The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) (26 page)

“So I breathed
fire, but he was wearing fleece,” I pointed out. “It’s the fleece that did more
damages.”

“Of course, he is
100% to be blamed. But the result was impressive,” Henderson said. “Oh cookies,
yum.” Then he nibbled on a cookie.

“Is it?”  I tilted
my head to one side, keeping my best straight face. “They are gifts from
Patricia Warshawski and I was wondering if it’s safe to eat those cookies.”

Henderson choked
and drained it with coffee. “Thank you for the coffee instead of matcha green
tea, I appreciate it.” He managed to say, still coughing.

“You’re welcome.
And don’t worry, Karen delivered the cookies.” I snorted out laughing. “Patricia
sent us the Four Seasons gift certificate. So I went there and purchased a
chocolate cake, and we ate the cake already.”

I intended to send
her a thanks note but whenever I tried to work on it, I always end up writing
“Thank
you so much for the gift certificate. It was nice of you. Feel free to visit us
whenever you like. We have a good selection of coffee, tea, soft drink, wine,
beer, and if you ask, I can mix nice drink such as Molotov cocktail.”
Seriously, I was having anger-management issues.

“So,” Henderson
said, clearing his throat.

“So what?”
Archangel tilted his head to one side.

“We appreciate
your acceptance of our offer. It was very generous of you, I mean both of you.”

“And?” Archangel shrugged.
“You have a question. It’s all in the air.”

“Do I need reasons
to pay a visit to my injured friend? Ouch. That really hurts.” Henderson said
in a mock defense. Archangel and I gave him blank stares.

Henderson cleared
his throat. “Well, as you’ve predicted, all DNA samples discovered from the
victims’ eye sockets have matched Kelly Deuchars’s, née Dowson’s DNA; biological
mother of Alan Hamilton’s. Michael, you were right.”

“I told you,”
Archangel said matter-of-factly.

“Actually, I was
wondering how you came up with the theory that the killer was not just stealing
the eyeballs out of the victims but he was poking the eyeballs out of victims
in order to put other eyeballs into the victim’s empty eye sockets.”

“Well, Henderson.”
Archangel placed the coffee cup on the low table. “I just put two and two
together. In all cases, eyeballs were poked out of the victims before the
owners had expired, and I thought about the reason why the killer had kept them
alive as long as possible. It was possible that the killer just enjoyed making
the victims miserable, by maximizing their torment and suffering. Then again,
if snatching the eyeballs was his purpose, dead victims would have made the job
much easier. Later, I learned about the incident in London that eyeballs got
snatched out of a dead woman’s corpse except in this case, the cause of death
was liver cirrhosis, not a murder. That’s the first time I started wondering
what those eyeballs from London were doing, and where they were. Then next step
was kind of like a first grade math drill, one plus one equals two; and, two
minus one equals one—just like that. As much as the eyeless body were missing
the poked out eyeballs, the eyeballs must have been missing the body to be
encased. Albeit planting dead person’s eyeballs into other people’s eyeless
body never works to resuscitate the dead, sometimes a little slice of insanity
does the job to make someone to believe the impossible—such as the case with Alan
Hamilton. But at that moment, I was short on evidence. And the next thing, Karen
was abducted and Frederick Reynolds had committed a
suicide
. That made everything
a little bit tricky”

Henderson rolled
his eyes. “Speaking of Karen and her
suicide
, I’ve never seen an
eight-year-old who stages her own death using tennis balls and a scarf. And I
hope it’s the last, seriously.”

“Karen’s special,
but she’s got eight-year-old trait as well.” I commented. “She was so happy
that her mom canceled the snobby camp her soon to be ex-husband was about to
send Karen. Instead, she’ll be hitting Disney World for the whole summer.”

“I see,” Henderson
nodded. He wasn’t all that convinced that Karen had accidentally stumbled upon
the killer, but he didn’t delve into that matter any deeper.

Karen was also
happy that her mom’s going to tag around her during the whole vacation, and
that her mother had filed for divorce as soon as Karen came back unscathed.
Karen’s soon to be ex-faux-dad had already paid for the Disney vacation as a
goodbye gift. So far, it was going happily ever after for the girl-genius slash
girl-psychic.  

“By the way
Michael, how did you reach Alan Hamilton?” Henderson asked.

“Are you sure you
want to know that?” Archangel arched an eyebrow.

“Positive,” nodded
Henderson.

“Actually, I
didn’t reach Hamilton on my own. Kelly led me to him.” Archangel shrugged.

“I’m not quite
following.” Henderson deepened his frown.

“Me neither.” I
said.

“I’ve asked the
forensics to test blood samples taken from victims’ eye sockets prior to getting
sidelined. One of the forensics had kindly sent me test results after the sidelining,
and it turned out that each sample contained identical female DNA that did not match
the victims’ DNA. That was the moment that my theory was confirmed. In the meantime,
the Scotland Yard had finally identified the eyeless dead woman, and they attached
an old photo of her, a.k.a. Alan Hamilton’s biological mother.”

“After all, they
had different family names and everything. I can’t believe you’ve managed to track
him so fast.” Henderson said.

“Well,” on the
other hand, Archangel fidgeted with words. “Actually, I didn’t track him down. But
seeing the photo of her and I realized Kelly’s at a great risk of getting
targeted for his next prey. So I tried to warn Kelly but it was too late. It
turned out that the lack of time was an issue.”

“So, how did you
find me?” I asked.

“Dumb luck? You
don’t want to know.”  

“I want to know,”
pressed Henderson. “Tell.”

Archangel
shrugged. “It was lucky Kelly had GPS devices with her, and that Hamilton
brought her purse to his house, instead of dumping it somewhere. Probably, it
had sentimental meaning for him as a souvenir to remember his achievement, devotion,
or something like that. So I had got the address, and I knew his name from
looking at the mailbox, but that was about it. He didn’t have a door bell, I
banged the door but got no answer. GPS was still indicating that house. That
was the moment I was convinced that he’s the killer.”

“But I didn’t have
GPS with me. My old phone was from stone ages when phones didn’t have GPS.” I
took a glance of my brand new smartphone. “Unlike this one.”

“But you were
carrying the keys including my car and home keys. They have GPS implanted.” He
said nonchalantly. “I don’t like it when my keys go missing somewhere.”

“Excuse me?” I
gasped. “Does it mean you’ve been tracking me down 24/7 since I started working
with you? Like, nonstop surveillance? What’s happened to my privacy?”

“Hey, stop looking
at me like a stalker. I said you don’t want to know. Besides that, I thought
you’d look cuter when your eyeballs are still attached to where they belong to.”

“Oh, now I know
how you
accidentally
came across me in London! You tracked me down with
GPS. You know what, that’s outrageous.”  

“No, not that
time. You left the keys home. I just presumed you’d be visiting your ex in
Belmarsh. OK, so I called the prison to see if you were visiting there,” Archangel
shrugged. “Besides that, you said you don’t want to know how I located you.”

“You’re
impossible, Mr. Archangel.” I did an eye roll. I tried to sound offended, but
couldn’t help giggling.

“Couldn’t you have
at least let me know before you went there on your own, Archangel?” Henderson
scowled. “Are you aware you’ve taken an extreme risk that posed a significant threat
to your lives?”

“Alerting you was
not a realistic option, you know. It would have definitely taken time to track
him down, and then comes the paperwork such as search warrant. Oh, do you
remember I was officially sidelined with the contract being revoked and
everything?”

Arms crossed, Henderson
took a deep, calming breath. “I said I was sorry.”

“Apology
accepted,” Archangel snorted.

“By the way, Agent
Henderson, would you like to have my new phone number?” I said, partly in an
attempt to ease the atmosphere. “There will be times you’d need to call me,
just like the way it used to be.”

“I would
appreciate it. Gimme a ring,” Henderson said. I ringed his number just once and
disconnected.

“Speaking of phones,
what made you replace it?” Registering my new number to speed-dial, Henderson
asked.

“The old one
died.” I shrugged. “Shattered to bits.”

“Did that happen
when you got abducted by the killer? If that’s the case, I can help you recover
the loss from the feds.”

“Thank you for the
offer. But no thanks. It happened later on, something’s happened. Anyway, that
was a very old phone.”

“What happened?”
Henderson furrowed his brows, seriously confused.

“You don’t need to
know.” Archangel and I said in a unison and I broke out giggling.

“Stop grinning
like an idiot, Kelly,” Archangel said, crossing his arms.

But I didn’t miss one
corner of his lips lifting up ever so slightly. And the melting baby blues.

When Dr. Donahue had released
Archangel from the medical center, the night was no longer young. On my way to
deliver Archangel safely to his house, I made a stop at my place to grab some fresh
clothes and a toothbrush. He didn’t ask why; he was on pain meds and quietly
dozing off.

He was still pale
and for the first time, he looked uncharacteristically vulnerable. I didn’t
want to leave him alone. A big house sounds fancy, but it’s just a nuisance bordering
on dangerous, especially when you have to go around with one leg.

Thanks to his late
distant aunt, the house had an elevator which was useful when I took
semi-coherent Archangel to his bedroom on a rented wheelchair. I helped him lie
down on his king bed with his injured leg elevated on the pillows. Then I left his
bedroom. 

One hour later, I
was sitting by his bedside, putting an ice bag on his left leg in a temporary splint
cast. Even under dimmed light, it was visible that the purple bruises had spread
furthermore down to the toenails. His leg looked totally painful.

“Itai no itai no
tonde ike.” I was mumbling a little spell I heard when I was little.

“What did you just
say?” Archangel asked in a soft voice.

“Did I wake you
up?” Caught by surprise, I felt my cheeks get hot. I could think of many
reasons but the biggest one is I thought he wasn’t listening.

“No, I was awake…
for about a minute,” he yawned. “So, what does that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a Japanese spell,
meaning
Pain, pain, go away
.”

“Nice. I guess
it’s kinda like working,” he raised a corner of his lips, and then casually
asked. “By the way Kelly, what are you doing in my bedroom?”

“I was placing an
ice bag on your leg,” I replied, “to help the swelling go down. Doctor’s
advice.”

“Thanks,” he tried
to sit up and winced.

“Take it easy.”

“It’s okay…ouch,” groaning,
he sat up anyway. “Got some water? I’m having a cottonmouth. Maybe it’s the
meds.”

“Sure,” I opened a
bottled water on the night table and handed it to him. Good thing I had fetched
two of them from the kitchen.

“Thanks,” he took
a gulp of it.

“My pleasure,” I
said, adjusting the ice bag.  “For your information, you don’t want to move
a lot, and even when you need to move, stay off the bad leg, okay? You don’t
want the bone to move away from where it’s supposed to be.”

“It’s just a clean
break and I don’t need a surgery, right?” Handing me the bottle back, he
glanced at his leg propped up on pillows. “Eww, it looks like a mummy leg.” He grimaced.
The heavy bandage started from the base of the toes and went up to just below
the knee.

“Hopefully, no
surgery. Tomorrow, I mean this afternoon,” I looked at the clock hanging from
the wall indicating 2 o’clock in the morning. “You’ll have an MRI to see the
extent of soft tissue damage, and it’s up to the MRI results to determine if
you can just go with a cast, or proceed with a surgical option. Dr. Donahue was
a bit concerned about the swelling and bruising. Hey, you really shouldn’t have
walked around on this leg.”

“At first it
didn’t hurt that much, so I figured that it was just a sprain,” he shrugged and
lay down. Twitching the sausage toes peekabooing from the bandage, he frowned.
“But I get your point.”

“Are you in much
pain?”

“I’ll live,” he
closed his eyes. “My current biggest problem is that I’ve got to dig out my
men’s clothes from the bottom of the closet. Obviously, I can’t wear heels, or
rather, a heel. And I’d look silly in skimpy women’s clothes with a men’s sneaker.
This sucks.”

“Don’t worry. You
look just fine in men’s clothes,” I told him. “Hey, I’ll give you a pedi when
your leg’s set in a real cast. That’ll cheer you up, right?”

“You sure?” Long
lashes fluttered as he opened the eyes. A hint of smile appeared at the corner
of his mouth.

“Yup, pinky swear.”

“Very funny, but
nice,” he said. “Maybe it’s about time to ditch women’s clothes. Transvestite
thing’s been getting old these days. Still, I can use a pedi, those purple
toenails are simply depressing. I’ll have yellow pedi, yellow goes well with
the purple bruises, you know. By the way Kelly, you smell like my shampoo.”

I felt like Goldilocks
just caught sleeping in little bear’s bed. “I took a bath and borrowed your
shampoo. You know, I had to wash off death, Eyeball Snatcher, and burnt flesh
cooties. I should have asked you, but you were asleep and I didn’t want to
disturb you.”

“No problem. You
can stay here. Take any of the guest rooms you like,” he said breezily.

“Thank you, but I
don’t feel like staying at your guest room,” I said, giggling. I didn’t know
why I was giggling but I couldn’t stop it. “I’m a little bit freaked out, you
know. I haven’t breathed fire for a while and I’ve never actually burned a
person with my fire and gosh, it feels terrible.”

I thought I was giggling
and the next thing, I was babbling, hyperventilating, and crying at the same
time. I was shaking like a junky. It was like the panic, agitation and fear I
should have felt earlier had suddenly arrived, saying something like:
“Sorry
I’m late, heavy traffic and there was this accident involving ten vehicles, can
you believe that?”

“Take a deep
breath. Kelly, you did the right thing,” he took my hand and pulled me close.
He caressed my cheeks and brushed the tears away. “If you hesitated, both you
and Karen, and even I might have gotten killed. You saved us all, sort of.
Remember, you did the right thing.”

“You think?” I
sniffed and rested my head on his chest. Listening to his heartbeat for twenty
seconds made me feel much better.

“Yeah. Don’t cry,
I really hate it when you cry,” he said, patting my hand. “Besides that, you
need to rest.”

“Resting can wait.
Right now, I’m scared of closing my eyes all by myself.”

“Alright then,”
Archangel said after a couple of moments, “If you promise not to kick my bad
leg, you can sleep here,” he patted the empty space by his right side.

“Oh…” I muttered. Jeez
Louise, it was not something I had anticipated, or expected.

“One question,” I
said.

“Don’t worry,
you’re not getting pregnant,” he shrugged. “Did I mention my leg’s still throbbing?”

“That’s not the
one in my mind, but do you want one more pain pill?”

“Can I have it
mouth to mouth?” he grinned playfully.

“Well, it sounds
like you don’t need it,” I commented, lightly punching his arm.

“Hey, don’t forget
I’m injured. Just because I don’t need another pain meds right now doesn’t mean
I’m unscathed.” He chuckled. “So, go ahead, ask your question.”

“Have you ever
been romantically involved with my mother?”

“No. Never,” he snorted
out laughing and flinched. “Hey, don’t make me laugh. I’ve met her only once or
twice, and she was dating an associate of my uncle’s. We talked about many
things, like Korin Ogata’s screens, Rinpa school paintings, and the current
trends in Far East art scene. Anyway, it was great meeting her.”

“Good, excellent,”
I snuggled in his bed. “I was just asking. It’s my motto not to sleep on the
same bed with a guy whom my mother has slept with.”

“I see,” he said,
fumbling with the remote on the night stand, killing the light. “Good night.”

Soon, Archangel’s
soft breathing filled the dark and I started to doze off as well, then my phone
started beeping on the chair I left it on.

“What’s that?”
Archangel groaned.

“My phone, sorry,
I’m switching it off,” I apologized.

“No, don’t just
switch it off. Take the call,” he told me. “Unless it’s from Henderson. If it’s
him, just ignore it. He’ll get all antsy but he’ll have to wait.”

I flipped open the
phone to see a caller ID starting with 4420, a London number. “Hello?” I
answered.

“Hello, darling,
it’s me,” on the other side, an elderly man said in a chipper tone. Silently, I
sucked in air.

“Who is it?” I
said with the warmth of absolute zero temperature to Warren Bernadoff Estevez.

I felt my already
tense body got stiffen up even more to the point I started wondering if I was
having a heart attack.

“It’s Warren,
gosh, it hurts when you don’t recognize me, luv,” he started without any signs
of shame, or common sense.

“Warren who?” I
said innocently.

Soft light spilled
into the darkness, Archangel mouthed if I wanted him to talk. I shook my head
and snapped to the person at the other end. “Stop
luv-
ing
on me.”

“Don’t be cruel to
your husband, luv,” he said in his signature soft-convincing tone. “It’s
suddenly occurred to me that you are the one I needed. You’re the one and only
who can help me out of the hellhole.”

“No, that’s so
wrong,” I declared. “I will not help you out of whatever place you are, and no
can help you. After all, you have lied to, deceived, and defrauded every single
person with a pulse, including but not limited to yours truly. Hasn’t it ever occurred
to you that I know you’re happily remarried to a lawyer yet? How naïve do you
think I am? You need someone to talk to, then call your lawyer wife, not me. Understood?”

“Oh Kelly, I was
not thinking clearly when I had left you. So, please take me back,” he begged.

“In your dreams,”
I told him. “I’ve moved on, just like you had suggested. After all, we’re not
married anymore. You made that clear years ago.”

Carrying the phone
away from my face, I giggled in my best sultry voice. “No, darling… it’s just
some loser playing a random prank. Ooh… of course, I love you too…” I made a
kissy noise just to annoy the hell out of the lying, cheating bastard who’s got
to spend centuries in prison just to rot.

And the next
thing, I stopped breathing.

My lips were
locked with Archangel’s lips.

Michael Archangel was
kissing me.

Not just a soft,
gentle smooch on the cheek, but a hot-n’-wet real deep kiss. With lots of
tongues. Just-shuddup-and-kiss kiss. His lips were soft and slightly feverish,
and he was holding me tight…Omigod, he was a good kisser.

Many things
flashed in my mind and then went through. For the first time in my life, I knew
what it meant to have a little slice of heaven. Tightly, I held back onto him
and kissed back.

CRASH!—
echoed
a sound in the room. But I didn’t care. I was busy. Suppose some major natural
disaster or nuclear missile attack was taking a place, I would have just let it
go and went on with my current task.

Time had passed in
slow motion.

“Sorry,” Archangel
whispered when our lips had finally detached. He was breathing fast. “I thought
a little sound effect would come handy to put an emphasis on your statement.” He
loosened his embrace on me.

“Stop apologizing,
or I’ll start crying again,” I told him. I was breathless, lightheaded and
panting. “I liked it. No, I loved it, seriously.” I didn’t tell him I would
have jumped his bones if he wasn’t injured and running a fever.

“That’s not what I
meant, I said I was sorry about your phone,” with his hand, he pointed to the
floor on my side. “I’m afraid it’s broken, sounded worse than the moment my
ankle got snapped.”

“My phone?” I took
a glance at the floor. The old cellphone from stone-age that I had been
clinging to all those years was shattered into bits and pieces on the hardwood.
A total demolition.

I glanced at the
dismembered phone and then at Michael Archangel by my side, hoisting his upper
body on one arm, looking into my face with his deep blues.

“Good,” I said. “I
was planning to replace it anyway, with a new phone number and everything.” Then
I cuddled onto him. It seemed as if the destruction of the ancient phone
symbolized the beginning of a new phase of my life. “I’m moving on.”

“Kelly, aren’t you
going to clean up the mess?” Archangel asked. He tends to get a little
control-freakish sometimes.

“Try switching off
the light,” I suggested. “If it doesn’t work, then close your eyes.”

“Hey, come on,
killing the light, shutting my eyes don’t work, I still know I’ve got a mess on
my floor.”

“Alright,” I gave
a resigned sigh, got out of the bed and cleaned the mess by picking up
relatively large fragments and tossing them into the dustbin. I knew it was
easier than persuading him. “Happy?”

“You could use
more thoroughness but tonight, I’ll pretend that I don’t feel the mess.”

“Thank you very
much,” I said, snuggling back into the bed. “Considering you’ve twisted my arm
to clean the floor, that’s very generous of you.”

“At least you didn’t
twist an ankle. Lucky you.” He retorted but I sensed an ear-to-ear grin in his
voice. Also, he gave a quick peck on my ear.

I started to
smile.

That was the night
my phone had died.