Page 54 of Deja Who
TWENTY-EIGHT
Morning, and for the first time in a long time, Leah could not wait to start the day. Positive note number one: she hadn’t been stabbed to death. Positive note number two: it was Saturday, no clients. Positive note number three: Archer had proposed various silly, romantic interludes, all under the guise of researching her eventual murderer. She doubted their ability to get much work done while playing miniature golf
(I’ve driven past that place a hundred times and always thought it was a silly activity. But apparently the old saying is, one hundred and first time is the charm. And if you can get your ball to go into the whale’s blow hole, you win a free game. Which I may actually play, as long as it’s with Archer.)
or having a picnic at Cat’s park
(that “pond” is nothing more than a glorified mud puddle riddled with duck feces and yet I’m intrigued at the thought of eating near it)
although she did not doubt that it would be fun—or at least interesting—to try.
Whatever they did, she had promised to call him around lunchtime with a plan. And she had promised under duress, since she would have said almost anything
(“I’m not sure I—”
“Oh please please please please please please please please please please please please please please call me or I’ll diiiiiiiie! I’ll just flop over and DIE.” Then, in his normal baritone, “What? Too needy?”)
to get him to stop making that horrible noise.
She was in the shower, cursing and trying to get shampoo out of her eye, when she remembered her phone was off. She almost never did that; Insighters got the occasional frantic call in the middle of the night, so she hurried through the rest of her shower, blotted herself dry, then retrieved her phone and turned it back on. While waiting for the thing to burp out various tones alerting her to voicemails and e-mails, she got dressed.
For the first time (in a long time) she dressed for someone else as opposed to clinic wear, or her court suit. Administration preferred Insighters in professional attire—suit jackets, skirts or trousers, like that—while acknowledging that their job was messy, both literally and figuratively. Sometimes clients did not respond well to news that they used to be Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary. Sometimes that meant going home to wash vomit out of her jacket. Many of her colleagues wore a lab coat over their clothing; Leah just tried to stick to wash-and-wear fabrics and a high-quality laundry soap. Insighters weren’t doctors, and while many of her colleagues encouraged their clients’dependence, Leah wanted no part of such things, and eschewed lab coats. And also touching.
Today was different;
(hooray! “different”! what a wonderful word!)
today she could dress as she liked, so she indulged herself with a pair of rose-colored capris, a cream-colored tank top trimmed at the neck with lace, and a cardigan a few shades darker than her pants. As her phone started chiming, she found her tan oxfords and slipped one on, then glanced down at her phone, which, judging from all the pings and chimes, was about to self-destruct.
What the hell is this? Four voicemails? Nellie just doesn’t know when to quit.
But none of the voicemails were from her mother.
“Ms. Nazir, this is Detective Preston from the CPD. Please call us back immediately.”
Archer.
Oh, fuck. Archer!
The other voicemails were from the police as well, though she didn’t hear the entirety of the second one, since for some reason the phone was falling away from her, turning over and over before it finally—how was it falling in slow motion?—hit the tile and she heard a faint “crack.”
Or would have, if she hadn’t clawed for her keys and sprinted out the front door. The phone might be tumbling in slo-mo but she was in overdrive, and it still didn’t seem fast enough.
