Page 6 of The Mystery of the Spirits
“You’re very sweet. And possibly withholding information.”
I shook my head. “Max was there. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
Calvin gave me a final once-over before he resumed eating his dinner.
“What do you think it all means?” I asked into the silence.
“I don’t know. And hopefully, I never will.”
We’d lived together in our renovated East Village loft for two years now, so I’d had plenty of time to acclimate myself to those phone calls that came at the witching hour—prime murder time in any major urban landscape. Despite the consistent, downward trend of violent crimes over the past decade, there were still nearly nine-million citizens across the five boroughs. That meant plenty of people with plenty of opportunities to do terrible things, unfortunately.
“Winter,” Calvin answered, his voice a bit rough but otherwise alert.
Now awake enough to acknowledge I’d plastered myself to Calvin’s back sometime in the night and was hot as hell, I peeled myself off, kicked the blankets free, and rolled the other direction.
“What’s the location? … I’m on my—sorry?”
I was nearly asleep again, but at that note in Calvin’s voice—sorry?—I looked over my shoulder.
Blurry though he was, I watched Calvin sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t follow, sir.” The tinny voice said something before Calvin asked, “Is he in some sort of danger?”
I shifted onto my back and propped myself up on my elbows.
Calvin scrubbed fingers through his tangle of thick hair. “I’ll ask,” he finally agreed before ending the call.
“Everything okay?” I asked, knowing full well it wasn’t, so why did we always pretend we weren’t sure in those situations?
Calvin shifted on the bed. He put a knee on the mattress and leaned over me. “Why is Ferguson asking I bring you to the precinct at three in the morning?”
I sat up in a rush, coming just short of braining Calvin. “Am I under arrest?”
“Why is that your go-to reaction?”
“I sort of have a track record.”
He was frowning, but the mussed hair and naked-except-for-boxer-briefs… I don’t think he was garnering the desired reaction from yours truly. “Did something happen at the Emporium that you’re not telling me?”
“What? No. I told you everything. Ferguson came in unannounced, basically blackmailed me into giving him the down-and-dirty details on the spiritoscope—”
“Blackmailed?”
“He wasn’t going to approve your PTO.”
Calvin sat back on his heels.
“I gave him the pertinent details, and after I showed him the illustrations in Hare’s book, he got pissed and stormed out. That’s it, I swear.”
“He never called or—”
“Nothing like that.”
Calvin was still trying to piece together the puzzle, but like he was doing it in the dark or with his eyes closed, relying on touch alone to understand the shape of each piece and how they snapped together. After a heartbeat, he asked, “Did you sleuth?”
“What?”
“Sebastian.”
“I told you I didn’t, Calvin.”
