Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

HIRO

While driving two hours wouldn’t be the end of the world, we head to the local police station to set up shop with their crew so we’re not running all around the city and wasting valuable time. The problem is we have absolutely no idea how many people this Vali person has targeted, and if even an hour would make a difference between someone living or dying. At the same time, we have no proof that this girlfriend of Calvin’s is even the person behind the screen.

It gives us time to run the names Keaton’s given us. Maddox seems to think the only issue now will be explaining how I got the names. Thankfully, Parker is more than happy to help us be vague.

As we run through the names and acquire their addresses, my ghosts dash off to check them out if we can’t find a photograph of them. I think they’re more than pleased to be a part of the process.

We narrow down the names at such a quick rate that I think those helping us are wondering what magic we’re using. We find the girlfriend toward the end of the list, a woman named Monica Travis.

Maddox quickly decides that while he wants to speak with her to learn what he can, he also wants a warrant before engaging, in case she refuses to talk to us and manages to hide crucial evidence while we wait for a warrant.

Since she lives on the very outskirts of Clinton about forty minutes from our house, we pack up and head back home where we’ll be left to wait at the mercy of a judge who will either deny or permit our need for a warrant.

It gets hard when many of our facts can only get backed up by my ghosts.

I think all of us are on edge, impatiently waiting for the warrant which finally gets approved the following day around seven p.m. As soon as Maddox has what he needs, he’s rushing out the door, leaving the rest of us to quickly follow. Thankfully, it isn’t far to pick Avery up.

“They always take so fucking long. It’s like hey, someone might die and they’re like ‘Yeah… that doesn’t sound concerning enough. Toss it in my ‘Will give a fuck about later’ pile,” Maddox grumbles as Avery gets in the car.

“It’s a wonder it even happened this quickly with no active deaths currently in front of us,” Avery says. “I mean, we’re aware this Vali person has caused numerous deaths—on an international level—but it’s hard to prove it even relates to this Monica when we… really have little evidence.”

“Don’t listen to Avery use reason,” Maddox says.

“I definitely won’t,” I assure him.

“I hate it when people use reason,” Shion chimes in.

“Don’t know why I even try,” Avery says. “Hiro, I thought you were the sweet one.”

“I’m definitely the sweet one,” I inform her.

“Then why do you agree with Maddox the Malicious?”

I grin at that as Maddox takes a moment to fix her with a glower.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she says.

“I clearly need to work on my looks, then,” he retorts as he puts the car in drive and takes off at such speeds that my seat belt ends up locking.

“We won’t even be able to deal with the case, we’ll all have whiplash too severely,” Shion complains.

“I had to make up for time I lost glaring at Avery,” Maddox says. “We’re going to simply speak to this Monica and see if Hiro can pin down Calvin. We don’t want to flash the warrant or take her in immediately in case we’re wrong. I’m still suspicious why Calvin would choose to hang around her if she really did kill him.”

“Did the stain from the closet come back as blood?” I ask.

“The sample was diluted enough that they went back today for a better look. Now, Hiro.”

“Here he goes,” I mutter.

“Is he your fiancé or your babysitter?” Shion asks.

Maddox waves back at me. “Hiro, look at me.”

“I can’t look while you’re driving.”

He doesn’t care. “Do not run off?—”

“How will I talk to the ghost? Are we going to both excuse ourselves into the bathroom at the same time? That definitely won’t look suspicious. Should we hold hands on the way into the bathroom? We could take Shion in and explain to her that I can only pee while he watches, so that’s why he’s there. Then with my personal pee watcher in tow, I can scurry back to the bathroom to talk to Calvin.”

“The amount of sarcasm dripping off your voice is enough to drown a man,” Shion says. “But if I have to watch you pee, then it’s a sacrifice I must make for our country.”

“Which country?” I ask. “Japan or the US?”

“Countries.”

“Maddox, I will walk into the bathroom, talk to Calvin, then text you what he says before I come back out. Simple as that.”

“You say it’s simple but we’re talking about you,” Maddox says.

“How much simpler could it get? I’m not going to get lost or into any shit on the way to the bathroom.”

Maddox doesn’t look convinced at all.

My ghost army pops into the car where Reggie gets a good look at Maddox’s face. “Ooh boy, you know Hiro just got done saying something real foolish.”

“Hiro, honey,” Natalie says with a sweet voice. “We don’t want to scare Maddox away before the wedding. At least wait until after he’s forever stuck with you to show your true self. Otherwise you might have to lock him in your basement, and that is just not a good look.”

Why do I even like these two?

“Now I’m getting harassed by ghosts! I am the sweetest, nicest, bestest person around, and all of you are ganging up on me!”

“I’m not,” Grandpa says. “I’m just silently judging you.”

I gape at him, wondering what I’ve done to be silently judged. “I am perfect .”

“Does he do this much?” Shion asks. “Just talk to himself about how amazing he is?”

“I sure do,” I say as I pin him with a look.

He just holds his hands up as he grins. “I see. I see.”

“And because of that, I’m not telling you what Nicolás said about you.”

Shion gasps. “Nicolás replied and you didn’t let me know?”

“Well… so much was going on I kind of forgot to tell you. But now that you’re sassing me, you’ll never know.”

“Please, you amazing, bestest, and perfect person. Allow my ears to be graced by your voice that sounds like the rarest of all songbirds.”

“Weirdly… I want to tell you even less now,” I say as I pull out my phone and look at what was sent yesterday. “Nicolás said, ‘I had fun too. Yeah, Shion seems nice.’”

“What is that I hear…” Shion is quiet as he cups a hand around his ear. “Wedding bells.”

That makes me laugh. “I’m going to tell him how nice you’re being to me right now. Let’s see, ‘Nicolás, Shion is bullying me. Will you beat him up for me like the wonderful big brother you are?’ And… send.”

“Funny,” Shion says.

“And he replied.”

His attention snaps over to me. “Wait, did you really send that?”

“Nicolás said, ‘Your boyfriend could snap me in half like a toothpick, why doesn’t he fight your battles? Then again, if Shion is bullying you, you probably deserved it.’ I didn’t deserve this cruelty!”

“He must like me, right?” Shion asks. “That’s what that means?”

“I’ve never seen anyone try so hard to read into something before,” Avery says.

“I saw a porno like that once,” Natalie comments. “Or wait… maybe he was just a librarian… hmm…”

“I’m a desperate man,” Shion says. “Tell him I said that his eyes are earth kissed by the sun’s early light.”

“Okay. ‘Nicolás, Shion wants you to know that your eyeballs look like orbs of chocolate. And now I’m hungry.’”

Shion grabs for me only to see that I sent Nicolás just that. “You are… evil.”

“I’ve said it for years, but people are finally seeing it,” Natalie says.

“Oh, I saw it the moment I met him,” Reggie tells her.

“Uh-huh,” Keaton says.

“Keaton?” I gasp. “You too?”

“I’m so proud of you for finally saying what you really feel,” Reggie says as he hugs Keaton’s arm. It makes Keaton look a little red in the cheeks. “Hiro, he has to agree with anything I say.”

“Is this… a thing now?” I ask as I wave between the two of them.

Keaton mumbles and grumbles and Reggie stares at him like he’s just recited the most poetic and earth-shattering love letter.

I decide to ignore that when Nicolás returns my text. “Nicolás says, ‘I am confused… and slightly concerned. Does he want to eat my eyes?’”

“Tell him I want to devour something that’s not his eyes,” Shion says.

“Got it. ‘Nicolás, Shion says that he wants to eat you like a corncob coated in butter.’ Ooh look, he already replied with a ‘That sounds oddly sexual.’”

“I can’t tell if Hiro is actually getting him a date or driving the largest cavern-sized wedge between them,” Avery says.

Maddox shrugs. “You know… I can’t quite tell either, but Hiro is having fun and that’s all that matters.”

“Does it? My love life is on the line here,” Shion says as I send Nicolás a text that I don’t read out loud.

Me: While you and I are close as hell, I don’t always know what you want, so I’m throwing this out there. If you don’t want it, it’s no big deal at all. I think Shion would love to take you out for a coffee or something before he heads back to Japan, but he doesn’t know if it’s appropriate or not to ask.

Nicolás: So instead, he said my eyes look like orbs of chocolate?

Me: He might have said something much more sappy, but I fixed it for him.

Nicolás: I don’t do relationships.

Me: Is it because you don’t want a relationship or that you don’t think you can have one?

Nicolás: The only relationships I know how to have are with you and Patricia.

Me: Coffee with a guy who is heading halfway across the world isn’t much of a commitment. I can make it quite clear to him.

Nicolás doesn’t reply back and, for a moment, I worry I said something wrong. I definitely don’t want to pressure him into something he doesn’t want, but I think his issue is that he struggles to accept others into his life after the hell his biological family put him through.

Nicolás: Fine. Tomorrow at 2. Nothing will come of it at all. Make sure he’s aware. He can flap his flattery all around. Nothing will happen.

“Ohhhh damn, you’re good,” Reggie says. “Why the fuck didn’t you work that magic on Keaton for me? Instead, I’m pretty sure you made it harder.”

“I remember him trying to help you get a date, and instead, you harassed Keaton to the point where he was willing to go on a date with you just to shut you up,” Natalie says.

Reggie gasps. “Oh, that’s true. Hiro, you da best.”

I ignore all of that and glance over at Shion. “Coffee tomorrow at two but he wants it quite clear that ‘nothing will come of it.’”

Shion looks quite pleased. “Thank you, Hiro. You really are all those things you were saying about yourself earlier.”

“Of course I am,” I tease.

“We’re here,” Maddox announces as he pulls up outside of an old building. On the ground level, it looks like there’s a sweets shop with a “Coming Soon” sign on the window, and on the right is a flower shop that seems to be closed for the night since it’s nearly eight and already dark. Shion gets out of the vehicle with us but dutifully stays next to the car.

“She rents the third floor,” Maddox says as he takes us to a side door that must lead up to the upper floors. Maddox hits the doorbell, but it’s not quite clear whether it works or not, so he hammers on the door. A lady stepping out of the flower shop stops locking up to look over at us.

“If you’re looking for Monica, she’s renting the third floor. You have to go up and knock on the apartment door or she’ll never hear you.”

“Ah, didn’t realize that’s how it was set up. Thank you,” Avery says.

“Of course,” the lady replies as she heads out to her car.

The door is unlocked, so we pass through and head up the stairs to the third floor where Avery knocks. It’s not long later that the door is opened just enough that we can see her, but there’s a security chain in place.

There’s a clear look of surprise on her face that is almost immediately covered up. “You two were on my plane,” she says. “Sorry, that’s random. I just remember asking you what happened.”

“We were,” I say.

“Monica Travis? I’m Detective Booker, this is my partner Detective Avery, and our consultant Moore. We were hoping to ask you some questions about Calvin Watson. Do you have a moment?”

“Calvin?” Monica hesitates. “Oh! Marshall! Sorry, I’m always thrown a second when someone calls him Calvin. Makes me think they’re talking about his grandpa. Yeah, of course. I haven’t seen him in… hell… ten months? Maybe more. Something happened to him?”

“Could we come in?”

“Uh… yeah, sure,” she says as she unlocks the door and lets us in.

The building is apparently quite old and was once used as an office space or something similar. The layout is odd with a big open room containing the living room, dining table, and kitchen, with a hallway that leads to what was likely originally offices. She has it designed nicely, though, so it still looks more like a home than an office. Monica waves us over to the couch, but there’s not enough room for everyone to sit, so she looks around before quickly grabbing the folding chairs around the small table.

“Do you mind if we record this?” Maddox asks. He doesn’t mention the body cam he and Avery wear, but I think he wants to make her feel like she’s a part of this by asking about a microphone to record the conversation.

“Uh… no… of course not. I’m a bit… confused, but go ahead,” she says as Maddox sets everything up and does a quick introduction for the recording, so if someone refers to it later, they’re clear who is speaking.

“Are you and Calvin—or I guess you know him as Marshall—still dating?” Maddox asks.

“No, we broke up about ten months ago. Last I saw him, he was storming out of the apartment with his shit in bags. The breakup was hard on both of us, but it needed to happen.”

“Was this at your former apartment?”

“No, we lived here for about a month, maybe two before he left. Is he okay?”

“We’re currently looking for him. Have you talked to him at all since then?”

“Ah… man… I don’t know. I think he texted once asking about a jacket he left behind, wanting it so badly, yet never showed up for it,” Monica says as she rubs at her face. She looks worn out or tired. “I can look at my phone if you need an exact date for that?”

“That’d be fantastic.”

“Let me see,” she says as I see the ghost in question pop up behind her.

He looks surprised, then his eyes get wide.

“Can I use your restroom while you do that?” I ask, which is my cue to Maddox that Marshall’s ghost is in the building.

“Of course. So down that hallway, it’s the last door on the left.”

“Thanks,” I say as I start down the hallway. I glance in the rooms as I walk, but I don’t see much of interest in them until I notice a computer in one of the last ones.

Is that the computer she sits at and spins her tales for people to hear? Is that the computer where she tried to manipulate Maddox into hurting his own mother? Is it revenge for Marshall’s death? Or is there more to it?

I tear my attention away from it and quickly hurry into the bathroom where I shut the door.

“You have to help me,” Marshall says.

“I need you to tell me what happened to you,” I respond as Reggie and Keaton appear behind me. Natalie and my grandpa must have stayed in the main room to see what Monica has to say.

“She’s a monster. She’s a fucking monster,” he says as he bumps into an open cupboard door. He stares at it for a long moment before reaching out to touch it. He’s fascinated by his ability to swing it open and closed. “Sorry. That surprised me.”

“It’s okay. What were you saying?” I ask, but he seems transfixed by the door that he can move because of me. “It’s because you’re near me. I seem to have the ability to allow ghosts to manipulate objects… some are just better at it than others, and it looks like you’re one of them.”

Then he looks startled and turns his head. “Wait… I need to make sure she’s not watching.” And he disappears from the room.

“Well, that was weird,” Reggie says.

“Tell me about it,” Keaton agrees right before the room is filled with ghosts. I’m shoved so hard that I slam into the stupid cupboard door he’d left open.

“Ow, fuck. Stop,” I say, before I realize they’re not just here… no… they’re wrapped around me, staring at me . “Fuck, something’s wrong.”

What the fuck? Do they think I’m going to die now?

Quickly, I grab the doorknob as the lights go out and the ghosts turn frenzied around me. I have to will them incorporeal as I pull at the door, but it won’t open. The door doesn’t seem to be locked—the handle turns, and the door will open a crack—but I can’t open it any more, and if I press myself against it, I can see some kind of metal that’s keeping the door from opening any farther.

“Reggie,” I say desperately as he slips through the doorway.

“There’s a fucking lock on the door.”

Anxiety runs through me. “What do you mean a lock? Unlock it.”

“He… I think he locked you in here, Hiro. It’s like one of those metal latches that automatically lock when slid in place. It looks like it’s permanent. Why the fuck would there be a permanent lock on the outside of the door?” I hear it jiggle as Reggie fiddles with it. “It needs a fucking key.”

Panic tightens in my stomach as I hurriedly get my phone out, but when I send a call to Maddox, it won’t go through, like there’s suddenly no service. Are the ghosts affecting everything and not just the lights? How the hell could they be?

“What the fuck? Reggie, go hit Maddox or something!”

“I’ll try, but you’re so far away,” he says as I hammer on the door, knowing that when Maddox hears it, he’ll do something .