Authors: Laura Kreitzer
“
Oh, yes. Wait, what’d you say?”
She sighed heavily. “Since I’m on this trip are you going to tell me what’s going on? Something major must be brewing for the FBI to be swarming the place like they were. Speaking of. That one FBI agent, Joseph? Meeee-oow!” She clawed at the air.
“
Ladies.” Joseph laughed.
Sally’s expression turned from feisty kitty to out-right mortification. She didn’t look over her shoulder to where Joseph—tall and handsome—stood. Instead, she closed her eyes and bowed her head. I watched as her neck fluoresced red.
“
Can I speak to you, Gabriella?” he asked, his brown eyes holding mine.
“
I’m just going to . . .” Sally pointed to something in the opposite direction of Joseph and sprang from her seat as if she’d been electrocuted.
Joseph and I burst into laughter.
“
It’s always a good day when you get clawed at.” He chuckled. “That happens more often than you’d think,” he joked.
I laughed while he settled into Sally’s seat. He didn’t say a word, just sat quietly, comfortably, next to me. There was something about him that made me want to be near him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was different. Maybe he was an angel too. Who knew at this point? Were there any humans left?
I glanced out the window over his shoulder. White clouds filled the view. I sat up in surprise. I hadn’t realized how engrossed I’d been in my thoughts.
Joseph must have sensed my shock. His gaze went to the window behind him, then he turned back to me. “What’s wrong?” His features were calm, though his eyes were fierce, ready to spring for attack. Must be an FBI thing.
“
When did we take off?”
He smiled, biting his lip as if to suppress a huge guffaw. When he got his composure back, he said, “We’ve been airborne for seven minutes.”
His dark eyes bored into mine and many expressions flitted across his face. He seemed amused yet anxious.
“
What did you need to talk to me about?” I asked, changing the subject.
“
Nothing in particular.”
He smiled, his teeth gleaming against the sun that shone through the window. Good news: he wasn’t a vampire. He leaned back in his seat, his head resting against the headrest, his smile still in place.
My eyebrows rose.
“
I rescued you from your assistant. I could tell you weren’t paying attention, so I thought I’d pretend I needed to speak to you.” He shook his head, laughing. “The few minutes I talked to her were . . . interesting, to say the least, and I thought you might need a conversation rescue. Though I didn’t realize what kind of conversation I was walking into.”
“
Me either,” I mumbled.
“
I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said out of nowhere. His deep eyes looked sideways at me.
“
Oh yeah? And what’s that?” This should be interesting.
“
You’re a skeptic. That your job is to find the supernatural.” He cocked his head to see my expression. “I heard it’s impossible to fool you.”
I nodded. Maybe that was all about to change.
He became abruptly serious. “This might be the real deal, huh?” There was something about him that made me want to spill everything that had happened to me. I didn’t know this man, yet his deep communicative eyes were constantly searching for something in mine.
“
Could be,” I said as doubtfully as I could manage. What I wanted to say was “you bet your ass it is.”
He nodded, as if he could read my mind. We were silent then, and it was a very relaxed quiet, one I didn’t mind in the slightest.
I picked up my book to start reading. Right before I delved into the novel, I looked over the pages and saw Karen twisted around in her seat, watching me. She smiled, gave a little wave, and turned around. Even with her back to me, I knew she was protecting me.
Several pages into the book, the hostess padded on by. “May I get you anything to drink?”
“
Cranberry juice,” I requested. I thought about asking for a shot of vodka in that cranberry juice, but decided that wouldn’t be very professional.
“
Sure thing,” she said sweetly. She put ice in a cup and poured the drink. “Here you go, hon. And for you, sir?”
“
Nothing for me,” Joseph said dismissively.
“
So—” he turned to look at me “—what exactly do you do in the Fishbowl, was it?”
It seemed he had been fully briefed on Zelko Corp. “The Fishbowl was kind of from a joke.” I smiled. “On a normal day—if there is ever a normal day for me—I do autopsies on bodies that are suspected or deemed ‘supernatural.’ We have some very rich, very bored investors who pay us a lot of money to tell them ‘no, he wasn’t a demon, he just had a really bad skin disease’ or ‘yes, he was very hairy, but sorry, he wasn’t a werewolf.’ This is the first time I’ve been completely baffled. Those”—I almost said angels—“bodies are different. I was actually scared for the first time since I started working at Zelko Corp.” I wanted to put my hands over my mouth, shocked that I had just admitted that.
“
Really?” His voice passed conversational and went straight to curiosity.
“
Oh yeah, the only other time I was remotely freaked out was by the feather man,” I admitted with a twitch of my lips, trying to figure out why I was spilling my guts to this man.
Joseph laughed. “Feather man?” His reaction surprised me.
“
Oh yeah. This moron had the brilliant idea to stitch feathers into his skin to make it look like he was a bird, or an angel, or who knows what actually goes on through a person’s head like that?” I shook my head. “And it wasn’t like he was scary, but removing hundreds of long emu feathers from the guys back was horrible. To think that someone probably helped him with it or to think of the poor bird missing its feathers.” I shuddered. “Never a boring day in the Fishbowl.”
“
That sounds . . .” He made a disgusted face. I nodded in agreement.
“
So, Agen—Joseph, what do you do at the FBI?”
“
I over see our P.I. lab in Washington. For the most part I stay out of the labs. They creep me out, especially the experimental ones.” He shook his head at some thought he must have had. “I mostly work in the field, overseeing the majority of our investigations. Usually my cases involve horrific deaths that have been suspected to be of the paranormal persuasion.”
“
Like?”
“
In Georgia, one year, there were several deaths that the Christians were presuming were the devil’s work. I had the ‘pleasure’ to speak to some very . . . interesting people.” He chuckled. “Even the coroner, a scientist, refused to work with the bodies, afraid he would be infected by the devil. When it was all said and done, it was two kids who had joined a cult and took it too far.”
“
Really? A cult?” I asked.
“
Stupid, I know.” He shook his head again. “They thought they were following the devil’s orders. If you believed in that stuff, perhaps they were.”
“
Perhaps.” I looked over his shoulder again to see the clear blue sky stretching for eternity.
“
I could really use a vacation.” Joseph sighed. “Do you like to ski?”
My eyes shot back to his face. “I do, actually. I love it. Last year I went to Snow Bird in Utah. They have amazing slopes.”
“
Really? I’ve never been. There are some places to ski on the east coast, but I’ve never had the opportunity to go. My brother lives in Colorado and invites me up every winter. My sister-in-law and their kids come with us. They’re young, but they’re very enthusiastic about skiing. It’s a joy to teach them some of my
totally awesome
tricks.”
I laughed at his surfer-dude voice and the thought of him showing off for his family. Then my thoughts went back to the last time I was skiing. It was an adrenaline rush, and at the same time, it gave me clarity about my life. Sometimes I hated the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to remember a single second of my life before I was found outside the adoption agency. Every time I went skiing, I hoped that something would return to me, but it never did.
I looked down at the book, which was open, and read one of the lines. “Just because he was a creature of the night—of darkness—didn’t mean he was evil. As he stared at me, all I could see was his benevolence, his light.”
“
Good book?” Joseph asked. I looked up. Again, his mysterious eyes seized mine. “Earlier, your eyes were moving so fast I didn’t know if you were actually absorbing the information or not.” He gave me a half smile.
“
Yes, it’s great. About a vampire.” I closed the book so he could see the cover.
“
Vampires, eh?” He raised an eyebrow. “The skeptic reads books on the supernatural?”
“
Sometimes fantasy is better than reality,” I mumbled.
“
Maybe we should change that. I could show you the sights while you’re in D.C. Your schedule doesn’t bind you to the lab all day.”
“
How do you know my schedule?” I asked, eyeing him with a smirk.
He looked sheepish. “I gave the itinerary to Sally. And I was kind of curious about you. You aren’t upset, are you?” He looked anxious.
“
No,” I said too quickly.
He grinned. “I wish that we could just know the truth. All this secrecy is rather annoying when you’re the one seeking answers.” He shrugged.
“
Then I would be out of a job,” I said, laying my head back.
“
True, and then I would never have met you. So maybe all these mysteries will end up being a good thing.”
The plane shook with turbulence. I looked out the window and saw massive, towering storm clouds ahead. I gulped and gripped the armrest on the couch-like seat.
“
Anxious, are we?” Joseph asked, glancing at my death grip.
The plane shuddered again, and my fingers only dug in deeper to the fabric.
“
Scared of flying?”
“
Nope.”
“
Heights?”
“
Nope.”
The plane shook again, and I closed my eyes, trying to take deep breaths.
“
What is it, then?”
“
I have a fear of falling from heights,” I said, my voice cracking with panic as the plane dipped slightly. It had finally flown into the storm cloud.
Joseph gave a musical laugh. “I don’t understand the difference?”
My eyes opened to see him staring at me quizzically. “Put me in a plane, strap me up, or let me repel from a cliff, or hang me from a thirty story building, and I’m fine. It’s when I’m not safe that I freak out. Heights are fine, until there’s a risk of falling from them.”
The plane hit more turbulence, and I jumped. Weren’t they supposed to fly around storms?
“
Maybe I could distract you,” he whispered.
His hand gently pulled my fingers from their ironclad grasp. That was a distraction enough. Our eyes rose from our hands at the same time. Was he flirting with me?
I really think he’s flirting with me.
My mind went into panic mode. It felt nice, but at the same time I wanted to pull away. He was sweet, funny, and damn he was good-looking, but did I really want to get involved with another man so soon? And one who lived on the east coast? I hated myself just then. There was a perfectly fine man sitting next to me, obviously flirting with me. Don’t be a dope, I yelled at myself. It was my automatic reaction when I felt myself getting closer to someone—pull away and run.
Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but the pilot’s voice came over the speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re entering into some nasty storms. I’d like everyone to please buckle your seatbelts.”
If it weren’t for the terrifying jolt that ran through my body at the pilot’s words, I’d probably have been grateful for the interruption. I gulped when the plane jerked again and hastily began to search for my seatbelt, taking my hand back into my own control. When I couldn’t find it, my heart pounded furiously in my chest. I had a bad feeling about this—very bad indeed. My fingers were busy scattering this way and that across the seat. Joseph leaned over and found it. He buckled me in. My savior.