Truth in the smoke, p.1
Truth in the Smoke, page 1
Truth in the Smoke eBook
Glamour Blind Trilogy Book 1
SP Neeson
18 Street Press
Truth in the Smoke
Glamour Blind Book One
Copyright © 2023 by SP Neeson
www.18streetpress.com
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes.
Cover Designed by Natasha Snow Designs
www.natashasnowdesigns.com
Editing by Tracy Thillmann
ISBN: 978-1-7389875-1-1
Version: June 2023
For Krys, Steph, and Ryan
My biggest fans
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
Destiny in the Flames
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter 1
When the woman walked into my tiny private investigator office, I knew something was off. First, she looked like a supermodel, and supermodels did not try to hire me. From the top of her golden blonde head to the tips of her purple, lace four-inch heels, she was perfectly put together. Her teal designer dress draped over her long lithe body and somehow the colors complemented her bronzed skin. It took me a moment to figure out the second, and more disturbing, thing wrong with the picture of her. Although the Vancouver sky had opened up a couple days ago and had yet to stop trying to drown its residents, she was completely dry.
“Hi,” she said with a brilliant smile as she perched on the edge of my single guest chair. She set her handbag on my scratched and dented desk, pointing the Prada label in my direction. Then she slid one endless leg over the other, subtly showing off the red sole on the bottom of her shoe as she did.
I blinked slowly at the overt display of designer fashion, but didn’t comment. “May I help you?” I asked.
“You’re Calynn, right? The private investigator.”
“I sure hope so. Otherwise, I paid way too much money for the sign and business cards.”
Her laugh reminded me of a brook or stream, but she stopped laughing before I could consider the idea too long.
“I’m Meriel. I’ve been looking everywhere for someone who could help me. Most people are just looking out for themselves, you understand. There are no other investigators with the right background.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I gave her a slight smile anyway. She took it as the agreement I thought she would and went on.
“Most of our people go into higher paying gigs, of course, like acting or modeling, or whatever.”
By the way she said it, I guessed she was an actress. Not really a surprise. What surprised me was her saying our people, like we had something in common, like we were friends. People tended not to like me, which had the unfortunate result of my private investigator business being on the verge of bankruptcy. Of course, being a woman in a male dominated industry didn’t help either.
“I bet you get a lot of business from the rest of us.”
Since I still had no idea who she meant by us, I just smiled again and waited for her to continue.
“Of course, I’m sure you can’t talk about your clients.” She looked at me expectantly, like she thought I was about to tell her everything.
“I have a pretty strict confidentiality policy. Why don’t you tell me about the job?”
“The job?” Meriel’s pretty brow crumpled in confusion.
I pointed to myself. “PI.” I pointed to her. “Client.”
“Oh, right.” She unzipped her handbag and pulled out a photo, sliding it over to me. The woman in it was even more beautiful than the one in my office, but in a more dangerous way. Her dark hair flowed past her shoulders in a wild, wind-tossed tangle as she turned away from the camera. Her dark red, lace dress covered her demurely from collarbone to below her knees, sheer sleeves reaching past her elbows. The longer I looked at her, the more I felt like I was suffocating.
I pushed the feeling aside to look at the other details of the picture. I noticed a large, antique key dangling from a chain so thin I wondered how the key didn’t break it. I traced the necklace with my finger.
“I have a close-up,” Meriel said excitedly as she passed me another photo from her purse. This one focused only on the key draped on a red lace background. The top of it looked like a silver snowflake superimposed over a gold sun. In the center of the snowflake-sun was a large green gem with deep, glittering black flakes. A silver and gold braid made up the stem and ended in the most intricately designed tooth I’d ever seen. What kind of lock could this key fit into?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Unconcealed longing dripped from her voice.
It was, but I couldn’t understand why Meriel would be so interested in it. It wasn’t the most expensive necklace I’d ever seen. Maybe some fancy designer made it?
“Yes, it is,” I said. “So, what’s the job, exactly?”
Meriel regarded me blankly. “I want you to find it.” She said it like I should already have known what she wanted.
“It doesn’t look very lost to me,” I said, sliding the pictures back across my desk.
Her face brightened into a smile that almost blinded me. I found myself hoping she never tried to play poker. “Apparently, it was lost only a few hours after the picture was taken. I have it from a reliable source that almost no one knows she even came out of the Sidhe with it. So we would be the only ones looking for it.”
“Right.” I didn’t try to explain to her that “reliable sources” were rarely as reliable as they seemed or that a printed picture didn’t tell you anything about when or where it was taken. For all I knew, this picture could have been taken months ago. I also didn’t mention I had no idea what “she came out of the she” meant.
She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. You’re not one of those who believe the key is a hoax or cursed, are you? I know at least two others who have taken it back and received a full pardon.”
I knew I was going to regret asking, but I did it anyway. “A pardon from what?”
If I was confused by what she had been saying, she looked more confused by my question.
“From exile.”
“Right. Just so we’re clear. You want me to find a key.”
She shook her head. “Not just a key. The key. Don’t you know what this is? Who this is?” She tapped the photo of the woman with her manicured finger. “This is the Queen of Air and Darkness. And she’s lost the key to the Sidhe.”
“Uh-huh.” I’d always had a bit of a knack for knowing if someone was lying or not. It was some kind of instinct I had learned not to ignore, and it was part of what made me a good detective. That instinct hadn’t gone off, which could mean only one thing. She believed what she was saying.
“Well, miss…” I trailed off. She hadn’t given me a last name, and we stared at each other for a moment until I realized she wasn’t going to. “Meriel. I’m very busy right now. Why don’t you leave me your number and I’ll get back to you if I can free up some time?”
“But this could be our chance. I’ve been searching for this key for the last fifty-five years. With the knowledge I’ve gained since then and your skills as a PI, we could find the key and go home. Don’t you want to go home?”
There were so many things about what she said that raised an alarm, but I decided now was not the time. So I just answered her question.
“Considering I live in an apartment upstairs, I think I’m okay.”
She couldn’t have looked more heartbroken if someone had just run over her puppy. She said in a small voice, “But you’re fae. I could feel the magic when I walked in the door. Why don’t you want to go home?”
I was finally going to ask her what the fuck she was talking about when she straightened, the heartbroken look replaced by one of disdain. She stood, dropped a business card on top of the photos on my desk, and said, “Call me when you’ve come to your senses.” Then she stalked out of my office and slammed the door.
I watched the closed door for a while, then I got up to get another cup of coffee. It looked like sludge now that it was about six hours old, but I figured, with enough milk and sugar, I could still drink it. There wasn’t any left to make more anyway.
I returned to my empty office, Meriel’s business card taunting me from my desk, and my mind whispered I could afford more of that coffee if I took the job. But she was crazy. She really believed the bullshit about a queen and exile and the key to something called a “she.” I shouldn’t care what she said about me. She probably couldn’t pay anyway. That purse was probably a knock off. Probably.
The trouble with always being able to tell when someone was lying: it made it impossible to lie to yourself.
I tried to put Meriel and her crazy story out of my head. I opened my ledger, that I still kept on paper, and tried to focus on my finances. If I used all the money in my account, I was still two hundred dollars short on rent, and I also had to find a way to pay the electrical bill I hadn’t paid last month. And that completely ignored what I would need for gas for my motorcycle and groceries. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to get the money I needed in the next few days.
Some of what Meriel had said bounced around in my mind as I stared down at my ledger. The us and going home, like I was part of some kind of club she belonged to.
I set my teeth together, not quite clenching my jaw, frustrated that the only potential client to walk through my door in the last few days was crazy.
I took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. It really was terrible, but I had none left. My frustration started to boil over. I was supposed to go for dinner tonight with Arial. She would insist on paying. Again. And I would have to let her. Again.
This fucking life was little more than a cage.
All of a sudden, my mug shattered in my hand, spilling coffee all over my ledger.
“Shit.”
Chapter 2
The day went pretty much downhill from there. I contacted a few people I’d done some work for in the past—lawyers, other PIs, the list was embarrassingly short—and no one had anything for me. No one else came in for the rest of the day and I didn’t come up with any brilliant plans on how to make more money before the month was up and my rent was due. If I couldn’t pay, I would lose my office and my home. The apartment above my office included a kitchen and living room area barely big enough for my little table and an armchair I bought from a thrift store. It also included a bedroom crowded with a twin bed, and a tiny bathroom I could almost turn around in. The best part about the apartment was the large balcony overlooking the neighbor’s property on Williams Street. The office itself was also small, with the front room to host clients and a small back room with a safe, a filing cabinet, and my coffee maker. It was a dumpy little place, but it was my dumpy little place. And I would lose it if I couldn’t get the money together to pay next month’s rent in less than a week.
I glanced down at the business card and pictures on my desk.
Her full name was Meriel Jones. I had looked her up between phone calls and found out she was indeed an actress. A famous actress who I would know if I went to see movies ever. She could definitely afford to pay me. I had picked up my cell phone to call her three times already and stopped myself each time. I couldn’t justify taking money from someone who wasn’t in their right mind. It would be wrong. Even if she could afford to pay all my debts and bills for the rest of the year and still be able to afford a few new designer outfits for herself.
My day was almost over. Just for curiosity’s sake, I typed “what is a fae” into my Internet browser and read the Wikipedia page about fairies and the different European cultures that believed in them. I spent some time reading through the Celtic entry about a race of gods who were called the Tuatha Dé Danann. The more I read, the faster my heart beat, but I couldn’t have said why. Finally, I slammed my laptop shut.
“This is ridiculous.”
I was about to get up to lock my door when it opened again. I looked up, hopeful an actual client was here to hire me, but one of the property managers for my apartment and office came in instead, shaking off his umbrella as he did. I repressed a groan when I saw him. He never brought good news.
“Good afternoon, Calynn. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, Greg. It’s good to see you. Do you want a coffee?” I said before I could think better of it. I prayed he said no. I might poison him if he tried to drink the stuff. If Stacy had come by, I would have gladly poisoned her, but I liked Greg.
“No, thank you. I came by to ask about the rent.”
I forced myself to keep breathing. Slowly. In, out. “It’s not due for another six days.”
“I know that.” He twisted the umbrella in his hands, spinning it around and around. “I just got a message from the company who owns the building. There’s a couple of tenants who they’re having trouble with. Trouble with payment. Unfortunately, your name came up. Stacy wanted to come talk to you, but after what happened last time, I thought it was better if I came. They said if you don’t pay on time this month, they’re going to evict you.”
Stacy was one in a long line of people who seemed to hate me for no reason. And after twenty-nine years of bullshit, I tended to be pretty quick to snap back if someone was being a dick to me. Maybe that meant I got into more fights, which in turn made me more unlikable. I couldn’t say.
“I’ve only been late a few times and only by a couple of days. And I always pay.”
Greg looked like this conversation was physically painful. I felt sorry for him. I hated putting him in this position. “I know that, Calynn. And other than the sometimes late payments, you’re a great tenant. You clean up after yourself. There have never been any complaints about you from the other tenants. But you’ve been late four of the past six months. There’s nothing I can do.” He spread his hands, the umbrella still in one of them. “If I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’m afraid they’re looking for an excuse to evict people. I think they want to do some renovations and then put it back on the market at higher rents.”
“There’s been a lot of that happening around here lately,” I said, absently. I tapped my finger against my desk, thinking furiously about what I could do to ensure I would have enough money in six short days. My gaze landed on Meriel’s business card. I looked up at Greg with a sunny smile I didn’t feel. “But hey, I just got a new client today, so it should be no problem. I’ll be getting the advance tomorrow.”
He looked so relieved and I realized how close I had come to losing my home and business. If I didn’t get the money, I would be out.
“I should go then. I’ve got a couple other people I need to talk to. Have a good rest of your day.”
“You, too,” I told him as he left.
I opened my ledger again and stared down at the coffee-stained page without seeing it. I slid the business card off my desk and into my hand and picked up my cell phone in the other.
“You shouldn’t call her,” I told myself. “It’s wrong to take advantage of someone not in their right mind.” I tapped the card against the edge of the desk. “She can afford it. And you heard Greg. You need the money.” I took a deep breath. “It’s still a bad idea.”
Then I shut up and dialed her number.
She answered after a couple of rings. “Meriel.”
“Ms. Jones. This is Calynn D’Arcy. You came by my office earlier today?”
“Ah, Calynn. You’ve come to your senses and changed your mind. I just knew you would.”
“Right. Well, I’ll need an advance. A thousand dollars should be enough.”
“Of course. I’m in the area still. I can bring you a cheque and some other notes I have with me. I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
“That sounds great. I’ll see you then.”
“Oh, Calynn. You won’t regret this.”
We hung up, and I was certain I already did.
***
When she returned to my office, I noticed again she was completely dry despite the pouring rain outside. There was something weird about her and I considered the idea she wasn’t actually crazy before I pushed it away. However she kept dry in this weather was none of my business. Especially if she was going to give me a thousand dollars.
