Something to Curse About (3 page)

FIVE

Before they left, Stannett asked if I’d be available to help. I agreed, on the condition that I was paid my regular rate by the city, not the police department. Mr. Whitehaven approved, mentioning my current “heavy workload” and our commitments to clients to handle their cases in a timely manner. The only current cases I actually had were a lost dog and a wealthy grandmother who suspected her grandson of stealing things from her home to sell for drugs. I can’t take more than two or three cases at a time, because my relevant abilities don’t play the logic game. Concentrating on one case doesn’t mean any psychic “hits” I have are related to that case.

Wells didn’t like it, but after he and Stannett stepped outside for a private conference, he agreed.

“Certainly stuck it to them,” Nick said while we watched the two men cross the parking lot to their vehicles.

I shrugged. “I was going to help anyway, but the mayor and his buddies obviously thought I was guilty just because I’m a psychic. That’s insulting, and against the law anyway. We’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, damn it.”

He stroked a hand down my back, ending it with a pat between my shoulder blades. “Welcome to the real world.”

“The real world sucks.”

“You get used to it.”

I stepped away, turning to face him. “But I don’t have to like it.”

“No,” Nick agreed. “You don’t, but being angry over it is a waste of energy.”

“Maybe not. Wells thinks I’m dangerous, and he pissed me off, but I didn’t do anything to him.”

Nick raised his eyebrows. “And…?”

“He thought I was making people kill themselves all over town, so it should occur to him that I could’ve done something to him, and was angry enough to, but didn’t.”

“Considering both you and the boss made it clear you can’t control people the way he thought, I doubt the possibility will cross his mind.”

“Gah.” I threw my hands up and stalked to my office. Nick was probably right, which sucked. So much for my attempt at making lemonade from lemons. I started a pot of coffee, not having much else to do until after lunch, which is when I agreed to go to the station and begin helping by handling the clothing worn by the victims.

There were a million things I’d rather do, up to driving to the sea park in San Antonio and subjecting myself to the misery and anger of its aquatic residents. Or maybe the city pound. You haven’t really visited that sort of place until you’ve walked through and felt dogs afraid of being beaten or begging like hell for you to take them home before it’s their turn to visit the “Bad Room” no one ever returns from.

Becoming a psychic makes life a thousand times more difficult.

The only upside is using your abilities to make a difference, and that’s limited for two reasons. First, you can’t stay unshielded all the time, looking for opportunities to help people, because you’d go bonkers. Second, there are a lot of things you can’t change without crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Only people with major issues crossed those lines. Maybe I have some major issues, but megalomania isn’t one of them.

I pulled out the file on the lost dog, and poured and doctored a cup of coffee before sitting down to stare at the dog’s photo again. Princess was a registered Chihuahua with an “excellent pedigree” who’d gone missing, or had been stolen, five days prior.

Her owner, Vera Headley, was a nice lady whose reddened eyes made it clear she missed her little Princess. The Chihuahua looked like a tiny white doe, with her long legs, slender body, round skull and large, dark eyes. Precious, in a slightly freakish way.

So far, I’d had two flashes I knew were related to the case, unless my other client’s thief was less than a foot tall and had a hobby of hiding under bushes. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, what with the variety of small folk living in Santo Trueno.

Closing my eyes, I checked my mental folder to make certain the golden shimmer that represented Princess hadn’t disappeared. It was still present, which meant the tiny dog was alive.

Miss Headley had a dog walker who picked up Princess around noon every day for walkies, along with a half-dozen other small dogs. I’d already cleared the dog walker—not that my client thought the other woman guilty of anything except a momentary lapse of attention.

The dog walker, Eileen Smith, had stopped at a coffee shop’s walk-up window, and looked down while leaving the window to discover Princess missing. The dog either slipped her collar, or someone helped her do it, because it remained on the end of the leash.

Why they didn’t use a harness, I couldn’t guess. Those were safer for dogs with itty bitty necks.

Miss Headley had brought Princess’s royal purple doggy bed with her, and both Nick and Leglin took the Chihuahua’s scent from it. Neither had any luck trying to track her though. Too much traffic in the area where she’d disappeared. At least I’d gotten my first look at Nick as a wolf. I’d missed out on the only other time he’d changed due to being a little emotional after seeing myself sacrificed and realizing precognition had joined my other abilities.

He was a large wolf, covered in fur the same dark brown as his hair.

We’d basically gotten nowhere, and I really wanted to find the little dog. The city had been having some trouble with organized dog fighting. There’d been a big story on it a couple of months back, when someone found chewed up canine bodies, mostly small ones, dumped a few miles outside city limits.

The larger dogs had lost their fights, and the reporter said the others were “bait dogs”. I’d gotten sick reading the explanation.

I didn’t understand how anyone could look at a cute, tiny dog like Princess, and then deliberately throw her in the jaws of an abused, aggressive, much larger dog to be torn to pieces.

Of course, I can’t understand why anyone would want to abuse animals anyway, regardless of size or type.

With a deep sigh, I closed the folder and set it aside, wishing my tracking ability would kick in. Most of my abilities didn’t work just because I wanted them to. I’d put in enough practice with teleporting that it almost always worked.

Practicing didn’t mean success with my other abilities. My pyrokinesis and cryokinesis—fire and ice—worked about seventy-five percent of the time. Telekinesis—moving things around, including people—was one I had to block constantly, if I didn’t want stuff near me to start floating or zipping around. Fortunately, my telekinesis has a limited range of influence, not more than about two dozen feet, and I can’t lift a car or truck more than a few inches off the ground.

My empathy and telepathy were on all the time too, as far as receiving went. My other abilities—the ones I needed to help solve cases—tended to appear when they felt like it. Fortunately, they felt like it often enough to be useful, or I wouldn’t have my job.

At a tap on my office door, I looked up to find Mr. Whitehaven. “May I come in?”

“Sure.”

He did, closing the door before gingerly settling into one of the two chairs in front of my desk. My boss is eight feet tall, and the chair complained in response to his weight.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Whitehaven’s never judged me for my PSTD-related episodes. He’s always checked with me after any he’s aware of, but he doesn’t tend to push. The boss and Damian are two people I can talk to when I feel a need to talk. They’ve both seen some awful things. Not much shocks them.

It’s not like I can talk to my parents about my flashbacks or nightmares. Mom’s name isn’t Sunshine for nothing, and while my dad dealt calmly with my first case, he’s in advertising and doesn’t even watch scary movies.

I’ve never felt right burdening them with the horrors retro-cognition tends to leave me with. They’d both listen and try to help. I have no doubts on that score. But they don’t really live in the same world I do, and haven’t experienced the crap that comes with it.

Which is good, in my book. I don’t want them to have to deal with the blood and craziness. Some of that’s selfishness, because I need the break spending time with them offers. Most of it’s that I just don’t want them to have to deal with the crap I do.

Mr. Whitehaven smiled briefly. “Do you have any questions about the document?”

I did. “Why did Ginger come to you for that? Is it really a standard thing?”

“Yes, it is.” The chair creaked when he shifted slightly. “There are people among us who are trusted to keep various records. I’m one of them, and someone sympathetic to her wishes referred her to me.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a tradition from before the Melding, to avoid vendettas,” he said. “We simply added notarizing since humans place trust in it.”

Made sense. I nodded. “Okay.”

“While I don’t wish to pry, it appears that recently, you’re having fewer episodes.”

“Being busy helps.” Between work, the still-new relationship with Nick, and having Leglin as a roommate, I had less time to sit around and just think about stuff. Or rather, try not to think about stuff and have it fight back by flooding my brain.

He nodded and rose from the chair. “Remember I’m available when you feel the need to talk, Discordia.”

“I will. Thanks, boss.” We smiled at each other as warm fuzzies attacked my insides. I really do have a great support system, and count myself lucky because of it.

Whitehaven left, and I pulled out the file for my other case. I never know what might trigger my tracking ability, though questions seem to be in the Top Twenty list of things that wake it up.

At least, when they’re the right questions.

SIX

The right questions didn’t show themselves. Nick and I left the office early for lunch, in order to make our daily stop by the pound. He parked across the street and went inside with a photo of the Chihuahua while I waited.

Once had been enough of a visit for me, but Miss Headley’s work hours made it difficult for her to check daily before closing time. She worked as a dental hygienist and her boss wasn’t exactly an animal lover. Nick didn’t enjoy the task because the dogs reacted badly to his presence, barking, snarling, and howling.

After seeing what a concentrated doggy dose of frantic hope, fear, and despair did to me, he’d said he would do the daily check. I let him handle it, willing to compromise between his need to protect and my need to prove I could take care of myself. It’s not like he’d be physically hurt doing it, as he could be in other situations.

Mr. Whitehaven hired him specifically to protect me, and that was the one real problem in my relationship with Nick. When your job involves bad guys in any way, there’s always a risk of injury.

I can’t cut and run every time things get a little hairy, and really, what kind of person would I be to run out on someone I care about every time things get ugly when I have the abilities I do?

Answer: Not the kind of person I wanted to be.

Nick returned, shaking his head. “No sign of her.”

He handed me the photo, and I tucked it into the glove box. “I guess lunch and then the station.”

“Are you sure you want to eat before?”

“Yeah.” Food is fuel, and using my abilities takes energy. Ergo, a well-fed and -rested psychic is a well-armed psychic.

We decided on Indian food for lunch. Nick hadn’t tried many different types of cuisines before we met, and when I’d learned that, I made it a mission to introduce him to every sort of food I could think of.

“Spicy.” He gasped the word out, his eyes watering. I pushed his ice water closer, and grinned as he lifted it for a huge swallow.

“Too spicy?”

Nick shook his head. “No, I like it.”

I tried not to laugh as he took another large bite, more tears appearing in his eyes. He ate every bit of his curry, and drank five glasses of ice water to accomplish it. You had to admire a guy who finished the job at hand, no matter how painful it was.

***

“I’m not catching anything to tie them together.” I put down the woven rose shrug. “They all seem like normal people.”

Stannett frowned. “Not helpful.”

“Sorry. My tracking sense might decide to wake up later, or a vision might hit. I’ll let you know if that happens.” That was all I could offer through the headache determinedly smashing my brain. Heavy emotion left tracks, and I’d had to deal with the impressions left by seven terrified people as they died painful deaths.

Nick put his hand on my back. “She’s finished.”

“Go home and rest,” Damian said. “Let us know if you gain any insights.”

“I will.”

The four of us trooped out of the morgue into bright sunlight. I repressed a groan, digging in my purse for my shades. My phone went off, the first few bars of “Dancing in the Moonlight” playing. “It’s Logan. See you later, Damian.”

“Bye.”

I answered while we walked toward Nick’s truck. “Hey.”

“Hi. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could come by today? I have a couple more things I need your signature on.”

“Sure. In fact, we can head over now,” I said, ignoring Nick’s frown as he opened the passenger door for me.

“Good. See you shortly.”

“Yeah, bye.” Call ended, I looked at Nick. “What?”

“You’re in pain, yet Logan calls, and you’re jumping to respond.”

“I want my car back. He can’t order parts and stuff without my okay.”

Nick shut the door once I was inside, and started right back up as soon as he slid behind the wheel. “It could wait.”

“I want my car back.” I buckled the seat belt. My friends understood what my car meant to me, but Nick didn’t really get it. Plus, he had a jealousy problem where the older shifter was concerned. “You’d miss your truck if you didn’t have it.”

“I’d drive one of the pack vehicles.”

Releasing a groan, I laid my head back. “Until you have a car or truck you fall in love with, you’re not going to understand why my car is so important to me.”

He started the engine. “You sure it’s the car?”

“Oh, you didn’t just…argh.” Lifting my head, I snatched off my shades to glare at him. “What is your problem with Logan? You aren’t jealous of Damian or David.”

“They’re human.”

“Debatable, since they’re witches—I mean warlocks. But what the hell does that have to do with anything?”

Lips compressed, Nick didn’t answer. I pushed. “Seriously, is this one of those canine versus feline things? Because you guys are part human too, and really shouldn’t let…”

“I don’t like him, okay?” The words burst out of him. “He’s conveniently around whenever you’re alone and in trouble. He’s conveniently a mechanic who could fix your car. Everything about him is too damn convenient.”

“I…you…he was a mechanic before my car got trashed. He lives in the Palisades, Nick. It’s not like he can make my tracking sense flip on or anything.” I nearly poked an eye out, putting my shades back on. “And he is not around every time I run into trouble. Besides that, he covered your ass when you were down when we were fighting demons. You should be nicer to him for that, if nothing else.”

His jaw set before Nick ground out, “He likes you.”

“I hope so, since we’re friends and he’s putting my car back together.” I released a sharp sigh. “Look, you don’t need to be jealous of him. You’re the guy I’m seeing and sleeping with. I picked you, remember?”

“Before you met him.”

“Oh for God’s sake.” I threw both hands into the air. “Dude, seriously, drop it right now. I’m getting mad.”

“Why?”

“Because you obviously don’t trust me, that’s why. Thanks a lot.” I folded my arms across my chest and turned my head to stare out the window. A few minutes of silence and a mile of honey mesquite passed.

“I trust you, Cordi.”

I snorted. “Sure.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“If you trust me, it shouldn’t matter whether you trust him or not.” The drum in my head pounded double time. I hated relationship drama.

“He’s bigger and stronger than you.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I twisted around in the seat to face him, and opened them. “So?”

“The stronger males always get the girls.” Nick’s grip on the steering wheel turned his knuckles white, and a muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.

“Oh, wait a minute. Is this a shifter thing? Because human women don’t necessarily pick the big, strong guys. A lot pick the smart guys, and not every smart guy is big and strong. Besides, I’m not a shifter.”

He chewed that over for a minute. “They really don’t?”

“Maybe they do in your pack, and yeah, I guess the club scene’s full of girls going after the good-looking types, but that’s not necessarily reality the world over, okay?” God, I hoped this would put an end to his jealousy toward Logan. It was completely irrational.

Sure, Logan was good-looking and I’d noticed. More than once. But we were just friends, and I was dating Nick. I’d told an elf interested in me that Nick was my boyfriend. An elf!

Okay, that particular elf, gorgeous as he was, had a problem being truthful and had nearly gotten me killed, making me Number One on the demon hit list, but still. I probably could’ve had him for a boyfriend if I wanted to, and hello? Gorgeous elf.

Aware Nick hadn’t said anything, I frowned. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re good-looking. You’re a heaping helping of hot and sexy.”

He half-smiled. “Thanks.”

“Besides, do you honestly think Logan would try to, I don’t even know how to word it. Um…force me into a relationship with him? Exactly how would he go about doing that, what with my being psychic and all?”

His shoulders hunched a bit. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think about that.”

I unbuckled my seat belt and scooted over. “I’m with you, okay? You’re my guy. Quit being jealous. It pisses me off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” I kissed his cheek while buckling the lap belt. “Just look at him the same way you do Damian and David. He’s a friend, that’s all.”

“I’ll try.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“You already said that.”

“I’m saying it again.”

I laughed and put my head on his shoulder. It looked like our drama bout was over. “Then I guess I’ll accept it again.”

***

When we arrived at the garage, Nick pulled into the drive of the first bay door, which was open. I got out on his side instead of scooting back over, and looked around for my car. The four vehicles I could see were larger than my “little tin can,” as Nick called my beloved 280ZX.

Logan came around the front of the truck, a clipboard in hand. “I need you to sign these, and if you want, come take a look at my progress.”

“Sure.” I took the clipboard and pen he offered, following as he set off for the far end of the garage. Nick touched my back, steering me past a pair of legs sticking out from under a car, while I signed the first purchase order.

“Well, what do you think?”

I looked up from the clipboard at Logan’s question, and my mouth fell open. Closing it, I squealed and shoved the clipboard into Nick’s hands. “My baby!”

My car sat gleaming in the afternoon sun coming in through a high-set window. Even the tires shone. I hurried around it, touching the smooth, root beer brown metallic paint and peering into the windows. The only sounds I could make were
oohs
and
ahhs
between excited squeaks.

He’d brought my car back to life. Not a scratch or dent marred its metal hide. The interior smelled like new car when I flung the driver’s door open and sank behind the wheel.

The only thing different was the stereo. It wasn’t stock, but having considered upgrading it before, that wasn’t a problem. Noticing the key in the ignition, I pushed in the clutch and started it.

My baby roared to life and settled into a deep purr. Putting my forehead against the steering wheel, I nearly cried as a rush of pure happiness filled me.

“I’m sorry about the stereo,” Logan said. I sat back, discovering that he and Nick had come around to the driver’s side. My boyfriend’s eyebrows were raised, but he wore a smile. “Finding a stock st…”

“Doesn’t matter. The new one is awesome. My car is awesome. You’re awesome. I can’t believe it looks so damn good. It looks better than before! I owe you forever.”

Both of them laughed, but I didn’t care. I had my independence back.