Part 8

I was jerked awake early that evening by my phone ringing off the hook. I didn’t own a cell phone for purely paranoid reasons and, of course, I kept my home line number on the down low, but considering my luck it could be anyone giving me a ring. I let it go to voice mail as I walked into my kitchen, rooting around the fridge for a juice box. Yes, I know I’m too old for those, but they are just so tasty and just enough to ease that icky feeling in your mouth when you wake up after sleeping with it open! Who can hate perfection in a little box just because they are made for eight-year-olds? Not me.
The machine clicked and Trish’s voice came from the speaker. “Jimmy Dee! Wake up! I know you’re been up for days but come on! Pick me up!”
I picked up the receiver and put it in the curve of my shoulder as I sorted through my mail, which I had been ignoring since I had started looking for that nice old guy’s granddaughter. “Trish, I don’t think I could pick you up. I got no upper body strength.”
“Okay, now you’re lying. I know for a fact you can bench like twice you’re body weight. I’m your gym buddy remember?”
“Hey I haven’t been in, what? Two weeks? I could have lost all my muscle capacity while I was sick.”
“Yeah, sure. Anyway, I am on my way to pick you up. We’re going to Gordan’s and he said his cook would make us dinner. Didn’t think you’d want to talk about a supernatural serial killer case in a public place.”
“Yeah, lets freak out some more people. It’d get us all sent to the looney bin.” I scratched Orango’s chin as I looked down at my rumpled clothes, tossing the stack on the counter with a sigh. “But I am not changing clothes. Lord knows I’ll want to bolt soon as I figure out how Gordan fits into all this.”
“We don’t have to get into it if you don’t want to, Jimmy. Honestly there are some things worth not knowing.”
“But you forget, my dear, I am a nosy b***h. Besides, as long as I’m not dinner I’m okay for the most part. I’m not about to look a gifted horse in the mouth on this one. I need all the help I can get.”
“I’m sorry, Dee.”
“It’s okay. I know you have my back.”
“Ever and always, even if you never told me your real name.”
“Yeah, lets tell a secret to a gossip. That's a great idea.”
“I don't know why you don't like it! Jeemyma is so pretty!”
“And so fresh-off-the-farm it could give you buck teeth.”
“Hey! I grew up on my Da's farm! Don't knock it! It's pretty sweet.”
“No one rocks camo like you, Trish.”
“Stop talking gibberish. Only you weird Americans have that much of a hard on for camo. I'm just around the corner so get downstairs before I stick my country boot up your prissy city a*s.”
She hung up and I grinned, shaking my head. After quickly checking Orango's food, slipping the elegant sliver cross necklace Krys had given me on and under my collar, and grabbing my briefcase I hurried downstairs and stepped outside as Trish pulled up to the front of my building. Gordan lived on the other side of London, in Knightsbridge, where all the aristocrats and tycoons gathered. The town house had been a gift from his mother when he had gotten his first Ph.D and it was often where the three investigators met. Apparently, Wayate and I weren’t the only ones who met with him here, and that bothered me. I should have noticed, but I hadn’t. It made so much sense, but I had ignored it. It made me feel like I sucked at my job and therefore life, since I worked just about every hour of every day.
Gordan was, like always, sitting in the living room at the bar, sipping some sherry and watching the TV in the mirror behind the bar. For a second, the blink of a panicked eye, Gordan wasn’t his normal handsome self. He was a god damn tiger-leopard-monster thingy in Gordan’s clothes, with Gordan’s cigar in its mouth, and Gordan’s favorite Batman crystal glass in its paw. Have you even heard of something that obscured?!? It was either real and I should be terrified or I was seeing things and I should be terrified. When life gives you lose-lose situations squared there is only one thing you can do.
I fainted, out like a light, just like when I had seen the puncture wounds on my neck before I went to the hospital.