Richard Lovett: Phantom Sense

Phone , I thought, as my senses gelled to the here-and-now. Only there wasn’t any phone because I wasn’t in my apartment. I was in some damn airport, with dozens of people staring at me like I was crazy. Which I guess I was.

Two of the dozens were Denise and Laurel. “Are you okay?” I think it was Denise who said it, but I wasn’t sure.

I nodded. I wasn’t ready for words yet. Not unless they were to a faceless voice on the phone who’d been there himself. My arm was pins and needles from how I’d somehow slumped and fallen asleep on it.

“What happened? A nightmare?”

“Something like that.”

“How often do you get those?”

“Couple of times a week.” I forced myself to keep talking. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. Especially when I’m not sleeping well.” Which I never was, but there was no point going into that.

“You didn’t do that when we were together.”

That wasn’t quite true. But the flashbacks had been different then, and as long as she was there, I’d been all right. At night, I never let myself roll far enough away not to be able to touch her. A fingertip on her back, shoulder, hip—the barest touch was all I needed. Heaven would have been to stay at home… and keep the Sense. Purgatory was having to choose. Hell was losing it all. I’m not much of a theologian, but I know a lot about hell. Hell is the never-ending land of if-only. Coulda-shoulda-woulda , that’s how the psychs put it, always with an implicit don’t go there , as if that’s possible. I coulda-shoulda said no to the Sense and served out my term as an ordinary grunt. But would I have done it?

I wrenched out of the past, looked at Denise. Really looked at her, for the first time since… The familiar laugh lines, now etched with worry. The once-perfect complexion just starting to change. A decade younger than me, aging well. “There was one time when it was a lot worse,” I said.

Her fingers touched her throat. “Why didn’t you explain?”

I shrugged. “It was classified.” Their answer, not mine. And they’d had me in De-con within an hour. Maybe I wouldn’t have cared as much about national security if I’d had more time to think. “But you’d have still thought I was too dangerous.” Which, in fact, I had been. Then there’d been Jerret, and after that she’d been as angry as Cora had been.

The Sense or her? If I could choose again, which would it be?

Then I realized that I’d been given a second chance and hadn’t made the same choice. Back in Laurel’s office, I’d been handed my dream—and walked away from it. Because Denise was there.

When you’ve only got one lead, at least there’s no uncertainty about what to do next. We needed to find out if Perkins was in that highrise. If he was, Jerret and Cora wouldn’t be far away.

The question was how to do it. The building was a cylindrical tower of blue-tinted glass, a lot of space to search. Not to mention that banging on doors was likely to get us shot.

It was Denise who came up with the solution.

“Look,” she said, “we know he’s got a whole floor to himself, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And this is an older building. Late 1980s, maybe early 1990s. Certainly no later than 1995 or 2000.”

“If you say so.”

“So it’s not going to be full up. Trust me, this is what I do. That’s one of those dead eras in real estate. Everyone loves the latest/greatest, or the cool, older stuff. There’s nothing wrong with a building like this—they’re often great bargains—but for this guy to pick it… well, it says a lot about him.”

“Such as?” This wasn’t a side of Denise I’d ever seen.

“There are a couple of possibilities, but I’m guessing he’s about forty years old, grew up in a place like this when it was new, but not all that happily. He probably thinks that by redoing it he can somehow change all that.” Just like I’d tried to do with Cora , she didn’t say. But her gaze was an accusation.

Laurel saved me. “So what’s the relevance?”

“For Perkins, not a lot, unless I was selling to him. A lot of what I do is applied psychology. But the point is that this building isn’t full up: I’d guarantee it. Any floor with a vacancy’s not the right one. All we need is the vacancy list.”

Unfortunately, getting it wasn’t quite that simple.

Inside, the building seemed innocent enough. Starbucks in the lobby; overweight security guards behind a fake-marble desk. Banked elevators. Boutiques to one side, restaurant/brewpub to the other. An upscale health club in the back, with enough windows that only the most chicly fit would dare use it.

Plastic letters on a brass signboard announced office suites on the lower floors: bland-sounding names with alphabet-soup credentials. Jones Smith Consultants, LLC. Adain Pappalardo, NACT. That type of thing. Fancy-sounding lounge/restaurant on the thirty-fourth floor.

Denise had been online while I’d stepped into a Rite Aid for supplies. Now, barely glancing at the signboard, she pushed the elevator call button, then the button for the third floor. Two minutes later, we were in the sales/rental office, talking to a pale, dark-haired woman whose nameplate proclaimed her to be Hailey Carlton.

Denise handed over her business card. “We’re interested in apartments with lakefront or skyline views,” she said—a nice way of saying everything . “Your building is a bit old, but the location’s attractive. Do you have a vacancy list?”

Hailey smiled. “Yes, but since July, other than for the hotel floors, of course, it’s been sales only. We’re in the process of remodeling and converting.”

“That’s fine,” Denise said. “Even if they don’t wind up living here, Ki-, Kim and… Laura here might be interested in investment properties.”

Hailey grabbed a sheet of paper and plucked keys from her desk. “The market’s tight right now, but we’ve got twenty-three units available. Mostly one-bedrooms, but there’s a couple of twos, plus a three, coming up next month. How much are you looking to spend?”

“Whatever gets the best value. Can you just print out the list, and we’ll think about it?”

“You really ought to see them.” Hailey rose. “Pictures and floor plans just don’t do them justice.”

Two hours later, I’d seen enough cute kitchens, cozy lofts, and charming breakfast nooks for a lifetime. And we’d only actually seen half the units on the list. But at least we now had the list. Only four floors were full-up: the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-fourth. If Larch was right, Cora had to be on one of them.

Back in the lobby, I tried to park Denise and Laurel in the Starbucks. “This shouldn’t take any more than ten minutes,” I said. “If I’m not back in twenty…”

“I’m going with you,” Denise said.

I glanced around. I hadn’t seen any insects, and Jerret would have trouble monitoring the lobby, even if he tried. Buildings like this had a lot of transmission-blocking steel, and it was too cold to put bugs outside for an external transmission relay. Still, there was no use taking unnecessary risks.

“You’re right. Let’s get a real lunch.”

“That’s not—”

But I had a hand on her elbow, ostensibly to steer her out the door, but actually giving it a little squeeze. A private signal. Shhh. I’ll explain later .

I’d done it automatically, without conscious thought. If I’d thought first, I’d have expected her to slap my hand away. Instead, she turned without resistance. “Okay.”

I glanced at her, stunned by the instant, familiar communication. Realized that in all those years, I’d never even thought about another woman. Realized I’d just assumed the absence of a new ring on her finger, too.