I closed my eyes and let the radio fall on the floor. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep in the three minutes before the radio let out a burst of static. “Joanne?”
I flinched up. “Yeah?”
“His name’s Stuart. Damned if the kid didn’t put down his number in case we needed anything else. Got something to write with?”
“I’m in a cop car, Jen.”
She laughed. “Yeah, sorry.” She read off the number and I scribbled it down on the notepad on the dashboard.
“—wait! Jen?”
“What?”
I put my teeth together. “That file on Suzy. Does she have any other family?”
Dismayed silence answered me before Jen’s voice came through, low. “I can check. Bad news?”
“About as bad as it gets. Her parents are dead.”
“Jesus.” And a silence in which I could all but hear her nod. “I’ll find out.”
“Thanks Jen.” You owe me.
“I’ll fix your car for a year. Thanks again.” I clipped the radio back in place and tore the paper off the pad. Great. Now I had to stand up again. I wasn’t so crazy about that part right now. The car was comparatively warm and smelled strangely familiar. Like worn leather and cloves and a little bit of Old Spice. Like Morrison. Great, twice. Why did I know what Morrison smelled like?
Sliding out of the car was easier than pursuing that particular train of thought. “Cell phone,” I said generally, and one of the cops nearby tossed me one. I punched out Stuart’s number without really thinking about what I was going to say.
“Ssturrit.”
I frowned. “What?” I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say, but I had expected words I understood on the other end of the phone.
Infinite patience: “This is Stuart.”
“Oh. Oh! Stuart, hi, this is Joanne Walker with the police.”
“Oh, shit,” the kid on the other end of the line said. “Is Suzy okay?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Do you know if she came home after school tonight?”
“Naw, her dad picked her up.”
I turned around and stared at the house. “What? Mr. Quinley?”
“No, her other dad.” Usually a sentence like that would be delivered with sarcasm, but Stuart appeared to be perfectly sincere. “She’s adopted, you know? She looked up her blood parents when we were in sixth grade. Turns out her sperm dad lived in Seattle.”
I choked. “Sperm dad?”
I could hear Stuart’s grin. “That’s what she called him. Anyway, it’s her birthday, so they were going out to the carousel at the Seattle Center before she went home.”
I felt like I was about two laps behind. “Carousel?”
“Yeah, the carousel. She likes carousels. I guess I didn’t send any pictures of her on it.” Worry came into the boy’s voice. “Is she okay, Miss Walker? She’s been acting funny.”
“Funny how?”
“She’s always been kinda artsy and weird, y’know? But she’s been even weirder for about, I dunno, the last year. I remember ‘cuz she completely zoned out during her birthday party last year. And since, like, Halloween, it’s like she’s practically forgotten how to talk.”
“Since
“Since like Halloween. I remember ‘cuz she passed out at the Halloween dance. I never saw anybody faint before. It’s freaky. She just fell over and nobody caught her like they do on TV. She hit her head on a table and bled for about six years. She had to go to the E.R.”
“Jesus. Halloween? Halloween doesn’t make any se—oh! Oh, crap, yeah, of course. Halloween. Samhaine.” I was more than a little slow on the uptake. “The Hunt starts then.”
“What?” Poor Stuart sounded completely bewildered.
“Sam…” No, that wasn’t how they’d said it. “Sow…it doesn’t matter. The Hun…it doesn’t matter. Look, you’ve been very helpful, thanks, Stuart.”
“Is she gonna be okay, Miss Walker?” Stuart was scared, and I didn’t have a reassuring answer for him.
“I hope so. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she is. You’ve been a lot of help.”
“Thanks.” The boy’s voice was nothing more than a whisper. “Will you call me if anything bad happens?”
Morrison would kill me. “Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “Yeah, I will, Stuart, I promise. Just hang tight. And Stuart?”
“Yeah?”
“Think good thoughts for her.”
“You mean pray?”
“If that’s how you want to do it. It makes a difference.” I hung up, hoping I hadn’t just warped the boy for life. If I didn’t get Suzy out of her predicament, the poor kid might blame himself for not thinking good enough thoughts. Why didn’t I ever think of these things before I said anything?
I tossed the phone back to its owner with a nod of thanks, and tucked Stuart’s phone number in my back pocket. “Somebody tell Morrison I’m going to the Space Needle.” I grabbed Gary and we went before anybody actually had time to tell Morrison. It seemed like the best route. Easier to get forgiveness, and all that, although I thought I had tacit permission to go off chasing wild hares. Or Wild Hunts, more accurately. I took another catnap in the cab, unable to stay awake with the quiet thrum of the engine sounding in my ears and the car’s vibrations relaxing my muscles.
It was dark when I opened my eyes again, city lights reflecting off low gray clouds, the top of the Space Needle wisped with fog. Gary pulled into the 1st Avenue North Garage, crawling up to the roof parking. We sat under the off-colored light for a few moments, staring around the empty lot.
“I ain’t never seen this place empty,” Gary announced.
“Me either,” I said nervously. “Especially not at six at night.”
“Is there some kinda construction going on?” Gary shifted his shoulders. I shook my head, climbing out of the cab. Hairs on my arms stood up, even under my jacket, and I rubbed them briskly.
“This isn’t natural.”
“No kidding.” Gary closed his door behind him, eyeing me. “This is prime parking. The monorail stops here.”
“Yeah, I know. Well, hell.” I leaned on the hood of the car, puffing my cheeks out. “Faint heart never won fair lady, right?”
I stepped out of my body, all my rudimentary shields collapsing.
Grayness rushed over me like a tidal wave, drowning me with its weight. I could barely breathe in the thickness, my lungs filling like it was poisoned air. It had a purpose, that grayness. It was meant to obscure. I took a few steps away from the car, toward the doors that led down to the Center. “Jesus, we’re right on top of him.”
“Jo?” Gary asked nervously. I turned around to find my body slumped over the hood of the car, the unnerved cab driver staring at it.
“I’m over here,” I said, half to see if he could hear me. He twitched and straightened, looking around warily. I waved. He didn’t react. “To your left,” I volunteered. He jerked to the right.
“Stop that,” he demanded, not looking quite at either my unconscious body or my spirit self. “I can’t see where your voice is coming from.”
I grinned. My body did, too. I squinted at it. I wasn’t really keen on the idea of leaving it lying around. It seemed sloppy, not to mention dangerous. “Okay,” I said under my breath. “I did this earlier, right? Saw in two worlds while operating the flesh. I can do this.”
I edged back toward myself and folded down over myself, which felt tremendously weird. I settled in again,
