Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

“Conrad wants to hear your progress.”

Sylvie rolled her eyes. “Client discretion?”

Alex sighed. “You don’t like her anyway.”

“Not the point,” Sylvie said.

“You could give her the burglar’s name,” Wright said. “She might like that.”

“You found out already?” Alex grinned, wide and white, flashing as brightly as her diamante nose stud. “See, I told you it was a cake case.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sylvie said.

Wright said, “It could be.”

“Doing things my way, remember?”

Wright sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and said, “Yeah, yeah, you’re the boss. But I don’t see what you’re gonna do. You took their toy away. What else can you do to them? It’s time for us to do our thing. Arrest the bad guys.”

Sylvie said, “They won’t be able to keep them. And, no, I don’t have a plan yet. But I’ll think of something.”

The bell rang on and on in the silence that fell between them, Wright struggling hard to not confront, not contradict. Finally, he just shook his head, and said, “There should be some type of law. Someone who knows and can do something about it. Someone with government backing.”

“There’s the ISI,” Alex said.

“Then why aren’t—”

“Because they’re dicks,” Sylvie said. “Short answer. If all else fails, I’ll drop them a note.”

She yanked off her Windbreaker, dropped it over the alarm bell, still shivering in its marble bowl; she wished she could move it to the closet for the time being, but it had been bonded to the desk. Some spells seemed to be more math than magic. Val Cassavetes, her witchy friend, had spent hours figuring the angles to make sure the warning bell covered the office door to door, floor to ceiling, then she’d pragmatically laid down a tube’s worth of super glue once she had it to her specifics.

The front door opened; Wright yielded the way to Lisse Conrad. With her came one of the people Sylvie wanted to see least. Detective Adelio Suarez. Sylvie bit back a frustrated sigh. Plans, so easy to make, so easy to disrupt. She should have locked the door, flipped the sign to CLOSED, but generally her office wasn’t client central.

“I saw you come in,” Conrad said. “Your truck is . . . noticeable.” A faint sneer on her lips. Sylvie wondered if the expression would grow more dismissive or less if the woman knew what had caused the rents in the metal.

“Easy to find at the airport,” Sylvie agreed. She veiled her aggravation behind a toothy smile and watched Conrad turn away.

The woman swept past her on a wave of floral perfume, and Adelio Suarez followed as if he were a hound on scent. He paused to say, “Did you enjoy your joke? Sending us to harass nice families about a burglary charge?”

“’Cause nice families never have secrets,” Sylvie said. “The list was legit.”

Zoe might be part of that list, she thought with a sudden pang, and didn’t so much backtrack as sidle around the point. “But there’s a lot of information that goes nowhere in this biz. You know that.”

Suarez studied her, and said, “Someday, we’re going to have a talk, Shadows, about exactly what your biz consists of. Someday soon.”

“I love to talk, though I’m picky who I do it with.” She swept her gaze around the office; it hadn’t reached crowded, but it was getting there. Lisse Conrad perched on the arm of the couch, attempting to avoid dog fur. Wright was playing least in sight, standing in the shadow of the kitchenette, watching them all with speculative eyes. Suarez was . . . way too close into her personal space. She took a giant step back, nearly tripped over Alex, and rebounded off the edge of the desk.

This was ridiculous. For a moment, she wished she were in Chicago again, hunting an impossible-to-find foe, with nothing and no one to distract her.

No one but Demalion.

She blindly reached across the desk, collected a thick handful of small bills from the cash box, and said, “Wright! You wanted breakfast? How ’bout lunch. There’s a shrimp stand down the way—follow the gulls. Get three orders to go.”

Inelegant and obvious, but it worked. Wright took the money, even if he did so only to come close enough to whisper, “You should tell them.” His breath brushed her neck; his hand tightened about hers and the money. She flashed back to his lips on hers, on her throat, and jerked away.

“I’m not fond of should s,” she said. She didn’t bother to lower her voice. He backed away, hands up, the human form of showing the belly.

“Do you think your . . . secretary could do something about that noise?” Conrad asked. She leaned her cheek into her hand, rubbed her temple, wincing as the bell continued to chime.

“Defective cell phone,” Sylvie said. “Nothing to do but wait for the battery to die.” She relented. “Why don’t you go up to my private office. I’ll be up in a moment, as soon as I see Adelio out.”

The detective barked laughter. “I’ll go. I can take a hint. But I will catch up with you.” The door shut behind him, leaving Alex and Sylvie alone in the office.

Sylvie lowered her voice. “Alex, I need to talk to you. Let me get rid of Conrad. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Conrad’s your client,” Alex reminded her. “Try not to turf her out like you did Suarez, huh? She’s paying us.”

“So’s Wright,” Sylvie said.

Alex’s brows raised. “I knew you were hiding something. You didn’t want the case last night, and this morning you’re all grabby, dog in the manger. What’s going on?”

Sylvie shot a quick glance up the stairs, a quick one toward the door, and pulled Alex closer. “Just watch Wright when he comes back. Tell me if you see it. You knew him, too.”

“Knew who? His ghost?”

Sylvie nodded, feeling sick and giddy at once, as if this secret, held for such a short time, had festered. Even hinting at the truth made her think of lancing poisons from a wound, that squeamish combination of horror and relief.

Alex’s eyes went wide as she proved that she knew far too much about the way Sylvie’s mind worked. “You think it’s—”

“Not think,” Sylvie said. “Know. It’s Demalion.” Even at a whisper, the name exploded into the room like a bomb. Alex collapsed back onto the couch as if her knees had been cut out from under her.

She looked up at Sylvie, her eyes all shocked pupil, her voice very gentle. “Sylvie. Grief can really fuck you up. Guilt and grief together can get downright Shakespearean. All blood and delusions . . . Demalion coming back? It’s not possible.”

Sylvie laughed. “Alex. Look at my life and tell me what is and isn’t possible. I’ve dealt with werewolves, witches, gods, and immortal, amoral ancestors who wanted to storm heaven. What’s one ghost finding his way back compared to all of that?”

ANYTHING ALEX WOULD HAVE SAID IN RESPONSE WAS DERAILED AS, upstairs, the door to Sylvie’s office opened and closed with a bang, a clear sign that Lisse Conrad was getting impatient. Sylvie growled. “That woman’s such a—”

“Client,” Alex said, jumping onto the escape hatch of the conversation without her usual subtlety. “She’s our client. Go deal with her.” She rose from the couch, filled with a manic energy.

Sylvie imagined if she didn’t go upstairs, Alex would try to shove her up the treads. “Fine, but don’t think you’re being subtle.”

“Go, go!”

Less irritated than she let on, she took to the stairs. Alex didn’t want to think about it, fine. Alex wanted to think Sylvie was crazy. Not fine, but Sylvie could disabuse her of that easily enough the moment Demalion showed up again.