I didn’t have much of a workout plan in mind, which was probably a good thing since most of the equipment was occupied. I finally settled for a workout that consisted of:
Wander around until you see an open machine and then do that exercise
. Amazingly, at the end of twenty minutes I felt like I’d accomplished something. I put in another twenty minutes on the elliptical trainer, and then showered, changed, and made it in to work barely on time.
I didn’t see Boudreaux or Pellini in their offices as I headed to mine, but somehow I doubted that they were out tracking down leads in the deaths of Carol and Brian. More likely, they were conducting a thorough investigation of the breakfast menu at Lake o’ Butter Pancake House.
I allowed myself to feel virtuous as I settled in at my desk, pleased when my lieutenant walked by my office and gave me a nod in passing, and doubly pleased when I heard him inquire a few seconds later as to the whereabouts of everyone else.
Now that I’d successfully established to the rank that I looked like I was working, it was time to actually
do
the work that would hopefully give me some results. It was, unfortunately, boring, but after three hours I had managed to type up subpoenas for the Sharps’ financials, so I could verify for myself everything Elena Sharp had told me.
Definitely action-movie material.
The courthouse was only a block away from the station, but it was already hot enough that my blouse clung to me after just that short walk. I breathed a sigh of relief as the air-conditioned climate of the courthouse enveloped me, not even caring that in about a minute I’d be covered in goose bumps as the sweat dried.
I gave a nod to the officers working courthouse security, giving an extra smile to Latif—the tall dark-skinned woman holding the metal-detector wand. She was an amazon, with hair cut so short she might as well have shaved her head, but on her it totally worked and made her look like a gorgeous badass. We’d been in the same class at the academy, finishing one-two in the academic portion. She was number one. She’d have been a terrific road cop, in my opinion, but she was a single mom and had told me that not only did she need the more normal hours of courthouse work, but she also couldn’t put herself in a position to leave her daughter without a mother. I could totally respect that.
Latif gave me a wide smile as I passed through the security area. “Hey, woman. Whatcha got going on?”
I lifted the manila folder with my subpoenas. “The exciting side of investigations. The paperwork.”
She chuckled. “Warrants?”
“Subpoenas.”
“Woo. The really fun stuff!” she said, as she peered at a piece of paper on the desk by the X-ray machine. “Well, Judge Roth is supposed to be the duty judge today, but he’s not in.”
“I’m not surprised. The funeral was only the day before yesterday.”
Latif grimaced. “Yeah. He’s been out since it happened. That whole thing sucks. Oh, here we go. Judge Laurent is taking duty today.”
I’d had warrants signed by Judge Laurent before, so I knew where his chambers were. I made my good-byes to Latif, then headed up to the second floor.
His secretary sat behind the desk out front—a curvy brunette who managed to look lush instead of pudgy. I envied this ability. She gave me a smile as I closed the door behind me. “You need something signed?”
I lifted the folder containing the subpoenas. “If he’s not too busy?”
She took the folder from me. “Well, he’s always
busy,”
she said, “but I’m sure he has time to take care of this. Let me run this back to him.”
She exited through a side door and returned about a minute later, motioning me to go on back. I gave her a smile of thanks as I went through the door and walked down the short hallway to the judge’s chambers.
I’d been in Judge Laurent’s courtroom several times, testifying in various cases. He’d been on the bench for at least twenty years and would probably be retiring in a few more. He looked like a crotchety wizard, and every time I saw him I couldn’t help but think that he needed only a pointed hat and a staff to go with his judicial robes.
So far I’d managed to refrain from offering that suggestion.
He gave me a crinkled little smile as I entered, then went back to perusing the subpoenas. “Financial stuff, eh?”
“Yes, your honor. I want to verify some information given to me during an interview.”
His lips twitched as he glanced up at me. “What, you don’t believe everything that a suspect tells you?”
“I guess I’m the suspicious sort, sir,” I said, smiling.
He chuckled as he began to page through the documents. “This is for the Davis Sharp death? I didn’t realize it had been ruled a homicide.”
“The final ruling isn’t in, but there’s some evidence of blunt force trauma that’s inconsistent with a simple fall in the shower.” I wasn’t telling him anything that a press release wouldn’t contain.
“Hunh. His wife is a suspect?”
“Well, she hasn’t been completely ruled out, but there are other possible suspects as well.” It was beside the fact that I had no idea who those other possible suspects might be.
He snorted in derision. “Sharp was too used to having his fingers in every political pie. Just because he knew everyone from that damn restaurant of his, he thought that meant he could get away with anything.” He scowled as he scanned the papers. “And unfortunately, he usually did.”
Now, this was interesting. “What sort of things?”
Judge Laurent glanced up at me, then leaned back in his chair. “Well, like his two kids. Both complete pieces of shit. Both have been nailed for misdemeanor drug charges or simple battery several times. And I can’t count the number of times Sharp has called me up, wanting me to pull some strings to ‘fix’ things.” The scowl etched itself
deeper onto his face. “I’ve taken only one campaign contribution from him.” He chuckled. “Actually, he only ever gave me one. After I finally told him to fuck off, he never contributed again. Go figure.” Then he shrugged. “Not that it made much difference in the end. He found other people to clean up his shit.” He gave me a telling look. “Campaign contributions are a matter of public record. You can look it all up online.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “That’s very good to know, sir.”
He gave me a grave nod, but his eyes were twinkling. He carefully read through the documents, then finally picked up his pen and signed his name to each subpoena. “Good luck with your investigation, Detective Gillian,” he said, as he handed the papers back to me.
“Thank you, your honor.” Well, that had turned out to be more productive than expected. I exited his chambers, giving a wave and smile to his secretary.
My cell phone rang as I neared the courthouse doors. It was Ryan’s number. I looked at the blinking display, trying to decide whether to be mature and answer it or pleasantly childish and hit the ignore button.
Maybe he’s calling to apologize
. I sighed and hit the answer button. “Hi, Ryan.”
“Where are you?”
My finger twitched toward the disconnect button, but I managed to restrain myself. “I’m doing just peachy, and thank you for asking,” I replied. “I was getting subpoenas signed. I’m just leaving the courthouse.”
“You hungry?” His tone was clipped and stiff.
I was, but did I want to be subjected to more of the same judgmental crap? I screwed my face into a grimace. “Yeah, sure, what the hell.” I was such an optimistic idiot.
“Okay, meet me at the Ice House in fifteen.” Then he
hung up. I stared down at the phone, debating whether I should call him back and tell him to fuck off.
But maybe he’s the type who’s lousy with apologies
. I sighed and clipped the phone back onto my belt. Yes, I was definitely an optimistic idiot. But the alternative was to write him off completely, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
I walked back to the station and to my car, jamming the air-conditioner control to the max as soon as I had it started and rolling down the windows to allow the broiled air within to escape.
The Ice House was only a few miles from the station, along the street that ran parallel to the railroad tracks. I’d been to this restaurant only a couple of times before, but I remembered it as being a quiet, dark place with deep booths. It had been an actual icehouse a few decades ago, and then it was converted into a family-style restaurant a few years after the real facility had shut down. They’d converted the vats into large round booths and left all the piping visible. It was a pretty neat interior, but the food hadn’t measured up, and the Ice House restaurant closed a few years later. Since then it had been a Chinese restaurant, a seafood buffet, another family-style restaurant, a barbecue house, and still another family-style restaurant, all maintaining the same interior look. It had suffered through a variety of names, but everyone always just called it the Ice House.
Ryan was waiting for me right inside the door. He looked a bit haggard, but he flashed me a quick smile when I entered, then allowed the hostess to lead us to one of the vat/booths in the back. I scooched into the booth and took the menu from the waitress while Ryan got settled in.
I looked across the table at him, more relieved than I
could say aloud that he was here, that he’d called me. I was still angry and hurt, but his friendship was important to me.
Too important?
a small voice inside worried at me, and I pushed it down as best I could.
“I was a dick,” Ryan said without looking at me as soon as the waitress walked away. “Sorry.”
Well, it was better than no apology at all. “It’s all right. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, I am. I slept about ten hours and woke up feeling human again.” His eyes met mine briefly, then dropped down to the menu, flicking over the offerings. “What’s good here?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re the one who picked it. I figured you’d been here before.”
He shook his head. “Nope. I just heard it was a cool place.”
I gave him a sharp look, but his attention was on the menu, so I decided that the pun was unintended and unnoticed. I’d let that one slide.
“I don’t go to restaurants very often,” I admitted. “I’m a microwave girl.”
“Yeah, well, you need to start eating more,” he said with a slight scowl as he looked up again, eyes raking me.
“Fine. Then you can pay.”
“Deal,” he said, a smile lighting his eyes.
I laughed. “Hey, that was easy.” The knot of tension in my shoulders began to unwind.
Apology offered and accepted
.
The waitress came to take our drink orders, and since the menu wasn’t complex—or all that interesting—we went ahead and ordered burgers. After she walked away, I looked back at Ryan. “So is this an apology thing, a make-Kara-eat thing, or one of these we-need-to-talk things?”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “All of the above, but don’t make it sound so damn ominous. I was a dick. You do need to eat. And we do need to talk. But not a we-need-to-talk kind of needing to talk.”
“Uh-huh.” I picked a pink packet of sweetener out of the container on the table and started to toy with it. “So what do we need to talk about?” Good, I’d managed to make that sound casual and not as angsty as I actually felt.
“Jesus Christ, Kara,” he said with a scowl. “Not
that
kind of we need to talk, just a we need to talk to each other more because we’re friends. Plus, as far as knowing shit about the arcane, neither of us has too many people we can be open with.”
I made myself smile, but old doubts churned within me. “Yeah. Friends,” I said. “And we can talk about the arcane.”
Would we even be friends if not for that?
“Though Jill knows now. About the arcane and the summoning.”
His eyebrows lifted. “How the hell did that happen?”
I gave him a quick rundown of Jill’s encounter with Kehlirik. “And she was okay with it,” I said, still feeling the relief that she hadn’t run screaming. “Or at least okay enough with me to accept it.”
He leaned back in the booth. “I like Jill, what little I know of her. Haven’t seen much of her since the Symbol Man case, of course, other than at the funeral. And my present case isn’t the kind that has me working with any local agencies. But she seemed pretty cool.”
A stupid spike of jealousy jabbed at me, and I fought the juvenile urge to scowl.
What am I, in third grade? It’s just Jill
. “Yeah, she’s cool,” I said, deliberately bright.
“Any progress on finding your essence-eater?”
I made a face. “No. I’m pretty much fumbling around blindly right now.” I paused while our food and drinks
were delivered. “I still need to do a lot of research,” I said as soon as the waitress left. I picked up my burger and took a bite, then grimaced. Now I knew why this place was deserted on a Friday afternoon. It wasn’t horrible, but it certainly wasn’t great.
Ryan’s expression mirrored my own as he swallowed his first bite. “I’m not sure I want to know what kind of animal was put into this burger.”
I took a long swig of my diet soda to wash it down, then tried the fries to see if they were any better. Overly greasy, with too much salt. I sighed and blotted at them with my napkin. “Anyway, the
reyza
was able to remove the wards, so now I can get into my aunt’s library.” I made a face that had nothing to do with the quality of the food or lack thereof. “Now my only challenge is finding the right book or paper or scroll. If she has a system in there, it’s way beyond me.”
He was quiet for a moment as he continued to work on his burger. “Have you been to see her?”
“My aunt?” I sighed and shrugged. “I’ve been a few times. But it’s not
her
. I mean, she’s not there, and it feels really weird sitting in a room visiting the empty shell. It’s like visiting a chair.” I toyed with a limp fry, dragging it through the ketchup. “But I know it’s expected of me, so I go every now and then, enough to keep people from saying I’m a lousy niece.”
He surprised me then by reaching across the table and gripping my hand. I looked down at his hand on mine and then up at him. “Not everyone’s against you,” he said. “Give it time. Like you said, stuff blows over.”
I forced a smile. “I know. It’s cool.” A busboy entered through the back door, and I had to breathe shallowly as the smell of rotting garbage from the alley wafted in with
him. “Okay, I’m officially blaming you for choosing this place.”
“It’s pretty vile,” Ryan agreed.
I looked up as the busboy came over to the table, and I pushed the barely eaten burger away from me. “You can take that,” I said, gesturing to the plate. “I’m finished.”
The busboy scooped up the plate but nearly dropped it again as a din of barking and snarling erupted from beyond the back door.
The waitress looked up from her lethargic table-wiping. “Tommy, go chase those damn dogs away. I told you to stop feeding them scraps.”
Tommy dumped my plate into a plastic bin, then set the bin on a table near our booth, casting a black glare at the oblivious waitress as he slumped out the back door.
“Next time you can take me to someplace
really
classy,” I murmured to Ryan. “Like maybe the fried-chicken stand at the gas station.”
Ryan laughed and opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden nauseating roil of potency swept past us, momentarily robbing us both of breath before it was gone, leaving what felt like a taint of sewage in the arcane. “What the fuck was that?” Ryan gasped, gripping the edge of the table.
“The parking lot … by your office,” I managed to say, fighting back the taste of bile. “Feels the same.” A heartbeat later, a shrill scream of pain and terror came from the alley.
“That’s the kid,” Ryan said, already out of the booth and moving to the door. I wasn’t as fast but managed to stumble after him, only a few steps behind. It was hard to move quickly when you were trying hard not to throw up.
Obviously Ryan hadn’t felt that awful surge of
yuck
as intensely as I had.
Ryan yanked the door open—not bursting through like an idiot but taking an instant to assess the situation in the back alley.
Not that it made a difference. In the split second that it took Ryan to finish pulling the door open, a sleek black shape hurtled through the door, striking Ryan square in the chest and knocking him flat. I caught a flash of teeth and claws as Ryan twisted as he landed, throwing off the … dog? That was the closest analogy I could come up with in those rushed seconds. Caninelike head and snout, lots of teeth, four legs, but with a slick, reptilian way of moving.