A couple of hours later I was at home trying to re-create the pear tart recipe that had been interrupted earlier. I gave up after an hour when I kept forgetting to add ingredients to the crust. I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with J.B.
The doorbell rang just as I finished washing up my mixing bowls. Beezle still hadn’t moved from his perch on the mantel.
“Nice to know you’re looking out for me,” I said conversationally as I went to the speaker. “It could be anything at the door.”
“It’s Patrick,” Beezle grunted. “And it doesn’t really matter what’s at the door anymore now that you’ve let in the devil.”
I stopped and glared at him. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is about Gabriel that bothers you so much?”
He gave me a cryptic look and crossed his arms.
It was my turn to grumble under my breath as I buzzed Patrick in. He swung the upstairs door open with a flourish. “I have arrived.”
“Hooray,” Beezle grumbled.
“What’s his problem?” Patrick asked as he hung a leather blazer on the coatrack by the front door and unwound a gray cabled scarf from his neck. Patrick was tall, slim, and had electric blond hair and adorable dimples.
“He’s a gargoyle,” I said in response, and kissed his cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you for a couple of days at least.”
“Sadly, Justin turned out to be decidedly not all that,” he said. “How was the pickup this morning?”
“She wanted to stay with her cats,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Patrick gave me a knowing look. “Did Jakeass chew you out?”
“And how,” I said fervently. I debated telling Patrick about my suspicion that J.B. was monitoring us, but decided against it. I wanted to look into things further myself before getting Patrick—or any other Agent—alarmed. “He’s probably going to take a bite out of your ass, too.”
“Well, it’s nothing you and I haven’t seen before.”
“Class troublemakers,” I said, and grinned.
He grinned back. “Can we have pizza and beer? I need cheese and mushrooms and alcohol, and possibly some zucchini fried in large quantities of oil.”
“I don’t have any beer,” I said.
“Then let’s have pizza and whatever you have. I’m buying,” he said firmly. Patrick was independently wealthy, which had something to do with his father making brilliant investments and passing on that talent to his only son. He’d offered to invest some money for me, but as I pointed out to him, you had to have something to invest in the first place.
“I think I have milk and chocolate syrup,” I replied.
“I can’t imagine anything better,” he said, and slung his arm around my shoulders.
Pizza, chocolate milk and my best friend. I couldn’t imagine anything better either.
A couple of hours later Patrick left to walk the six or so blocks to his home, both of us somewhat sedated by the large quantities of food we had consumed. I waved at him from my front window, which gave me a view of the residential street on which I lived, although the enormous oak tree in the parkway blocked the view. The rain had blown through and left a clear, almost perfect autumn night. The window was cracked open about an inch and I could smell cool air and the faint scent of smoke from someone’s fireplace. It was past eleven and the streets were quiet save for the hum of traffic from nearby Addison Street.
The time spent with Patrick had taken my mind off J.B. and Gabriel Angeloscuro, but I found my worries nagging at me again almost as soon as he disappeared out of sight on the street.
Beezle had barely spoken to Patrick, which was unusual since Patrick was about the only person in the world Beezle would deign to speak to other than myself. He wouldn’t tell me what was bothering him specifically about Gabriel, and I wasn’t about to let his vague pronouncements of doom stop me from taking on a badly needed tenant.
I made a note on the pad next to the phone to call Charlie McGivney the next day. He was a P.I. I knew who ran background checks on potential tenants for me at a nominal fee.
The phone rang, making me jump about twenty feet in the air. Beezle shifted restlessly on the mantel, his ears cocked forward.
“Hello?”
Nothing. Only the crackle and hiss that sounded like someone on a cell phone out of range.
“Hello?” I asked again.
“. . . ddy?” A fragment of voice came and went so quickly I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard it.
“Is someone there?”
Another hiss, and a pop, and then, “Maddy! I need you!”
I frowned at the receiver. “Patrick? What’s wrong? The connection is terrible.”
“. . . ner of Ravenswood and Grace.”
“What?”
“I’m at the corner of Ravenswood and Grace, and I’m headed back your way!” He sounded out of breath and completely terrified.
The phone clicked and went dead.
I stared in astonishment at the phone for a moment. Patrick wasn’t prone to melodramatic fits. I dialed his cell number back and listened to several rings before his voice mail clicked on. I hung up the phone in frustration, hurriedly pulled a black sweater over my jeans and T-shirt and yanked on a pair of black Converse sneakers.
“Where are you going?” Beezle asked.
“There’s something wrong with Patrick,” I said as I grabbed my keys and cell phone from the basket by the door.