Her red window came with a blue light, which looked purple combined with the red. It was an indication to potential clients that she was trans. There were green windows along the canals now too for male sex workers.
Right now, the red curtain was pulled closed, Cherry not due to arrive until later. We shared the entrance hall—her window through the door on the left, my place of work straight up the stairs at the end of the hall.
Ascending the steps with some mail in my hands, I reminded myself to give Cherry that recipe she wanted for lemon chicken.
These top two floors had been empty for quite a while, back when I’d been looking for a space for Jake and me to work out of. Our house was out of the question. Work and home life don’t mix—important rule number one. I wasn’t about to bring danger to my doorstep to threaten my family.
There’d been a murder on the top floor that’d hindered the sale of the property before we’d taken it. Apparently, it’d been a novelty chocolate shop before it was closed down about six years ago. A crime of passion had taken place—the husband caught cheating, wife stabbing him, then killing herself. Cherry had told us all about it. It hadn’t stopped her from using the red window. It was her preferred spot. The only time she didn’t use it was on a night off or if she was sick.
She was a good source of information too. Her job allowed her to see things as the city passed by. Not always, but she was a resource to tap. Plus, she loved to crochet and had made a starlight blanket for Louise, so top scores from me all round.
I stepped into the main office, where our messy desks were. There were bookshelves bulging with tomes and folders of paperwork. It was slightly chaotic, but we had our own system. Admittedly, it could’ve done with a dust.
The second floor was our library of previous cases, or The Space as we called it. More huge books on the supernatural world filled the stacks up there, with potion cabinets, trunks, and cupboards for other equipment and weapons, as well as a small toilet. Despite the dustiness of this place, and the old and slightly shabby feel it had about it, the bathroom was always sparkling. You could eat your dinner off the toilet seat.
Yuck. Maybe not. That’s what Jake liked to say, and it always struck me as slightly disturbing. I hadn’t caught him tucking into a tuna paste bake on the rim just yet, though.
We had all sorts of equipment—charms, magical traps—thanks to Mila. Things that could incapacitate a perp before they could be taken into custody. It was always good to knock out a cornered warlock, for example, with a suitable potion rather than attempt an arrest.
I put the coffee down on my desk and took a seat.
Quiet time. Mail-opening time.
Bills, bills, a flyer for the Jansen Agency—our investigative rivals who liked to post their paraphernalia to our offices because they were shit stirrers of the first degree. There was as also a letter from Singapore from my mother. She was all about the art of letter-writing. Her script was gorgeous, written in Mandarin. The letter would’ve taken a while to get here, what with no more air travel. Sure, I called her, sometimes had video chats with her—she hadn’t rejected technology. But she loved writing letters, never wanting to lose the art. She saved things to tell me specially for paper.
She was talking about a particular day where she’d found a new recipe for a savory dish from a woman down at her favorite market. Also, that she’d taken up painting. Good for her.
But then it came at the end, something she’d never mentioned before.
Marriage. Specifically, when were Jake and I tying the knot?
I thought about getting down on one knee all the time, even came close to it on several occasions, fumbling with the ring I’d bought a year into our relationship.
Him being married before held me back. Not that it bothered me. Everyone has a past. I’m not the kind of person to be jealous about those things. I’d been with women before Jake, so I’d have no basis for an argument.
No, it was what had happened to Michael—the man he’d been married to. Murder. Jake had been utterly broken by it. Since we’d moved to Holland, Jake never spoke about Michael, about any of their time together. It was as if he’d completely left all of that behind him. I knew it must still hurt somewhere inside him, though.
Grief was a messy emotion.
What if I triggered him, set him down a dark path again? He was stronger than that now, but a part of me would always have that in the back of mind, and always want to protect him from whatever pain I could.
I leaned back in my chair, folding my mum’s letter. The ring was hidden here, in my desk, way out of sight but not mind.
It’d look so good on his finger.
Jake being my husband, would be a dream come true. He was the one. I’d found him, the second half of my heart. He really was. My life had been nothing more than a series of relationships, the last one fading away to nothing more than a shared interest in a cat.
My mum really liked Jake. She was a quiet woman, not one for expressing much emotion. But when she’d seen me with Jake and Louise, she could see just how happy I was. So, so happy, even if my own past still messed with my mind. I had my family to steer me through the rocky waters of life.
My mum had written to me after her first meeting with Jake and Louise, explaining that she’d never seen my eyes shine so brightly as when I gazed upon my family.
Unfortunately, we
