The old woman scrunched her face and frowned, her shoulders sinking slightly as she came closer toward me. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing. Whenever I try to remember, it’s as if my entire mind goes fuzzy. It’s just blackness, and everything around it is mist.”
I rubbed my eyes, exhaustion setting in deep within me. I leaned back in the chair and pressed my cheek against the smooth velvet. “Frankie. Harlow. Who else? Who else could there be? Surely, there must be something that I’ve missed. Somebody with a better motive than a failed fashion blog or rumored loan sharks, right?” Agatha didn’t respond and irritation turned to fury in my aching gut. “Come on, Agatha, you’ve got to remember something. This is all your fault, damn it. If you hadn’t left me the house, nobody would care about me. The cops would leave me alone. Why did you do it?” I glared at the ghost. “Why leave this place to me? I’m nobody. You never even met me. We never even did a proper interview.”
“I was looking for someone special,” Agatha finally whispered. I opened my eyes and met her gaze, her baby blues as clouds before a rainstorm. “I remember I needed someone specific. Someone important.” She crossed over to me and brushed my hair off my face with feather-light strokes. Then she plucked a beautiful jeweled barrette from a shelf and slid it into my hair. She smiled. “A gift from a witch to keep you safe, dear.” Her form began to shimmer and fade, but her words remained long after she vanished. “You must be something special for me to leave it all to you, of that I’m sure.”
“Somebody special,” I whispered. “Some special sort of fool.” But I wasn’t a quitter. I clenched my teeth, dragged my sorry ass out of the chair, and set myself to work. Settling in behind the dusty computer in the back corner office, I began searching through every possible person, place, event, or whatever I could think of that could possibly be related to Agatha’s death. After two fruitless hours of frustration, I sat back and stared dry-eyed out into the silent thrift shop. The fading sun cast a dusty glow and the atmosphere was eerie as I imagined scenes of the woman’s death. Where exactly did it happen? Scanning the large cluttered space, I shivered as I pictured her lifeless form on the floor. Shaking the images from my head, I leaned back in the chair and let out an exasperated groan.
“No luck?” A deep male voice sounded from within the shop. I recognized it as Tom’s and turned my attention back to the computer.
“That’s an understatement,” I replied, preferring the frustration of my failed research to the inevitable condescension that was coming my way. “Look, I’m doing my best to figure this shit out. I don’t need anyone to give me a hard time about it, okay? I’ve had a rough day.”
The large black cat appeared next to me, his scruffy fur and bulky build nearly as intimidating as his human form. I glared down at him as he sauntered up to me and rubbed up against my leg. I barely had time to react before the large tattooed naked man stood beside me, his full frontal nudity in all its massively embarrassing glory exposed perfectly at eye height from my chair.
“Zinging zucchinis,” I cursed, shielding my eyes. “Put that thing away. You guys really need to get a handle on this whole shifting thing.”
Tom reached for a flannel sweater that hung on a near rack, wrapping it around his middle for at least a somewhat false sense of modesty. “Better?”
I opened my eye to peek and nodded slowly. “I guess. What are you doing down here?”
Tom picked up a magazine from one of the vintage stacks near the desk and flipped through it for a long, drawn-out minute before turning his attention back to me. I tried to return my focus to the computer screen but my gaze was drawn to the half-naked man as if his skin was magnetic. My eyes traced the path of his Celtic tattoo from his neck, down his back and around his side where it wound lower, deep into the V of his hip. I glanced up from the shaded muscle just above his crotch to find him watching my face with slightly parted lips. I steeled myself for a mocking comment about whether or not I would like to a closer look, but unlike Pussy, Tom said nothing. He just stared at me with lips so soft I wondered how they’d feel on my skin.
“Thought you could use some company,” he finally replied as he let his eyes fall on a spread in what I read to be ‘Volume 7 - Women’s Fashion of the 1930’s’.
“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You sound surprised.” He gave me a probing stare and I turned away, embarrassed. “Is there anything I can help with?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I’m trying to dig up information on Agatha and her friends and family, but apart from the odd social media page, I’m coming up dry. I ran a juice bar, for heaven’s sake, I’m not a journalist. I don’t know how to investigate people.” I glowered at the computer screen as if it owed me answers.
“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, Price. You’re doing a better job than that bastard Bert is,” Tom replied, tugging on a second sweater he found lying nearby. I caught a glimpse of round, firm buttocks as he twisted to adjust the sweater covering his nether regions and my fingers itched to pinch his warm flesh. I stared down at my hands, mortified by my uncharacteristic thoughts. Tom stepped closer to me and I forced myself to focus on his face. “The fact that the cops seem so interested in you proves how incompetent they are, doesn’t it?”
“Not really,” I replied, though I appreciated him trying to make me feel better about the whole mess. “I came into the picture out of nowhere and inherited everything Agatha owns. If I were investigating a suspicious murder, I would be the first person I would suspect.”
“You’re obviously not the one who did anything, though,” he replied.
I huffed out a frustration-filled groan. “I know that. We know that. But I have no way of proving it.”
“So, I repeat,” he said. “Is there anything I can help with?”
I turned off the computer, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to get any further online. I thought back on the conversations I’d had over the past few days, and whether there was anything I was missing. “It would help to know more about you guys and this house.”
“Okay.” Tom rested his back against the wall, bare ass pressed against the plasterboard, and raised his chin. “What would you like to know?”
I shrugged. “Anything, really. I’ve been here a few days now and I still know nothing about you guys and why you’re here. How you’re here, really. I’ve just sort of accepted this as my own alternate version of reality because Agatha says familiars don’t remember their previous lives, but you’re not really familiars anymore, right? At least not full-time. Do you remember anything yet? How did you come to be here as a cat? Were you a cat first? A human first? I can’t believe I’m actually asking these questions.” I dragged my hands through my hair, hysteria building again like it had in the parking lot earlier that day. “Oh, my God, I’m losing it. I’m losing my grip on everything.”
Tom leaned forward and placed his large hands on my shoulders, steadying me. The warmth he gave off comforted me and excited me both at the same time. I bit my lower lip and averted my gaze, embarrassed by the nearness of him. He responded to my withdrawal by leaning in even closer, pressing harder against my arms and holding me steady. “Slow down there, Price. One breath at a time. I know it’s been overwhelming for you. I’ll try to make sense of what I can for you, okay?”