Living with the Dead

FINN



IN FINN’S EXPERIENCE, corporate executives fell into two groups: arrogant bastards and smarmy poseurs. There were exceptions, Finn recognized, and Sean Nast seemed to be one. On the elevator ride up to his office, he asked where Finn’s precinct was and how long he’d been in homicide, and said he imagined it wasn’t an easy job, genuine civility mingled with natural curiosity.

Nast’s office was as big as the detective room at the precinct. They were walking in when Finn’s cell phone rang. Nast waited with that same politeness, devoid now of unbecoming curiosity, and when Finn said, “I need to answer this,” he nodded and crossed the room to give Finn privacy.

It was Madoz. He had some time to spare and offered to help Finn track down Hope Adams, doing a sweep by her office and her hotel. Finn gave him the hotel name, but couldn’t recall the room number.

“I’ve got it somewhere if you need it, but they were pretty good about giving it out. It’s under her name. Hope Adams.” He must have been louder than he thought, making Nast glance up from his Rolodex. “If you do find her, give me a shout.”

When he hung up, Nast was walking around the desk.

“Seems I still have Irving’s old cell number. His updated one is on my laptop, which I didn’t bring in today. Give me a minute and I’ll dig it up. Can I grab you a coffee on my way back?”

“Water, if you have it.”

“There’s a fridge by my desk. Just grab a bottle and anything else you’d like.”



WHILE NAST WAS GONE, Finn conducted a plain-view search of the office. He didn’t suspect the young man of anything—not yet.

There was, as expected, a framed MBA. From Yale, also expected. Less expected was the location—on the same wall as the door, partly hidden by palm fronds. Lieutenant Balough, always quick to put that psychology degree to work, would say the partly hidden MBA showed signs of shame, as if Nast had cheated or bought his way through college. Finn saw it more as modesty, maybe borderline ambivalence.

He took note, too, of the name on the degree. Sean Kristof Nast. Kristof—the Nast who’d tried to slip out of testifying on the hit-and-run. His father?

The subject of family made Finn turn his attention to the photos. He counted nine on the desk and the filing cabinet top. Five featured Nast and a younger man—brother?—and an older one—father?— at various ages and in various combinations, with no sign of a mother.

There were only two women in the other pictures. Girls, Finn amended. One appeared in a group shot with Nast and friends. The other got two pictures, one of her and Nast arm-in-arm, making Finn leap to the “girlfriend” conclusion before noticing she had the same oddly bright blue eyes. In the other, she was alone, on horseback, and younger, maybe fourteen. He was examining that one when Nast returned and caught him looking at it.

“Sister?” he asked.

Nast stopped in midstride before giving a soft yes.

As Nast took shelter behind the big desk, there was a rigidity in his shoulders that hadn’t been there earlier, and Finn knew he’d been taken aback, maybe even offended.

“She picked a nice spot to go riding, those mountains and all. Oregon, I bet.”

A pause, then a curt, “Yes, Oregon. Now, I have Irving’s cell number, so let’s give that a try.”

He dialed, listened, then shook his head. “Straight to voice mail—Irving? It’s Sean. Can you give me a call?” A tight smile. “It’s not about the Boulder project, I promise.”

The smile loosened only a fraction as he hung up. “Well, there. If he calls back, I’ll tell him you want to speak to him. Do you have a card?”

They exchanged business cards, Nast writing Irving’s cell number on the back of his before handing it to Finn.

“Maybe you’ll have more luck. I’m persona non grata with Irving today, after dragging him away from his family. Which reminds me, he mentioned he was taking them up the coast this afternoon. Visiting the in-laws, I think. So you might have trouble getting together. But he’s usually in by eight-thirty. If you’d like an introduction tomorrow, have the desk buzz me.”



DAMON WAS WAITING OUTSIDE the front doors. “I circled the whole building. There was one spot, around the back, where I made it two feet through the wall before hitting the invisible one. Weird.”

Finn nodded, not really listening.

“Was Irving in?” Damon asked.

Finn shook his head.

“Can you take out your cell phone and actually talk to me?”

He gave Damon a play-by-play. “When Nast left that room, something happened. One minute he was Mr. Helpful, the next he couldn’t get me out fast enough. I think when I was talking to Madoz, Nast had second thoughts about making the call to Irving in front of me. He did it from the other room and whatever his cousin said made Nast decide he shouldn’t be so eager to help.”

“So what happened when you tried the number yourself?”

“I haven’t.”

“Because you know it’s fake.”

“I’m sure it isn’t.” Finn rounded the corner.

“So— Hey—” Damon grabbed for Finn’s arm, letting out a hiss of frustration when his fingers passed through. “One of these days, I’m going to stop doing that. I was saying, the car is that way.”

“I’m not going to the car.” Finn backed against the wall. “Hold on while I try the number.”

It rang through to voice mail, as he’d thought it would. Sean Nast wouldn’t risk giving him a fake. He’d just warn Irving not to answer. Finn left a message and made a note in his pad.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Damon asked as Finn pocketed the notebook.

“I’m backtracking to the front door, now that the guard has seen me leave. You’ll cover the rear. If Nast comes out your way, follow—”He stopped, remembering his partner was the Invisible Man. “You cover the front; I’ll get the back. You see him? Whistle.”





ROBYN



Robyn peeled one hand, gummy with sweat, from the gun, flexed it and readjusted her grip.

“You’re doing fine,” Hope whispered as they edged along the building.

Fine? Robyn didn’t even know what she was doing. She knew the plan, but she felt like a computer processing ones and zeros with no concept of what it meant, how it fit together in a larger context.

Shot by a psychotic paparazzo? No sweat. Kidnapped by a werewolf? Okay. Best friend turns out to be a demon? Sure. She’d even played bait to catch a killer, and still kept her cool. But when that boy leaped to his death her emotional core had shut down altogether.

She still saw his face, floating before her wherever she looked, his expression frozen at the moment when he’d realized he was falling.

And now she was going to see his body.

Robyn wanted to slap the gun back into Hope’s hand and say, “You deal, because I can’t.”

Hope tugged the back of Robyn’s shirt. “I’ll do this.”

“I’m fine,” rose to Robyn’s lips. Then she realized Hope must have read her thoughts. “I’ll be okay. If you were up to it, Karl wouldn’t have given me the gun.”

“It’s just that— When we get close, I’ll see . . . it. The boy’s jump. I black out. I only see that.”

A replay of his death?

“I’ll be okay,” Robyn said again, and meant it.

As they neared the corner, Hope took out her phone. Robyn kept her gaze forward, waiting while Hope called Karl to say they were in position.

When she didn’t, Robyn glanced back. Hope stood there, phone still in her pocket, her face a copper mask, immobile and gleaming, amber irises stuttering, like Damon’s when he’d fall asleep watching TV, eyelids not quite closing. Dreaming. Or seeing a vision.

Robyn reached for her friend’s arm, then stopped. You weren’t supposed to wake sleepwalkers—would the same logic apply?

“It’s her—Adele,” Hope said. “Grief. Guilt. God, she feels so guilty. She—” Hope’s chin jerked up, ricocheting from the vision. “Sorry, I was . . .” She reached toward the wall, as if to steady herself, then noticed the phone clutched in her hand and stared at it, confused.

“You need to call—” Robyn began.

“Right.” She hit the speed-dial button, didn’t raise it to her ear. Just let it ring twice, then hung up and said, “I’m going to take a look. If I freeze up, don’t worry unless you hear anything. Then just yank me back.”

Hope eased past Robyn. She was still a foot from the edge when she went rigid. Then she backed up.

“It’s not Adele,” Hope said.

“What? You didn’t see—”

Hope held up a finger as her phone buzzed, the vibration as loud as a ring. Robyn circled past her, to peek around the corner.

Beside the boy’s body crouched the man from the bookstore. The one who’d brought that display carousel crashing down.



THEY WERE IN THE RENTAL CAR, heading . . . Robyn wasn’t sure where exactly, and she supposed it wasn’t important.

“So you said you recognized his scent?” Hope was saying to Karl in the front seat. “He was the guy following us earlier, right?”

“At the diner and the bookstore, yes. And earlier than that. Remember Friday night, when you were getting takeout . . . ?”

“You thought a guy was watching us and followed him around the back. That’s where you knew the scent from. It was him. So he’s involved. He clearly knew the boy. The grief and guilt was so—”

Hope’s head jerked up.

“Do you sense something?” Robyn leaned farther over the seat.

“No, I hear something.”

The bzz-bzz of Hope’s cell phone vibrating. As Hope struggled to get it from her back pocket, Karl reached over and deftly plucked it out.

“Thanks. I’m sure it’s just that detective again. He keeps calling from other numbers, hoping I’ll answer if I don’t recognize—” She glanced at the display. “Whoops. This one I do recognize.”

She answered. “Hey, Lucas. Do you have more on clairvoyants for me?”

Hope’s smile dropped. “Who?”

She glanced at Karl. He’d stopped at a light, and was frowning at Hope as if he could hear, which Robyn supposed maybe he could.

“Are you sure?” Hope paused. “No, I understand.” Another pause. “Sure, how about . . .” She glanced at her watch. “Tell him half an hour.”

Hope hung up. “We need to make a pit stop.”





ADELE



Adele watched through the car windows as a stretcher carried Colm’s body away.

Colm was dead. Thank the gods.

She put the car into drive and continued past the ambulance and the cruisers lining the road. Two officers glanced at her car as she drove by, then returned to their watch. As long as she didn’t stop to gawk, they weren’t interested in her.

Driving past hadn’t been a step she’d wanted to take. Added risk. But she’d had to know. Adele had been remote-viewing Robyn when she’d run onto the roof and Adele had seen Colm jump.

If he wasn’t dead, she prayed that he’d still be there, and she’d get to him first so she could put him out of his misery. Suffocation, she decided—it could be attributed to the fall. She couldn’t take him, injured, back to the kumpania or she’d have to explain how he got that way.

On the drive, she’d cursed Colm. She’d trusted him and he’d betrayed her with his incompetence. After all she’d done for him.

But now, seeing that he was dead, she granted his memory a smidgen of grudging respect. He might have screwed up, but he’d realized his mistake and made the right choice, protecting her.

Still, she’d have to explain his death to the kumpania. As she drove, she crafted a few stories, rejecting each as casting too many droplets of blame her way. Before she passed the city limits, she realized the solution—the man at the bookstore.

It didn’t matter that it had been thirteen years since she last saw him. His face was imprinted on her brain, invoking a wave of comforting warmth, a flare of icy rage and then, as if in afterthought, a tingle along her spine, the feeling of seeing not a man, but a phantom.



“YOU’RE CERTAIN IT WAS HIM?” Niko asked, forefinger rubbing his chair arm.

They were in the meeting room, usually reserved for the phuri—a wood-paneled library with bookshelves, a bar and leather chairs, the Victorian atmosphere ruined by the hum of computers.

“Yes, I’m certain.”

Neala leapt up, her shredded tissue fluttering to the floor. “I won’t sit and listen to this. She killed my—”

“Neala . . .” Niko’s voice was thick with reproach.

“I didn’t kill Colm,” Adele said. “He was like a brother to me. More than a brother. My husband-to-be, my future, my—”

“Oh, stuff it,” Neala snapped. “Don’t play the grieving lover if you can’t even squeeze out a few tears, Adele.”

“Can’t you see I’m in shock? I almost died.”

“Colm did die. But it’s all about you. Nothing else penetrates that nasty little mind—”

“Neala!” Niko said. “That’s enough. Adele didn’t kill—”

“She was responsible for his death even if she didn’t push him off that roof, which I’m still not convinced she didn’t—”

“Neala . . .”

“And she now compounds it with this . . . this outrageous lie.”

“Neala, I don’t think Adele means—”

“She means to torment me, and in tormenting me to serve herself by deflecting attention from what she’s done. And she’s succeeding, isn’t she?”

Niko turned to Adele. “You say you’re certain it was him?”

“Is anyone even listening to me?” Neala said. “We know it wasn’t him. You know for a fact that it could not have been him. He’s dead. ”

“Neala?” Niko said. “I think you should leave now.”

Adele watched her carefully. Naturally, hearing he was still alive would come as a shock, but Neala seemed to be overdoing her outrage.

Neala stormed out muttering about fools and phantasms. Not like Neala to abandon a fight . . . Yet she couldn’t seem to get away fast enough.

Niko waited until her footfalls faded, then turned to Adele.

“Yes,” she said before he could ask again. “It was him.”

“And he saw Colm? Recognized him?”

“I believe so.”

“Did he see what happened to Colm?”

Adele considered lying and saying yes, but it wasn’t just Neala scrutinizing her every twitch and inflection now. Niko didn’t want to believe what she was saying—the kumpania had a vested interest in not believing it. Her answers here were more important than those regarding Colm’s death.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Niko settled back in his chair, fingers templed. “We have to presume he did. And if he did, he’ll be on his way here. We must be ready for him.”





HOPE





Karl pulled into an empty day-care parking lot, so they could talk. They left Robyn in the car.

“She’s exhausted,” Hope said. “We need to find her a motel room while I—”

“Then she can nap in the car while you meet him, and I’ll watch over you.”

Hope bit back her protest and went quiet, looking out over the play area with its eight-foot fence, security cameras and warning signs. A scary world when your kids needed to play in what looked more like a prison yard than a playground.

Karl thought she needed his eyes at this meeting as much as these parents thought their kids needed to play under a video camera eye. Whether the danger was real or not, the fears and the concerns were.

“All right,” she said. “We can push on and keep her sidelined.”

Karl’s narrowed eyes fixed on the bright red and yellow plastic equipment, as if its cheerfulness offended him. “No, you’re right. She needs to stay with us, and to do that, she needs to keep up. I’ll drop you off at the meeting place and find a motel. You can take a cab there when you’re done.”

They stared at the yard, as if watching the ghosts of children at play. A gust shrieked through a crawl tube and Hope shivered. At a warm pressure on her hand, she looked down to see she was holding Karl’s and realized she had been the whole time, more clutching than holding, fingers locked tight, thumb rubbing the back of his hand.

“I know you saw it,” he said softly. “His death.”

She sucked in the bitter air. Like chomping down on ice cubes, her molars aching.

“I could meet with him,” he said. “If you aren’t up to it, say so.”

“As long as my brain’s busy, the vision won’t come back. You might want your own bed tonight, though. It’ll be a rough one.”

“Not if you’re sleeping soundly enough. I’ll make sure of that.”

A laugh circled her stomach. It didn’t make it out, but the tickle lifted her mood and she looked up at him. “And how are you going to do that?”

His free hand went to her hip, pulling her close enough to shield the wind, his breath thawing her numb earlobe as he sent the rest of her mood scattering with promises that left her trembling.

“I’ll find a few chaos memories for you, too,” he said. “New ones.”

“As long as none of them involve leaps from rooftops.”

“I know.” His lips brushed her ear as he straightened.

“What you did back there, on the roof, it was very . . .” Hope struggled for a word, but every one—brave, selfless, heroic—would make him cringe.

“Stupid?” he offered.

She leaned against him and laughed. “That, too. But I appreciated it. Just don’t ever do it again.”

He nodded, which didn’t mean he agreed, only that he’d take it under consideration.



WHEN HOPE SAW where the meeting was being held, her anxiety jumped a notch. It was in the midst of a business district, where the only glowing Open sign was on her destination, a little shop called The Scone Witch. It made sandwiches from scones. Scone-wich, get it? She didn’t either until she saw the helpful picture below, complete with the kind of wart-ridden hag that made real witches gnash their teeth.

The choice made her nervous because, given the location, it was sure to be empty. While that might seem perfect for a clandestine meeting, “empty” still meant there would be servers or counter help, probably very bored and quite happy to eavesdrop on the weird patrons talking about clairvoyants.

But when Hope drew closer, she realized it wasn’t going to be a concern. It was like approaching a barn at feeding time—the cackle of conversation, the neighing of laughter, the honking of voices trying to be heard over the din. She made it inside the door, then was blocked by a guy in unrelieved black with a bad bleach job, flirting with a silver-studded girl.

When a shoulder tap and a loud “excuse me” failed, she was about to “accidentally” knee the back of his kneecap, when the guy stumbled and smacked hard into the wall.

As he glowered around for his assailant, Hope slipped past and followed a wave from a blond young man alone at a side window table.

“You looked like you could use some help,” he said.

“Ah, knock back spell. And here I thought I’d developed a new power.”

She sat down opposite him. Sean Nast, Savannah’s half-brother and grandson of the Nast Cabal CEO. Sean was a couple of years younger than Hope, but with a quiet seriousness that made the age difference easy to forget.

She’d have thought Sean would prefer someplace farther from the head office, but he reasoned it was better here, where if anyone spotted them, he could say he’d invited her for coffee to discuss a business proposition.

Speaking of recruiting valuable supernaturals, Lucas had already filled him in on their theory about Irving trying to hire Adele. Sean confirmed that Cabal lower executives did that all the time, trying to get ahead by finding and cultivating new employees, which Hope knew, having been the subject of just such an independent project once herself.

But it didn’t really matter what Irving had been doing with Adele. The problem was that photo, linking him to a cop killer. To squelch that threat, Sean would do what he could to help Hope find Adele.

As for Detective Findlay, Hope had been wrong about his being on the Nast payroll. Nor would he be a Cabal executive’s “independent project”—if so, he’d never dare show up at the head office, flashing his badge.

Sean explained how he found Detective Findlay at the office and, on hearing him mention Hope’s name in a phone call, he’d excused himself to phone Lucas.

“I planned to call Irving in and play it straight while I figured out what was going on. But when I came back, he was checking out a picture of Savannah. He asked about her, and I started wondering if dropping your name hadn’t been an accident. I decided to brush him off and look into it some more.”

“So he seemed to recognize Savannah?”

“I probably overreacted and he was making conversation. It just rubbed me wrong.” He sipped his latte. “You told Lucas this detective is a necromancer?”

She explained. Sean hadn’t known Expiscos could detect other supernaturals. Hearing that, most Cabal executives’ eyes would glitter as they pondered the applications. Even Lucas, when he found out, hadn’t been able to suppress a pensive moment of consideration. But Sean reacted with mild curiosity, as if it was an interesting but esoteric fact, like discovering sloths slept with their eyes open.

“Findlay could be working for someone else. A gang or a counter Cabal group . . .” He trailed off, gaze sliding up, as if making mental notes. “I’ll check that out. In the meantime, I pulled up our records on clairvoyants in L.A.”

“And . . .”

“Current records? None. At least, none who aren’t already on the payroll.”

“You have two clairvoyants on staff, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Granddad brags about that, but it’s not as impressive as it sounds. One has severely limited powers and the other is approaching retirement.”

She noticed he didn’t say “approaching retirement age.” Cabal clairvoyants rarely survived long enough to collect Social Security checks. “The Cabal must be looking for a replacement, then.”

“Even if they had a powerful one at every satellite office they’d still be looking for more. It’s an incredibly valuable power. The problem is finding them. With rare half-demons, like an Expisco or Ferratus, sometimes we get lucky and you guys come to us for work. Other times, we stumble on you and the negotiating begins. We’ll take no for an answer because we know somewhere out there is another one willing to say yes. We want to entice you into employment. Voluntary employment. It’s just good business. That never happens with clairvoyants. They’re well compensated—come to us and you’ll live like a millionaire—but it’s selling your soul.”

“Or, in this case, your sanity.”

He nodded. “Clairvoyants have underground networks for hiding and protecting their members. Even if a family hasn’t had a bona fide clairvoyant for generations, they’re part of the network, ready to disappear if they ever do. They also have the lowest birth rate of all the races. Intentionally, it’s presumed.”

“Genetic Russian roulette.”

“Most choose not to play.”

She’d gotten all this from Lucas, but talking obviously relaxed Sean, and a second opinion never hurt.

He continued. “This girl is young and she seems to be voluntarily talking to Irving. As for why, my guess would be simple youthful ignorance. She figures she can make a lot of money and get out. It happens now and then—the misconception, not the getting-out part. My guess is that her family isn’t part of the underground network and hasn’t properly warned her. She’s moved here recently, on her own, hoping to make her fortune.”

She studied his face for any sign he was misleading her. But it was open, relaxed, his hands flat on the table. In his element now, not discussing his family or his firm, just having a casual speculative conversation with a fellow supernatural.

“I don’t think she’s new to L.A., and I don’t think she’s alone,” Hope said.

“With other supernaturals?”

“Other clairvoyants.”

That made him blink in genuine surprise, but even after he’d digested it, there was no gleam of discovery. It was like a diver finding a treasure chest and thinking only of the historical significance.

She was sure Sean Nast was good at his job. He had to be—Irving was proof that Cabals didn’t promote on genetics alone. But whatever instinct was needed to truly embrace a Cabal family’s philosophy, to look at a fellow supernatural and see only an asset, Sean didn’t have it.

Still, she didn’t mention Adele’s paparazzo double life or her teenaged clairvoyant partner. However much Lucas trusted Sean, Hope had learned her lesson often enough. In this world, when you can keep your mouth shut, do it.

They talked a little more, and he promised to dig deeper into the Cabal files. Then she finished her tea and called for a taxi.