Step one of finding my enemy is to pick up my dog.
Whisper has nothing to do with it, per se, but I can’t be expected to embark on an important life journey like this without her. I left her in the care of my mentor, Sebastian Crow, who died while I was in Detroit. After a short, intense battle with cancer, he is now gone. Whisper has been with Seb’s ex, Leo Krushnik, ever since, and I’m just about tired of being without her. When Seb died, Leo said he would look after her until I get back.
When I show up in Vancouver at Seb’s Kitsilano town house, Leo closes the door on me.
I stuff my hands in my coat pocket and wait for a full minute on the doorstep. I can hear Whisper whining inside.
“Oh, alright,” Leo says, admonishing someone. Me or her, I’m not sure. He opens the door again, takes in my tired face, slumped posture, bleary eyes, and lets me in. His reluctance is a new stain on our relationship. We used to be on better terms, Leo and I, and I’m sad it has come to this.
Whisper trots to me as I kneel on the ground with my arms wide open. She’s a gray mutt of indeterminate age, with a distinctly feline personality. The personality thaws for a moment as she gives in to her excitement at seeing me, her primary food person.
Maybe her favorite food person?
I can’t tell. Her tail whips back and forth, almost of its own volition. Her throaty cries tell me that I’m forgiven for leaving, but my departure will never be forgotten. She hesitates after briefly licking my face, as if deciding whether to take this lovefest any further. She settles for pushing me over and barking for a while in complaint. Then she lays her body on my lap and presses her face into my chest.
“That is a nose,” I say, giving it a smacking kiss. The nose in question is as warm as rubber on a summer day. She whines and sneezes off my kiss. She knows it’s some nose, has always had a good idea of her own worth. I’m lucky to have this kind of love in my life, I think, as I glance up at Leo. I wonder if the glint in his eye is a look of possession directed toward my dog, but no, on closer examination I see it’s a tear.
He goes into the kitchen.
I don’t follow immediately, but when I do, I notice for the first time that he’s wearing Seb’s ratty old plaid bathrobe. When I saw him last, he’d been in a pair of charcoal slacks and a tailored Oxford shirt. We’d both been working at his small PI firm at that time. He was looking a lot better than he does now.
Leo looks at me, really looks, and says: “She’s not safe with you.”
“What?” It takes real effort to make my voice this clear, and despite the effort, it still sounds like some small animal has attacked my lungs. Leo doesn’t notice.
“Whisper. She’s better off with me. There are people after you and she’s getting on in years. I think she deserves some stability, don’t you? You upend her life to nurse Seb; then you run off to Detroit, where you almost got yourself killed.”
I look at Whisper, who isn’t young—that’s true—but is otherwise the picture of health and vitality. Her eyes and ears are as sharp as they have ever been, and her coat is shiny and thick. She’s in better shape than I am.
“One person is after me.” I think about it for a moment, then add, for clarity: “Right now. Only one person at this time. How did you know about that, anyway?”
“Because it’s you, and someone is always trying to murder you for some reason or the other.”
He’s not wrong and won’t get any debate from me on the subject. Leo and I know each other too well to mince words. Back when he and Seb were together, I worked for his fledgling PI firm as an assistant of sorts. Also helped him find missing people because I have a knack for it. Before Seb broke up with Leo and asked me to come help him with his memoirs and freelance reporting, Leo and I had been close.
But things have changed.
I see now that Seb’s death hasn’t made it alright between us again. Hasn’t come close to healing the wounds of Seb’s abandonment.
“I can look after my dog,” I say.
He sighs. It’s nice to see his flair for the dramatic is still in good shape. “Can you look after yourself? You should talk to Brazuca.”
Jon Brazuca, my ex-sponsor, who is also an ex-cop turned PI, isn’t exactly in my life anymore. Not enough to swap “you’ll never guess who’s after me now” stories, anyway. We would have nothing to do with each other if he hadn’t started at Leo’s private investigation company. Which we both, at one time or another, worked for.
“What does Brazuca have to do with it?”
“You don’t know? He’s been looking for you.”
“Yeah, to tell me Seb’s de— To tell me about what happened to Seb.”
He buries his head in his hands. His bathrobe gapes open at the top and the bottom. “Nora, you’re literally the worst. Literally. In case you missed the point, I’m being literal here. Brazuca’s been looking for you for weeks now. He thought you were in some kind of danger and that there were people after you in Detroit.”
“I don’t want to get into what happened in Detroit.”
“Tough. Didn’t Brazuca warn you? Isn’t that why you’re even alive?”
“Haven’t spoken to him.”
“Jesus,” he says. “He must be so worried.”
Leo does the thing I try to persuade him isn’t necessary.
He calls Jon Brazuca.