on mine.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, before dipping his head down low and tracing my body his tongue. I moaned, ready for more, needing more but forced to endure the slow sweetness of his touch. The tip of his tongue outlined me, barely brushing my skin while his hands held my hips, changing their angle to meet his needs.

With his head between my legs he altered the dance of his tongue, moving harder against me. I screamed with the sensation, desperate for what it would bring, and he responded, moving faster, sinking his fingers into my hot wet middle while his tongue moved above them.

I screamed and begged as my pleasure grew. The pressure between my legs shut out the world until all I could feel was him and what he did to me. I focused on it, giving those feelings, his firm tongue, those quick-moving fingers, all my attention. My breath came in pants as suddenly every muscle in my body tensed and then exploded in release.

He drifted up from my waist, kissing a line up my body while I tried to get enough air into my lungs. I held onto him as if he tethered me to this world of pleasure, a place I didn’t want to leave. He whispered to me about how I couldn’t leave him, how he couldn’t live without this passion in his life. He held me gently and I knew he thought we were done, that my pleasure was the only point.

“I’ll stay, but only if we’re equal partners, remember?” I teased, pressing his back against the lounge and floating down to take the hard length of him in my mouth.

Above me he leaned back, moaning as I swirled my tongue around him. His body was ready, on the edge as I nibbled and sucked, slowing the pace of my mouth to draw it out for him.

I moved against him, playing my fingers down the length of him, taking only the tip of him in my mouth. Then, remembering the feeling of his tongue on me, I lashed him, hard long strokes making him moan and beg.

I waited, wanting to see his face in the final moment, but he stopped me, pulling me up by the shoulders to face him, kissing me while he plunged inside me. My hips met his as he thrust inside me, taking me. We moved together, pressed close, and I watched as the power of our love took him.