Seawitch

THIRTEEN

Reeve had died at Highline Hospital, which made his death a Seattle PD matter, but not Solis’s case. He wasn’t “on deck” when the call came in and the connection to the Seawitch investigation was tenuous, so it had been assigned to someone else. Still, the circumstances were strange enough that the detective on the case wanted to talk to Solis and me once he’d heard we’d been on the scene when Reeve had the heart attack that brought him to the hospital in the first place. We drove down separately and I found myself annoyed at the lost opportunity to pursue the discussions we’d begun at Solis’s house.

My disgruntlement took a backseat when we arrived at the hospital. Crime scenes at hospitals aren’t managed in quite the same way as they are anywhere else, since the place is always busy and space is generally at a premium and you don’t usually get to leave the body in situ for long. Reeve had already been removed from his cubicle in cardiac ICU and the area was screened off for privacy while a pair of technicians finished picking up what they could in the way of forensic evidence. Other patients had been rearranged to optimize the isolation of the scene, and we met with Detective Julian Plant in the cafeteria downstairs—it was empty since the regular meal service had already closed and no one seemed to be raiding the vending machines at the moment, though we could hear the patient nutritional services crew clattering away in the kitchen behind the metal curtain barrier.

I’d met Plant before. He was one of those tall, pale, lanky guys who always looks like he’s in desperate need of some sun, sandwiches, and sleep. Competent enough, but I’d never been overly impressed. He didn’t seem to go any further than he had to with anything and I had the impression he was marking time until he could retire. He wasn’t sloppy or a bad cop, but he was one of those aging, old-school detectives who’d gone the route of no longer caring rather than care too much. He gave us both a basset-eyed stare as we came and sat at his table.

“You two want some coffee?” he asked. “They’ve still got some in the patient services hatch round the corner if you don’t like the vending machine kind.”

We both shook our heads and sat, facing Plant at the awkward round table.

“Well,” Plant started, curving his hands around his dented paper coffee cup on the table. “So. Here’s the thing: seawater.”

I made the “Huh?” face at him, and Solis said, “Clarify, please. Seawater?”

Plant nodded. “Yeah. Mr. Reeve was either smothered with a wet something or he died of drowning. In seawater. In his bed. Now, they would have said pneumonia—which I guess they considered—except the bed was wet. Not that they aren’t wet a lot of the time when folks die, ’cause you know what happens. And there was the dog. So we’re waiting for confirmation from the coroner, but the attending medical team is saying Mr. Reeve was attacked by a dog that smothered him with a wet pillow. What do you think? Any connection to your case?”

Solis and I exchanged incredulous glances. “A . . . dog?” I asked.

“Yeah. Big dog, they said. Brown with a white stripe on its back. Mr. Reeve was resting and they’d pulled his curtains closed for privacy when the monitors started going crazy, and the first nurse through the curtain sees this big, wet, brown dog wrestling with a pillow on Reeve’s chest. The nurse said there was a stink in the room like”—he flipped open his notebook and paged around a bit—“like rotten vegetables. And the dog was sitting on Reeve’s chest, shaking the crap outta this wet pillow that was covering Reeve’s face. So the medical team can’t get near the guy and they call security to come shoot the dog, but Reeve’s already dead and the dog takes off. They couldn’t revive him and the attending physician called it at”—he looked at his book again—“six forty-one. Well, technically they’re saying cardiac arrest due to animal assault, but the amount of water in his mouth and on the bed is making the ME want a deeper look. So, what do you two think?”

“Are they sure it was a dog?” I asked again.

“Yeah, though they can’t decide on what breed. One guy said it was a German shepherd. Another said it was an otter hound. Another said it was . . . umm . . . a Portuguese water spaniel—you know, like the president’s dog. And one said it was a pit bull. A fat pit bull.”

“Fat chance.”

Solis smirked—there was nothing else to call it.

Plant made a sour face at me.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “No one can seriously believe a dog was trained to run in here, find Reeve, jump on his bed, and smother him with a wet pillow. When we saw Reeve he was afraid of something, and we saw something or someone moving at the back of the property. But if anyone did kill him—”

“Someone did,” Plant said, cutting me off. “He sure didn’t die of smothering himself or inducing his own heart attack.” He looked at both of us, then focused on Solis. “What do you think, Rey?”

Solis lowered his gaze to the tabletop, his brow creasing, then drew a slow breath before he looked back at Plant. “I think Mr. Reeve may have been frightened by a stray dog that got into the hospital. Or he may have been smothered by an attacker who was frightened off by a service dog, but that’s all I can imagine, if Reeve didn’t die of a simple heart attack, which seems far more likely. Doesn’t it, Plant?”

Plant sat back, closing his basset-hound eyes. “Yeah. And I hope that’s how the coroner will rule when he’s done. But if not . . . I guess I’m going to be looking for people who had it in for the old man and made a habit of carrying pillows soaked in seawater and training dogs to smother people with them.” He shook his head in disgust. “You two can go. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

We stood and Solis bent down to ask Plant to keep him in the loop; then we walked toward the exit together.

“Who murdered Reeve?” Solis whispered to me as we neared the door.

“Why ask me?”

“I hoped you had seen something.”

“Nothing you didn’t. We got only a glimpse at the scene before we had to go down to see Plant.”

“But what did you see that I did not? You have that look on your face, so no evasions. We are partners on this case, remember.”

“All right. I saw the same gray-green color around Reeve’s bed that I saw around him when he had the original heart attack, and I’d bet the description of the dog people claim to have seen here would match the thing I saw at Reeve’s place. Whoever killed Reeve is involved with Seawitch.”

“That is my thought, too.”

We walked on through the hospital without another word. Solis walked like something heavy and morbid had settled on him. I stopped him just outside the lobby doors in the dim greenish light of the emergency room driveway.

“Are you really ready for this? I don’t think we can pretend this whole business, from the boat to Reeve’s death, isn’t paranormal. And it’s going to get worse now that someone with the stink of magic on them is willing to risk exposure by coming into a hospital to kill an old man who was probably dying, anyhow.”

“This was not something accomplished from a distance?”

“No. There wasn’t enough magical residue or a spell circle around his bed for Reeve to have been killed by magic at a distance. Someone or something came here in person to do it.”

“If this person has magic at their disposal—”

“It costs. Magic is not free, especially not this kind. The farther you want to reach, the harder you want to hit, the more you have to pay one way or another. Both the spell circles we’ve seen were drawn in blood. That has to come from a live person or animal, not a plastic container stolen from the hospital blood supply, which means our spell flinger is powerful but has a major crutch and can’t do much without literally spilling blood. Smothering wouldn’t pay the piper. No blood here, but the residue was otherwise the same, so no major spell was cast but something or someone magical was in the room and they killed Reeve—or made sure he couldn’t be saved, at the very least.”

Solis looked troubled.

I sighed and felt like I was kicking a puppy. “Up to you to believe it or not,” I said, “but I am telling you the truth where magic is concerned, and I don’t see any other explanation or any other way of solving this without heading into the weirdness.”

“I am sorry I’m . . . difficult. Forcing my mind to go in these directions is . . . is like changing religions.”

“Have you tried that?” I asked.

“No. I think it wiser to challenge only one ingrained practice at a time.”

“You might find that some changes just come along with the package.”

He nodded. “That may be true. Your . . . partner. Mr. Lassiter? Mr. Purlis? Which does he prefer?”

Ah, so Solis did know the whole long, strange tale of Quinton. “I’ve never asked him,” I replied, which was true. I’d just assumed he was content with the nickname and didn’t really like either his alias or his real name much. One he’d adopted on the fly and the other he’d tried to walk away from. “I just call him Quinton and we go on from there.”

“Ah. How does he cope with this . . . blindness? I assume he is not like you. . . .”

“You assume correctly. He trusts me—most of the time,” I added, thinking of his unexplained discomforts and alarms lately. “And he has enough personal experience with things that don’t fit the standard paradigm that he’s developed his own Theory of the Invisible by observation and deduction. Most of the time he’s right. Sometimes he’s not. Some things you can’t see still leave observable traces—like, say, gravity. Some leave nothing concrete behind to prove your experience was anything other than imagination. Well, I have some unexplainable scars, but I’m strange that way.”

He seemed intrigued but he didn’t ask. He grunted to himself and nodded. “I see.”

I had the urge to put my hand on his shoulder, but I stifled it. I wasn’t sure this tiny, forced bud of acceptance could withstand any ham-handed gestures on my part yet.

“Just don’t go slamming any mental doors. If you can do that for a while I think you’ll figure the rest out. And I . . .” I hesitated, then finished, “I’m here.”

“So you are,” he said. “And I should return home. To see how things are.”

I smiled. “Understood. I’ll call you tomorrow if you don’t call me first. Then you can tell me if you’re still on board this crazy investigation or not.”

He nodded and turned away to find his car. I went to mine and started back toward home.

It was only ten minutes from Highline to my place in West Seattle, but when I reached the turn that would put me irrevocably on track for the condo, I went the other way, heading up to Ballard and back to Seawitch.

When I got to the marina, I didn’t go straight back to the boat, though I had thought I would. Instead I found myself walking up and down B dock as the last rays of our late-setting sun faded into purple and umber smears on the horizon. I wanted to confirm something I hadn’t been able to get a good look at before, and with the evening closing in, my ghostly act would be less noticeable than it would have been earlier. C dock and Pleiades were just across the water. . . .

I sank into the Grey, the chilly mist and ghostlight washing up over me until the world was a dim shape beneath shadows of memory and bright lines of energy. I walked out to the end of the finger dock closest to the big blue sailboat and sat down in the slow-pressing cold at the edge of the blackness that was water. From here the power grid of the Grey was easy to see in all its burning color and searing light. Pleiades looked like the cold shadow of a boat surrounded like Sleeping Beauty’s castle by a magical hedge of waving emerald and aqua vines spiked with fury red thorns that rose from the water in a tangled pillar. And over it all lay a coiling cloud of gray-green smoke. The same color and misty snakelike form I’d seen around John Reeve when he collapsed at his home and again lingering around his empty bed at the hospital. Was it attacking Jacque Knight or was it protecting her? I was pretty sure I didn’t want to attract the attention of our murderous magic user, even if he or she was depleted after killing Reeve. I eased back from the Grey, feeling as if I were swimming upward through thickened silver steam as cold as Siberian graves. I broke free, back to normal, and found myself gasping for air, not realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Something splashed and nudged my foot where my toe overhung the edge of the dock. I glanced down, looking for the surface ripples left by a leaping fish, and caught the limpid brown stare of a furry, whiskered face. I froze, hoping not to frighten it off before I could see what the creature was, but there was no danger of that when the beast heaved itself up, throwing the bulk of its upper body onto the dock beside me.

It bared its fangs, like the gigantic version of Chaos panting in excitement. I started at the creature, all wet, dark fur and compact, muscular body. Much too big to be a harbor seal and too hairy to be a sea lion. An otter of tremendous size but with a head bizarrely large and misshapen. It pawed at me and rubbed its weird head on my calf, soaking my jeans leg instantly. I thought about reaching out to pet it, but another glimpse of those teeth changed my mind. Whatever this thing wanted, I wasn’t going to tempt it to lose its temper by patting it on the head. Especially since that head was nearly the size of mine, to accommodate the finger-length incisors it flashed. It wriggled and the dying light flashed on its wet back.

“What do you want?” I tried.

“Har-per!” it barked. “Booooad!”

“Boat?” I asked. “Which boat?”

The noises it made didn’t make any sense to me this time; they were hisses and grunts cut off by a harsh barking scream as it thrashed back into the water, apparently dragged or shocked by a sudden eruption of energy from Pleiades that started with a whistle and a rising cry of sound, then flashed out in shades of red and searing white like lightning bolts directed by an angry god. The otter creature dove and dodged through the water, breaching the surface and cutting back down and around, faster and more nimble than the slickest fish. A trail of phosphorescent bubbles twisted through the water in its wake, the strange sound of it making ripples on the surface until the creature disappeared from view, tangled up in a gleaming creeper of jade and sapphire energy that faded into the depths as the gigantic mustelid swam away. Then the twining energy flashed bright and lashed through the surface in a shout of strange harmonies, recoiling toward me. I threw myself down on the dock and with a shriek, a crackle, and a whir of angry wasps, the bright line of energy whipped through the space my head had occupied. Then it reeled, fading as if exhausted, back to Pleiades, sighing like a broken wire pulling through a hole in a steel wall—a wire drawn too taut and snapped by a sudden flick of a giant’s wrist.

I converse with ghosts and work for vampires; one freakish, talking otter was barely a blip on my personal radar of the weird. That said, the short, swift violence of the moment startled me far more than having even a truncated and garbled conversation with a giant seagoing ferret. Not much fazes me anymore, but the sudden blink of magical conflict did leave me a little unsettled and mildly abraded on my palms and knees.

I sat up with care and peered sideways into the Grey, looking for a sign of what had happened to the otter creature, but the cold depths of the bay were obscured by a scree of visual noise—like the Grey version of a dust devil kicked up in the otter’s wake. I turned my Grey-tuned sight toward the sailboat, but that, too, seemed hidden in a flurry of dimming energetic particles writhing in the water like clouds of agitated, dying krill. I muttered some curse words under my breath and backed away from both the Grey and the precarious, wet end of the dock. I considered walking over to Pleiades to investigate the apparent source of the magical flash, or down to Seawitch to see if I could get more out of the ghosts, but the fallen night, ringed around with sudden, creeping fog, made me think I’d rather return with Solis in the daylight than face the ghosts of Seawitch or, possibly worse, the resident of Pleiades alone.

Rattled, I walked back to my car, paged Quinton, and went home.

Quinton had arrived first. Even before I got inside I could sense his frustrated annoyance. He was muttering to himself and swiping at the dishes in the sink as if they had done him wrong. Every angry swish of the scrubber felt like a slap. We’ve had this strange emotional tie for about a year, but while the intensity had faded, the worst sensations apparently still bled through. Quinton was royally pissed and a touch scared and I felt every secondhand stab of it.

“Hey there,” I said, putting down the bell and my bag with care so as not to squish the ferret, and coming over to kiss him on the cheek.

He flinched.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he snapped, throwing down the scrubber.

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”

He glared at me. Then he turned away with a jerk. “This hasn’t been as easy as I’d thought it would be—the things I feel, the things I try to shut off in my own head. I didn’t even realize I was this . . . angry about so many things until I started trying to turn it off.”

I watched him and I hurt—my very own ache of sadness and pain for him, not just his upset turning inward and stabbing us both. “It hasn’t been a problem at my end. I don’t want you to shield me from your bad parts; I want you whole—bad things and all. You know I’m not any good at keeping my own horrors at bay. Is that the problem?” I was all too aware of Solis’s worries about his family to discount such a risk to what counted as mine. “Is being privy to my feelings driving you crazy? I’m sorry if that’s the case,” I said. It was so much easier to apologize now than it had been a few years ago. I knew it wasn’t a weakness to own up to causing distress or having made a mistake, or even to take a share of the blame whether you did something blameworthy or not.

“No. No, that’s not it at all.” He still sounded angry, but the fluctuating colors around him told me it was frustration as much as anything. His shoulders were stiff and the set of his head and a ghost pain in my jaw made me think he was clenching his teeth. He kept that posture for a moment, still turned away from me; then he took a deep breath, held it . . . and deflated, the orange sparks around him dying out to only sparking glimmers as his aura settled down. “I’m sorry. I’m overreacting and I’m making this worse. I’m not sure how it could get worse, but I’m pretty sure it will.”

“No. You’re still getting used to a strange situation. It took me a while to accept what I am and what that does to me. Although it’s still hard for me to take what it does to you.

“And what could get worse?” I thought of his hints the night before. “Is it connected to Fern Laguire?” Laguire, his former boss at a government agency people don’t like to talk about, had finally retired and given up her search for the computer geek that got away when she had been persuaded that Quinton—or, as she knew him, J. J. Purlis—was dead. Her obsessive focus and fury went well beyond the normal profile for government spooks as long as her retirement had been at stake, but it appeared she’d let it go once her financial security had been assured by the removal of the threat she had seen in Quinton’s unresolved disappearance from her fold.

He stiffened and swore. “Oh yes. Much worse than Fern. I forgot I mentioned it.”

“You thought I wouldn’t remember what you said earlier? That your past is leaking back?”

“Not just the business past. It’s not Fern this time. It’s my dad.”

“I thought you’d dealt with your dad. . . .”

“I thought I had. But I continue to be wrong every time I think I’ve got the upper hand at last. I saw him today. Or, rather, I heard from him. . . . That’s not quite right. It was a meeting, but it wasn’t a meeting. Telepresence, but I know he was actually nearby. I’ve seen him around Seattle recently.”

I went to him and put my arms around him. “You’re sure? Why would he be in Seattle?”

“Because he’s figured out some of the same things I did—that there are people like . . . well, not like you, but like some of your clients. People like the late Edward Kammerling. And didn’t he make hay out of that. . . .”

“Excuse me? I’m not following you.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, then turned and put his arms around me. The embrace felt a little desperate and more in need of comfort than I had expected. I tightened my hug. “Try again,” I whispered. “What did he want?”

“He’s in charge of a new project. He calls it the Ghost Division and he thinks that’s funny because it’s the sort of project no one wants to admit exists. And it’s looking for . . . paranormals.”

“I see.” Actually I wasn’t sure I did. Various governments have looked into psychic phenomena and other paranormal topics in the past and in the end they all give up or the projects get canceled. It was hard to believe anyone was green-lighting a project like that again. But maybe enough time had elapsed for the collective memory of the government to fade. “How did your father manage to persuade anyone to go down that road again?”

“I have no idea. He’s the proverbial silver-tongued devil to have talked his way not only out of his last debacle but back into a position of autonomous control. Hell, he’s just a step from Satan, anyway. Why I’m surprised, I don’t know. And I wouldn’t care except that he knows I know . . . the right people. I don’t think he knows about you—if he does, he’s playing dumb or hasn’t had time to threaten you yet—but he may make the connection once he starts finding the people he’s looking for and notices how many have connections back to you.”

“Is it just the bloodsucking fraternity he’s after or . . . everyone?”

“Everyone, everything. I don’t even know what he’s planning to do once he finds them, except I know what the standard operating procedure is and . . . well, he’s pretty much by the book on that front: catch it, contain it, examine it. If it dies, get another one.”

“This isn’t good.”

“No. Very not good. And he’s putting a lot of pressure on me to do the street work. I don’t want this. I never wanted to be on anyone’s hook again and especially not his, but this is a nightmare.”

I always think of Quinton as strong and balanced, so calm and logical, that it was odd finding this anger and confusion in him. I didn’t know how we’d get past this, but we had to find a way. And we’d have to do it without becoming lunch for the sort of paranormal creatures that enjoy chaos, anger, and fear. I didn’t need any of them hanging around. But I did need Quinton. “We’ll find a way,” I whispered.

“I wasn’t intending to drag you into this. . . .”

“I know that. But I’m glad you’re not keeping it from me. We can’t stay ahead of him or anything else if we hide things from each other. I have your back. I’ll always have your back.”

He gazed into my face, making an effort to turn his emotional state. His eyes sparkled with a distant twinkle as the corners of his mouth fought upward. He rubbed his hands over my spine and shoulder blades. “I have yours, too. And it’s very nice.”

I chuckled at him—I refuse to think I giggle—and gave him a tiny peck of a kiss on the mouth. “You’re wonderfully odd.”

“Am I?”

“I think so. Let me try that again.” I gave him a bigger kiss. “Hmm . . . yes, I definitely taste some odd there.”

“How can you call me odd when I’m concerned for the welfare of the entire paranormal world?”

“Wouldn’t you have to be odd to be concerned about that in the first place?”

“I would think that was your field of expertise.”

“Are you calling me odd?”

“Strange, even.”

“Wonderfully strange? Or just the garden variety of strange?”

He broke down and laughed, a flush of pink and gold sparks zipping around us like champagne bubbles. “Exquisitely, marvelously strange.” He chuckled and kissed me again, spinning us both around like a top until we lurched to a stop against the drain board.

I glanced over his shoulder. I wished I hadn’t.

“Umm . . . what’s that?”

“What?”

“In the sink.”

He blushed. “I burned a pot pie.”

On a stove or a hot plate, Quinton can make a decent meal out of anything—or almost nothing. But where a microwave is concerned, he’s jinxed. I suspect that nature compensates for genius in one field by making people stupid in a related one. Quinton, who plays with electrical and quantum theory and can build an alarm system from a greeting card, two rolls of wire, and a tube of toothpaste, can’t use a microwave without setting his dinner—or the oven—on fire. I’ve been told Albert Einstein had difficulty tying his shoes.

“Oh, my,” I muttered, trying not to break the fragile mood.

He sighed first, the brightness of the moment fading but not collapsing completely, I was glad to note. “I’ll clean it up,” he said, turning back toward the sink.

I held him back long enough to kiss him again and then left him to it while I went to write up some notes on my home computer.

Chaos the ferret was sitting on my chair, attempting to heave herself up onto the desk to wreak some havoc on my paperwork. I picked her up, giving her a quick scritch behind the ears, and deposited her on the floor, much to her ire. As I watched her dance in mustelid fury I remembered the way Solis had kissed his kids and his wife with casual ease, and for a moment I felt a pang of loss that I had never had that comfortable acceptance of place with a family. My family was Quinton, the ferret, and my annoying mother. I didn’t dare bring a child into the world; I didn’t know what might happen to it developing half in the Grey all the time. And if it emerged into the world healthy and human, what might happen to it then, surrounded by ghosts and monsters? It wouldn’t be like Brian Danziger, who seemed to be a perfectly normal little boy except for the educational effects of growing up with a witch and a paranormal researcher for parents.

I sat down, feeling a little melancholy, and turned on the computer. I logged in to check my e-mail while the word processor started up.

There was still no message from Ben or Mara Danziger. I typed up my paltry notes for the insurance company, then sat and poked at a few Web sites, trying to find some information about dobhar-chú, but it’s not easy to search for something you can’t spell and don’t have any keywords for. I swore under my breath and muttered, “Damn it, Mara, why don’t you write back?”

I hadn’t noticed Quinton walking up behind me and I jumped a bit when he said, “You wrote to Ben and Mara.”

I replied a little defensively, “Yes, I did. I know you thought I shouldn’t, but they are the experts . . . and I miss them. But what does it matter, since they didn’t write back?” The thin glow of our good humor of minutes ago collapsed and I felt cold and dreadful.

“You’re still treating them like resources, not friends.”

“That’s not fair. Or true. Even if you think it’s selfish and unfair of me, this at least gives me an excuse to communicate with them. I have to say something. . . .”

Quinton humphed.

I was a little ashamed of myself, but that wasn’t going to stop me asking them questions. “I suppose the issue is whether picking people’s brains and asking favors is the only interaction I have with people. . . .”

“Not entirely, but it’s a big one.”

“Would it help if I wrote back about something other than the only thing we have in common?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “That’s the problem: You assume that you have nothing else in common, nothing else to talk about. So you don’t bother.”

“I do! I just don’t know what to say! What the hell else should I say? I don’t have kids. I’m not married—well, not the same way they are. And we don’t have any other activities or hobbies in common. Where does the conversation start?”

“Do you like Mara?”

“Of course I do! I like Ben, too.”

“And Brian?”

I thought about it. “I don’t know. He’s a kid. I guess he’s all right. For an alien.”

Quinton laughed. “I will grant you that most children are like aliens to many of us who don’t have any of our own. But he’s a good kid.”

“You know I am trying. I can fake friendly long enough to interview someone, but I don’t know how to just . . . be friendly. It doesn’t come easily to me, and if I’m faking it, I’m plainly not being a real friend.”

“Sometimes you just have to fake it until it’s true.”

“I can try, but I’m a cold, prickly bitch. So I hear.”

He sighed and I could feel him trying to exorcise the last of his own pique. “Not from me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ride you about it. I was out of line the other night. I know that social butterfly is not in your repertoire.”

I made an effort to turn the conversation to a lighter note and swiveled my chair around to face him. “Oh, come on. I don’t have to learn the whole butterfly thing, do I?” I teased. “You have to wear toe shoes for that. I hate those.”

“Your call, but you’ll look silly in the wings and hiking boots.”

“I think I’ll just stop when I reach the chrysalis stage.”

“What, all encapsulated away from the world and mutating?”

“Hey!” I said, directing a mock glare at him. “I could be a very dynamic chrysalis.”

“You are a very dynamic chrysalis.”

“Ooh, low blow, J.J.”

He blinked at me. “Why do I find it disturbing when you call me that?”

I winced, mentally cursing myself in light of the conversation we’d just had. “I am sorry. I promise I won’t do it again. It’s just that your name—umm, names—came up with Solis. He doesn’t know what to call you and I guess that got me wondering, too. I mean, I call you by a nickname, but we’re . . . almost like an old married couple. It suddenly seemed strange.”

“I prefer it. I don’t really like being named after my dad. My grandfather was OK—he was the Jason. But being ‘James,’ or—worse—‘Jimmy,’ kind of curdles my blood. I’d rather be Mom’s son than Dad Junior.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I can see that.”

And we both seemed to have decided to drop the subject. I went back to my computer and he went back to removing the burned pot pie from my dish. The ferret ignored us both and stole the keys from my bag, which I’d foolishly left on the floor, and we later spent twenty minutes looking for them. We found them behind a stack of ancient videotapes I’d forgotten I owned. Which led to laughing about old movies, then finding some online and watching them together. Which always leads to snuggling and snogging and then, of course, to various bed gymnastics and horizontal dancing. I had a feeling I’d be sleeping late. . . .