Cold blood, p.22
Cold Blood, page 22
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Hey,” Hamilton greeted Harlan as he got into the patrol car. “I’ve got something you might find interesting.” He passed Harlan an article clipped out of a newspaper.
“You get the paper?”
Hamilton snorted. “No! Of course not. I’m not that old.” He scratched his jaw, nails scraping against his stubble.
Harlan shivered happily. The sound always gave him a pleasant tingling sensation up his spine.
Hamilton sighed. “Matthew reads it and he pointed this out to me. Just…shut up and read it.”
Local Medium Missing
Bradley St. James, a privately practicing medium in the Toronto area, went missing Sunday night. Authorities are seeking anyone with any information…
“That’s a second missing medium.”
“Yep.”
“Is anyone else looking into this?”
Hamilton shrugged. “As a missing person case, but not in connection to Leo or anything else.”
Nodding distractedly, Harlan skimmed the rest of the article. “It says he owned an occult shop right around here.”
“Seems like a good place to start. That was where he was last seen.” Hamilton snorted again. “Believe it or not, I actually did read the whole article before handing it to you.”
“Right. Sorry. Of course you did. If he died there, he might be able to tell us what happened. If not…maybe Morgan and I can find him.”
“Yeah.” Hamilton sounded skeptical.
“Yeah,” Harlan agreed. He was reluctant to put them through that again.
The shop’s display window was full of crystals and fairy statuettes.
“Man, I bet it just reeks of incense in there,” Hamilton laughed, shaking his head. “After you.”
He held out an arm and Harlan pushed past it to open the door. As Hamilton had predicted, a wave of patchouli poured out onto the sidewalk. Harlan ignored it and stepped inside, but not before he saw Hamilton stifle a laugh by pretending to cough into his fist.
A woman wearing a turquoise-blue headscarf looked up when the bell above the door jangled. “Hello, and welcome to— Oh, good, you’re here!” She rushed out from behind the desk after she glanced past Harlan and saw Hamilton’s uniform. “You’re here about Bradley, right?”
Hamilton nodded, stepping up beside Harlan.
Harlan quickly tuned out the conversation. He turned in a slow circle, trying to get a sense of the place. The closest spirit was about a block away. It didn’t feel like anyone had died in this place, never mind left a ghost behind. Is that good or bad? It could mean that Bradley was alive, or that he’d been killed somewhere else and he might or might not be haunting that place.
Or maybe mediums’ spirits were entirely different. Maybe Bradley was there, watching him without Harlan being able to tell. He’d never met a medium’s ghost, and the subject hadn’t been brought up at the Centre. The instructors probably hadn’t wanted the kids to think about their own deaths, which was great—but unhelpful.
Harlan closed his eyes and really focused, extending his awareness out as far as he could reach. He felt one other ghost on the very perimeter of his senses, but he couldn’t pick up any trace of Bradley.
Opening his eyes, he saw Hamilton shoot him a questioning glance. He shook his head.
“Thank you for your time, Ms. Zaman.” Hamilton handed her one of his cards and she tucked it away in her pocket. “If you think of anything, or you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Of course. I…I really hope he’s okay.” She swallowed hard and wiped her eye on her sleeve.
“As do we,” Hamilton assured her, giving her a sympathetic smile. He flipped his notebook shut with a well-practiced motion and put it away.
A thought occurred to Harlan. “Ms. Zaman…” It felt strange calling her that, but he hadn’t been paying attention when she’d introduced herself, so he hadn’t caught her first name, only what Hamilton had called her. “Do you have Bradley’s home address?” On the other hand, he only remembered Bradley’s first name, so he couldn’t sound as poised and professional as Hamilton.
“I think so.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through it, frowning. “Ah. Here it is.”
She turned her phone to face him but didn’t actually hand it to him.
He started asking Hamilton, “Can I borrow your…?” when he realized he could just take a picture of the address with his own phone. Just because Hamilton was old-fashioned and wrote everything by hand in his notebook, it didn’t mean that Harlan had to do the same.
“You done here?” Hamilton asked Harlan.
Harlan nodded, eager to get back into the fresh air. Now that he was only concentrating on the physical plane, the incense was getting overwhelming, and he didn’t want to be rude and openly cough because of it.
“All right. I hope the rest of your day is better, Ms. Zaman.” Hamilton tipped his hat at her, turned with military precision, and left.
Harlan followed, almost tripping on the welcome mat.
“You know we could’ve got the missing guy’s address from the file, right?” Hamilton asked once they were in the car.
“Oh. Right.” Harlan kept forgetting how much information he—or, rather, Hamilton—could access.
Bradley had lived close to the shop. No—lives, Harlan reminded himself. He was trying to be positive and not assume Bradley was dead.
“We’d need a warrant to get in,” Hamilton reminded Harlan as they got out of the car. He leaned on the roof, resting his elbows against it.
“That won’t be a problem. I don’t need to go inside.”
Hamilton waved a hand. “Fine. Do your thing, then we can call it a day.” He frowned. “Unless you find something.” He tapped the roof of the cruiser with his knuckles. “Don’t find anything, all right?”
Harlan snorted. “I’ll see what I can not do. And I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to knock on wood,” he teased.
“Yeah, I’ll leave the magic stuff to you.” He shooed Harlan with both hands.
How close could he get without needing a warrant? He could reach out and ‘see’ inside the building from the boulevard or the sidewalk, but closer was always better.
He stepped through the gate around the apartment building’s postage-stamp-size front yard, then looked back at Hamilton. Hamilton was looking up and down the street, not paying attention to him, so Harlan boldly walked up the front steps and stood just in front of the door.
Almost immediately, it opened in his face and an annoyed-looking man pushed past him.
Harlan took a step back and to the side on the concrete landing, so he wasn’t blocking the door. He made sure he was standing on the opposite side of the stoop from the bank of buzzers, because, with his luck, someone would need to use those while he was concentrating.
Satisfied that he wasn’t in danger of falling or inconveniencing anyone, Harlan closed his eyes and reached out with his power.
No ghosts. No deaths, at least since the current apartment had been built.
He withdrew into himself and opened his eyes. Hamilton was watching him now, and Harlan shook his head as he walked back to the car. “If he died here, there’s no sign of it. No sign of his ghost, either.”
Hamilton didn’t exactly look devastated. He was probably eager to get home to Matthew. “He might not even be dead,” he pointed out.
“Might not,” Harlan agreed, not really convinced.
“He might just be missing—or he ran off or something. There’s a million places he could be, safe and sound.”
Harlan nodded.
“And, unless you’ve got any other ideas, he’s someone else’s problem unless he turns up—or doesn’t turn up.”
“No. Nothing helpful. Not… Not without bringing Morgan in.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harlan was half-watching some movie on Netflix and scrolling through Reddit on his phone when it rang, startling him as usual. The caller ID said The Centre for Psychic Education and Research.
Figuring it was Eileen with more information, or maybe Tom checking in, he answered. “Hello?”
“Hello?” It was a very faint voice, barely a whisper. It sounded like a little girl. “Is this Harlan?” She said his name very carefully, like she was afraid of getting it wrong.
“Yes.” Harlan frowned. It was almost ten o’clock at night, he realized. Why would either of them be calling him now? “Who is this?”
“It’s Caroline.”
He blinked.
“From the Centre,” she added.
Not helpful.
She huffed. “You came to my room when the wards broke.”
He hated admitting when he didn’t remember people, but to speed things along he asked, “You had a stuffed rabbit?”
“Yes!”
That was why the voice had sounded so strange. It was a little girl.
Fuck. He didn’t know how to talk to kids. “Do you…have permission to be calling?”
“No! So we’ve gotta hurry. This is important!”
“O-Okay.”
“Remember I told you about my friend Emily? She’s the one who gave me the rabbit.”
He didn’t. “Yes.”
A long inhale, followed by a rush of words. “Well, Mr. Addison told her she got accepted to a special school in Europe, and she told me she would write me, but she never did, and…and, I was really worried about her, so I called her parents. Mr. Addison told them the same thing, but they haven’t heard from her since she went away, either. He told them she was just really busy, but she promised she’d send me a letter and it’s been a really long time.”
Harlan’s blood ran cold. “Wait. You’re saying no one’s heard from her?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you talk to T—Mr. Addison about it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Harlan sighed. “And what did he say?” he prompted her.
“He just said she was really busy and she probably for-forgot about me, but I don’t think she would.”
“No. I don’t think so, either,” he said slowly. “Thank you, uh…”
“Caroline.”
“Caroline.”
He heard a voice in the background on the other end of the phone.
“Gotta go.” She hung up.
Harlan set his phone down, rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands. He felt like he’d just been handed something important, a clue, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
Time to call Hamilton. It was late, but he thought Hamilton would want to hear this sooner rather than later.
“I’m coming over,” he said after Harlan told him what he’d just heard.
“What? Really? Now? Why?”
“I have a theory, and I think it’ll make more sense if we both see this in person.”
“Okay…”
Hamilton sighed when Harlan opened his apartment door. “I fucking hate you,” he said, fondly.
Harlan blinked. “What?”
“Where’s your Harkness stuff?”
“What?”
“Your…” Hamilton waved a hand. “Your maps and pins and shit.”
Harlan raised an eyebrow. “I got rid of all that junk.”
“What? Why? I’ll set up here. Is there a corner store nearby?”
“Yeah, a 7-Eleven—”
“Go get a map. And some pins. And some fucking…red string.”
“Are you serious? You made fun of me for doing this last time.”
“Yes! Hurry the fuck up before I change my mind!”
Shaking his head, Harlan walked to the store and bought a map of Toronto, then one of Ontario, just in case. They didn’t have string of any colour, but they did have dental floss. It would have to do.
When he got back, Hamilton had commandeered the coffee table and was hunched over his work laptop, typing at lightning speed.
Harlan unfolded the map on the remaining space and neatly centred the box of pins above it, taking off the lid so they were ready to place on the map. He hesitated before setting the floss down. “They didn’t have—”
Hamilton held up a finger.
Harlan rolled his eyes. He sat and waited, fucking around on his phone.
“Okay. I think… I think I’ve got something.” Hamilton looked at the map, then back at his screen, then the map again. “Yeah…okay.” He opened the box of pins, then raised an eyebrow at Harlan. “Where’s the string?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. They didn’t have any, so I got this.” Harlan slid the plastic case of floss across the map.
Hamilton picked it up like it was a dead mouse. “Gross.”
“It’s not used!” Harlan laughed.
“I know that, rationally, but it’s still…someone else’s floss, y’know?” Hamilton shook his head. “Whatever… It’ll do. Okay, you’re the one who’s done this before. You can put the pins in.” He gestured grandly at the open box.
Harlan picked out a red pin.
“Put that one on the Centre.”
He was about to stab it into the map when he realized there was nothing underneath it and he’d just put holes in his coffee table. It was ugly, but he didn’t feel like buying a new one. He set the pin upside down with the metal point in the air.
“Really?” Hamilton shook his head. “Fine. Now the spot where you lost Leo. A different colour.”
He arbitrarily chose a blue one, then realized he had no idea where to put it. “Uh…”
Hamilton sighed and told him the location. He consulted his computer, then tapped another spot on the map. “This is the occult shop. We don’t know if that’s where Mr. St James went missing, but it is his last known location.”
Harlan set down another blue tack.
“Okay, ready? This is where things get interesting. While you were gone, I looked up the nine-one-one calls from that crazy night the wards failed. Use a colour that isn’t red or blue. Colour-code them in order, so you can tell which was the first, second and so on.”
There were only four colours—red, blue, green and yellow—but Harlan knew which one was the Centre, so he didn’t think he’d get confused.
He grabbed a green one. “Okay.”
“The first call came from here.” Hamilton circled a finger over the map.
“Got it.”
“The second one came from over here.”
A yellow pin.
“Then here.” This time Hamilton actually tapped the map, visibly excited, even though he was clearly trying to contain it. The pins wobbled, but none of them fell over or moved out of place.
Harlan placed another red pin.
Hamilton glanced at the map. “I think one more should be enough to make the pattern clear. Here.” He stabbed his finger down.
Another green pin.
“Okay. What do you see?” Hamilton was grinning from ear to ear.
Harlan licked his lips nervously—what if he couldn’t solve the puzzle, even though Hamilton thought it was really easy? What if it was a test and he failed, and Hamilton would know he was really an idiot?
He forced himself to take a deep breath. They were partners. If he was really stuck, Hamilton would help him out.
He might make fun of him for it, but he’d help him out.
Harlan stared at the map, at the pins. He was so close that he could almost see it…
“Okay, okay, I can’t wait any longer.” Hamilton was practically vibrating. “I’ll give you a hint—imagine each pin as a ring in a concentric circle. A ripple, if you will.”
When he still didn’t see it after several seconds of staring, Hamilton picked up the container of floss again, wrinkling his nose at it. He unspooled a few inches of it, looked at the map and its face-up pins, then sighed. “This is completely useless.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“Here.” Hamilton took out his pen and traced a circle in the air over the map—not with each dot in the centre of its own circle, the way Harlan had been picturing it, but using each point as the outer edge of a circle.
Harlan’s mouth dropped open. He pointed at the red pin that represented the Centre, then each nine-one-one call in the order Hamilton had relayed them. “Holy shit.” They were ripples. Ripples leading outwards from where the stone had dropped—the Centre.
“And look where you lost Leo.” Hamilton touched the first blue pin. “And here’s her apartment, where you started following her.” He took a pin out of the box and placed it himself.
Once it was all laid out for him, it was obvious. She’d been leading them to the Centre, but someone or something had cut her off.
“We need to get in there.”
“Uh, yeah, no shit.”
Harlan shook his head. “But me, Beth and Benjamin were all over the place when we were there last time. We would have seen or felt something…wouldn’t we?”
Hamilton shrugged. “That’s your department, man. It sounds stupid, but maybe there’s a hidden door or something else you missed.”
“We need to get in there,” Harlan said again.
“As previously stated, no shit. You know people there, like that guy, Mr.…” Hamilton mimed flipping through a notebook.
“Addison. Tom.” Harlan actually had his phone out and was about to dial when something clicked into place. Harlan froze, trying to make sure he was remembering the exact details, which wasn’t always easy for him.
Hamilton leaned forward like a cadaver dog straining at the leash. “What? You thought of something. What have you got?”
Harlan held up his hands. “I might be totally wrong. I might be misremembering. He might have just had the day off or something.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, now I’ve heard the disclaimer.” Hamilton rolled his hand in a hurry up motion. “What?”
“Well…I didn’t see Tom the night the wards failed.” As he said it aloud, Harlan felt more certain he was remembering it right. “Which is weird. Really weird. He was always around when lived there. And,” Harlan remembered, getting excited, “he’s the director now! Even if he was off campus or wasn’t working that day, shouldn’t he have come back for an emergency that big?”
“Maybe he was out of town,” Hamilton said, not looking convinced by his own words.
