EIGHT
Luce
Don't fucking ask me why I asked her to ask me to go with her.
I was not that guy.
I didn't go on road trips to solve mysteries.
I didn't make friends with practical strangers.
In fact, the only time I traveled was to find my marks and bring them back with me. And that was only when I couldn't find a way to trick them into coming to me, which was rare. Usually, I could just make a post for the perverts about some new den where they could get their rape on with underage boys or girls, and they just came running. Paying an upfront fee for entrance too.
Fucking suckers.
Truly got what was coming to them.
But yeah, I didn't do random trips to random towns in fucking Texas to go dig up twenty-four-year-old dirt.
Yet somehow, I was doing just that.
What can I say, I fucking liked Evan.
She was different.
There were equal parts silk and steel to her.
On top of that, I just got this weird feeling like she needed a friend. Normally, I'd just ignore that urge to forge bonds, calling it what it was - stupid and reckless. I just couldn't seem to make myself do that in this situation.
A part of me wanted to claim it was just the story, just the untied ends, just my almost compulsive urge to know the truth, to know I was right. But the other part of me seemed to acknowledge that it was something more than that.
Though, whatever more it might have been, was just going to be friendly.
No more kissing.
No more imagining her touching herself while thinking of me.
No more rubbing one out and thinking about her begging for my cock.
Fuck.
Seeing as even thinking those things had me half-hard, yeah, this whole part of the plan was going to take some real goddamn willpower.
"So, when are you free to go?" she asked after what must have been a tense silence with me all lost in my own thoughts.
Ah, yeah.
We were doing this shit.
Planning.
Comparing schedules.
I had never had to plan shit except traps and escape routes before.
"Ah, I just have some fucking shithead to deal with first," I said, realizing I had spent the whole day researching Evan's shit and not working on my own.
What the hell was wrong with me?
"Oh, yeah. About that," she said, nipping into her lower lip slightly, looking guilty as hell.
"About what?" I prompted when she didn't go on.
"That shithead isn't real. That page and that robot voice on the phone..."
"No shit," I said, finding myself smiling when I should have been raging mad. First, because a connection was compromised. Second, because that contact didn't think to tell me they were compromised.
"I needed to lure you out so I could follow you," she admitted. "And maybe get your mind occupied, so you didn't see me coming."
"Mission accomplished," I said, unzipping my hoodie slightly, so I could pull the back down and show her the nasty ass bruise I had across the back of my neck.
"Ow," she hissed. "Sorry. I, ah, really threw all my rage into that swing. I've never hit someone before. I had no idea how much force it would take to take you down."
"More force is usually the best bet," I agreed, zipping my hoodie back up. "Well, then... my schedule is clear. I don't exactly have a nine-to-five here."
"It might be good for you to get out of here too."
"So the Old Man Loonybin conspiracy theorist energy stops getting soaked in through my pores."
"Exactly," she agreed with a small laugh. "Oh," she said, suddenly looking crestfallen.
"Oh, what?"
"Oh, Diego."
"Yeah, I'm gonna need more than that, doll."
"My bird," she explained.
"Your macaw," I specified, still feeling pretty damn proud of myself for calling that one.
"Yes, my blue and gold macaw, Diego. I can't bring him. I mean, he's been on a plane before. But there was always an RV or van or something on the other end where he could move around. And I don't think hotels let you bring birds. I just... I don't know anyone who would be willing to take him on. And I don't want to board him."
I rubbed my chin, feeling the stubble, making a mental note to shave that off before we left. "I might know someone."
"Do they like birds?"
"Sure," I agreed, nodding.
I was sure he maybe had, you know, enjoyed the look or sounds of a bird from afar at some point or another. Then again, maybe not. He was a weird fuck.
But considering I had done him and his friends a big fat favor a while back, I was going to go ahead and call in the marker.
Barrett might have been trapped in his own head a lot, too smart for his own good, and anti-social, but he was a good guy. He would probably spend ten hours researching macaw care, and Evan would come home to the healthiest fucking parrot on the east coast.
"Do you think they could do it on short notice?"
"Yeah, he's not busy. I can swing by and let him know to expect him whenever you are ready to leave, and then you can come and drop him off."
"Okay, well. I need to go and look into flights and stuff. But if we can maybe get going before the weekend..."
"You give me the day and time, and we can make it happen."
"Alright, um," she said, looking around for something else to say, but there wasn't anything. "Thanks for the catching me when I fainted thing."
"Super leading man of me, right? That shit should make its way into that erotica."
Fuck.
I shouldn't have said that.
Because her eyes got heated, man. And I was trying to be all noble and keep my dick in line with the 'just friends' idea.
"Very dreamy," she said, voice blank, recovering quickly. "And thanks for the food and movie and company and... you know..." she trailed off, shrugging.
"I know?" I prompted, wanting to know whatever it was she thought I could silently pick up on. I couldn't.
"For, I don't know, kinda... being a friend," she said, sounding strained.
"Doll," I said, standing as she did as well, "if you're happy to have me as a friend, you got some pretty fucked up ideas about what constitutes a good friend. But you're welcome for the food and movie and, you know, the pleasure of my company," I said with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood.
"Do you, um, have a cell I can contact you on? You know... without having to use the pager system?"
That, well, that was asking for a fuckuva lot.
I didn't give a direct line out to anyone.
Literally no one.
"Ah, one sec," I surprised myself by saying, walking into the bedroom and grabbing one of the boxes off the dresser. I bought burners by the fucking cart-full. "Alright, this one, this will be just for contact between you and me. Give this number out, and you will have to be the next body melting in my tub," I warned, but there wasn't a drop of sincerity in the threat and we both knew it.
"Like I have anyone to give it out to anyway," she said as she typed it into her phone. And her voice when she said it, well, it was sad. Hollow, almost.
It was a pretty awful thing to realize that a vigilante serial killer who melted bodies in tubs and couldn't seem to have any normal relationships with people was your only goddamn 'friend' in the world.
"Okay, all set. I will text you about the flights. Text me when you get an answer from your friend."
"Will do."
"You need to install a slide or something on this hill," she informed me as I walked her to the door, and watched her eye the hill in question with distaste. "Oh, and you might want to, I don't know, pack some t-shirts or something. It's hot in Texas."
With that, she was gone.
Well, not gone.
In fact, she wasn't out of sight for almost half an hour, and my crazy fucking ass stood there and watched until she pulled away.
Once she was gone, I locked up, and made my way down the hill as well, walking my ass all the way into town and to Barrett's office.
"Yo," I called when he looked at me from his periphery, then just went back to work, likely thinking I was just there to use the john to make a call.
"What's up, Luce?" he asked, reaching up to scrub his hands down his face.
He looked like he had lost a night of sleep too.
I felt bad for the fuck sometimes.
It couldn't have been easy to be the younger brother to the best PI in town, always having to work so much harder to get even a fraction of the recognition that he did. The crazy thing was, Barrett was about a thousand times better than his brother in the computer and research department, but with Sawyer's special forces training, there was no way Barrett could come close to his hand-to-hand skills. It was a shame the two of them never could figure out how to work with each other without wanting to kill one another. And they had tried.
"Calling in a marker," I explained, leaning against the wall, my arms folded over my chest.
"You?" he asked, not even pretending to hide his astonishment. I never needed help. I always worked alone. "You need to call in your marker? I swear I was sure your headstone would say: Barrett, you still owe me."
"Yeah, well, this isn't work-related. Personal favor."
"Well, seeing as you're every bit as good at computers as me, and seem to have no interest in learning Polish... what? Do you need me to water your plants and take in your mail?" he asked, voice full of sarcasm.
"I need you to bird-sit."
I swear there was a solid five beats before his brows went back down. "Bird-sit?"
"Parrot actually. Blue and gold macaw."
"Since the fuck when are you a bird person?"
"I'm not. It's for a, ah, friend of mine."
"I wasn't aware you had any friends."
"Right, because your social calendar is booked solid."
"So, you're serious. You have a macaw you need me to watch."
"Yep."
"When? For how long?"
"Um, I don't know yet, but soon. And for however long a trip to Texas is going to take."
"Do I want to know?"
"It's a long story," I said with a shrug.
"Then, no, I don't want to know. This thing isn't going to take my finger off, is it?"
"Fuck if I know. I've never even seen it. Just heard it while I was locked in a basement cell last night."
"Basement cell," he repeated, brows drawing together.
"Misunderstanding about a murder that was actually a suicide."
"Ah," he said, like he knew exactly what happened.
"Oh, wait," I said when my phone rang in my pocket. It was such a foreign thing for me that I actually jumped. "Might have more details in a sec," I explained as I swiped the screen.
"Is that... a cell? That was... ringing?"
"It's looking like the day after tomorrow at, say, ten AM. She will come by and drop off all the stuff he needs. I will keep you updated via text on when we might be back. So I need your... what?" I asked when all he did was stare at me.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, shaking his head. "You suddenly have a friend who you are going on some road trip with. You have a cell, and you are actually programming numbers into it. What the hell happened in that basement Luce?"
That was actually a pretty valid question, one I knew I would have to mull over myself. Sometime. But not today.
"Dunno man. I'm evolving I guess. So you'll do it."
"I, ah, well it gives me some time to research."
What did I say?
In a day or so, Barrett was going to be the foremost blue and gold macaw expert in the country. He was a prime example of why some seemingly cold, robotic people could actually make good assets in life. Maybe he wasn't going to kiss the fucking bird's beak or some shit, but he would feed it right, make sure it slept, shit, exercised, and behaved like it was supposed to.
A day and a half later, I was standing in Barrett's office with a huge smirk.
Because it wasn't his office anymore. Not really. Sure, his desk was still there, and his office equipment was where it always had been, but all of the limited free space had been turned into a mini bird jungle.
No shit.
There was stuff hanging from the ceilings and huge tree limb play stands all over. There was an overhead light that he explained was full-spectrum because, apparently, if birds didn't get enough of the right lighting, they actually stopped seeing color. Which, he went on to explain, would make their eating habits change for the worse because they couldn't see what they were eating properly.
I swear to fuck he told me all this shit in the three minutes between when I showed up and when Evan walked through the door.
She did so with the bird in question sitting on her hand. It was looking around curiously, but not seeming the least bit spooked. "Oh wow," she said, stopping short, looking at me with big eyes for a second, questioning, then looking at Barrett. "I think you're going to take better care of him than I do," she said, sounding almost a little guilty about that.
"I did some parrot research, but are there any specific things I need to know about him?"
Oh, Barrett. All about the facts. He didn't even know her name. Or the bird's.
"Ah, well he isn't clipped, so he flies all over. He screams at sun up and down, but only for a little while. If you give him cauliflower, he will throw it. If you give him blackberries, he will... just don't give him blackberries. Trust me. He talks and he only nips when you are trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to. He's pretty good, all in all. And he's used to moving around and strangers, so he shouldn't be nervous or self-destructive being away from me for a few days."
"His diet?"
"Pellets, seed as treats, and fresh veggies and fruit when he will eat them."
"Alright. That's all I need to know."
"Well, his name is Diego," Evan said, brow lifted. "You might need to know that."
"Figured he would tell me himself," Barrett said, approaching the giant bird with a massive beak, and offering his hand without even an ounce of fear. I wondered if that was part of Barrett's thing, his whatever-it-was that made him just a little different from everyone else. Did it also make him foolishly fearless?
But the bird responded to his confidence and stepped right up, letting out a caw that made me wince.
"Alright. We will keep you updated via text," I reminded him, as he seemed to completely ignore us, bringing the bird over to his new jungle, and introducing him to the places where the food dishes and water were. "Might as well get going now, doll. We lost him."
She looked at me, then back to Barrett who was giving Diego scratches, then back to me. "Ah, yeah, okay. Let's get going. Do you have everything?" she asked. I reached down, grabbing my backpack, and picking it up. "That's it? Really?"
"That's it, really," I agreed, nodding. I didn't exactly have an extensive wardrobe.
"Are you seriously wearing the hoodie on the plane?" she asked as we headed outside toward her car, storing my bag in the back with her modest duffle. Moving around as much as she had, she must have known how to economize with her carry-on.
"I'd be more worried about the recycled air, MRSA armrests, and screaming babies than my hoodie, Ev," I said, giving her a small smile.
"Oh, you're gonna be a fun flight-buddy, huh?" she teased, rolling her eyes. We climbed in and made our way to the airport.
"I told you not to wear the hoodie," she said after the TSA guard made me take it off to look me over and pat me down. I guess I looked like a criminal. You know, because I was one.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, shrugging back into it like armor. "You done 'told you so'ing? Can we get on the big metal germ incubator now?"
She laughed, the sound warm and musical.
"You're ridiculous," she declared, whacking her shoulder into mine as she said it, like she was saying she liked that about me.
And that, yeah, I liked that too much.
This trip was going to be all kinds of revealing; not just for Evan but me as well.
I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.