“I have an idea.”
“An idea?” She glowered a solid minute until a pair of sweats smacked her in the face. I couldn’t help it. I sucked it up and doubled over in laughter. Mostly ’cause revenge was a dish best served cold. Or at least a little chilly.
“You need to work on your aim,” she said, peeling off the sweats and offering me a sleepy frown.
“My aim is perfect, I’ll have you know.”
My head felt on the verge of a nuclear disaster as we sneaked out the back and around to Misery in a shameful attempt to avoid the cops on watch. I felt bad, but if I showed up with a police escort, I doubted I would get anywhere fast. When we pulled up to the Chocolate Coffee Cafe, Cookie cast a hopeful gaze my way. “Did we miss something? Did you find more evidence?”
“Not exactly.” I turned to her before we got out. “I have an idea. It’s just going to look odd to Norma and Brad and anyone else who might be in there, so I need your help.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve pole dancing.”
We stepped into the cafe and scanned the area. Norma was indeed on duty, but we couldn’t see who was cooking. And there were two customers sitting in a very inconvenient spot. But I’d deal with that later.
I gestured toward the bar with a nod, and Cookie and I strolled forward. My silver screen star was standing at it, leaning on his elbows, legs crossed at the ankle. His tan fedora and trench coat came straight out of the forties, the Humphrey Bogart look undeniable. And the entire picture left me a little breathless. Cookie and I loved us some Humphrey.
I sat on the stool right beside him as Norma strolled up. “Hey, sweethearts, did you find who you were looking for?”
Cookie sat beside me, but on the wrong side. I grabbed her jacket underneath the counter and steered her around me. “No,” I said sadly. “We’re still looking.”
Norma
Cookie sat down, then cast me a nervous look underneath her lashes.
“Do you remember your lines?” I asked her.
Her brows slid together, but she played along and nodded.
I smiled. “Good, we have to get them down before tomorrow night’s dress rehearsal.”
“Oh, right,” she said with a shaky giggle. “The dress rehearsal.”
“You two in a play or something?” Norma asked, passing us menus.
“Yeah, at the Stage House. Nothing special.”
“Wonderful,” she said, going back to wiping down the counters. “I did some acting in high school. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Thanks,” I said before looking back at Cookie.
Bogart was between us. He cast me a sideways glance.
“Hi,” I said, hoping to come across innocuous.
He turned toward me, a grim line thinning his mouth. “Of all the cafes in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
My heart skipped a beat. He was so much like Bogart. It killed me that Cookie couldn’t see him.
“You here to collect my soul?” he asked.
I was a little surprised he knew my job description. “If you don’t mind,” I answered. I fished out the picture I had of Mimi Jacobs and held it up. “Have you seen this woman?”
He turned back to stare through Brad’s pass-out window. “Don’t look around much.”
I smiled. “You looked at me.”
“You’re kinda hard to miss.”
Fair enough. “Why don’t you want to cross?”
He shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”
“Of course. I take the
He looked back at me in surprise. “Sweetheart, you’re the only one who can.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him. “Well, I won’t. If you don’t want to cross, I’m not going to make you.”
I looked past him at Cookie. She sat staring at me, nodding, as if critiquing my performance. I snorted, and she glanced around self-consciously.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked through her teeth, pretending not to be talking.
“No,” I promised before focusing on Bogart again.
“Babe!”
I turned and grinned at Brad as he stuck his head through the pass-out window. “You came back to me.”
“Naturally,” I said. “And I’m hungry, handsome.”
A confident grin slid across his face. “You just said the magic words, baby.”
He ducked back in and started cooking God only knew what. But I was fairly certain his creation would be nothing short of a work of art.
“Sometimes,” I said to Bogart, “our memories are hidden, buried. And when people cross, I can see them. I was hoping you might have seen Mimi, taken note of something everyone else missed. If you cross through me, I can scan your memories, look for her. But I won’t make you cross.” I didn’t bother to mention that I couldn’t do that anyway.
He shook his head. “Don’t really have anyone waiting on me.”
“Nonsense. Everyone has somebody waiting. I promise, you might not know it, but you have someone.”
“Oh, I got people.” After a heavy sigh, he said, “I think I’ll pass, if it’s all the same.”
My heart broke a little. He did have people waiting, he knew that, but he didn’t feel worthy to cross. He’d done something in his past, something that caused a rift, most likely in his family.
I was hoping I could talk him into it. He didn’t realize what he was missing by remaining earthbound. But he had his reasons. I wasn’t going to push.
“When you’re ready,” I said, placing a hand on his arm. He looked down, picked up my hand, and raised it to his cool mouth. After placing a soft kiss on my knuckles, he disappeared.
I glanced at Cookie in defeat. “He didn’t buy it.”
“You can see their memories?” she asked in awe. Why anything should awe her at this point was beyond me.
“I can, but I’ve never tried to scan them, to look for anything in particular. I think I could, though. I have to try. And I have one more person to talk to.”
I gestured for her to pick up her cup and follow me into the dining area. About a dozen tables peppered the large room that was lined with booths along the walls. The lights were low, and a young couple sat whispering by one of the large plateglass windows that overlooked the intersection. At a table farther back sat the woman who looked like she’d been a drug-addicted prostitute. From the look of her skin, she’d done her fair share of meth.
I eyed the chair, then Cookie. “You’ll be cold,” I told her, regret filling my voice. But we were already getting odd looks from Norma. I really needed her in front of me while I talked to the woman.
As if walking on eggshells, she took a careful step forward then sat down, curling inside herself. The woman filtered through her, completely oblivious of the fact that her personal space had been invaded. “This is disturbing on so many levels,” Cookie said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“No,” she chastised, “for Mimi, I’d do this all day. Just wiggle your fingers, do your magic, and find out where she is.”
I grinned and sat across from her. “You got it.”
The woman’s arms were on the table as she stared out the window. She kept rubbing her wrists together, and I suddenly realized she’d cut them. But the wounds had healed, scarred up, so that wasn’t how she died. Whatever did her in, she looked like she’d had a rock-hard life.
