“Well, that’s what matters most. So, I just wanted you to know that I found something on the Fosters. Something … well, pretty hard to believe.”
“Really?” I dipped my head as though it would help us be more secretive. “Hit me.”
“As you know, I ran into a brick wall once I found out the Fosters are not who they say they are.”
“Yes.”
“So I asked Pari for her help.”
“Oh, that’s awesome. Bring her into the fold. What did she find out?”
“Right? Well, she used some kind of facial recognition software and found them. Maybe. About forty years ago, there were two teens suspected of killing a family.”
“Okay. Awful.”
“The kids were arrested and taken to the county jail. Where they escaped. Somehow, a deputy left their cells unlocked. I don’t know. It was all very suspicious. And they were never heard from again.”
“Cook, are you telling me that the Fosters killed a family when they were kids?”
“I’m saying that according to facial recognition software, they were arrested for the crime. But there’s more. These kids were part of some super-religious cult. The members of this cult believed that the children were touched by God to ferret out the unholy and destroy them.”
“Okay, this is all sounding eerily similar to what I’m finding out.”
“So, this cult, if a bunch of nuts living together and marrying children is a good interpretation of the word—”
“I think it is.”
“—believed these kids were the second coming. As soon as they escaped, the sheriff went to the compound to find them. It had disappeared. Overnight. The entire group of thirty-something members vanished. And none of them have been found again, either. Not one single member.”
“Wow. So, you think the whole cult was behind the murders?”
“Either that or they condoned anything these kids did. Charley, they did everything but worship them outright.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“But there’s more.”
“This is like a soap opera and a gossip show all rolled into one.”
“The children arrested for the crime?”
“Yes.”
“Charley, they were brother and sister.”
Okay, that one surprised me. It surprised Reyes as well. He sat completely motionless, deep in thought.
I glanced over at a nearby table. They were eavesdropping. I could hardly blame them. Shit didn’t get more bat than religious cults. And/or brother-and-sister couples. Because ew.
“Wait. You got this from Pari? Our Pari?”
“The one and only.”
“And how does our Pari have access to a secure FBI database?”
Silence.
“Is she hacking again?”
“She didn’t sound phlegmy.”
“Websites. Databases. She’s gotten into some serious trouble in the past, and she’s on some kind of probation. She’s not even supposed to go onto the Internet. Ever. For any reason.”
“Wow, Charley. I knew she was good with computers. I had no idea she’d gotten into trouble.”
“That’s not on you. I’ll have a talk with her. In the meantime, this is crazy stuff.”
“Should we talk to Robert?”
“Yeah. I’ll call him.”
“Great. Talk soon.”
I hung up the phone and scanned Reyes’s expression. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Makes sense.”
“It does. Well, all except the brother-sister thing. I’m hoping that one was a mistake.” I picked up the phone and found Ubie in my contacts.
“Hey, pumpkin. Cookie told me you took the day off.” He was so happy, I couldn’t tell him he had nothing to do with it.
“I did. So, has she told you anything about the case we’re working on?”
“No. She’s been … well, I’ve been a little distracted lately.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“No.”
“’Kay. So…” I filled Ubie in on the usual. It was enough to grab his interest with razor-sharp claws.
“I’ll keep you updated on what I find out, but if you can check out this cold case—”
“I can do that,” he said.
Reyes and I left the restaurant. It was one thing to allow eavesdropping of some random bits of research that can be found online. It’s another altogether to allow information about my client to leak. I had yet to confront Shawn about his providing an alibi for the Fosters when Dawn Brooks was abducted. I would definitely need an explanation, but now was not the time.
I explained the entire case to Ubie, leaving out the details about who my client was. I focused on the Fosters and what Cookie found.
“Charley, if that is true, I’m going to need more. I don’t think I can get a warrant on information obtained … creatively.”
“Okay, so, like what? How about a confession?”
“If they are who you say they are, they’ve been on the run and in hiding a very long time. They aren’t just going to recite you a tell-all.”
“I have a plan.”
“When don’t you have a plan?”
“True.” I looked over at Reyes as he drove home. “But it’s a pretty good plan, providing I have a little help.”
“Okay, well, keep me in the loop. On the stalker front—”
“Joe?”
“Joe?” he repeated.
“Joe Stalker.”
“Right. On the Joe front,” he said, finding it easier to go along with me than point out the many flaws of my mental process, “we are all set on this end if you’re sure you still want to go through with it.”
“Of course I want to go through with it. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I figured you would. Just checking.”
“Have you heard from Amber?”
“I’ve been texting Osh all day. She’s fine, and he’s decided he wants to go back to school.”
“Oh, hell, no.”
He chuckled. “I don’t know what I would do without you, pumpkin.”
That sounded ominous. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I don’t think so. Just wanted you to know how much you mean to me. Oh, and if I’m late for any reason tomorrow, Officer Tang will be in charge.”
“Late? Why would you be late?”
“I have about a hundred cases at any given moment, pumpkin. There’s been movement on an old one that I need to look into. It could take me a while. But don’t worry. Just go on with the plan.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
“Always. Be good. And stay home.”
Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. I hadn’t had an evening home alone with the ball and chain in a few days.
* * *
Reyes and I raided the coffeepot at Calamity’s, then I hoofed it to the second floor to fill Cookie in with everything as Reyes talked to his manager, Valerie. I mistook her for a coat rack once and tried to hang my jacket on her head. I thought it was funny. She did not. But there were only so many hateful glances a girl could take. The fact that I was married to her boss, a boss with whom she was hopelessly in love, was hardly my fault. I got him first. You snooze, you lose when it comes to love. Or was that war? Either way.
By the time I got up to the office, Cook had gone home for the day. I decided to get some paperwork done. Realized that was crazy talk. And went about trying to figure out how to get revenge on Mr. Reyes Farrow. Payback was such a bitch.
I came up with a hundred ideas thanks to a website called Tortures-R-Us. Oh yeah. They had some fabulous ideas. But first, now that I could do the whole dematerialize thing, I wondered if I could spy on him. Would serve him right.
I closed my eyes and let the celestial realm wash over me. It really was stunning. Then I concentrated. Went in search of my prey. Ended up on a corner on Central, in the nonprofessional sense, and watched as the two realms collided.
I was a part of everythin
g around me. I could always feel emotions, but this went way beyond that. I knew them. Everyone who walked through me. I knew what they were going through on a much deeper level. Not that I could read their minds or anything. More like I could feel their emotions suss out their deepest desires. Their greatest worries.
It was like a high. It was like—
I stopped and thought about what I was doing. Was I pulling an Osh? Was I feeding off them somehow? Siphoning their energy to get high?
I backed off immediately and watched from afar. Actually, from up high. Reyes used to do this all the time. He would literally float around me to keep watch. But he was always covered in a massive, black, undulating robe. I’d have to ask him how he did that.
After a few minutes of people watching and taking a couple of notes—one girl was in serious trouble and on the verge of committing suicide—Reyes stole back into my mind as he was wont to do. Probably because he was walking down the street, going in the opposite direction of me.
Reyes could be visible to me or invisible, and that part I thought I’d figured out. The more I shifted onto the celestial plane, the less visible the sentient beings of this world became. I could still see them, still see their auras, but their human forms became vaguer until they disappeared completely. Perhaps it worked the other way around. Perhaps if a human could see beyond the veil between the two worlds and I shifted more and more onto the celestial plane, maybe I became invisible no matter what they could see.
I decided to test it out.
Reyes’s aura was spectacularly easy to pick out of a crowd. He was darkness and flames. I swept in behind him and watched, marveling at how his ass looked in those jeans.
Without missing a beat, he lowered his head and asked, “Are you having fun?”
I was, in fact. I brushed against him, allowing my molecules to collide with his. I wanted to feel him as I felt others. I wanted to know everything about him. All the secrets he’d tucked into the furthest corners of his mind. But it didn’t quite work that way. His emotions were still so deeply packed, so thickly entwined, that making out any one was nearly impossible.
Regaining my footing on solid ground, I followed him until he stopped, turned around, and caught me to him. Plunging his fingers into my hair, he pushed me against a storefront.
“You shouldn’t tempt me,” he said, his voice like warm bourbon.
“I beg to differ. You are the only one I should tempt.”
He’d shifted onto the celestial plane. Here his kisses were even hotter. His energy rawer. More abrasive.
He pulled at my jeans with one hand, and part of me was surprised I still wore jeans. He opened the button, ripped the zipper down, and pushed a hand inside. I bucked and grabbed his wrist. Everything was more sensitive here. Every touch more important. His fingers massaging my clit, dipping inside, had me shaking with need.
I pressed a palm to his crotch. Found the length of his erection. Molded my fingers around the outline until he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Dutch,” he said against my neck. “What are you doing to me?”
I couldn’t even begin to answer him, because whatever I was doing to him, he did to me first.
Without the slightest thought of there being a witness to our adventure, I pried the buttons of his jeans apart and wrapped my fingers around his cock.
“Motherfucker,” he said, bracing a hand on the wall behind me. And he was right. How was it all so heightened here? So extra sensitive?
The slightest bit of friction was almost orgasmic. So much so that I could hardly control my actions. My clothes were suddenly gone, as were Reyes’s, and I couldn’t remember which one of us took them off. But he pressed into me, incorporeal energy against incorporeal energy. Molecules colliding. Tendrils of heat lacing around me like ribbons.
Our bodies didn’t slide as they would during a regular round of aggressive cuddling, but our energy did. Hot. Fast. Frantic.
Then he shifted, just barely, onto the mortal plane, bringing me with him. And the solidness of his cock inside me rocketed through to my core. The pressure building in my abdomen with every thrust, the sheer weight of it, clawed at the delicate balance between the sweet pleasure of a slow, sensual fuck and the wild, passionate greed of a come-induced seizure.
And then the scales tipped and I seized, throwing back my head and bucking against him. Something deep inside me, something unnamable, exploded. I gritted my teeth as spasm after violent spasm slammed into me. Crashed against my bones. Trembled over my nerve endings, spilling the darkest pleasure known to man throughout my consciousness.
An orgasm in this state was a thousand times brighter and hotter and more intense. I’d never felt my atoms splitting. I’d never felt them collide and create a reaction as hot as the center of the sun.
As Reyes strained against me, his own orgasm shuddering through him, I wondered if this was how two gods merged to make one. And why did they do that, anyway? Why did all the gods from my dimension come together to make one god? What was in it for them?
Reyes collapsed against me as I floated in the aftermath of mind-blowing sex. And then I realized something pivotal. Cores. Centers. We had centers even in our most dematerialized state. Whether we had shape or not, we had centers.
And they fit together really well. Like pieces of a puzzle. Or a lock and key. Or a penis and vagina. Mostly a penis and vagina.
When Reyes stepped to the side, leaned against a storefront, and continued to stare, I realized I was humming. Like my body was literally humming, its current state utter perfection.
“Sorry,” I said to him, worried he could hear it, too.
At first, he continued to gaze at me, but not just at me. All around me. Then he whispered, “Magnificent.”
“What?” I floated back to the ground to join him and turned around to see what was behind me. “What do you see?”
Reyes shifted and stepped to me. “You, Dutch. I see you.”
“Really? I’m trying to be invisible. How can you see me?”
“I don’t know that you can be. Not to a supernatural being, anyway. Remember, you’re still the light the departed are drawn to. It’s just, it’s different now. When you’re like this.”
“What’s so different about it? Is it even more annoying? Pari can hardly look at me without wearing sunglasses.”
“It’s a shimmering white all around you. You literally glow.”
“Like a glowworm?”
He grinned. “Why not?”
“You look different when I shift, too.”
He lowered his head.
“Reyes,” I said, readying to tease him, “give it up already. I know all about the darkness. Being created in hell—”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
I ran my fingers over his sensual mouth even as he spoke. “Remember?”
“Before you convinced Jehovah to send me to your hell dimension instead of locking me up in the one He created, you knew me.”
We turned and walked down the street hand in hand. Only we were both incorporeal, so people kept walking through us. Mostly college students cramming for finals. Poor kids. That, I remembered.
“I was dark even then. I was dark before Satan got ahold of me.”
I stopped and faced him. “I don’t remember that.”
“I think my Brother, for some reason, has altered your memories. Taken some away.”
“Do you know why?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sorry.” He reached down and slid his fingers along my abdomen.
“Oh, just so you know,” I said, my muscles tensing with his touch, “I’m paying you back for that little stunt you pulled today.”
His expression softened. “Are you?”
“Yes. I’ve been doing research. You are so screwed.”
“I can hardly wait.”
I snorted. “I suggest you adopt a more concerned attitude than that, Mister Man. Payback is a bitch, and her name is Charley Davidson.”
&nb
sp; He pressed his mouth together in an attempt to hide his reaction. Apparently I was funny.
“Good to know I can bring humor to any situation. I’m not even going to feel sorry for you while I torture you.”
He raised a brow. “Torture? You sure you got it in you?”
“Oh, I got it and then some.”
He turned his most sensual gaze toward me. “Be still my beating heart.”
Part of me believed he wanted me to torture him.
16
Some days, the supply of available curse words is insufficient to meet my needs.
—T-SHIRT
I dreamed of starless nights and planets colliding. Of nebulae drifting too close to black holes and galaxies spinning out of control. And I dreamed of angel wings. Of their feathers brushing against my skin, sending shivers down my spine.
Then I awoke to the hushed sound of Angel. He’d shaken me gently, but there had been an urgency in his whispered voice. Either that or …
My eyes flew open. Reyes had Angel pinned to the floor, choking him out. If a departed could be choked out. I had no idea.
I scrambled out of bed and tapped Reyes on the shoulder. “Hon, what are you doing?”
He looked up at me, his face the picture of joy. “Wrestling.”
Angel made strange gagging sounds and shook his head.
“Sweetheart, I don’t think Angel wants to wrestle.”
“His problem. He was standing over our bed, staring down at you. Figured he needed a lesson.”
“Wait. What?” I ripped Reyes’s arm from around Angel’s throat. Or, well, Reyes let me rip his arm away. “Angel, what’s going on?”
Now free, Angel doubled over, coughing and choking and being generally pissed off.
I knelt beside him. Patted his back. That’d help. “Rey’aziel, he probably had something to tell me. Now we’ll never know. I think you crushed his larynx.”
“Sorry.” Reyes stood and headed for the bathroom. He wasn’t sorry. Poor Angel.
Angel tried to make it to a chair in the corner. I half helped and half dragged him toward it. He tried to push me away. I slapped at his hands and helped, anyway.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when he could breathe again. No idea why he’d need to. I figured it was out of habit.