There’s no other way out.
“I know, D. I said I would and I will.”
Between her heels, her silk blouse, and her attitude, she might as well be standing before judge and jury. “Do it. Right now.”
It’s about six thirty p.m., a not-unreasonable time to call a police detective, but. “Do you see how I’m dressed?” A black cashmere crewneck over my best pair of jeans. “I’m meeting Roger in half an hour.”
“Ooh... “ She wiggles her fingers, managing to look both happy for me and mocking at the same time. “Going out with the OG.”
I move toward her. She’ll either let me out or get run over.
She yields, taking a big enough step for me to get past her. “McGraw wouldn’t care, except there was a woman by that name living in Seattle until about 1988. After that, there’s no record ofher, so she could, in fact, be the woman in the photo your BFF Cat left here.”
“Not my friend.” I keep going toward my room. We’ve gone over this, and I totally get why McGraw wants to know how we discovered the name. Telling him a necromancer extracted it from the spirit of the murderer? Yeah, not going there—not telling Dorinda, either—and rehashing the facts won’t change my mind.
I need to get my leather coat and then I can cut out. If Dorinda is frustrated with me, oh well. That’s what little brothers are for. Roger made us reservations at one of the fancy-ass downtown restaurants, and while hanging with him can be kind of a mixed bag, right now I’m grateful for the distraction.
“Text Ezra and tell him to call McGraw.”
Damn. I’d managed to avoid telling her Ezra’s disappeared. “It might be better for you to share his contact info with McGraw.”
“Why?”
“Keeps me out of it?”
“He isn’t a responsible adult? Doesn’t care about anybody but himself? Needs to ask his crystal ball before he can say anything?”
That crack about the crystal ball is close enough to the truth to make me blurt out, “I haven’t talked to him.”
Her eyes narrow. “Since when? I thought you guys were like this.” She holds up a hand, her fingers tightly crossed.
I go into my room to get my jacket, knowing full well she’ll be standing there when I come out. It’s been a week since we went to the SPAM offices. I’d managed to get through the holiday weekend with a series of white lies and omissions but there’s only so long I can do that with her. Shrugging into my leather jacket, I try to think of something that doesn’t make me sound like a complete idiot.
“We had a...” I mumble, running out of words. Fuck if I know what we had. It wasn’t a fight, was it? I wasn’t fighting anyway. I was just trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
As expected, Dorinda’s still standing near the entryway, arms crossed, lips pressed together like it’s taking all of her will not to say “I told you so” before I’ve actually said anything to her. I’m going to have to go past her to get out, and I stop when I’m a couple feet away.
“Look, I said Ezra was my mistake to make, and he is. There’s stuff I can’t tell you, and stuff I won’t tell you, and you’re going to have to trust me on this one, Dorinda Jewel.”
Just like Ezra said I should trust him.
“I do, Damon. You know that.” She throws her hands in the air like she’s some kind of middle-aged housewife. “The legal system, however, is not so forgiving. If McGraw wanted to, he could drag you and your invisible boyfriend in for questioning, which would be way more stressful than a fucking phone call.”
I step around her to get to the door. “I need to take off or I’m going to be late. I will get in touch with McGraw in the morning, all right?”
“Fuck.” She gathers her thick curls and twists them into a knot on top of her head. “Less than ideal, but... have fun tonight, I guess.”
And on that wave of enthusiasm, I make my escape. Uber will be here in five minutes. While waiting, I write Ezra a text.
The detective who’s investigating the murder wants to know how we came up with the name. Any ideas on what to tell him?
I can’t make myself hit send.Yet. I don’t delete the post, either. He blocked me, so maybe he’ll get the message via psychic energy or something.
The restaurant Roger chose is in the Belltown neighborhood. Belltown’s hipster cred has come and gone over the last twenty or so years, at least according to a couple of the older guys at work. It must currently be on an upswing, because the Uber driver leaves me in the middle of a block, in front of an angled door with a sign only a little bigger than the palm of my hand.
Core. The restaurant’s name is Core, which sounds to me more like a gym that specializes in Pilates and other forms of abdominal torture. The hostess desk is only a few steps past the front door, and the two young women behind it are a matched set of chic. Both have long, straight hair and long, artfully painted fingernails. They even smile in unison.
I tell them I’m meeting a friend who made a reservation, and when I drop Roger’s name, they both light up.
