In Too Deep

7

He awoke to the sweet-and-sour aroma of the ginger-scented soup. He could hear Isabella moving about in the kitchen. He hauled his arm up over his face and looked at his watch. An hour had passed since he had carried Isabella into the bedroom and made love to her as though the future of the world depended on it. Maybe his own future had depended on it, he thought. One thing was certain. He felt a hell of a lot better than he had an hour ago. Almost human again.

He climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom. When he saw the man in the mirror, his sense of well-being faded rapidly. It was replaced with dread. She'll want to talk about it, he thought. He was not good with conversations of that sort.

He washed up, dressed and went back into the front room, determined to do what a man had to do. Isabella was waiting for him. She had put on a fresh shirt and a pair of trousers. She looked a little flushed and her eyes seemed brighter than usual but she made no comment on the fact that he had just emerged from her bedroom.

"Dinner's ready," she announced. She ladled the soup into two bowls. "Have a seat."

It dawned on him that she was acting as if nothing of significance had happened between them. He'd been worried about having the conversation, but now he was more alarmed by the fact that she didn't seem interested in discussing what had occurred on her new double bed. Maybe the sex was what she had meant when she talked about decompressing together. He did not want to think that was all it had been for her.

Warily, he sat down at the table. "Smells good."

"It's my grandmother's recipe. She used to make it for me whenever I got a cold or felt ill. Vegetable stock, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, water chestnuts, tofu, red bell peppers and then, at the very end, you drizzle in some beaten eggs. The eggs come out looking like little noodles."

When she put the steaming bowl in front of him, he discovered that he did have an appetite, after all. In fact, he was suddenly starving. He picked up the spoon and started to eat. Nothing had tasted so good in a very long time. The sense of well-being flooded back. Nothing like sex and home cooking to put the world to rights.

Isabella sat down across from him. She looked pleased to see him eating with enthusiasm. "I understand that this Mrs. Bridewell could manipulate the paranormal properties of glass, but that clock isn't generating any energy now."

"It has to be wound up first," he said.

She pursed her lips, thinking. "But winding up a clock is a mechanical action. How does that produce paranormal power to activate the special properties of the glass?"

He liked the way Isabella's brain worked.

"Good question," he said. "That, as it happens, was Bridewell's real genius. She found a way to use mechanical energy to ignite paranormal energy that was otherwise locked in stasis."

"Like using a mechanically generated spark to ignite the pilot light in a gas fireplace?"

"Right. According to the J&J notes on the case, Mrs. B. also supplied the client with a small mirror that could be used to switch off the curiosity."

"So the customer didn't accidentally zap himself?"

"That was evidently the idea. The deactivating devices were not ordinary mirrors, however. The glass involved, like the glass in the killer toys, possessed unique properties that have never been duplicated. To my knowledge, none of the small deactivation mirrors survived. There are no examples in any of the Arcane museums."

"Holy cow. I'd like to read the file on that case one of these days."

It was the first time she'd shown any curiosity about the history of the agency, he thought. Progress of a sort.

"Sure," he said. "Remind me tomorrow. You can tell me what you're running from then, too."

"Not tonight?"

"I'm too tired to concentrate tonight."

"Okay," she said.

They were both quiet for a while.

"So Kevin Conner Andrews, alias Nightman, turned out to be an upstanding citizen." Isabella said after a time. "Sterling employment record at the construction company. No criminal record. Everyone thought he was such a nice, normal guy. Blah, blah, blah."

"They always say that. The fact that he was local and in the construction business does explain how he knew about the basement in the old Zander house. Explains the new floor, as well."

"Yes. Want some more soup?"

"Yes," he said.

She got up, refilled his bowl and came back to the table.

"Think the cops are done with J&J?" she asked.

"Pretty much," he said. "The detective might come back for another statement from me, but everything I gave him was the truth, at least up to a point. Norma Spaulding hired us to check out the rumors of ghosts in the old Zander mansion. I went there to take a look. Found the dumping ground in the basement and was confronted by the killer, who must have been watching the house."

"Said killer attacks you in the basement and dies of sudden cardiac arrest."

"It happens, even to men Andrews's age. The authorities may spring for an autopsy but they won't find anything more. And I doubt they'll go that far, not when there's so much evidence."

She looked at him. "You mean the bodies?"

"Not just the bodies. Andrews took pictures. The cops found them in his house."

"Geez."

"Sudden deaths happen, even to killers," he stated. "The cops know that no shots were fired and there's no sign of a struggle. There's no way they're going to go with a theory of the crime that involves death by paranormal forces, so cardiac arrest is all they've got."

"Sounds like you've had experience in situations like this."

"Some," he admitted. "I don't think there's anything to worry about. The detective in charge just cracked the biggest case of his career. He'll be too busy giving interviews to the media to wonder why a serial killer in his prime keeled over and toppled down a flight of basement stairs. As far as he's concerned, the incident saved the county the cost of a trial."

"But it wasn't an incident," Isabella said quietly. "You had to kill a man."

"Yes."

She watched him with her knowing eyes. "That sort of thing, no matter how justified, causes some major psychic trauma."

"Not as major as the trauma that Andrews went through."

"He deserved it. Do you want to talk about the psychic trauma thing?"

"I don't think talking about it will do anyone, including me, any good."

"Okay," she said.

"That's it? You're not going to lecture me about the dangers of ignoring the consequences of serious psychic trauma?"

"Not tonight."

HALF AN HOUR LATER, after consuming two bowls of soup and another glass of whiskey, Fallon Jones fell profoundly asleep on her sofa.

Moving quietly, she turned off the lights and took a spare blanket out of the hall closet. She covered Fallon with the blanket and then stood for a time in the shadows, looking at him. He was too big for the sofa, too big for the tiny apartment. But for some reason it felt right to have him here in her space, surrounded by her plants and the precious used furniture, lamps and dishes that her new neighbors had given her.

Fallon Jones and the secondhand treasures that filled the small apartment anchored her now. She belonged here in Scargill Cove.