Smoke and Shadows (51 page)

It was good to have goals. It made the possibility of imminent death not so imminent.

Both doors to the lobby were propped open, allowing the police to come and go as they pleased. Tony moved quickly past the elevator to the stairs—in case of trouble, stairs came with a lot more options than a sealed box hanging off cables.

No surprise upon emerging on the fourth floor to see a small crowd of murmuring tenants staring at the bright yellow police tape stretched across the front of the wizard's apartment. Staying tight against the wall, he worked his way past the edges of the audience until he could peer through the open door.

Something—someone—had pushed the metal sockets holding the latch and the dead bolt right out of the frame. And done it without putting a mark on the door.
Fucking great. Evil wizard with super-strength.

“Can I help you with something?”

Only one profession ever wrapped such a seemingly innocuous question in so much sarcasm. Tony looked up from the damage, got a firm grip on his increasing need for profanity, and asked, “Is there a body?”

On the other side of the tape, the official police glare deepened. “Who wants to know?”

“Tony Foster. I work with the woman who lives here.”

“And yet you don't seem to be at work.”

No body, then. Cops at a homicide didn't take the time to exchange smart-ass observations with people hanging around the crime scene. Particularly not at a crime scene that involved a metaphysical, inexplicable death. The sudden surge of relief was intense enough to nearly buckle Tony's knees. Which was when he realized two things: One, that there didn't necessarily need to
be
a body; there had to be a hundred different ways an evil wizard could get rid of a rival that didn't involve an inconvenient corpse. And two, the cop was still waiting for a response. Tony shrugged. “She didn't come in, she didn't call. The boss sent me down to make sure she was all right.”

“Uh-huh. Can anyone here vouch for you?”

Anyone here? Tony turned toward the watching/listening crowd of Arra's neighbors and spotted a familiar face. “Julian can.”

Julian was ready for his close-up. At the sound of his name he pushed forward, Moira cradled in one arm. “He's been here before, Officer, with Arra Pelindrake. They do, indeed, work together.” A dramatic pause. “We have spoken together, he and I.”

Oh, yeah.
Tony thought as the cop rolled his eyes.
I bet that was some Mustardseed.

“I don't know why Arra didn't inform her employer she was going away for a few days,” Julian continued. “We all knew.”

“Well,
I
don't know why
he
knew.” The new speaker was short and kind of round with her graying blonde hair cut in a bowl shape. “
I
knew because
I
was feeding her cats. I'm the one who discovered the break-in.” She clutched at Tony's arm with a small plump hand. “I found it this morning when I went in to feed them.”

“Are they all right?”

“Oh, yes. They're in
my
apartment now.” The emphasis came with a distinct sneer in Julian's direction.

“Moira is allergic to cats.”

Last night. Not the Shadowlord, then. And not Mason—so far being shadow-held hadn't come with super powers, and Mason's muscle was more show than substance. Which left—Henry.

He'd leave the question of
why
Henry had broken into Arra's apartment for after sunset and only hoped that their earlier visits had left enough fingerprints to screw up any kind of an investigation. Had Arra been here when the vampire arrived? Had Henry locked her away somewhere so she couldn't run? Probably not. If she'd been out and around, free to make up her own mind, there was at least a chance she'd have shown up at the gate this morning—Henry wouldn't take that chance away from him. He'd probably just been looking for her, searching her apartment for some idea of where she'd run off to.

“So you have no idea of where Ms. Pelindrake might be, or how to reach her?”

What? Oh, right, the cop. “Sorry, no.” He'd hoped she was home, just hunkered down and not answering the phone. Failing that, he'd wanted to do the same thing Henry had—search the apartment for clues. He'd had no plan for actually getting into the apartment, but it seemed Henry'd taken care of that for him—if the police would just haul ass out of his way.

And right on cue . . .

“Right, we're done.” Cop number two appeared behind his partner. “Television's there, TiVo's there, computer's there, seventy bucks in a dish on the coffee table—if it was a burglary, they were after something specific and small.”

“No way of knowing until Ms. Pelindrake reappears.” Turning his attention back to the crowd, he swept it with a patronizing expression although he'd probably intended said expression to be stern. Not the first cop Tony'd ever met who didn't know the difference. “The moment any of you hears from her, have her call the station. You all have the number.”

Since Tony had no intention of having Arra call the station if found, the fact he didn't have the number was irrelevant.
Okay, or not.
As he didn't seem to have an option, he took the offered business card and stepped back out of the way as both constables ducked under the tape, pulling the apartment door closed behind them.

“There's a locksmith on the way,” Julian informed them. “I'll personally see to it that no one crosses that tape.”

“The tape? Right.” Cop number two turned and pulled it off the door. “We're done here. Can't just leave this stuff lying around. People use it for the damnedest things.”

Cop number one murmured something too low to be overheard and they laughed together in a manly way as they stepped into the elevator. By the time the doors shut behind them, Tony, Julian, Moira, and the woman with Arra's cats were alone in the hall.

Julian's lip curled. “Assholes.”

“No argument from me,” Tony muttered. Faggot comments had a distinct tone of their own. No need to hear the actual words. And while they were sharing this moment of solidarity . . . “Listen, Julian, there's a chance that Arra may have left something about where she was going in the calendar on her computer. We ought to have a look.”

The “we” was almost enough.

“If I don't find her, she could lose her job.”

Which was more or less the truth.

“No.” The woman with Arra's cats shook her head. “
I
don't think that's a good idea.”

And that settled it.

Julian shifted the Chihuahua to his other arm and pushed the door open. “I'm the president of the co-op board and
I
think we should do everything we can to help a neighbor keep her job.”

“Well, when I was president . . .”

“You
were
the president, Vera. You aren't now.”

Moira growled an agreement.

Tony ignored all three of them and headed toward the computers, moving slowly enough to give the place a thorough once over. No shadows where they shouldn't be. No inexplicable stains. The laptop was gone, but the desktop was exactly where he remembered it although he couldn't remember ever having seen one of Arra's computers without a game of spider solitaire running. And, as it turned out, he couldn't get into her documents without a password.

“
I
think the police should be doing this!”

His escort had caught up.

“The police can't crack her computer without a warrant. I know. I was on
DaVinci's Inquest
.”

“Years ago and you were a corpse!”

Tony tuned out the argument and typed in “Za-zuWhitby.”

When it worked, there was a gratifying intake of breath from Julian. “How did you know?”

“Those cats are the only things she cares about.” Working the mouse with his right hand, he dragged his phone out of his pocket with his left and thumbed the speed dial. Still no answer from her cell. Pity. He'd had a sudden idea that involved telling her he was taking both cats to the Shadowlord. That'd get her thumb out of her ass PDQ.

Nothing on her calendar. It didn't look like she ever used her calendar.

She
was
using 100GB of a 120GB hard drive—although at least 30G of that seemed to be porn.
Didn't need to know that. It's like finding out your parents had sex.
Totally fucking creepy. Literally.

He double-clicked a bitmap file labeled Gate and an almost familiar pattern of swirls and equations appeared on the screen. It seemed to be the same pattern he'd glimpsed on her computer at the studio. It was definitely
not
the same pattern written on the blackboards on the other side of the gate, even given that part of it had been covered by . . .

“
I
don't think you should be looking at her private things.”

“You're right.” He closed it out, grateful to have the memory interrupted. No doubt she had a copy of the gate file on the laptop. Probably why she'd taken the laptop with her.

Her wallpaper was a sunset over water.
Yeah, great. Very helpful.
As far as Tony was concerned, all water looked the same.

“What are you doing?” Tucked in behind his left shoulder, Julian seemed to require a play-by-play.

“She obviously likes this picture, right?” He clicked through the control panel and into design to get the jpeg's name, then into Arra's photos. “I want to see if it's local.” There were two dozen similar pictures of sunsets in the folder labeled Kitsalano Point.

“Kitsalano Point, it's that part of Kits Beach just west of the Maritime Museum, that part that pokes out into the bay.”

Yeah, that would be why they call it a point.
Couldn't be Sunset Beach which was maybe six blocks away. It had to be across the fucking creek. Still, it was a place to start.

“Are you going to look for her there?”

“Thought I might.”

“Do you want a drive?”

Okay that was unexpected. “I thought you had to wait for the locksmith. President and everything . . .”

Julian dropped his attention to the dog. “Right.”

“Look, if you boys want to go off together,
I'll
stay and wait for the locksmith.”

“No, that's okay, it's my responsibility.” Shifting Moira to his other arm, he held out his hand. “Good luck, Tony. I hope you find her.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” For all his affectations, Julian's handshake was surprisingly firm.
Must've missed that one when he was filling in the stereotypes form.

“Wait!” Vera grabbed at his arm. “Your name is Tony?”

“Yes . . .”

“Tony Foster?”

“Yes . . .”

“How silly of me.” Her giggle suggested they should agree with the assessment. “I heard you tell the police your name, but it never sank in. If you're Tony Foster, Arra left you a letter. I found it when I went to feed the cats, but then this whole burglary put it out of my mind. It's in my apartment, I didn't, of course, have a chance to mail it. Is it short for Anthony?”

“Is what?”

“Tony. Is it short for Anthony?”

“Yes. It is. My letter?”

“Wait here.” A pat on the place she'd grabbed. “I'll get it.”

Back in the hall, the two men and the dog watched Vera scuttle off to her apartment.

“You're thinking of strangling her, aren't you?” Julian asked conversationally.

“Oh, yeah.”

The letter was no help at all. It didn't tell him where she was. It didn't tell him what to do. It didn't offer anything but more excuses.

“The point of trying is trying!”

“You have a fortune cookie back there?”

“What?” Tony stared at the back of the cabbie's head for a moment. “Uh, no. Just thinking out loud.”

“Do or do not, there is no try!”

“What?”

“Yoda.”

“Right.” That would make him Luke Skywalker, Amy could be Princess Leia, Henry'd have to be Han Solo riding to the rescue at the last minute, the Shadowlord had that whole Darth Vader thing down although he was significantly better looking, and Arra could be the irresponsible old wizard who chicken shitted away from a fight without even considering that she was fucking taking it somewhere else and now that it had found her was bailing on the whole goddamned mess!

“Please do not drive your fingers through my upholstery.”