Craving (16 page)

“So you read her journals then?”

“Eva wanted me to. She needed someone to see her, but have no stake in her life.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tell me, Detective, does every victim you encounter want your sympathy?”

Unger paused. “No.”

“Eva was too sensitive to allow anyone to look at her thoughts, but someone had to see or she would be a non-person. You can understand that, I trust.”

“Yes, I suppose.” I could hear him shuffle his feet. “What did Lilith see in her vision?” he finally asked, as if he didn’t want to, but had no choice.

My opinion of him was evolving rather quickly; once he had been the one stake tying my hot air to the ground, then he was a nail in my sister’s coffin, but now I could see he was a square peg in a round world. He was a nice man with a difficult job that he probably did very well, when he wasn’t dealing with the extraordinary.

Arthur sighed. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Though, I can understand if she’d refuse to speak to you, since in her vision you seemed to be suspicious of her.”

“Has she told you anything about the circumstances?” Unger demanded a bit defensively. “Her sister had a lot of money and though she had access, it wasn’t hers to do with as she pleased without her sister out of the way.”

My mouth fell open. With all the fabulous suspects that existed, he was going for me, when not two days before he had insisted it was a suicide. I was the one who had tried to convince him of wrongdoing in the first place!

“I can assure you, Detective, money is the last thing Lilith Pierce cares about right now and the bank records will prove it,” Arthur defended. “Many people claim to love their siblings, but what they feel is the pull of relation. They are alike in some part and it is expected that they will support one another, but that doesn’t mean that there is affection. Eva Pierce was more than that to Lilith.”

My mouth shut. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall.

“What do you mean?”

“Lilith sacrificed her happiness for Eva, and even though it didn’t work out as she planned, even though there was some resentment there, even though they had their differences, each knew what the other felt.” His voice lifted and I knew he was speaking to me, tucked in concealment, trying desperately not to cry. “Lilith wanted her sister to succeed and regretted that she wasn’t able to give more, that her stamina gave out. Eva knew she was a disappointment and regretted that Lilith had felt so protective of her. Each wanted the other to live for herself and it is a sad irony that neither did.”

Then I knew I didn’t just value Arthur, I respected him immensely and would have followed him anywhere.

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that Eva killed herself and left the money as a gift.”

“And why should I believe you? For all I know, you argued with Eva about the money, pushed her off a roof, and the two of you are upstairs celebrating. For all I know the vision stuff is a hoax.”

Arthur was silent for some time. If it had been me to speak next, I know I would have had some kind of spiteful retort, but like any lover of art, I wanted to watch the master put Unger in his place so gently that the man appreciated the correction.

“There is not a single person,” he said softly, “that will tell you Eva was harmed. She took her own life and right now, Lilith is mourning what she perceives to be her own failure to prevent it.” He said nothing about the affront. True to form, he let it slide, forgiven, and put Unger again in his debt. “You should be asking yourself, not ‘what happened to Eva?,’ but ‘why would Eva do it, when everything else was turning out so well?’”

“How long have you been a detective?” Unger countered.

“How long has it been since you recalled that humans feel things to a distraction? Rational thought is not important in such times and often what they do and say makes no sense to any of us.”

Both men were silent and I could imagine the battle of glances that was taking place; Unger would attack and push forward, but never gain any ground. Arthur had no ground to take. Eventually Unger would be sapped of energy and give up, and Arthur would take his hand and call him a friend.

After a while, Unger huffed in surrender.

“What did she see?”

“A murder.”

“I can’t dispatch uniforms on a premonition.”

I was sure Arthur was shrugging. “If she goes tonight, a man will die at Club Trishna, by the river. Of this I am certain.”

“Because she knew your name?”

“The same way she knew yours. Tell me it does not make an impression.”

Unger coughed. “Where is she?”

I stepped into the doorway. “Right here, Unger, and you’re lucky Arthur’s teaching me composure.”

Chapter 12

He stared at me. “You realize what you’re telling me sounds completely . . .” I gave him a wry look. “Of course you do,” Unger finished and swiped his hand over his unshaven face.

“I have to stop it,” I declared.

Arthur’s eyes were closed and he was turned away from me slightly, but his aura was so strong I could tell when he did not agree with me.

“What, Arthur? Say it.”

Unger glanced at him, a look of trepidation on his face.

“Ursula did what she did to frighten you. If you do not go, there is no proof she will do anything, but if you do, you will certainly do something you’ll regret, because she is certain to strike.”

I crossed my arms in rebelliousness. “Yeah, and trees falling in the forest don’t make sounds unless I’m there to hear them, but so what?”

He made a tiny noise of disapproval. “If she is capable of doing what you suggest and you walk into the room with her, there is nothing to stop her from seeing your vision as clearly as you did.”

“Well good! Then she’ll know I get away in the end!”

“And will stop you.”

“And so I’ll run the other way!”

He leaned forward in an emotion as close to annoyance as I had ever seen from him. “You are forgetting she will have seen this conversation as well. If she is empathic, then you have no chance against her. There is nothing that can be done.”

I clamped my lips shut, but glared at him until his face relaxed.

“You are too stubborn.”

“It’s worked so far,” I said blithely.

He looked away. Unger moved uncomfortably. “I can’t go in as a cop. There’s no probable cause, no warrant. All I can do is go in as a civilian and stand around like an idiot.”

I held up my hands. “Maybe that will scare her!”

“A woman who eats men alive in a nightclub is not deterred by the presence of one police officer, especially if she has hostages,” Arthur said to himself.

“Then what should we do?” I stood up and tried to intimidate him. It happened naturally, without my awareness, but when he looked at me like a saddened angel, I wilted.

“You should not confront her. You should make a plan to assess her and prevent her movements without seeming to do so.”

“Which she will read if I set one foot in the room!”

“Then do not set foot in it.”

“You’re overlooking the most obvious part of the whole trick,” Unger warned.

I looked at him in question.

“She touched them. She put her hand on each person she read, even you.”

I thought back, but while that fit every one of the contestants, I realized that her words to me had seemed to answer my thoughts before I had even managed to shake her hand. No, for whatever reason, that didn’t work for me. I said as much to him.

He massaged his chin and brooded. “Then all we have to do is put someone else in the room who can keep their distance from her.”

“But like Arthur said, she’s not going to do anything, unless I’m there too.”

Arthur sighed and opened the Dutch door. “You are making a great many assumptions.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “Yeah, well, you’re talking to a woman who saw a mind-reader in her psychic vision of the future. We love assumptions here. We’re all about them.”

What was wrong with me? Was I angry with him for protecting me? Was it the stubbornness? No, I was testing him. I was trying to sound out his depths like a sailor staring into an unfathomable ocean. It was petty.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately. “You know what I’m feeling, Arthur, tell me what I can do that will take that away.”

He closed his eyes in thought and upon opening them, looked to Sam, watching from his place behind the bar. At his beckoning, Sam slid out and shut the door after himself.

“If you must go, Sam will go with you. Unger and I can wait at either entrance.”

The bartender assented with a sallow nod and a fidget in my direction, but Unger was scowling at his shoes.

“There’s protocol for this kind of thing.”

“If you do not wish to be involved, then we will do it alone,” Arthur murmured, “though I am almost positive that you cannot, in good conscience, do such a thing.”

Unger tilted his head in a kind of nod.

“Then we will do everything exactly as it was done. Lilith will go shopping as she did.” He reached out suddenly and tapped Unger’s hunched shoulder. “And you will sleep.”

He looked as if he might protest, until Sam and I supported the unofficial leader with insistent stares. “Okay, fine, but you”—he pointed at me—“will buy a cell phone, and you”—he pointed in Arthur’s direction, unable to even look at the man—“will go with her when she shops. Who knows, those people could be watching her.”

Sam stepped forward as if to volunteer instead, but a tiny movement of Arthur’s hand stayed him. “That is a wonderful idea.”

There were a few seconds of pause. The host glanced around and tilted his head. “What is it that they say in sports when the team is sent back out to the field?”

I choked on the giggle that leapt into my throat at the thought of explaining to Arthur that “sports” was not in fact, a single event, but a category, and that many games that fit into the category did not involve fields.

Unger shot another incredulous look at Arthur’s shoes. “Break?” he hazarded.

“Yes!” Arthur put his hands together and instead of looking like an indignant coach, seemed more like a glowing piece of iconography. “Break!”

We parted company, Unger and Sam mumbling to each other in the universal language of dissatisfied guardians, Arthur as serene as ever, and me just happy to have him to myself again. He folded his long legs into my car and somehow managed to make its borrowed interior look high-end. We drove to the mall as I had done in my dream, fought traffic, and jockeyed for a parking space without a single growl from my internal lion of road rage.

He strolled past shops with veiled eyes, taking in his surroundings in an amused detachment that turned heads. Packs of diversion-seeking teenage girls giggled as he walked by, shooting me with envious looks, and for some reason, the toddler standing in front of us on the escalator found Arthur’s smile quite entertaining. Like a fool, I was incredibly jealous, until I realized he was watching me and had never once looked away. While the escalator carried us upward, I began to warm beneath the gaze until I had once again devolved into a child.

“I’m not buying the same clothes.”

He smiled.

“Those shoes were death traps and that skirt was a nightmare.”

His brows ticked upward.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, but let’s just say that even though the purse worked, I’m definitely angling toward a utility belt this time.”

It unfolded before my eyes like the sun shining through clouds, and while his dazzling smile remained, a giggle of girls passing us on their downward trek performed a marvelous rendition of the chorus of “Don’t look” harmonized with comments about the temperature.

His eyes flicked in their direction and they were painted red with bliss, before he gave me back the attention I craved. I leaned toward him, ashamed that I was staking territory and that he was allowing me to.

“That was for you, you know.”

His arm slid up the moving banister till his fingers could tap the back of my hand.

“They think you’re gorgeous. They want you to look back at them.”

His eyes were tracing my features ever so carefully. “Desire is the cause of suffering.”

I think my mouth dropped open in shock. “Did you just insult them with Zen?”

The
smile
graced his face again. “I disappointed them, but to look back would be worse.”

We stepped off and walked across the busy tributary of flowing humans to the next escalator. Again I turned to face him, sure I was probably humiliating myself.

“Can I be incredibly personal with you?”

He chuckled, but didn’t look away. “Only if you promise to stop prefacing every piece of honesty with a disclaimer.”

“Done,” I agreed and steeled myself. “There are things that a woman comes to anticipate from a man.”

The lady in front of me stepped up to the next stair.

Arthur nodded in encouragement.

I lowered my voice. “It’s hard to read you, because . . .” I looked around helplessly. “Because you don’t se
em
like a normal man.”

We stepped off and wandered slowly around the promenade like two friends walking through the park. In front of a promising store, I halted and folded my arms across the balcony railing, trying to find the most thoughtful way to ask him the question that was roasting my insides.

“You’re like a hermit,” I blurted out, immediately mortified. “I mean . . . are you, like, oblivious, or is it just . . .”

To my shock, he laughed.

Of course he knows what I’m going to say. God, I’m stupid.
It wasn’t as if I had a particularly stony face.

“Don’t laugh at me, please?”

He apologized with a shake of his head, though he continued to chuckle. “But it’s so funny, how you always say things without saying them!”

“Alright, so I’ll be blunt. You turn it off, right?” What I was saying was confusing even to me. I was a fourteen-year-old trying to ask out that one untouchable senior who always smiled at me, but because of the unfortunate circumstances of his popularity, would never be able to confess his affections to me. It was absurd and, at my age, I should have outgrown it. Howard had never made me feel so light-headed, so giddy. I had no idea who Arthur was, or even what his last name might be, but if people could have intense one night stands, then why couldn’t I be sure he was a catch?