“I can see that,” Nergal said, approaching the body.
“We didn’t kill him,” I said. “We just found him like this. More or less.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Most people think of that first thing when they find a body.”
“Do you think you could touch him?” I asked, gesturing vaguely with my hands. “Do your thing?”
He hesitated. “This is very irregular. I usually do it with the police around. As a CSI.”
“Think of it as a secret mission,” I said. “For EAF.”
“What’s that?”
“The Enhanced Abilities Force.”
“Is that a real thing?”
“It could be,” I said.
Nergal went down to one knee and put his hand on the body.
“This guy died pretty pissed off.”
“He had a bad day,” I said.
Nergal tilted his head, as if he were listening. “I’m getting a lot of complaints about a monkey.”
“Way to go, Carl,” Diesel said.
“And he’s thinking he made a bad decision to go off on his own,” Nergal said.
“On his own where?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“That’s what I’m getting,” Nergal said. “And he wished he hadn’t shot himself.”
—
After we were done communing with the dead, we made an anonymous call to the police and left. Nergal wanted to go out for a drink, but I asked for a rain check. I gave him a sterile kiss on the cheek and thanked him for the wine. Diesel drove me back to the bakery so I could get my car, then he and Carl followed me home.
“There’s something I should tell you,” Diesel said when we were at my front door. “It could be a mess in there.”
I looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“I left Carl in your house today, so that’s where he was snatched. Probably there was a tussle.”
“A tussle?”
“Unless the monkey-napper had a bag of doughnuts, Carl wouldn’t voluntarily go into that sack.”
I opened the door and gasped. The house was a wreck, and Cat was standing his ground with his fur bushed out like a porcupine’s quills. He saw Diesel and me, and he relaxed.
The couch cushions were on the floor, and furniture was overturned. In the kitchen, canisters were emptied onto the counter with flour and sugar sifted out everywhere. Boxes had been torn open and emptied. Trash was spread across the floor.
“This was more than a struggle to get Carl,” Diesel said. “This was a search for the coin pieces.”
Diesel was still carrying the bottle of wine. I took it from him and chugged some.
“Let’s clean this up,” I said. “By morning this will be an ant factory.”
Two hours later, we had the kitchen scrubbed clean, and the wine bottle was empty.
“Hey, handsome,” I said to Diesel. “Let’s go to bed.”
Diesel grinned over at me. “You drank almost that whole bottle of wine.”
“I did. And it was yummy.”
“You might be a little snockered.”
“Not me,” I said. “I can hold my liquor.”
I sidled up to him, nuzzled his neck, and kissed him just below his ear.
“You smell delicious,” I said. “I could eat you up…all over, if you know what I mean.”
The grin widened. “My lucky day.”
I slipped my hand under his T-shirt and ran my fingers over his perfectly defined abs. “Mmmmm,” I said, dipping my hand inside his jeans. I heard him give a sharp intake of air, and I continued to explore uncharted territory.
“Am I doing okay?” I asked. “What I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm.”
“Had me fooled. It feels to me like you know what you’re doing.”
“I like these soft round things.”
“Yeah, I can tell. Listen, maybe we should go a little slower.”
I wrapped my hand around his joystick. “Going to warp speed, Captain. Brace yourself. We’re in launch mode.”
“Eeep!” Carl said.
“Oh crap,” I said. “The monkey is watching.”
“Ignore the monkey.”
“I can’t ignore the monkey. I feel like a porn star.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s bad.”
Carl was sitting back on his haunches, three feet away, his eyes wide, taking it all in.
“Maybe we should do this some other time,” I said to Diesel.
“Honey, you’ve got me in launch mode.”
“Yeah, but you can abort the mission, right?”
Diesel grabbed Carl and locked him in the broom closet. He returned to me, pulled me close, and kissed me. His hand was under my shirt, his thumb traced a path across my nipple, and his tongue touched mine.
Bang, bang, bang! Carl didn’t want to be locked in the broom closet.
“I can’t concentrate with all that banging,” I said to Diesel.
“Do you need to concentrate?”
“Yes!”
Diesel let Carl out of the broom closet, took my hand, and tugged me up the stairs to my bedroom. He closed and locked my bedroom door, leaving Carl on the outside.
“Are you sure this is going to be okay?” I asked him. “I don’t want to have to save the world all by myself.”
“We’ll only do certain things.”
“Does that include launching?”