Stacia Kane - Finding Magic

“Can I get you a drink or anything?”

Chess and Jillian both refused, and sat on the couch Gloria indicated.

Jillian pulled out a notebook and pen. Oh, right. Probably a good idea to take some notes. “Mrs. Waring—”

“It’s Paulson, actually. My married name. My husband’s just run to the store.”

“Sorry. Mrs. Paulson. We were hoping you could give us some more background on the New Hope Mission.”

Pause. “Why? It was all legal. My parents had licenses for the souvenirs, they didn’t—”

“No, no, of course. We know that. We were actually wondering if you could tell us anything about the other people there. Did your parents keep in touch with them?”

Gloria didn’t look like she necessarily believed Jillian, but she answered. “Not really, no. I guess they did with some of them—Uncle Mark, of course, and Tracy and Eric—”

“Tracy and Eric?”

“Ross, Tracy and Eric Ross. They live in Northside now. He runs some sort of delivery company. Ross Transports, I think.”

Ross Transports. Chess knew that name. She knew it because she was usually still awake at one or two in the morning when supplies were delivered and corpses were taken from the burial grounds behind one of the Church buildings to the Crematorium—the main one was in Downside, but there were a couple more on the outskirts of Triumph City, too.

Most of the vans that made those deliveries and pickups were Church-owned and driven by Church employees. But they occasionally needed extra help. And when they did, they called Ross Transports.

At least some of the time; they used another company, too, Oaktree Van Lines, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Ross Transports had specially made vans, iron-lined vans to carry magic supplies and corpses. And what mattered was that Mark Pollert had access to those vans—at least, she fucking bet he did.

Jillian didn’t pick up on it, just wrote down the name. “Any others that you’re aware of?”

“I don’t think so. Why are you asking this? Didn’t you say it was ghosts who killed my parents? You don’t think any of their friends could have somehow, what, set ghosts on them or something? I didn’t even think that was possible.”

“No, no, of course not,” Jillian replied, shifting in her seat. “We’re trying to get some loose ends tied up, is all.”

“And those loose ends involve my parents’ friends? No. You tell me, please. Am I in danger?”

“We have no reason to believe—”

“But you believe something, you think something is going on. What is it, please?” Gloria’s face grew pinker by the second; she perched on the end of the chair on which she’d been sitting completely a minute before. Shit. This was going nowhere fast, and they needed to come up with something, because Chess knew exactly what was going to happen when they left. Gloria was going to call Uncle Mark, and Uncle Mark was going to know they were on to him.

Of course, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it was what Jillian wanted. How the hell was Chess supposed to know?

She certainly couldn’t tell from Jillian’s actions; she would have been impressed if she hadn’t already learned firsthand what a good liar Jillian was. Jillian didn’t answer Gloria’s question, instead pulling the picture out of the file she carried and handing it over. “Do you recognize these people?”

“Yes. These are the Mission employees. Will you please tell me what’s going on?” She looked at Chess. Panic rose in her eyes and in her voice. “You. Will you tell me what’s happening? Please? You—you talked to me in my bedroom, you—Please, just tell me what’s happening?”

Jillian kept silent. Great. How was Chess supposed to handle this without knowing what Jillian wanted her to do, what she had planned? And with knowing that Jillian thought she was some kind of sex-obsessed ditz?

Okay, focus. This was another test, and Chess was not going to give Jillian another reason to tell Elder Griffin—or any of the others—what a useless twit Chess was. So what would she do if it was her case?

If it was her case, she’d want to flush him out. If it was her case, she’d sort of hint to Gloria what they knew, and wait for her to pass it on. Hell, if it was her case, she wouldn’t be bothering with Gloria; she’d have gone to check out Mark’s place.

But it wasn’t her case, and it was only the first case she’d ever been on, and Jillian hated her and she was only eighteen, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t even know what the regulations were for the Black Squad. So—because both Gloria and Jillian were watching her and making her feel like some kind of fucking game-show contestant or something—she said, “The ghosts are former members of the Mission. We know where they are and can catch them, but we just wondered if you had some additional background to help us.”

She waited. If Jillian had a problem with her lie, she’d say something, she’d say it right there and then, and yeah, it would make Chess feel worse than she already did, but at least it wouldn’t fuck up the case.

But Jillian didn’t speak. Did that mean Chess had done right, or was Jillian just too pissed to find words? She didn’t look pissed, no, but neither did she look cheerful and approving.

Damn it. She’d fucked up again. She’d thought telling the lie, giving Gloria a hint but making sure the information she’d pass on to Uncle Mark was false, would be the right thing to do, and it hadn’t been, and she’d just totally blown it.

More lousy shit for her file. What would it say now, in addition to comments about how unpleasant she was to work with? Maybe Cesaria is unsuited for working in any capacity that requires independent thought . Or Cesaria cannot keep secrets . Well, no, they certainly couldn’t claim that one. Chess had so many secrets they threatened to make her explode, so many she had to try to hold them down with vodka and work, but they never really quieted.

Not that it would matter when the only job the Church would allow her to have was as a Liaiser. The thought of working in the City all day hadn’t appealed before. Now? After having been there, seen it for herself? No fucking way. She wanted to be something, wanted to work for the Church, to be clean, to be part of something, so bad it hurt. No matter how much it terrified her, she wanted it. But she couldn’t do that, couldn’t work in the City. Not even to keep herself off the game.

If it came down to letting ghosts use her body in that cold hellish darkness or letting men use her body on the streets, she’d take the latter. A shitty choice, but life was all about that, wasn’t it?

Jillian’s voice cut into her thoughts. Shit, she’d let herself get distracted, lost track of the conversation. “That’s very helpful, Mrs. Paulson, thank you. And meanwhile, like we said, we don’t think you’re in any specific danger. We do ask you, of course, to keep the information we’ve given you to yourself. I assure you, we’ll be visiting the others, so please don’t call and alarm them. We’ll handle it.”

Gloria sniffled, nodded. “Sure, of course.”

Chess didn’t believe that for a second, especially not when Gloria’s gaze cut to the phone on her left. Twice, quick sneaky little glances, like her eyes were doing what her hands wanted to, like she was reassuring herself that she could do it any second.

It wasn’t the most pleasant thing in the world to realize that she herself had glanced at the flask in her bag that way.

Luckily, it wasn’t the time to think about that realization, either, because Jillian was standing up and holding out her hand and all that so-professional-and-brisk goodbye shit, and Chess did the same even though touching Gloria felt like opening a vein because the woman’s grief and anger and fear were so strong. The last thing Chess needed was someone else’s misery on top of her own.