Chapter 26

Apparently, I don’t normally sleep with my mouth wide open. I realized as much only because I woke to a crusty, dry tongue from nearly six hours of mouth-breathing, and a cat spooned around my head like a sideways mohawk. The tabby. I sat up, and it turned a few circles, picking at my pillow, then settled in and got comfy in the dent my head left behind.

I knuckled sleep out of my eyes. It felt good. So, groggy and disoriented, I went at it a little harder. But then I realized it felt a little too good. And when I stopped rubbing, it burned.

Just what I needed. Pinkeye.

I was sipping coffee with a warm compress on my eye socket when Jacob slogged it downstairs. “I’m coming down with something,” I told him. “Got anything I can take in your battery of vitamins that’ll knock it out?”

“Let me see.” He took my chin in his hand and scrutinized my eyes. “You must be allergic.”

And I find out now? “Hooray.”

“Stop rubbing them,” he said. If I wasn’t supposed to rub my eyes, it shouldn’t feel so damn good. But given that relief never followed, I’d have to figure out a way to abstain. “We’ll pick up some antihistamines on the way to the office.”

It would take him another half an hour to get out the door, and I figured it was in my best interest to stop breathing cat. “Actually, the range is open now, so I think I’ll swing by there first and see if there’s anything more they can tell me about Andy’s bullet.” 

I found Agent Watts taking inventory in the armory. “Well, if it isn’t Fifth Precinct,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve decided to be proactive about your re-testing.”

“Actually, I just wanted to find out how much a bullet could tell us.”

“Sure. I’ll help you with that. Just as soon as we do some kneeling drills.”

I had no desire to scuff up the knees of my new black slacks for the sake of appeasing her, but since I could tell she wasn’t gonna take no for an answer—and since I had no desire to surrender my service weapon in thirty days—I forced my way through the training.

My performance was so mediocre, Watts didn’t even need to come up with an insult for me to feel bad about it. And the info she could give me about the bullet wasn’t much help, either. According to ballistics, it was .35 caliber and fired from a Beretta. According to Watts, it was one of ours. Unfortunately, that wasn’t terribly helpful, since it could’ve come from about two-thirds of the agents’ service weapons.

“So what you’re telling me is that we monitor what everyone has for breakfast, but we give out ammo like it’s candy.”

“If you had a casing for me, I might have more to go on. But a bullet? I’d have to shoot some test rounds from the weapon it came from and compare the rifling.”

The casing is the part that flies out when you fire and hopefully doesn’t hit you in the eye—it holds in all the explosive stuff that propels the shot. If this piece of evidence was anywhere, it would be at the crime scene…if the killer didn’t pick it up and put it in his pocket.

I’d really been hoping to give Jacob something more substantial.

I made my way to my car, dispirited and lost in an allergic fog. I was so distracted it took me a few seconds to register that someone had called my name, more than once. This morning, Jack Bly wore a black knit hat against the brutal January cold, but I knew him well enough by now to spot him even without the shaved head. “You’re here early,” he said.

“Yeah. I’m hoping the nickname Fifth Precinct doesn’t stick.”

He shook his head in commiseration. “PsyCops aren’t recruited for their marksmanship, that’s for sure.” He gazed out over the sea of Lexuses in the range’s parking lot. “I get that we’re training our muscle memory here, but there’s something about shooting at a target that just isn’t the same. Not that I want to fire at another human being. But it makes a big difference when I feel it in the target—” he thumped his sternum. “That cold, ugly spike of hatred. When I know someone would snuff me out without a single regret….”

“You shot a guy?”

“Didn’t have to, thank God. My Stiff subdued him. I think about it, though. A split second later and the perp would’ve had three rounds to the chest. Even though he was a scumbag, how would I sleep at night if I ended up pulling that trigger?”

I could only imagine. Between my Seconal embargo and my newfound cat allergies, I had enough trouble making it through dawn. No comfort for me between the sheets, and none in my new office, for that matter. With a building full of people who weren’t creeped out by psychic ability, fitting in at the FPMP had seemed like it would be easy. How wrong I was.

“Say,” I asked him, “when you met Darla, did you tweak something in her head?”

Bly narrowed his eyes. “Ethical considerations aside—people I deal with on a regular basis, any influence I exert on them will only come back and bite me in the ass. Learned that the hard way. Why do you ask?”

“She was just so nice to you.”

He shrugged. “Lots of women are nice to me nowadays.”

“That’s not what I meant. She’s one of the most intense, vindictive people I’ve ever met. But you shrugged off her interest and she didn’t even bat an eyelash.”

“Ah,” he said knowingly. I might’ve felt myself blush. “Now it makes more sense.”

“What does?”

“The discomfort between the two of you.”

“So she’s pissed off I wasn’t into her, there’s no reason for her to take it so personally. Wrong gender. End of story.”

“Can’t say whether or not that was at the root of the issue, but that’s definitely not what I’m getting now. She’s hurting. Humiliated. People feel like that—they get defensive. If I were you, I’d figure out how to make it up to her. All that damage isn’t gonna go away by itself.”

Was it easier to handle relationships, I wondered, empathically sensing exactly how the people around you felt? Or was it more like hitting those damn targets? You know how to fire a gun, and you know where you want the bullet to go…but thanks to that pesky detail known as “aim,” regardless of all your good intentions, you end up wounding the people you care about most?

When all was said and done, I guess it didn’t really matter, since Jacob was empath kryptonite, and that was the relationship I really cared about screwing up. “All the insight you get from your talent—is it a help or a hindrance? Are you better at knowing what makes people tick, or when you run across a real Stiff, does it throw you for a loop?”

“I guess it levels the playing field. But I suppose it only makes sense.”

I waited for him to elaborate. And when he didn’t, I said, “What does?”

“Laura hiring a Stiff as her point of contact. What better way to make sure she’s impartial with all her agents?”

“Patrick? Huh.” His promotion from The Clinic made a lot more sense now. And while I had no intention of letting down my guard with him to the point where I really bared my soul, it was encouraging to know that if I ever did, the secrets that might slip out wouldn’t be fair game for one of the numerous FPMP mind-readers.

* * *

Keeping Patrick on my good side was only part of my plan. If I was going to be successful at the FPMP, I needed Darla’s help. No two ways about it. Not only was she a legit medium, she was smart, focused, and a hell of a hard worker. And if she over-accessorized the room, so what? I could ditch all that stuff once she went back home.

I was supposed to be tracking down information on shamans. Hopefully they would either be mediums themselves, or if not, they might’ve worked with some potential mediums in their tribe. However, it was phenomenally difficult to stay on task. If anyone understands what it’s like to feel humiliated, it should be me. But how had I humiliated Darla? Especially since that was the last thing I’d been trying to do. In fact, it was the opposite. I’d been trying to spare her feelings.

I should probably just apologize and get it over with. And yet, I worried about making it worse. Because all I needed was for her to say, what are you sorry for? to totally derail my efforts.

I sat back, rubbed my eyes—dammit—and said, “I really need to give Laura something concrete.”

“First name basis with the director?” Darla sneered.

Yeah, vague apologies would definitely not fly. “I’m trying, here.”

“Well, try harder. I had a weekend getaway booked that I’ll have to cancel because of this wild goose chase.”

“You’ve got a life, I get it. We all do. But the director is right, if a segment of our agents is susceptible to possession, we need to figure out how to get ahead of it.”

“We have five first-person case studies to start with,” she said. “At least, we would, if you’d stop being so weird about telling us what you know.”

“I’m not being weird. Carl? Back me up here.”

He gave us a brief look, and said nothing.

“Well, what about Jacob?” Darla asked me.

“What about him?”

“I didn’t get a chance to look at his ID….”

Because she was busy checking out his other assets. “Yeah, he has that effect on people.”

“Better put a ring on him before he comes to his senses.” She thought for a moment. “So, what’s his talent?”

“NP,” I lied. Only because Jacob’s abilities were off the books. Not because I was being weird about what I knew.

“So let’s say you really can’t remember. If NPs are potential targets, particularly the ones who work here, you’ve got good reason to figure this out, for his sake. There are ways to dredge up things you’ve forgotten, y’know. Go back to the neighborhood where you grew up. Check out your schools, playgrounds, arcades. See if any of your old friends are still around.”

I knuckled my eye again. Damn it. Did I need to handcuff myself to the freaking desk? “Y’know, just because you had two parents and a normal childhood full of normal memories doesn’t mean everybody else did too.”

She whipped around to face me. “Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Oh my God, you’re…. Since when are you so hypersensitive?”

“I have allergies.”

With thinly disguised impatience, Carl interjected, “And while you two are busy arguing, agents are getting themselves killed. Figure this out so Director Kim can put her focus where it matters.”

“Whatever,” Darla said. “So far we’ve got three solid origin stories: the Skype shaman seeing a dead relative, Faun Windsong getting a little too good with the Ouija board, and me learning Cantonese. Since Richie is Richie and he’ll say anything to get attention, I’m not sure I buy the haunted TV set, but I’ll chalk that up as a ‘maybe.’ Even so, that’s hardly enough to form a cohesive picture. We need more than just three reliable mediums.”

We pondered that for a moment, then Carl said, “What about the person who trained you both at Heliotrope Station?”

Darla and I both looked at each other. “I didn’t even think of talking to Miss Maxwell,” she said.

“Me neither. So it’s just a matter of tracking her down.”

* * *

I found Patrick at his desk, reading something in a three-ring binder. Without even seeing the words, I could tell it was bone dry and phenomenally tedious. “So I was wondering if you could help me locate a Psych,” I said.

“Sure. And not that I mind the company, but you could’ve saved yourself a trip and sent an email.”

“I forgot my password.” That sounded less incompetent than I have no idea how to use my computer.

“Your email login? Or…?”

“All of them.”

“Let’s see if I’ve got the clearance to look them up.”

“You can do that? I thought email was encrypted.”

He flipped back a few pages in his reading material. “Generally speaking, but with the right clearance…just don’t forward any off-color jokes and you’ll be fine.” He moused and clicked and keyed stuff in, and finally pulled up some sort of record. “I’m in. And…it looks like you never set it up. Here.” My phone chirped. “I sent you a temporary login code for your email.” 

“Cool. Thanks.” I had no great love of email. Mainly I was thanking him for not calling my bluff. 

He jotted down something else on a slip of paper. “And here’s the weekly login for your station. It’s emailed every Friday afternoon. Memorize it for the following week.”

Given my memory, fat chance of that happening. “So can you get me some contact info from old Heliotrope Station? Not that new place that assumed the name, but the old training facility on the southwest side.”

“I can try. Who’re you looking for?”

“Maxwell.” And…damn. Pretty safe to say, her first name wasn’t Miss. “Female. Caucasian. She was there about fifteen years ago. Approximate age? Try fifty to sixty. And if it helps, she was a medium.”

“You think she’s connected to the leak?”

“No, the mediumship project.”

“I’ll bet Laura will be really excited if you can make headway with that. It makes more sense to play to your strengths anyway. But Agent Lipton, Agent Garcia…what’s next for them?”

“They’re fine, they’re safe. Agent Marks has it handled.”

“Great! So, listen, I was thinking, if you can make the time, maybe we can hit the range before work tomorrow morning, together. I’d kinda like having the emotional support. I know it’s paranoid, but I feel like every time someone hands me a box of ammunition, they want to roll their eyes and tell me to aim at the target, not the wall.”

I dunno, that’s what I always figured they were thinking about me. “Sure, yeah. I’ll meet you there by seven.”

I went back to my office and logged in to my desktop, then found my FPMP email and opened it. When I saw 186 unread emails in the inbox—about half of them from Jodie Watts, trying to get me to come in and aim at said targets, but nothing from Laura—I closed it again, realized I’d been rubbing my eyes, and pointedly sat on my hands. Allergies…or an incorporeal blob tethered to my eyeball, forcing my hand? Goddammit, why’d I have to go and think of Dreyfuss and his fingernail demons? Now I wanted to rub even harder.

“So have you ever seen anything that was like a ghost,” I asked tentatively, “that wasn’t really ever…human. But kind of, uh, ghost-like?”

Darla considered answering me for a long while. I was worried she was just trying to come up with the most scathing retort she could think of when she finally said, “Some things don’t sound right to me.”

“Or people?”

She nodded slowly, not meeting my eyes. “Yeah. Sometimes it’s a person with that certain frequency, that strange hum around them. The non-people ones, how do they look to you?”

“Blobs.” I shrugged. “Shapes. Masses. Energy, I guess.”

I hated trying to explain those things. None of the words I put to them ever felt quite right. But Darla, she understood. We shared the moment, but before I could ask if she heard any sound-blobs vibrating around my eyeballs, she ruined it all by saying, “See? You do remember things. Maybe you’re not so useless after all.”