Lyn Benedict: Ghosts & Echoes

“It’s not safe for you to be out roaming the streets late. Miami’s a dangerous—”

“How after-school special,” Zoe said. “C’mon, Syl, you act like I’m out there turning tricks. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Not that you know that. Since you’re never around anymore.”

“I’ve been—”

“Busy. So you say. For someone who’s quick to question me, you’re not big on sharing the details.” Zoe propped herself on the edge of Sylvie’s desk, tried to stare her down.

“I’ve got bigger problems than schoolwork and dating,” Sylvie said. A quick flicker of memory: Demalion leaning over, pressing a small, sleepy kiss to her shoulder. She shook it away. Taking it easy meant not thinking about him.

“And I don’t?” Zoe’s cheeks flushed; her lips thinned. “You have no idea how hard—”

“I’m sure shopping really takes it out of you,” Sylvie snapped, regretted it instantly. Zoe jerked to her feet. Sylvie’s apology derailed as she saw the glint of unexpected rage in her sister’s eyes. The mirror isn’t so distorted after all, she thought distantly; then it was only Zoe again, and Sylvie said, “Zo, I’m sorry. Just, it’s been a real bad time around here. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

The discontent and bad temper in Zoe’s face faded and didn’t come back. “So, I can go out, right?”

“And she never gives up,” Sylvie said. “Sorry, brat. You know the drill by now. No boys, no girls, no going out, and fork over the cell phone.”

Alex’s tap on the door and subsequent entry derailed Zoe’s first retort but not her scowl. Alex flashed a check in Sylvie’s face, a quick here and gone, but Sylvie caught the amount—$1,200. Standard two-day fee for clients Sylvie didn’t like.

Sylvie opened her mouth to bitch, just for the sake of it, and Alex’s expression went from pleased to flat. She leaned over the desk, hissed, “You wanted an easy case. This is it. A couple of stakeouts, you turn the results over to the cops. Bloodless. Easy. And a chance for goodwill among our stuck-up neighbors. You don’t get to bitch when the universe gives you exactly what you requested.”

“But Conrad’s such a—” Sylvie caught the whine in her own voice, caught her sister smirking, and gave in on principle. No bad role models here. “Stakeout?”

“Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll have a file ready for you with the most likely address. I’m chasing a pattern to the robberies. But you’ll be able to start tonight.”

Sylvie slumped, thinking, yeah, Alex with a full partnership was going to be a pain in her ass. Then another thought occurred, brought a smile to her lips. “Tonight? Fine. But you’re sitting Zoe overnight.”

“What?” Two voices in outraged harmony. Amazing, Sylvie thought. Alex and Zoe so rarely agreed on anything at all.

“She watches Doctor Who and wears weird clothes with dog hair all over them,” Zoe wailed. “I’ve got better things to do!”

Alex grimaced. Sylvie said, hastily, “I owe you one, Alex.”

Zoe stopped whining long enough to say, “Her? What about what you owe me?”

“You’re going to owe me a big one,” Alex said.

Given that Zoe was now nicely aggravated anyway, Sylvie grabbed her sister’s purse and dumped it out. Grounded girls didn’t get to play with their toys. Zoe yelped, but the deed was done. Sylvie ruthlessly confiscated the iPhone—wondering how the hell Zoe had conned her parents out of that chunk of change; she hadn’t had it the last time Sylvie got to play prison warden— another cell phone, iPod, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and an orange bottle of prescription drugs. Sylvie rolled the bottle in her hand. Maybe her parents were right to be concerned. She and Zoe had done this song and dance before, but there’d never been drugs involved.

Kids could get in over their heads really damn fast. Sylvie had seen it more than once. The parents worried about the kid’s grades, the boyfriend/girlfriend, and by the time they started really worrying, by the time they showed up on Sylvie’s doorstep, their baby was gone for good.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Alex slinking out, playing at discretion. Sylvie turned the bottle again, listening to the pills clicking inside. The label read AMOXICILLIN. The contents, when she popped the lid off, were clearly not.

“Those aren’t mine,” Zoe said.

Sylvie tilted the bottle up, reading the name on the label. Isabel Martinez. “So I see. You holding them for her or taking them for her?”

“Holding,” Zoe said.

“That the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Like you told me you quit smoking?”

“I did .”

Sylvie held up the cigarette pack. The two cigarettes left in it rattled loosely. “You holding these for Bella also?”

“You know what? Screw you,” Zoe said. “I haven’t even hung out with Bella in weeks. If you were around, you might have known that. She’s all messed up, and I know when to walk away. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

“I’ll believe that when you start making sensible ones,” Sylvie snapped. More worried than she wanted to be—she was taking things easy, dammit—she shoved the rest of her sister’s belongings back into her Vuitton knockoff: wallet, a slide of cash—twenties and tens—enough cosmetics for three makeovers, a couple of small candles in red and gold, spare earrings, a perfume sample, a comb, and a double handful of salt and powdered creamer packets from some fast-food place. She turned the last over a couple of times, trying to figure out why they were there. The powdered creamers worried her, made her think of drugs being cut. The salt . . . She couldn’t imagine what Zoe would need salt in that quantity for.

“The cafeteria sucks,” Zoe said. “They always run out of condiments.” She snatched them back, shoved them in on top of everything else, and Sylvie narrowed her eyes. Was Zoe nervous? Or telling the simple truth?

Zoe took the bag, clutched it to her chest, and watched as Sylvie swept the confiscated items into her own satchel. “It’s nearly dinnertime. Alex’ll take you next door. Frankie’ll feed you for free—he owes me one—but don’t make his life difficult by asking for a drink.”

Zoe shrugged as if the thought had never crossed her mind. “You’re really sending me off with her? We’re not even going to do dinner together?”

Sylvie shoved her sister toward the stairs. “Work calls. Go play nice, Zo. Or I’ll drag you on the stakeout with me. You’d like that even less. We can talk tomorrow. Promise.”

Liar, her little dark voice said. You’ll find another excuse. For her own good.

“What are you staking out, anyway?”

Alex met them at the base of the stairs with a promptness that suggested she’d been eavesdropping via the intercom.

“Potential burglary,” she answered, handing Sylvie the promised file. “A gang’s working the south Florida circuit. No one knows how they’re getting in. Hit the jewelry store up the street, the art gallery, loads of others. Sylvie’s been hired to find them.”

“Oh,” Zoe said, her voice gone small and tight as if she’d never considered that Sylvie’s job might involve real criminals. “You think you’ll catch them?”

“That’s the plan,” Sylvie said.

FOUR HOURS INTO HER STAKEOUT OF MIAMI’S BAYSIDE MALL, AND Sylvie was cursing Lisse Conrad, Alex, her too-small truck, and mankind’s love of asphalt, which kept the nighttime hours at a balmy ninety-seven degrees. The sun was down; Biscayne Bay was a bare parking lot’s width away; a stiff breeze stirred the air. The night should have been nothing but beautifully cool. Sylvie’s jeans stuck to the leather seat each and every time she shifted, giving the lie to that. Baking from below. Good for pastries, not people.