“Edie?” Ti asked again.
There was a faint outline now—of … of Jimmie’s head. Only it didn’t stay the same; it faded in and out between the square-jawed partial pit bull I guessed Madigan’s dog to be, and the cherubic face of a young boy. Maybe as young as six. And the teen—with this othersight, he still appeared as sullen as he sounded, but his right hand glowed.
I’d seen that glow before. My badge glowed like that, when I was around Y4-style danger. I pressed my other hand to my chest, and felt my badge’s edges sharp against my skin. So this was the Shadow’s self-serving gift to me.
“Hey, kid—” I stopped winking and looked at him through my normal eyes. Both his hands were empty. “Did you see someone here? A few nights ago? Dark suits, sunglasses in the dark?”
He crossed his arms. “There’s lots of dealers around here.”
“You talked to one of them, though. Gave him something. Touched him—”
“What’re you, psychic?” he said, backing up roughly against the truck. Jimmie growled.
“Sure.” I pointed. “I read palms. That hand right there, you touched one of them. Where’d they come from? Where’d they go? What’d you sell them?”
The kid looked at his own hand like it might have still had a spot on it. Ti and Madigan were looking back and forth between us, and the dogs all had their heads tilted in a listening fashion.
“He wanted to know where to go to get girls.” The kid rubbed his hand up and down on his pants, like he was wiping off a stain. “He paid me a twenty. I didn’t sell him any drugs.”
“Where’d you tell him?”
“Everyone knows where you can get girls around here. The only reason I made him pay me was because he looked like he could afford it.” He looked Madigan and me up and down. I went for my wallet in my pocket—
“I got it.” Ti pulled out a twenty instead, and held it up, right in front of his own face. The kid slowly looked up at Ti, snatched the money fast, then looked away.
“What happened to you, man?” he asked, trying to look anywhere but at him.
“Fire. The ones who did this to me are gonna pay.” Ti took a step forward. His coat made his shoulders appear even wider than they really were, and his chest even thicker. “Which girls?” he asked, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill, holding it squarely in front of the teen’s face.
“All the girls are on Seventeenth and F Street. After dark, that is.” The kid swatted for the cash, missed, and Ti let the bill flutter to the ground. The teen did a shimmy while standing in place, torn between ducking down to get the bill and being in kicking range of Ti’s legs, I felt.
“Here.” I knelt, picked it up, and handed it over, without looking at Ti. I ran through my pockets and found a pen and a piece of paper. “Here’s my number. If you ever see any of them again, call me.” I gave the kid a sheepish look, knowing that Ti was probably glowering behind me.
“Whatever.” He snatched the paper away.
The dogs that were blocking the teen’s path ducked away at an unseen command. The kid turned around and stalked off, waiting till he was halfway down the block to yell “Freak!” behind him, at the top of his lungs, before running down an alleyway.
“Load up,” Madigan said, opening the gate of his truck. Jack and Jenny leaped up, and Jimmie whuffled them. My vision in my left eye was still blurry, but as Madigan rounded the truck, I turned toward Ti.
“What was that about? I thought you got burned in a firefighting accident?”
“I did. But sometimes it’s good to play into stereotype.” He gave me a wicked grin, and opened up Madigan’s door. A sheep in wolf’s clothing, indeed. I sighed, and hopped up inside.
“So how about dinner tonight? Before you go to work?” Madigan asked as we neared the parking lot. “We eat late, and my wife is making stew—”
I looked at the clock on his dashboard. I’d only slept for maybe four hours that morning after my meeting with Geoffrey, before meeting Ti. I’d been counting on a long nap between now and work. Then again—as far as I knew I only had to show up to work. Meaty’d give me an easy “poor-girl-who-is-going-to-die-soon” assignment. And—Ti squeezed my knee. “Sure,” I answered.
“Sounds good,” Ti said. “Assuming the invitation was for both of us, that is.”
“It wouldn’t be much of an invitation if it wasn’t,” Madigan said with a grin, and made another fierce left-hand turn.
Madigan left us in the parking lot. Ti walked me to my car. I opened up the door the old-fashioned way, with the key, and tossed Yuri’s shirt onto the passenger seat. Then I gave him my address, watched him walk over to his red car—who the hell drove an El Camino anymore?—and made my way home, with my cell phone on speaker.
I dialed Sike’s number into my phone while I was driving, like you’re not supposed to do, and called it. She picked up right away.
“Hello?”
“Hi—um—” What was I supposed to say?
Sike snorted. “We haven’t found anything out yet,” she said, then hung up on me.
Great.
I tried Jake as I parked my car, and waited to leave a message. “Jake—it’s me. Call me back,” I said, then hung up. I’d initiated all of our conversations for weeks, but that was just how we were. I called him again, and it went straight to voice mail. “Seriously, call me back. It’s really important.”
What if I did die? I didn’t want to spend time thinking about it—but if I did, I owed him an explanation. I called him back again. “Also—I love you.”
He called back as I was crawling into bed for what I realized with sadness would only be a short nap.
“Sissy?” He sounded as tired as I felt.
“Bro! Hey—are you busy tomorrow? Or the day after?”
“Depends on when.” I heard him yawn.
“Whenever is good for you. Just let me know and I’ll be there. I need to talk to you.”
“Obviously.” I could almost hear him waking up. “I’ll call you—the day after tomorrow.”
“You won’t forget?”
“I’m putting it in my dayplanner. Right now. Love you,” he said, and hung up. I wondered briefly what the chances of him actually remembering were, then I went to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I woke up when Ti rang my doorbell. I could see him standing on my stoop when I peeked through the blinds. I clearly remembered setting my alarm—and apparently I’d slept right through it. That wasn’t like me.
“Coming!” I yelled out, while still lying in bed. I played with my vision some more, one hand on, one hand off. The glow didn’t stick around when I was looking through both eyes, but as soon as I covered one and just looked through the other—either one now—it returned.
I felt bad about leaving him outside while I brushed my teeth and otherwise made myself presentable—but then again, since he was undead, I doubted he’d mind. I pulled on some fresh-from-the-dryer tight jeans, a loose- fitting long-sleeved shirt, tugged on boots, and ran down my hallway to meet him.
“Hi.” I opened the door, grinning. He grinned back. I realized it’d been a long time since I’d had a guy here whose name I out-and-out knew.
“Well, hello there.” He stepped graciously away from my door, and allowed me space outside. I yanked on my coat as we walked to his El Camino. I was happy to see that he’d seen fit to run the heater in his own car.
It felt odd to be in a car with him—it felt odd to be out with him, period. It wasn’t his fault really, just the general awkwardness that I, with my tomcatlike mating habits, usually got to avoid.
“So Madigan’s a werewolf, right?” I blurted out.
“Yep,” Ti said, as if I hadn’t had to ask. “He called me this afternoon to ask that you don’t tell his wife where we were this morning.”
