“Vic? We’ve been through this already.” Laura took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Our talent is stretched thin as it is. I’m not going to allocate resources to investigating a closed case that’s not presenting any current threat.” She locked eyes with me. “Unless there’s anything additional that’s come to light.”
I knew full well Laura didn’t have the ability to read my mind—but sometimes she sure seemed like she could. “Kamal was at the forefront of psychic research,” I hedged. “If you’re keen on figuring out what makes us tick, maybe his original findings would give us some insight.”
It seemed like a great argument to me, but Laura plowed on ahead without even pretending to consider it. “If you want more insight into your talent, then start looking somewhere that might actually do you some good. I’ve managed to secure a few hours of time from Agent Davis today. I suggest you use it wisely.”
***
Special Agent Darla Davis rode shotgun with me in a standard black FPMP Lexus sedan. Darla looked more like some casting agent’s idea of a fed than an actual government employee. Her black pantsuit was tailored within an inch of its life. Her hair was a shade of auburn never before seen in nature. And her pointy heels could double as a lethal weapon. In some ways, it wasn’t a far cry from the Hot Topic goth chick she’d been back when we first met. Just more subtle, more expensive…and infinitely more authoritative.
The only time I saw Darla was when she was between top-secret assignments. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were friends—she’d specifically asked me not to invite her to the wedding—but thanks to our shared experiences, we understood each other pretty well. “How’d you end up on Richie duty today?” I asked. “I hope you’re not being punished.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “Director Kim likes to keep an especially sharp eye on him, just in case. I suppose I can’t blame her. Personally, I can’t imagine how your Jennifer Chance would manage to find him from the other side, but if there’s anything we’ve figured out about mediumship…it’s that we’ve hardly got half a clue how it all works.”
“I guess. Still—not that I’m angling for your assignments, what with you running off to play ghost hunter every time some VIP decides their house is haunted—we’ve got a pretty good idea of our own capabilities.”
“And?”
I shrugged.
Darla arched an eyebrow. “And you wonder why they’d pick me over you for the high profile cases.” Maybe, back in the day, eclipsing me was something Darla would have gloated about. But although she spent her early career being overlooked and passed over, lately, she’d finally come into her own. “Politicians. I’m the ranking agent, so I’m the one they want. Lots of diplomacy involved, since half the time there’s nothing there to find. Trust me, you see the inside of one governor’s mansion, you’ve seen ’em all. Though it is fun to poke through their cupboards and closets under the guise of checking for nonphysical energy.”
“Energy that you could hear from anywhere in the room just by focusing on it.”
“Exactly.”
Maybe Jacob would do better to develop his mystery talent with someone like Darla—someone who wasn’t as dependent on their visual perception as I was. I didn’t always enjoy Darla’s company, but I did trust her. And she’d seen what Jacob could do first-hand when the three of us tracked down The Assassin together at the FPMP. Be that as it may, it would be careless to discuss Jacob with her in an agency vehicle where the whole surveillance team would be privy to my innermost thoughts.
Unfortunately, in terms of keeping anything I wanted to say off the record, Richie’s place was no better. Richie lived in a retirement home where all his needs were met…and where F-Pimp could keep an eye on him. The surveillance was in place mainly for his protection, but also to ensure there wasn’t a replay of the time good ol’ Einstein suddenly jumped three hundred IQ points. I could see the wisdom in not letting the guy just run amok. But all the surveillance definitely cramped my style.
We found Richie in the TV room watching a banal daytime variety show with a few well-to-do old ladies. Did they feel maternal toward him, I wondered? Or would they just keep their hearing aids set low so as not to throttle him for continually talking over the host?
Richie spotted us and groaned, “Oh no.” Melodramatic, as always. “It’s not time to fill out reports again already.”
“You used to be happy to see me,” I said.
“That was before you guys started writing your boring book. Now the only time you ever come to see me is when you need my help.”
Darla met my eyes and smirked. Glad someone found him amusing.
“Come on.” I cocked my head toward the conference room we’d reserved. “Let’s leave your neighbors in peace.”
Richie led the way like he owned the place. Heck, the FPMP had paid him so exorbitantly all these years, maybe he could have…if he hadn’t blown his money trying to buy other people’s affections with random gifts and endless rounds of overpriced drinks.
Like everything else at Richie’s care home, the conference room was ritzy. An urn of coffee and an assortment of pastry was waiting—and not the cheap-o donuts you’d find at a convenience store, either.
“This sucks,” Richie announced. “There’s no whipped cream. It’s bad enough that every time I turn around I’m answering your dumb questions, but no whipped cream? And would it kill them to have some chocolate sprinkles? I’m retired, you know. After fifteen years of outstanding service. That’s what Director Dreyfuss said. Outstanding.” Oh, I’ll bet Richie’s service stood out, all right. “It’s usually twenty years before you can retire, y’know. But Director Dreyfuss had them make a ’seption just for me.”
Was this how I sounded when I asked Darla why she’d been chosen over me for a mission? If so, I wished I could go back in time and slap myself. “Listen,” I told him, “I’m sure the coffee’s fine.”
“Even without sprinkles,” Darla added. She was enjoying this. Probably because she only had to deal with the guy a few scant times a year.
“The coffee shop on Irving Park got sprinkles. You have to ask for ’em special…but they got ’em.”
Obviously, Richie had some sort of ulterior motive for trying to steer us toward a coffee shop. If he absolutely needed sprinkles in order to function, the facility’s kitchen could probably dredge something up. I hate to admit to taking any cues from Constantine Dreyfuss—but in dealing with Richie, sometimes instead of trying to figure out how his mind worked, it was easier to just appease him.
And that was how I ended up in the world’s dingiest coffee shop with not just one, but two of my old cronies from Camp Hell.
I may be no coffee connoisseur, since enough cream will make anything drinkable, but I could tell by the smell alone that the coffee back at the home would’ve been a heck of a lot better than whatever they served here. This made me even more leery about the fact that Richie had asked for this joint specifically. Was there possession involved? Or maybe some non-human etheric entity pulling his strings? I was pondering all the stuff we well and truly didn’t know when I felt him perk up beside me…just as a cashier waved at him.