1. Tallus

1

Tallus

“ Y ou’re encouraging criminal behavior. Give your head a shake and get away from the window.”

Pondering the validity of Memphis’s concern and promptly dismissing it, I continued to peer at the dark city street seven stories below.

“Babe, I thought you were refilling our wine.”

“Is it criminal if he knows I know?”

“Yes. Hundred percent. Thousand percent. Wine, Tal. Hurry up.”

“I don’t think it is.” Squinting, I tried to make out the shape of the man sitting inside the Wrangler, but it was impossible. Between the night, distance, reflective streetlights, and the Jeep’s tinted windows, I had nothing but my imagination to go on.

He was there, watching, brooding , no doubt, about my having company. He wasn’t a fan of Memphis, not that he’d ever said it aloud, but I knew. The caustic feelings written all over his face whenever my best friend’s name was brought up told me so.

I didn’t have to see the expression to know his stormy gray eyes were on me, full of anguish, confliction, and irritation. If life was a cartoon, the atmosphere would have been rich with the scent of self-loathing, the Jeep clouded with steamy anger. He didn’t believe my claim that Memphis was nothing more than a close friend. Therefore, it wasn’t hard for him to imagine us in bed.

I was the object of the troubled man’s desire—but he couldn’t admit it. In the three months since I’d helped him with a case, Diem Krause hadn’t been able to walk away from what we’d started. God knows he’d probably tried. His feelings—however hard he denied them—went against everything he believed.

Did I mind? Not really. Was what we had healthy? Far from it, but what did I care? Life was meant to be fun. If a person stumbled on something—or someone—who was awkward and puzzling on every level, whose actions confounded them and kept them awake at night, they should roll with it. Right? People were meant to learn from their mistakes and improve themselves.

Not that Diem was a mistake.

Besides, the attention was flattering.

If Diem was my stumbling block in life, so be it. I rather thought I was his. Either way, and I refused to acknowledge the truth to Memphis because I loathed his gloating, the situation with Diem was getting out of hand. Even I could admit as much.

The suffering giant hiding in his vehicle had found the courage to approach me a handful of times since the events of the past spring when I’d wound up entrenched in one of his cases. Again. The encounters usually happened close to midnight, when Diem knew I was home alone, after he’d been drinking to excess, and when his craving for me could no longer be ignored or satiated any other way.

I didn’t know he craved me for a fact, but it didn’t take a genius to figure him out. Actions spoke louder than words. Diem may not say much—he rarely spoke during our late-night encounters—but I had learned to read the unsaid feelings behind his eyes. The want. The need. The desire.

The fear.

I’d learned to understand the conflict he brought to my doorstep whenever he randomly appeared for a quick fuck. He didn’t want to want me. He didn’t want to cave to weakness and desire. But he couldn’t help it.

Diem could barely bring himself to touch me, and we’d never kissed or cuddled. But on the handful of nights when he buzzed my apartment and we ended up fucking in the front hall or on the couch, even once in the kitchen—never the bedroom—he tried. His hands would linger over my skin. His hot breath, near enough to taste, sent goose bumps over my flesh.

It was those tiny efforts—the brush of fingertips against my thigh, the tentative hold on my hips as he thrust into my body, the sweaty palm splayed on my lower back when he got lost in himself, or the way he no longer startled when I stroked his cheek or squeezed his arm—that fed my own interest in the reclusive private investigator I’d known for a little more than ten months.

The more he didn’t give. The more I wanted.

Diem Krause was torment and tragedy personified, and I couldn’t help being drawn to him. It was something my best friend would never understand.

“Tallus, for the love of god!”

I jumped and glared over my shoulder. “What?”

“Get. Away. From. The window.” Memphis clapped each syllable for emphasis. “Good grief. Kitchen. Wine. Now. I’m starting to think that man has brainwashed you. Listen to me. He’s. A. Stalker.” More clapping.

“He’s not. He’s… socially awkward.”

“He’s a creep who sits outside your apartment, day in and day out, and follows you around the city.”

“He’s trying to dismantle his barriers.”

“He needs therapy.”

“He’s in therapy.”

Memphis huff-laughed. “See! Christ. You need therapy. Can you please, for the love of all that is holy, refill our drinks so I can start the next episode of our show before the sun comes up. I’m losing my buzz, and I need to know who gets with the hunky bachelor. I swear to god, if it’s that Greg idiot, I’ll scream. He is so turn-of-the-century. I can’t even. Like, buddy, it’s 2024. Get a haircut.”

Chuckling, I let the sheer curtain fall over the window and headed for the kitchen. “Greg gets eliminated in the next episode.”

Memphis slapped his hands over his ears. “Babe! Spoiler. What is wrong with you?”

“You’re talking shit about Diem. You deserve it.”

Memphis threw his hands up. “Not the same. He’s stalking you.” He motioned to the television. “This is glorified reality TV, embellished and edited for my enjoyment. Honestly, though, you should report him.”

I uncorked the wine and tipped the bottle over a glass. “I’m not reporting him. He’s not hurting anyone.”

“He’s robbing me of your full attention, which hurts me greatly. An emotional wound is a wound.”

“Boohoo.”

Memphis clucked his tongue. “One of these days, that man is going to corner you when you’re alone, and it won’t be pretty. This is how you end up dead in a ditch and featured in one of those files you love so dearly in the crypt-like storage room at your work… and he ends up on Canada’s Most Wanted,” Memphis added under his breath with every intention I should hear.

“It won’t happen. Diem’s harmless.” I smiled to myself, remembering the mix of vulnerability and horror that had stared back at me a few weeks ago when I’d boldly suggested he spend the night after he’d shown up for a perfunctory fuck at one in the morning.

For reasons I couldn’t explain, I hadn’t wanted him to leave.

The suggestion had gone down like a sinking ship, and Diem had run out the door like the apartment was on fire. He hadn’t been back since.

Memphis knew nothing of our escapades. Nor did he know about the strange attraction I felt toward Diem, and he especially didn’t know how badly I yearned to dismantle Diem’s walls. Contact of any kind with the awkward man was like winning a gold medal, and I had a competitive heart.

I didn’t want a commitment, per se, but I loved the challenge. More affection would be nice. Hell, I’d kill to feel his lips against mine—or on any part of my body that wasn’t my cock. After-sex snuggling was too much to ask, but I’d give anything to feel the press and heat of his body all around me just once.

Diem’s every effort, no matter how miniscule, lit me up inside. It gave me hope.

Memphis huffed. “You aren’t listening. You’re zoned out with a stupid smile on your face. It’s très concerning.”

Rolling my eyes, I returned to the living room with our wine and dropped onto the couch beside my best friend, offering him a glass. “Shut up and start the next episode.”

“Fine.” He aimed the remote at the TV. “It’s your funeral, babe. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Besides, whatever. I’ve been looking for an excuse to wear my new John Lobb monk straps, and your wake will do fine. Try not to die on a rainy day. I don’t want to ruin them.”

Concern over Diem and his stalkery habits died while we watched the next episode of our bachelor show. At some point after midnight, my attention was drawn to the window. I caught a vibe that Diem had left, but I didn’t get up to check. The last thing I wanted was to revive Memphis’s protests.

We plowed through another episode, Memphis inserting commentary like a regular talk show host, while my mind strayed. At long past one, the wine was gone. Buzzed and ready for bed, I was about to suggest Memphis get an Uber and head home when he flopped down on the couch and wedged his sock-covered feet under my thigh, going nowhere fast.

“I’m going to see a psychic tomorrow. Well, she’s more than a psychic. She does all the readings and such, but she’s also tooted as a psychic healer. You know that cutie Antoine from Sylvester Robbs? He goes to this woman all the time for his insomnia, and he says she’s the real deal. You should come with me. It’s ninety-five bucks for a thirty-minute regular session. More if you need healing.”

Antoine, who worked at Memphis’s favorite shoe establishment, was a flighty fad-follower in his early thirties who was gullible enough to believe anything. I was not a fan, but Memphis and Antoine had a standing arrangement as fuck buddies, so I held my tongue. I had a hunch Memphis had a foot fetish. Antoine, the fashion aficionado at Sylvester Robbs Men’s Footwear, was fanatical on the subject. Hence, every now and then, when they got together, Antoine filled Memphis’s needs and his head with outrageous notions of new age beliefs.

“A psychic? Really?” I laughed.

“Yes. Don’t be judgy. Her name is Madame Rowena.” He said it with a mystical accent. “Antoine says she’s spot on.”

“Well, if Antoine said, then it must be true.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Why the hell do you want to see a psychic?”

“Babe, seriously? Why does anyone? I want to know where my life is going and if I should splurge on the new silk shirt I saw at Fredrick’s the other day because Mr. Right is around the corner waiting to propose. I know you have trouble with colors, but honey, believe me when I say the undertones in the patterning bring out the subtle shades of gold in my eyes.”

“You don’t have gold in your eyes. They’re shit brown through and through.”

Memphis kicked me in the ribs. “They are not. There’s gold. You just can’t see it.”

“I can see gold, and I’m telling you, there isn’t any. You’re delusional.”

“Shut up. I like the shirt.”

“So you’re going to a psychic to get permission to buy a shirt?”

“No, I’m going because I want to know what the future has in store for me… and if it so happens to hold a sexy older man with a fat pocketbook, then new clothes are a given.”

“I don’t get you. At the club, you are all about the prepubescent boys who’ve recently moved out of Mommy and Daddy’s house, but now you’re dreaming about older men?”

“With fat pocketbooks.”

“And what’s up with you and Antoine? He’s… weird.”

“Says the man who basks in the attention of a certified stalker.” Memphis made a sweeping gesture at the window.

I didn’t have a comeback. He was right.

“Besides, club boys have a purpose. They’re eager little bunnies when it comes to sex. I’ll eat that up any day of the week, but if I’m going to meet Mr. Right—and I’m not getting any younger, sweetie, so it better happen soon—he needs to be older and hold a decent job because this girl has spending habits that will someday bankrupt her.”

I sighed. “Same.”

“Come with me tomorrow.”

“No. I hardly have money for groceries. I can’t afford a pointless psychic reading.”

Memphis jabbed me with his toes again. “It’s not pointless. Stop being difficult. Are you afraid she’ll warn you off the dark, ominous shadow who’s been following you around endlessly?”

Yes.

“No. Even if she did, I don’t believe in psychics.”

“Antoine said—”

“I don’t care what Antoine said. Antoine is a freak. It’s a hoax. A money grab. I can’t believe you’re contemplating going.”

“I’m not contemplating. I am going, and it’s not a hoax.” Memphis sat upright as he pulled his phone out and shuffled closer. “Look at her Google reviews. She has thousands. Also, as a psychic healer, she helps cure physical illnesses once thought to be incurable.”

“Like Antoine’s insomnia?”

“Exactly. I stayed at his house the other night, and he slept like a baby.”

“Yeah. After you gave him a blow job.”

“No… Maybe. Girl, it was the psychic who cured him.”

“You believe that shit?”

“Why not?”

“A psychic can’t do that.”

“So you’re calling thousands of people liars?” He motioned to his phone. “It’s a major part of her practice. She identifies and cleanses negative energies from your body. Energies that make you sick. She removes harmful spiritual attachments. These little ghostly nuisances don’t mean to be there, but when a person dies, sometimes they cling to a living person and suck their juju. This woman can get rid of them.”

“Are you listening to yourself?”

Huffing, Memphis handed me the phone. “You think I’m kidding? Read some of the reviews and tell me I’m wrong. She has a website.”

“Oh, well, if she has a website, it must be real.”

Memphis smacked my arm. “Shut up.”

“Memph, anyone can have a website. It doesn’t make her legit.”

Memphis wouldn’t hear my arguments. He resumed lying on the couch with his feet wedged under my leg as he waited, arms crossed in defiance, for me to scan the reviews.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was too late for this shit. “This nonsense is giving me a headache.”

“It’s not nonsense. Did you know your migraines are probably due to the soul of a dead person whose spirit has attached itself to you and is drawing your energy? Madame Rowena could help. You could be officially migraine-free for the rest of your life.”

“Stop talking.”

To humor him, I skimmed the reviews. Of course, the five-star ones sang Madame Rowena’s praises, claiming she was the real deal. She’d apparently predicted windfalls and assisted in the finding of soulmates. She’d sensed illnesses in babies and guided people to better employment. She’d helped cure arthritis, chronic back pain, psoriasis, eczema, and acne. She contacted spirits from beyond the grave and gave grief-ridden people peace of mind that their loved ones had moved on to better places.

It took effort not to roll my eyes.

The woman was a palm reader, an aura cleanser, and a decipherer of tarot cards. She used runes, astrology, and analyzed your chakras, all for the low, low price of ninety-five bucks. You got stuck paying the heftier fees if she discovered something truly troublesome or concerning.

I flicked through dozens of reviews, reading a few but mostly skimming for Memphis’s benefit. Madame Rowena seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades in the psychic world. When I came across a write-up that said, This chick is dope, man. She said someone I loved dearly was gonna croak, and wouldn’t you know, my great gran died two weeks later, I snorted before slapping a hand over my mouth.

“What?” Memphis glared.

I turned the phone, displaying the review. “This is oh-so impressive. She apparently predicted the passing of this guy’s great gran . Great . Do you hear the emphasis I’m putting on the word? Great. Great Gran .”

Memphis gave me a dirty look, which made me laugh.

I continued to scroll. “Anyone could do that. Old people die. Shocking, I know, but it’s true. These psychics tell you vague bullshit so when something happens, you’re able to contort their words and convince yourself they saw into your future.”

“Explain the people who had chronic illnesses who were helped by this woman. There are all kinds. Are you calling them liars?”

“You know what? If we want to know the truth about this woman, we should read the negative reviews.”

I changed the display to show me the one-star reviews first and waited for the screen to refresh. “Ah. Here we go.”

“Why do you insist on ruining my fun?”

“I’m doing my due diligence as your best friend and saving you money. Want a true-to-life prediction about your future? Here you go. If you keep your appointment with this woman, you’ll be ninety-five bucks farther away from owning the sexy silk shirt you want.” I tapped my temple. “How’s that for psychic?”

I had officially upset my best friend if the look on his face was anything to go by. When he didn’t tear the phone from my hand and tell me to shut up, I scrolled Madame Rowena’s negative reviews, reading them closely. They were as I suspected, a compilation of skeptics who claimed she blew hot air out her ass and wasted their time and money, every one of them parroting my thoughts.

Memphis didn’t want to hear it and looked ready to drop the subject and leave, but as I was about to toss him the phone, a word in one of the reviews caught my eye. I read it, brows rising higher with each paragraph. The reviewer, a guy calling himself Mac, was long-winded and thorough.

“What?” Memphis asked.

“Listen to this. ‘Don’t go see this bitch, yo. I swear to god, she brainwashed my sister or some shit, and now Amber’s dead. This is no joke. Heed my warning. Read this review. My sister was trying everything to alleviate her chronic migraines. The meds her doctor put her on did shit, so she tried some outside-the-box natural cures. Saw a naturopath or herbalist or some shit. Tried meditation, yoga, and whatever. Then one day, some chick told her about this crazy fucking psycho bitch, and Amber made an appointment.

Madame Rowena got inside Amber’s head all right. Too fucking far. She told Amber some spirit or outside force had leeched onto her brain and was controlling her, causing the migraines. She said she’d help her get rid of it for a fee. A fucking huge ass fee. Amber was desperate and went along with it. She saw this woman a few times for treatment , but my sister got progressively worse. I’m telling you, this woman mind-fucked her. She was the one inside Amber’s head, not some spirit. She was controlling her brain. Amber got weirdly paranoid and started seeing things. Sometimes, she would talk funny and not make sense like she was possessed. When I confronted her, she told me not to worry because whatever Madame Fuckwits was doing was working, and her migraines were better. Bullshit to that. I had a bad feeling, but Amber wouldn’t listen.

One day last week, I came home from class, and there was a swarm of ambulances around our apartment. Amber had thrown herself off the fucking balcony! My sister is dead, yo. Dead because Madame Rowena is a mind-controlling sorcerer witch or something. She’s the devil, and no one will listen. I told the police, but they think I’m fucking nuts. Well, I’m warning anyone who sees this woman to heed caution. She’s dangerous.’”

I glanced at Memphis, who wore a smirk. “Are you serious? That’s your defense? Some whacked-out kid who believes a psychic killed his sister through mind control?”

“I’m not the one who called her legit. If you believe she has magic powers, then be careful you don’t end up dead like Amber… yo,” I added for effect.

Memphis laughed and rolled his eyes before shoving himself upright and taking back his phone. “You know what? Screw you. I’m going home.”

“Have fun tomorrow,” I singsonged.

“Oh, I will, and when she directs me to Mr. Right and he’s a multi-billionaire, you’ll eat your words. Are you sure you don’t want to come for entertainment purposes?”

“No. Waste of ninety-five bucks, if you ask me.”

“She cured Amber’s migraines.”

“Yeah, by throwing her off a balcony. No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Memphis headed to the door, tapping away at his phone, likely arranging an Uber.

“When’s your appointment?”

“Not until after lunch.”

“Call me and let me know how it goes.”

Memphis tucked his phone away and gave me the Friends fist tap fuck you before slipping on the leather loafers he’d bought from Antoine, but he dampened the insult with air-kisses as he headed into the hallway. “Later, babes.”

“Later.”

“Love you.”

“Love you back.”

When I was sure he was gone, I headed to the window overlooking the street and shifted the sheer curtains aside. As I’d suspected, Diem was gone. Part of me was disappointed. The more reasonable part of me, the one who questioned what the fuck was happening between the surly PI and me, was not.