I shut my office door.
“Come on, PC, we have our own case,” I said as I stepped around the small dog on my way to my desk. “I don’t care if she is off to look into a case with walking dead people. Which is bizarre and should be impossible.”
He lifted his head, ears at half mast, and squinted at me. Even he didn’t look convinced.
“With Briar involved, it’ll probably turn out dangerous. My case will be a nice, easy car payment.” Well, half of my car payment. It was a nice car.
My dog put his head down on his paws, going back to sleep on the pillow beside my chair. Yeah, okay, my case was probably a dud. And I was curious about the corpse from yesterday. But I had my first missing-person case, and I was going to throw myself into finding Taylor’s—probably cheating—boyfriend. Bizarre cases with walking corpses be damned.
Chapter 4
While Rianna created the tracking charm, I made a few phone calls. I started with Remy’s phone. I didn’t really expect him to answer, but it would definitely shorten my investigation if he did. I left a brief message identifying myself and asking him to return my call. I didn’t tell him why. The next call I placed was to Remy’s roommate, Colin.
He answered on the first ring. “You’ve reached the coolest dude on campus. Talk to me.”
Riiight. “This is Alex Craft, an investigator for Tongues for the Dead. I’m looking into the possible disappearance of Remy Hollens. Have you—”
A sound somewhere between an exasperated laugh and a sigh cut me off. “Seriously? An investigator? Did Remy’s jailbait call you? And who did you say you’re with? She thinks Remy’s dead? Dude, she’s crazy.”
“No one thinks he’s dead,” I said, leaning back in my chair and pressing the palm of my hand over my eyes. “I’m simply trying to locate him. Have you seen or heard from Remy today?”
“No. But, dude, it’s Saturday. Hopefully the guy went to a party, got some college tail, and is sleeping off the hangover in some chick’s bed.”
“Do you think that’s likely?” I asked, but was greeted by silence on the other side, as if Colin was indecisive about spilling secrets. “I’m only trying to locate him. I have no obligation to report back his activities to my client. Trust me, I don’t want any drama.”
He hesitated a moment more, then released a slow, defeated hiss between his teeth before saying, “No. It doesn’t sound like him. I mean it’s possible, but it would be out of character. He’s devoted to that girl.” As an afterthought he added, “But I’m not worried. This is the college life.”
“Of course. If you hear from him, give me a call, okay?” I rattled off my number, but he didn’t repeat it or sound like he was writing it down. I’d never hear from him again, but the call did confirm Remy wasn’t likely to be avoiding Taylor because he planned to dump her.
I added a few notes to my document and then glanced over the information Taylor had left me. She had given me Remy’s dorm address only, but when I was in college, a lot of the local kids in my dorm headed home regularly, typically with a basket full of dirty laundry. I didn’t have Remy’s parents’ info, but Tongues for the Dead paid for several online database services we used for background checks. Less than ten minutes online earned me the home address as well as cell and work numbers for Remy’s parents.
I punched the first four digits of his father’s number but then hesitated. If Remy really was sleeping off a hangover, I didn’t need to panic his parents by telling them I was investigating his disappearance. Of course, if Taylor was right and something had happened, early warning would likely be welcome. I dithered a moment and then cleared the number. I’d given Rianna the hair from the brush half an hour ago. She would be done with the tracking spell soon.
As if summoned by the thought, Rianna stepped into the threshold of my doorway. “One tracking spell prepared and ready to track. Want to place bets on where you find him?”
I stood and collected the spell from her. “As long as I don’t have to report back to a brokenhearted client that I found him in someone else’s bed, I’ll probably be happy. It sounds out of character for him, though.” I frowned. “Okay, revision. I’m hoping he’s not in the hospital either.”
“Or the morgue,” Rianna added cheerily, and I frowned at her.
“Yeah, I’m really not even holding that out as an option.”
She just shrugged and handed the charm to me. The tracking spell was contained in a blue microsuede bag suspended on a nylon cord. The components were nothing fancy, but my ability to sense magic told me the spell inside was strong and good. Rianna had always been an excellent spellcaster. As soon as I touched the cord, I felt a distinct tug from the tracking charm. Remy was north. Somewhere.
“This is great,” I said, in lieu of thanking her.
Rianna nodded, silently accepting the words as they were intended. She was a changeling, not a fae, so while she didn’t share my particular need to avoid particular phrases, she understood the limitations.
“Well, Desmond and I are going home to do an early lunch, I think.” She buried one hand in the black fur of the doglike fae who was her ever-present shadow. He leaned into the touch, his red-pupiled eyes gazing up at her with affection. “Have fun tracking your missing person. I want all the details tonight.”
With that, she turned and headed for the front door. I just shook my head as I tied the nylon cord of the charm around my wrist. She had a lot more confidence that this case was going to be interesting than I did. Or maybe I was still distracted thinking about the walking corpses.
I’d just double-checked that I had both Remy’s home and dorm addresses in my notes and uploaded to cloud storage when a figure floated into my room and hovered by the door. Well, not literally; ghosts more or less obeyed the laws of physics, their plane of existence just didn’t always mirror ours perfectly so they often appeared to float through solid objects.
“You have a case?” asked Roy, ghost and junior detective—hey, no one ever said a guy couldn’t have career aspirations after death.
“Missing person. You tagging along?”
He shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or another, but not even being slightly translucent hid the excitement that lit up his features. “Yeah, I could do that.”
I closed the laptop and returned it to my bag before sliding my cell into my back pocket. “Hey, if you’re too busy, I get it,” I said as I walked past the ghost and toward the front door.
“Well, I have . . . I mean . . .” His shoulders hunched and he pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “No one ever hires a ghost detective. You should really add my name to the door.”