“Hola, chica,” he said, gesturing with a nod from my passenger’s seat.
I shifted toward him, planting my knee on the console. “Hey, sweet pea.”
He cringed at my term of endearment.
I ignored him. “I have a question for you.”
He let out a long sigh and raked a hand down his face. “Yes, you can see me naked, but this is the last time.”
“Angel.”
“I mean it. There’s only so much a man can take.”
I coughed to cover my soft burst of laughter. He hated the fact that I didn’t think of him as a man. Just because he was technically older than I was didn’t mean I thought of him that way. He’d died at thirteen and still looked thirteen.
“Are you going to insist on making out again?” he continued.
I reached over and ran my fingers over the peach fuzz on his chin. “In your dreams, sweetness.”
He caught my hand and raised it to his cool lips. If we hadn’t been hit with a heat wave by the name of Rey’azikeen the Erratic, he would have held it longer. Instead, he lowered it and asked, “What’s up?”
“Are there some departed who can’t see humans? I mean, you can see anyone. And I remember the case with the three lawyers, Sussman, Ellery and Barber. They could see humans, too. But—”
“They’d just died,” he said, interrupting.
“What?”
“The lawyers. They’d just died.”
I shook my head, trying to understand, to think back to my cases and all the departed I’d worked with over the years. I’d started working with my dad, helping him solve crimes, when I was five years old, and in all that time, I’d never noticed the fact that some could see into the Earthly plane and some could not.
Despite the heat of the volatile deity lingering nearby, Angel had kept hold of my hand in his lap. He was getting braver by the moment, but I wasn’t sure what Rey’azikeen could do to him. If anything. Although I had seen him choke Angel out once. Clearly, the teenager could be hurt.
“The fresher the death,” Angel explained, “the more we can see.”
I slumped against my seat, dumbfounded. “This is the first I’m hearing about this. How could I not know?”
He shrugged. “It’s never been an issue before.”
He was right. It had never been an issue, but it damned sure was now.
Then another thought hit me. Mrs. Blomme had been gone for thirty-eight years and could only see those humans sensitive to the supernatural realm. Angel had been gone for over twenty years. I took his hand into both of mine, and asked, “Angel, are you … losing the ability to see humans?”
He squeezed my hands. “Not yet. I don’t know if it happens to all of us, but I guess it might someday.”
“Why does it happen? What does time have to do with it?” It made sense. The priest had been dead for over six hundred years. It would definitely explain a few things.
“Think about it,” he said, keeping his gaze averted. “Would you want to see people, dozens of people every day, if they couldn’t see you back? It gets … lonely.”
“Angel.” I leaned forward again and placed my hand on his cheek.
“You know, just in case, you might want to let me see you naked now before I lose the ability.”
“Good try, gorgeous.”
“Something to think about,” he said a microsecond before he vanished.
Now in a state of melancholy, I called Cookie.
“From what I can tell,” she said, knowing exactly why I’d called, “she’s in protective custody.”
“Really?” I said, impressed. “How’d you deduce that?”
“I have a vast underground network of spies, so I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“I see. How’d you really figure it out?”
“You don’t believe me?” she asked, appalled.
“Not even a little.”
“Robert told me,” she said, giving in. “It’s why Joplin’s so frustrated. Well, one reason, anyway. I’m pretty sure he’s sexually frustrated as well, but that’s a story for another time. He’d been trying to pin something on Hector Felix for a couple of years to no avail. And then Hector ups and dies on him.”
“The nerve of him,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Uncle Bob didn’t happen to say where she was staying while in protective custody?”
“It’s super hush-hush. Not even the captain knows. Robert didn’t really say it in so many words, but I think it’s an FBI thing.”
“That’s so weird. I just happen to know an FBI agent. A couple of them, in fact.”
“Charley, you know they can’t tell you.”
“True. But that doesn’t mean I can’t accidently stumble upon information regarding the whereabouts of a certain traumatized young lady.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“It starts with an A and ends with an ngel.”
“I already know where she is, boss,” Angel said from the passenger’s seat.
I jumped, nigh lodging my heart in my throat, then leveled a glare on him before hanging up with Cook.
He sat laughing, his shoulders, so close to being the wide-set chick magnets they’d promised to be, shaking. “You kill me,” he said between chuckles.
“Oh, yeah, well, you … you laugh like a girl.”
He laughed harder. “That’s all you got? You need to get some sleep. You’re losing your touch.”
He was so very, very adorable. I loved every inch of his charming, inquisitive self. So, I knew what I was about to do was going to hurt me more than it hurt him.
I hauled off and punched him on the arm. Sadly, my attempt at payback only served to fuel his mirth.
I needed new friends.
“Whatever. I need you to go on a stakeout.”
“I’m always on a stakeout.”
“Because you’re so good at it.”
“True,” he said, sobering. “Please tell me she’s pretty.”
“As a matter of fact, she is.”
I filled him in on my plan, which involved us tricking one Special Agent Kit Carson of the F, B, and I.
“She’s cool,” he said when I was finished. “But this won’t work.”
“Why not?” I asked, offended.
“Just because you call her asking about this Judianna Ayers doesn’t mean she’s going to jump in her car and drive to where they’re keeping her.”
“True, but maybe she’ll bring something up or make a call I can trace. Just take note of any addresses or phone numbers after we hang up.”
“Will do.”
He vanished just as my phone rang. Cookie was calling back, hopefully with the location of our girl and I could pull the plug on the sting.
“Charley’s House of Snake Venom.”
“I had a thought.”
“Just one?”
“You said that this priest—”
“If it is the priest.”
“Right, if it is this priest and he’s attacking people who can see into the supernatural realm—”
“Exactly, but why? Why would he attack people at all?”
“More importantly, what’s to keep him from attacking Quentin? I mean, Quentin doesn’t just see into the supernatural realm. He can communicate with them.”
“Oh, Cook,” I said, my pulse suddenly rushing in my ears. “I didn’t even think. Can you call Amber and have her get him a message?”
“Of course. But, not to shine a glaring light on the obvious, what’s to keep the priest from attacking you?”
“I can handle him. Don’t you dare worry about me. But Quentin…”
“I’ll take care of it. Maybe we need to send him away for a while, too.”
I bit my bottom lip in thought. “I wonder if he would be safer at the convent. You know, that whole sacred ground thing?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“Okay, have Amber tell him to get his butt home pronto. Oh, and Pari,” I added. “Can you call her? I’m about to sting Kit.”
“Sounds … painful. I can definitely call her. Should I tell her to leave town?”
“Yes. She won’t, but tell her to. In fact, send Garrett to watch her if he’s finished with his skip.”
“You got it. Any excuse to talk to that man.”
“Right? Have you seen his abs lately?” A heat washed over me with the statement and it wasn’t coming from inside me. I ignored it. Jealously was so unbecoming.
We hung up, and I set up the sting, otherwise known as Operation Spy on Kit and Get Her to Reveal the Whereabouts of a Certain Witness to a Crime Perpetrated by the Newly Departed Hector Felix. I was so bad at naming operations.
I dialed Kit’s number and waited. She didn’t pick up the first time, so I tried again. She was an FBI agent. She had important shit to do. Important shit I had no problem interrupting, so I tried again.