“She’s not hiding anywhere.” He paused, exhaling sharply. “We have her in the holding room at Gravewatch.”
“What!?”
I stared at him in disbelief. Yesterday morning, when he’d mentioned the urgent situation at work, he’d let it slip they hadsomeonein custody. He conveniently never mentioned it was my missing psychic! I couldn’t help wondering what other truths he’d omitted as I gaped at him, awaiting an explanation.
“The twins tracked her down,” he informed me. “She was halfway to New Hampshire, hiding out at a shitty motel off the side of the highway. They convinced her to come back to town with them.”
“Convinced her how?”
He paused. “Creatively.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.”
“Babe, it was need-to-know.”
“And?”
“You didn’t need to know.”
My temper had, by this point, gathered so much steam, I feared my ears would soon begin to whistle like a boiling tea kettle. “You were hoping I wouldn’teverknow,” I hissed, a note of accusation coloring my tone. “You were hoping… what, exactly? That I’d develop a timely case of amnesia? That I’d just forget all about Madame Zelda? That I wouldn’t notice when a story hit the papers about the middle aged woman found dead in the dumpster behind The Banshee?”
“Babe, I’m sure the O'Banions wouldn’t dump the body behind their own bar. Not the brightest bulbs, I admit, but even they know better than that.”
“This is not a joke! This is a mess!”
“Fully fucking aware of that, Gwen.” His own temper lashed out, sudden as a whip. “Christ, you think I wanted to get involved in any of this shit? Trust me, it’s not my policy to take on a whack-job client like Mickey O’Banion or any of his three brothers, seeing as they’re all batshit insane — a genetic trait that only seems to get stronger with each incarnation.”
“You didn’t have to take the case!”
“I wasn’t planning on it!” he clipped. “Not until I realized you were caught up in the middle of it.”
I flinched in surprise.
He kept going. “I already have more business than I can handle. Didn’t need one more fucking thing on my plate. My plate is full as it is. I have a man out of state after a skip wanted for felony assault and battery. Another finishing up an assignment with the Feds, an assignment that I had to delegate — something, I might add, Ineverfucking do — so I could get back here and keep your ass out of hot water. My other men are scrambling to juggle all our local clients while taking on the monumental goddamn task of surveilling your every move, so we can hunt down the fuckers who are closing in on you before Halloween rolls around. The absolutelastthing I need is to be chasing down an ex-con psychic and her talking parrot, or brokering deals with the likes of Mickey O'Banion.”
My temper had sputtered out as he spoke, evaporating beneath the realization that he’d gotten tangled in a web of criminals formysake. Not just him, either. He’d gotten his men tangled too, when they undoubtedly had far more important things to which they should be dedicating their not-inconsiderable skills. Graham was working overtime, spreading his resources thin, just to keep me safe.
Humbled beyond the powers of speech, I could only manage to murmur a soft, “Oh…”
“Yeah.” His brows furrowed as he scowled at me. “Oh.”
“What about the stolen jewelry?”
“Didn’t have it on her. Best guess? She fenced it somewhere along the way when she headed north. We’re attempting to find out where. So far, she hasn’t felt inclined to share.” His green stare grew hard, a familiar uncompromising light shining on the surface of his irises. “Luckily, one of my men — Welles — specializes in intel extraction. He’ll get it out of her eventually.”
“He’s not going to beat it out of her, is he?”
Graham’s lips twitched when he heard the alarm in my voice. “Not in the torture business, babe. Welles has a way of finding people’s weak spots, and applying pressure as necessary.” He paused. “That’s figurative weak spots, not literal, just to be clear.”
“Don’t make fun of me! This stuff isn’t exactly in my typical wheelhouse. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve got my former employee imprisoned in your office.”
“It’s not like it’s a cell with bars and a stone pallet. She has a bed, she has a bathroom, she has a fucking television for god’s sake. Compared to the fleabag motel she was holed up in, it’s an upgrade.” He shot me an unreadable look. “Going to need it fumigated after she’s gone. That bird of hers stinks to high heaven.”
This wasn’t a lie. I’d had the distinct displeasure of meeting — and smelling — Hecate once. And once was enough.
“I want to see Zelda,” I declared, collecting the empty takeout cartons and discarding them in the trash can across the room.
“No.”