Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) Read online

  Chloe nodded and I paused, realizing that the candy thief had somehow known the nicknames we’d chosen. It made me wonder if they were all in cahoots.

  “So anyway, Laurel and Hardy showed up in my backyard when I was little. I was playing in the sand one minute, blissfully unaware that anything truly terrifying existed in the world, and then they just appeared. I was too scared to do anything, but they looked me over, talked to each other about how I’m not a threat, and then told me they’d be watching me. I guess they were lying, or they’d probably have known I wasn’t the one with the mistress.”

  “Mistress?” Mel purred, lowering his arms to link his fingers on the table. The skin on my scalp started to jump with sharp jerks of pain. “Do tell.”

  “Shut up,” I ordered again. Chloe was controlling her expression, but I could feel that she found my mistreatment of Mel funny. Pitting us against each other seems to be a sport to her. I was pretty sure I’d seen her egg him on and suggest he be ever more over-the-top sleazy every time he stopped by; she’d denied the allegations, but I know when people are lying, after all.

  “After they disappeared, I think I fainted. I’ve never fainted since, so I don’t know if it was the same, but I remember keeling over in the sandbox, too scared to do much else, and coming to with my mom standing over me, telling me to come inside for lunch. Until they showed up at the office, I’d convinced myself it was all a bad dream. I never mentioned it to my parents or anyone. I guess because I was too scared to think about it again.” That didn’t feel quite true, but I couldn’t think of any other explanation, so I let it go.

  “But they just happened to show up at our office last night,” Chloe said. Holly brought over Chloe’s drink and muffin, set down an extra-tall skinny latte in front of Mel, and winked at him.

  “Your Slenderman, Mr. Somerset.” Holly and Mel took a second to make eyes at each other before she broke the spell and went back to the counter. Mel looked back to us, clearly proud of himself for something I figured I would rather know nothing about.

  When Holly was out of earshot, Chloe continued. “They thought Gwen was someone else, obviously. They came at me first. I guess I look more responsible than she does.” She grinned my way, but I didn’t take the bait; she doesn’t just look more responsible than I do. “I was too nervous to do much except point to her. I mean, they were definitely not human, and Gwen’s… got that whole superpower thing going on. Why wouldn't they think she was the boss?”

  “I’d hardly call sensing emotions a superpower,” Mel said, taking a sip of his steaming latte. I winced, wondering how he could stand it so hot. “So they showed up, they were monsters—tell me more.”

  “They said that three kids are missing and they asked for my help finding them.”

  Mel snorted outrageously. “You? You have to spend fifteen minutes just trying to find your car each night.”

  “You’re thinking of how long it took your date to find your dick last night,” I spat.

  Instead of engaging my rudeness, Mel just grinned at me before sipping his latte. Maybe he knew he didn’t need to say anything to win the pissing contest; my skin was nearly broiling from his childish glee.

  Chloe rolled her gaze between us. “You two need to get a room?”

  “Only so there are no witnesses when I beat him to death with a chair.”

  “Now, now, children,” she said, putting a hand to my wrist. “Let’s focus on the actual problem at hand. Once we’re sure these kids are safe at home, Gwen, you can go on a murder spree.”

  Mel just watched me over the rim of his drink, his eyes roaming to my cheek as it jumped twice. I slapped at it as Mel set his cup down.

  “Chloe, when you told me Gwen needed my help, I had assumed you meant sexually. This doesn’t seem to be up my alley.”

  “It’s definitely up your alley,” she said, dipping her pinky in her cup just long enough to test the temperature. “Gwen’s not exactly the best candidate for this sort of thing and I’m only her assistant. We figure you can help with the sleuthing—being a P.I. and all. We were also hoping your furry side would give you insight into exactly why they came to her.”

  “And what do I get out of this?” he asked.

  “You help rescue children!” I snapped.

  Mel snorted, shaking his head. “Relax, Ms. Furious, I was teasing. I’ll help. Tell me everything they said, what they looked like. I don’t spend much time around the world of…” He paused, waving his hand vaguely. “—other, but I might recognize what you’re talking about.”

  “Fantastic!” Chloe cooed, turning a smile my way. I didn’t bother trying to return it.

  Chapter Five

  Chloe related everything that had happened the night before with an attention to detail that made me think she’d been hiding an eidetic memory from me all along. Thinking it might be connected, I explained my ordeal from that morning and Mel flipped through the pictures, mostly unbothered. Although when he came to the picture of the “Princess Mel” magnets, he paused long enough to glare up at me like it was my fault. He didn’t need to say anything for me to feel his displeasure like it was the opened Ark of the Covenant.

  “I’ll do some research,” he said finally, setting the pack of pictures back on the table. “I have contacts in the police department and I’ll ask about any missing kids. I don’t know what specifics we can find without more information, but I’ll get back to you guys by this afternoon.”

  Mel got to his feet, gave Chloe a cheeky little salute, winked at me, and deposited his cup in the compost bin before heading out the back door that led into our building’s lobby. My skin kept jumping even after I could no longer feel him.

  “Our turn,” Chloe said, gathering up my garbage and stacking everything together as she stood. “Come on. Bring your ruined book and your sadly not-dirty pictures.” I hauled myself up, stretched out the muscle tension that I had acquired from being so close to Mel for so long, and dragged myself after her.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Up to work,” she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “But… don’t we have some kids to save?”

  “Located them, have you?” she asked as she hit the elevator button. “You’re ready to dash off at top speed, kick down a door, and carry them to safety?”

  “Well…” I trailed off, unsure how to take her flippant attitude. Sensing I was confused, she softened.

  “Look. We can’t do anything right this minute, can we? We don’t have any information to go on until Mel gets back to us. We don’t know names or locations; we don’t have any idea where to start. I mean, if you’ve done this before and you have a better idea, by all means, explain to me what we should be doing when we’ve got three appointments today and no idea how to help the kids.”

  I didn’t have any answers, though I racked my brain as we rode up to our floor. Chloe let me think as we went, leaving me to yearn for some spark of brilliance, some new superhero genius Gwen produced by not falling to pieces in front of Laurel and Hardy. Nothing came, and as she draped her coat on the rack, I finally admitted it.

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “I know,” she said, rounding the corner into the records room to fire up the kettle. I rolled my eyes after her but moved on. Chloe’s competence is one of my favorite things about her and, my post-Mel mood aside, I really did find it a comfort to know that I could rely on her thinking the smart thoughts.

  The second I pushed open the door to my office, I noticed something was different.

  I stopped just inside, warily peering around. Flattening the door against the wall to make sure no one was hiding behind it, I eyed my things, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong. It was almost like one of those “spot the differences” puzzles, only my phone hadn’t been replaced with a banana or an eggplant. The planter on my bookshelf had been twisted, its one pink flower turned outward; my pens had all been recapped and turned upside down—or perhaps hav
ing the ballpoint end down was right side up? In any case, I wouldn't be accidentally drawing on my fingertips anymore.

  My scissors had been pulled out of my drawer and left hanging on a tack under an accordion cutout of hearts hung across my bulletin board. My trashcan was empty—though that might have been Chloe's doing—and, as I stepped closer, I noticed that my blotter was ruined.

  “What the hell?”

  I dropped my bag in the middle of the room and raced around to the back of the desk. The handle of my top middle drawer was shiny, possibly sticky, and the drawer itself was ajar. Tucking a finger under the bottom lip of the drawer to avoid the handle, I pulled it out all the way. My stash of gel pens had also been recapped and lined up in order of their proper hues. Apparently Roy G. Biv had snuck into my office, organized it and—was that honey I smelled? I kicked my chair back, dropped to my knees, and frantically started rooting through my drawers. None of the important files and such had been touched, but my stash of honey packets had been raided and drained, and the culprit hadn't been too careful about it. My middle drawer must have been assaulted after the honey thief had struck, thus explaining the shiny stickiness.

  I took a slow breath, trying to calm myself, and pulled my chair forward again so I could sit and survey the damage. Chloe stepped in then, eyebrows raised.

  “What’s up?”

  “I think whatever was at my house showed up here, too. It ate my honey packets.”

  “Probably for the best,” she said with a smile. I grumbled at her but she wasn’t deterred, pacing around my little office, looking over all the small changes that had been made sometime during the night.

  My blotter, from the looks of the sometimes-illegible pink and purple scrawl all over it, would never be useable again. I lifted the pages and dropped them one by one. Every page of the blotter had been drawn and written on. I didn't understand most of it—it wasn’t even entirely in English—but some of the art was cute at least. I went through it a bit slower, noticed that the bottom left corner had been made into a flipbook, and went through it faster.

  A tiny flower bloomed. A tiny flower with fangs.

  What the hell?

  I scooped the blotter up, initially intent on throwing it away, and stood for a moment, tapping my foot. Chloe watched me silently, waiting me out as if we were in the store and I was trying to decide what flavor of fruit snacks sounded the tastiest. I tried to mimic her calm as I reviewed what it was that was bothering me so much.

  Nothing valuable had been taken. The stash of change and dollar bills I kept in my top drawer hadn't been stolen, just all aligned and somehow flattened as if freshly minted. The computer wasn't on and my password was rock solid, so I was reasonably sure nothing had been touched there. I yanked on the drawers in the filing cabinet and found them still locked.

  “You okay? You look like you’re thinking pretty hard and it hurts,” Chloe said.

  I scowled at her and pointed toward the door. “If you can’t think of anything nice to say, get out. Go buy me more sweets to replace the ones this jerk ate.”

  “I’m not buying you any sugar,” she retorted, turning to stroll out to her desk. I scoffed loudly, wondering why my life had suddenly gotten so difficult.

  I slid my blotter behind the file cabinet and sat back in my chair, drumming my fingers on my empty desk. The sugar thief had struck again, but the worst damage done was the honey on my desk and the nonsensical notes on my blotter. As irritated as I was by having my space invaded, I found myself curious about this creature. Clearly, it was curious about me. It wasn’t acting like any predator I could think of; if it had wanted to kill me, it likely would have done so at my house and eaten my organs rather than my Twinkies.

  Sighing, I shook my head, deciding to push the incidents out of my mind, and concentrated on cleaning up the mess.

  ***

  Mrs. Ellen Quottrich arrives every Monday, sitting her flower-clad bony ass in my comfy client chair and going off on all the ways she's been slighted during the week. My office is laid out to give my clients a choice of where they want to sit while they ramble. I have two comfy chairs and a couch available to them. Most people choose the couch while I sit in the chair that faces them. Quottrich, however, finds the couch distasteful and prefers to sit across my desk from me, giving me the stink-eye for the entire hour.

  Her life seems small and petty and I understand why her only son never visits and why her siblings and husband all had the good sense to die well before she did. She’s nasty and vindictive, wishing horrible things upon everyone from the paperboy to the bagger at the supermarket. While it’s not as bad as being in the same room as Mel, sitting across from the jagged edges of her ire is pretty damned uncomfortable, even when I shield my psyche as well as I’m able.

  I mostly just nod politely, occasionally risk offering my perspective on things—always a mistake—and try to remind myself that I’m the only person she really has in her life, and that I should at least feign interest. I’d considered ending our professional relationship several times since I’d taken her on as a client. She’s miserable to be around, both because her presence is to my empathy what feedback is to your ears and because she’s just so damned ornery.

  I can never quite bring myself to send her away, though. I can feel the loneliness in her, garbled up along the edges of her hate like gum stuck to the bottom of really uncomfortable shoes. It seems to jump out at me sometimes, so cold it nearly burns, reminding me that, sure she’s as awful as a leering gargoyle, but she’s still human.

  So I put my best professional foot forward every week, grinning and bearing her presence and assuring myself that one day karma will reward me for being a good person.

  Waiting for karma can only get me so far, though, so I satisfy myself in the present by refusing to offer her any of the candy in the dish on my desk. When there's candy in it, that is—the honey thief had made off with that, too. Or Chloe had hidden it; it wouldn’t surprise me now that she knew how many extra birthday cupcakes I’d scarfed down.

  “I know you’re just waiting for me to leave,” Mrs. Quottrich said tartly, surprising me. I glanced past her as quickly as I could to the clock above the couch and nodded, my insides leaping with joy. I had somehow lost track of time and not noticed I was nearly free of her. When I looked back to her, I found her irritation had been knocked down and kicked to the side to make way for a swampy flood of insult. I hadn’t even said anything, but evidently she saw something in my face that she didn’t like.

  “Yes, it does look like our time is up. Would you like some help to the door?”

  Mrs. Q’s eyes narrowed as her lip pulled up slightly in a snarl. I ignored it, pushing to my feet and moving around my desk to help her. Stubborn resolve, or perhaps arthritis in her narrow legs, kept her sitting as I stepped toward her as slowly as possible. I could put up a front like I would help her, but we both knew it would never happen. The few times I’d tried, she’d slapped at me and insisted she didn’t need want me to touch her.

  Watching her make her hobbling way out, I stuck my tongue out at the old lady’s back. Chloe's cheery goodbye got her only a slanted look and a cross comment regarding her low-cut shirt. As the outer door slammed shut, Chloe grinned at me.

  “You survived!” She clapped gleefully.

  “Unfortunately, so did she,” I sighed.

  Chloe pressed on, refusing to let me vent the grumpy steam I'd built up spending an hour with Mrs. Quottrich.

  “I was thinking about our problem—the real one,” she clarified, anticipating and ignoring my forthcoming bitchiness. “We should go see Merrin.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that,” I admitted, leaning against the desk. “It’s been awhile since we’ve seen her, actually. I wonder how she’s doing.”

  “Oh, I visit from time to time. I was there two weeks ago, just to get a palm reading and toss her some cash. She looked better, actually. Still not… you know, normal, but cleaned up.”

 
; “Hopefully that works in our favor. We’re free for, what?” I held out a hand, gestured to Chloe’s watch when she didn’t step closer. “Two hours until the next appointment? We can bolt over, ask for help, drop some cash and maybe a few sandwiches on her, and be back in plenty of time. Even if it ends up snowing like the weatherman threatened and everyone else forgets how to drive.”

  “Will do, boss.” Mimicking Mel’s action from earlier, Chloe saluted me, turned stiffly on her heel, and headed to her desk.

  I waited, still leaning against my desk as I thought about our young witch friend. When I’d first met her, I wouldn’t have known to call her a witch, but she’d informed me of the label during one of her rambling, vacant-eyed speeches. I’d also learned then that if she was to travel to certain parts of Indiana, she might still be burned as such.

  What the hell do you say to a thing like that?

  I didn’t know her exact age, but her slight, almost underfed stature and dreamy personality made me think she wasn’t yet twenty. I’d stumbled on her a year or so ago and Chloe and I had sort of made her our pet project. Merrin lived in a tiny apartment at the edge of the city, reading palms and tarot for a living. I’d offered to let her move in with me for cheaper than she paid at her crappy apartment, but she said she loved it there, that the roaches were her friends.

  That’s about all one needs to say about Merrin Smith.

  ***

  In the hall leading to Merrin’s apartment, Chloe and I could hear a mix of loud music, loud sex, and loud fights. It was typical of her building and it didn’t seem to bother her, so I tried not to let it bother me. We reached her door at the end of the hall and Chloe knocked. The door flew open immediately, revealing a tall, slender, naked woman.

  She had at least a full head of height on me, making her an Amazon of muscled pale skin. Her perfect brows matched her vibrant electric-blue hair. My eyes traveled the length of her body before I could tell them they were being rude and, without my permission, they lingered on her breasts. The tips were a pale almost-blue, reminding me of a glacier. In fact, just looking at them I could almost hear the dry, frigid cracking associated with overwhelming amounts of solid ice.