20. Tallus

20

Tallus

S tupid work.

I’d been stuck at the office all day without Kitty to keep me company. What was worse? Both Diem and Memphis were ignoring me. I did not take kindly to being disregarded.

After the debacle at Hilty’s office the previous night when I’d almost missed the receptionist heading inside because I’d fallen asleep, I’d forgotten Memphis had finally responded to my text. It wasn’t until I got to the office in the morning that I had time to read it—correction, them . He’d sent multiple messages, and I’d missed them all. If I hated being ignored, Memphis took the sleight to a whole new level. The man was dramatic on steroids.

Memphis: I knew it. I knew you were fucking him.

Memphis: Babe, that hurts my feelings. I don’t want your ass, but since when do we have secrets?

Memphis: All your concern over the psychic was a bullshit excuse to spend time with that creep, wasn’t it?

Memphis: Wasn’t it?

Memphis: Answer me!

Memphis: Hello?

Memphis: Wow. Your silence speaks volumes. Well, fuck that, bitch. You go have your fun with the iceman stalker, and I’ll have mine. I’m booking an appointment with Madame Rowena. In fact, I’m going to see if she can cure my insomnia too. Let her get deep into my psyche and clean out the bad juju.

Memphis: You really don’t care.

All the responses I’d sent that morning had gone unanswered. Memphis was pissed. I could argue until I was blue in the face, but unless I broke down his door and explained myself, I would get the silent treatment.

Fine. Whatever. He could have his brain melted by the psychic all he wanted. It wasn’t like the stupid suspicions I’d had about mind-control murder were proving to be real. The longer I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I’d used it as an excuse to see Diem.

As for the brooding, trouble-giant, his silence wasn’t shocking. Irritating, yes, but I gave up trying to get a text response from him by three in the afternoon. Maybe he was pissed I’d accidentally spent the night. I’d promised to take my ass home by midnight. I’d promised not to invade his privacy or add any undue pressure. But I’d ended up conked out on his couch. Who knew what kind of problems my presence had caused.

When the alarm on my phone woke me at seven that morning and I realized where I was, I’d gone seeking the troubled man, finding him out cold in bed. He’d given me his only blanket, and my heart ached at the unexpected act of kindness. The pull to crawl in beside him and snuggle against his side was strong. A morning orgasm would have been nice, but my good sense won out.

If touching Diem without warning could cause a PTSD reaction, waking him from a dead sleep could prove dangerous, and I didn’t have a death wish. So I’d left him alone, wrote him a note, raced home to shower and change, then went to work.

When my shift ended at five thirty, I locked the doors to the records office and drove directly to his place.

***

I stared at the printed pages spread across the desk, my jaw unhinged. “But… I thought we concluded mind control wasn’t a thing.”

“It’s not.”

“But you just—”

“It’s not.”

“But…” I pointed at the spots he’d highlighted in defense.

Diem paced, grinding his teeth, his knuckles popping every time he made fists with his hands. When I arrived, he abandoned the desk chair, ordering me to sit on one of the flimsy plastic seats from his waiting room and instructing me to read the spots he’d circled in yellow marker.

Diem was in full work mode. The raw emotions I’d witnessed over the past two days were hidden behind the concrete slabs of his steel gray eyes. If he was struggling with our nonrelationship, there was no sign.

“Read it,” he said again when he caught me staring.

“I did. I’m processing, and it’s creeping me out. Is this for real?”

“Yes.”

Blame the late hour of the previous night. Blame lack of sleep, eagerness, stress, distraction, whatever. The point was we’d missed key elements. At close to midnight, our sole focus had been on the word deceased .

In the light of a new day, two things stood out. First, the client files were Hilty’s, not Rowena’s. How they had ended up in the psychic’s filing cabinet was suspicious. Reflecting back, I remembered that we’d noted that the files Hilty had collected were all photocopies, not the originals. Had he made copies for his wife, then gotten scared and taken them back because we’d stirred the pot?

Second, the sticky notes that had been adhered to each file—the ones we’d photographed, peeled up, and set aside so we could read what was underneath—contained personal, handwritten notes. They hadn’t been photocopies. Each note contained a comprehensive personality summary of the client. Words like suggestable, pliant, and highly impressionable were used. Responsive to hypnotherapy came up a few times, clearly indicating that Hilty had written them. Some were marked as vulnerable , susceptible, or easily influenced . Naive, gullible , and sensitive to stimuli . Hilty’s remarks were concise and specific. He listed points of weakness in each client, along with what seemed to be a score out of ten. Did it indicate their level of manipulability? It was eerie.

I thought of the two men in the eighties who’d killed themselves after partaking in one of Hilty and Rowena’s circus sideshow acts, whose deaths had been brought before a judge because someone suspected they’d been mind-controlled.

“Not mind control,” I said into the void as Diem continued to pace. “The power of suggestion. Manipulation. These people were tagged as highly susceptible.”

I glanced at the desk full of client profiles. The ones who were alive, were they in danger?

Agog, I shook my head. “We have to report this.”

“No.”

“Diem—”

“We will be the laughingstock of the entire department.”

“Eleven people are dead.”

“And until we determine exactly how these fucknuts are doing it, I’m not telling anyone.”

“But if they’re using—”

“If you say mind control one more time, I’m going to put my fist through a wall.”

“If they’re using the power of their minds to manipulate people into—”

“I’m not convinced.”

“But you agree they’re working together again?”

“Seems like.”

I sat back, absorbing but not knowing where to go from there. I could play detective all I wanted, but Diem was the real investigator. Up until now, he hadn’t believed in the case. Had that changed? “What do we do? How do we figure out what’s happening?”

Diem stopped pacing and stared at the clutter on the desk. “You need to schmooze someone in homicide and get us autopsy reports for the eleven dead clients. Before I draw conclusions of any kind, I want to be sure there isn’t an underlying connection, something the pathologists missed because they weren’t looking at the cases side-by-side. In the meantime, I’m going to dig deep into Hilty. I’ll shake the no-good fucking idiot upside down if I have to and see what falls out.”

“Why do you always get the fun jobs?”

Diem’s six-and-a-half feet of height cast a shadow over me. He chuffed. It wasn’t a laugh, but it somehow conveyed humor on a subtle level. “Who between us is better at sweet talking, and who is better at intimidating?”

“Touché.” I scanned him head to toe and smirked. “You could get a job doing gym adverts if the PI stuff doesn’t work out. Just saying. I hate the mere idea of cardio, but if I saw you on a poster, I might change my mind.”

Diem’s face did a thing. It wasn’t a smile or an eye roll, but an odd mixture of pride and possibly embarrassment crossed his face. It was hard to say since he went to a lot of trouble to hide it, breaking eye contact.

“You know,” I said, switching gears, “if I take this to a detective, they’ll want to know why I need the reports. What am I supposed to say?”

Diem pressed his lips together, forehead creasing as he circled his desk and sat. He busied himself stacking the profiles, then folded his hands on top and stared at me.

Diem and eye contact was a finicky thing. Sometimes—most times—he struggled, and other times, like now, he locked on with daunting surety that made my skin come alive.

“You want to be a PI someday?”

I blinked, sat straighter, and adjusted my glasses. “Yes. Why? Are you—”

“Shut up and listen. Investigative work 101. Make connections in as many fields as possible. With authority, at the courthouse, the local jails, the city council, the school board, the hospitals, even with the fucking garbage collectors. You want as many people on the inside as possible willing to do dirty work for you. You make deals. You offer bribes. You get creative. Your connections will make or break you in this industry. If someone like me can do it, it’ll be a walk in the park for someone like you.”

I stared at Diem, who stared right back. It was the first time he’d insinuated I was or could be part of his practice. Did he mean it, or was he making a point?

When I didn’t respond, he offered me the stack of papers. “You have better connections in the department than I do. People like you. No one likes me. We need autopsy reports so I can eliminate the obvious.”

“What about your buddy Kelly?”

Diem’s jaw tightened. “I tried. Sometimes, your connections fail.”

“Did you call him an asshole?”

“Not to his face.”

“Baby steps.” I accepted the papers, pondering Diem’s words. “Is this nothing more than your creative way of getting information? Am I your bitch? Are you manipulating me, Guns? You know I have a boner for detective work. Are you playing me to get what you need?” I added a smile to dampen my jaded tone, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was right.

“No.” The eye contact vanished. Diem busied himself in a desk drawer but didn’t seem to know what he was looking for and rooted around endlessly.

“Are we partners?” I asked slyly.

Diem kept digging, a stitch growing between his brows, a flush rising in his cheeks. He blushed easily for someone so daunting and intimidating, and it was always a dead giveaway of how he felt.

“Diem?” I cooed. “Are we partners? Go on. You can admit it.”

“Get me autopsy reports.”

***

If the people in Rowena and Hilty’s files were deemed vulnerable , impressionable , or suggestable , I was the opposite. Nothing got in my way if I didn’t let it. Case in point: Diem. But the way he’d shut down and gone into work mode today told me I would be wise to respect his need for space. Now was not the time to push the man where our nonrelationship was concerned.

He was talking. He hadn’t kicked me to the curb. In fact, the way he’d dodged eye contact and sidestepped my question about us being partners were positive things. If anyone was feeling vulnerable, it was Diem.

So I accepted the assignment and left the man to his devices—likely smoking and drinking, but we all had to find ways of coping in this mixed-up, stress-filled world. Some people overate. Others worked ninety-seven million hours a day, and people like me usually ended up at Gasoline, looking for a warm body to alleviate tension.

Usually .

Lately, the pull of a random fuck had lost its shine, and it was because of the moody, brooding giant I’d gotten involved with months ago. My stalker. A man who deemed himself unworthy. Diem’s beautiful, wounded soul had done something to me, but I wasn’t about to get my hopes up. The chances of it becoming more, of him letting me in were slim. He was heartbreak waiting to happen. The kicker? My heart was never supposed to be involved.

I went home, ate a wholesome dinner of saltine crackers with peanut butter, and made a reluctant phone call to my cousin, Costa Ruiz, a man I’d been slowly rebuilding a relationship with over the past few months. The department’s head IT guy was a reformed homophobe. We’d met for coffee a handful of times, shared stilted conversation—mostly about his kids and family since we didn’t talk about our childhood—and when we passed each other in the halls at the office, I no longer ducked my head and raced away without speaking to him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a beginning.

“Who in homicide can be bought?” I asked after we got the perfunctory hellos out of the way.

“Excuse me?”

“Okay, not bought. Bribed. Non-monetarily. Is that a word? The point is, I’m poor as shit, but I need info. Who would do me a favor for potentially little compensation? There’s a teeny-tiny off chance I have the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory in my back pocket, and I’d be willing to share.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“Let’s say I’ve been investigating… call it a suspicion, and should it turn out to be correct, I may have a doozy of a discovery to hand over to homicide. Like serial huge.”

Costa groaned. “You’re working with that meathead again, aren’t you?”

“His name is Diem, and I’m certain he could take you in a fight, so curb the name-calling.”

“Why don’t you admit you two are having a thing?”

“Sweetie, the day he admits it, I’ll admit it.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What? Sweetie? Eww. Yeah, that was creepy. I wasn’t thinking. Can you suggest anyone?”

“Serial?”

“Maybe. Or it could be nothing more than hocus-pocus. Do you believe in witches, warlocks, and the supernatural?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Anyone? Preferably not a homophobe. If they’re questioning their sexuality, it could work in my favor. I’m cute and not opposed to flirting.”

“I need to find normal friends.” Costa blew a gust of air into the phone as he exhaled. In the background, his girls sang along to a Disney movie as his wife, Tia, reminded them to keep it down because Daddy was on the phone, and were they almost ready for bath time?

“Are you coming to Maddy’s birthday party next weekend?” Costa asked.

“What? Next weekend?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I am.” I’d forgotten all about it. He’d invited me weeks ago. “I haven’t been to a princess party since college. I’m long overdue.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Relax, it was a Halloween thing. I went as Ariel. My shell-cup bra was stellar. I might still have it. Do I need a costume?”

“I’m officially uninviting you and hanging up.”

“Don’t you dare.” I chuckled. “It’s too easy. I hope Quaid bugs you like this.”

“All the freaking time.”

“Are kids still into Barbies, or has that fad died off?”

“Barbies are popular in my house.”

“Perfect. Can I buy her Queer Ken?”

“Is that a thing?”

“Yes, but he costs about a gazillion dollars, and I can’t afford him. If I could, he would go on my trophy shelf, not her toybox.”

“Too bad.”

“I going to pretend you mean that. Why couldn’t I be rich? Memphis is right. I need a sugar daddy.”

“Good grief, can we steer back to the favor?”

“You’re the one who changed the subject.”

“What exactly do you need?” Costa asked, then shouted, “Madeline Tianna Ruiz, get down from there right now before you break your neck.”

A little girl’s whiny voice traveled through the phone, but the words weren’t distinct.

“I don’t care how many mountains Elsa tries to climb. You aren’t her.”

“Anna climbs the mountains, Daddy,” a little girl shrieked.

“Anna, Elsa, same difference. Don’t climb the bookshelf.”

“You’re such a buzzkill.” I tsk ed. “Let the girl climb.”

“I do not want to spend my night in the emergency room. What did you need?” he asked again.

“Autopsy reports. Eleven of them.”

“Eleven? What the truck!”

I snorted. “Excuse me?”

“Get off my butt. I have kids. Eleven?”

“Yes. It’s a long story.”

Costa spit out a few Spanish curse words I assumed his daughters and wife didn’t know. “Send me their full names, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I wasn’t asking you to do it. That’s not what this was.”

“Are you sure? Sounds like you called for a favor.”

“Yes, but not from you. I promised I wouldn’t do that.”

A while back, Costa had rightfully put me in my place when I’d continually gone to him for favors, using our family connection and his past discriminatory behavior as a reason why he should help even when I refused to accept his apologies or meet him on even ground.

“I came to you for a recommendation.”

“Doyle’s your best bet. Don’t flirt with him, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Quaid. On second thought, let me ask for you.”

“Why?”

“Because that way, he won’t refuse.”

“But I have to build a connection. Diem said… Costa, I have to do it myself.”

Doyle hadn’t been my first choice when considering who to approach. The homicide detective hadn’t been impressed with Diem and me nosing around his case a few months ago.

“You sure?” Costa asked.

“Um… yes. I can talk to him.”

“Great. Have fun. I gotta go bathe my girls before bed.”

“Wait… Okay, maybe you could help bridge the gap. Cushion the blow.”

“Am I talking to him or not?”

I sighed. “Yes. Set up a time I can meet him and remind him there might be Oompa Loompas involved.”

Costa grumbled something unsavory in Spanish and hung up.