Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Chicago
SULLY CREPT DOWN THE hall in his socked feet, sensible shoes in his hands.
It was shortly after nine. His cousin, Anne, should’ve left for her lessons already, and Edie, his boss, would’ve already gone out to work.
He focused on sifting through the emotional background noise from the surrounding apartments just in case one of them was sneaky enough to stay behind and try to catch him making a break for the office on his last day home.
“I thought Edie told you to take time off,” Anne said, crossing her arms as she appeared in Sully’s way, blocking the door out of his boss’s apartment, where they were staying. Sully startled even though he’d been half-expecting it. ’Least he only jumped a might.
They’d spent the last two nights at Edie’s place, where Anne would stay while he was away. It wasn’t like she could’ve stayed in their apartment on her own. She was only sixteen. And he couldn’t afford to pay for a place no one would be living in, so he’d moved all their possessions into storage.
“She tells me lots of things, means about half of ’em.
Don’t you have art classes to get to?” Sully asked as his heart rate steadied again.
He wished he could escort her like he used to, but he wouldn’t be here to look after Anne like that anymore, not after today.
Not when he was being shipped off for training.
Better if she learned to rely on herself in case he didn’t make it back. Sully swallowed thickly.
At least he could send money home. He’d told Anne he’d send back half, but what she didn’t know was he planned to send a lot more than that. What was he gonna use it for anyway? He could do without. Anne deserved better.
“I can miss one day, Sully.” He didn’t need to be skilled at sensing emotion to know she was miserable and trying to act normal by being a thorn in his side.
The churning anxiety and fear were right there in front of him, shifting around and raising the baby hairs at the base of his skull. He ignored the sensation.
“Not after I scraped up the money to pay for them, Annie. ’Sides, you love painting.
You’re not gonna want to miss out just to be bored out of your mind with me all day.
” She had better things to do than that.
Even if part of him wanted to spend the day doing all of the childish things they’d done around the neighborhood growing up.
What Anne needed was to establish a new routine, normalcy in her new setting.
Not for him to make her sad, just by being around and dragging out the inevitable.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re not boring. Thick headed sometimes, but not boring.” Her expression brightened. Excitement bubbled around her. “Oh! I could come with you. Edie said maybe while you’re gone I can help her at the agency, this could be on-the-job learning.”
It was Sully’s turn to glower. “I’m gonna have to murder her. It’s the only option.”
“You can’t. Then who’d stay with me until you come back?” Anne’s voice was light and teasing, but her smile was wrong, and her hazel eyes got wet. The same sad feelings she’d been holding back for the last week and a half trickled out to wrap around him like a chilly mist.
She hated him leaving. Made two of them, but he had to go.
After the government made it clear they knew all about his illusions and just as bad, who he fucked, he couldn’t refuse.
There’d been statements from men he’d had back-alley encounters with.
How they’d gotten those confessions when Sully didn’t even know most of their names, he had no clue.
He certainly remembered the acts described.
Witness statements corroborated he’d been seen with three of the men on key dates and close enough to the times that it would cast suspicion on him, whether or not it was provable in court.
But living in the kind of poor neighborhood they did, the fallout might not even be so bad.
He’d helped out enough people, done enough favors, that his neighbors might look the other way.
They weren’t the types to be shocked by human nature, and everyone knew what rich people paid for was worse than anything Sully might’ve done.
Two streets back that was exactly what happened in the shadows.
He didn’t even have any friends to lose. Not really.
The problem was, he couldn’t risk the scandal they’d threatened to unleash touching Anne and Edie.
Edie would never fire him or let him quit, and the business she’d built from the ground up after her husband’s death would suffer for it.
And that… he couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t keep himself home to take care of Anne at the expense of making their lives so much harder than they already were.
For what? Anne had so much more to live for than him anyway. A whole life ahead of her.
’Sides, what if they figured out Anne was skilled too? Or Edie? What if they already knew? He had to keep them safe any way he could.
So he told them he’d enlisted because it was the right thing to do.
Protecting them meant going to war in Europe.
Just a fact of life. He’d learned early to adapt to change.
That nothing was ever guaranteed to last. Real fear, stinking and sweaty and clammy, didn’t sink in until much later.
The one that reminded him he’d never even left the United States.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around crossing the vast, deep ocean, and setting foot on foreign land.
“Hey.” Sully drew Anne into a hug, the warm nostalgia of wrapping her smaller body in his arms almost enough to drown out their mutual misery.
She held on tight, burying her face against his chest as her shoulders heaved with her breaths.
God, when did she get so big? It felt like yesterday he was cradling a toddler and now she was just half a foot shorter than him.
“We’ll get through this. You’ll see, Buttercup. Promise.”
Pulling back, Anne wiped away the wetness on her face, avoiding his eyes. He paid careful attention to the way she was feeling, made sure there wasn’t anything darker, more frightening beneath the loneliness and fear. He didn’t find any, but it didn’t stop him worrying.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You taught me that.” Anne’s voice waivered.
Sully tapped his temple with two fingers. “Exactly. That’s how you know I’ll keep it.”
Anne managed a weak chuckle. “I’m not a kid anymore, Sully. I know a lie when I hear one. I can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t. You know how stubborn I am. No way I’m not coming back. And Edie won’t let anything happen while I’m gone. So don’t worry so much.” She’d been happy to take Anne in—always collecting lost people. Like when she’d given him a job he hadn’t known he was wasting away without.
Sully wasn’t entirely sure he trusted her to keep Anne out of trouble since she constantly managed to get him into it, but she was all they had. He’d just have to have a very pleading talk with her about keeping Anne out of any Detective Agency business. It was too dangerous.
Nodding, Anne pulled her shoulders back and smoothed her expression.
On the surface she was calm and collected.
Underneath was fear and loneliness that saturated her core.
The unknown did that to people. Almost all her life he’d been there.
Still remembered being eight and falling asleep on the thin rug beside her crib whenever she cried in the middle of the night.
Her tiny fingers clutching his hand through the bars.
Aunt Maggie used to say he was spoiling her, but her voice was warm, and he’d known she was more amused than exasperated.
“Since I can’t come with you, and you’re not planning to stay home, I better hurry and get to class on time,” Anne said, rubbing a hand across her cheekbone like that might keep gathering tears from falling. “You’ll be home for supper?”
“Wouldn’t miss it, Buttercup.”
An hour later he snuck into the offices of Edie Isle’s Detective Agency, hoping the boss herself was already out for the morning.
His desk had been cleared out, no room for wasted space.
Someone had to be hired to replace him while he was gone.
His active cases had already been turned over to Edie’s younger cousin Lillian Isle—a brilliant young lady skilled at communing with the dead.
She didn’t typically deal with the same types of cases he did, but he knew she’d have no problem solving them. Wished her all the best, really.
There was just one he wanted to—
The creak of Edie’s door opening made Sully glance up sharply from the empty desk he’d been creeping toward. Caught red-handed.
Edie tsked as she approached. Her blonde curls were mostly hidden beneath a fashionable hat, and her dress was fancier than she typically wore to work, a slinky number that had to have cost more than a reasonable sum. What was she up to? Could he convince her to let him tag along?
“Didn’t we discuss taking a little time off?” she asked, archly. “Having a break before the army runs you through the grinder? I’d pretend I’m shocked, but we both know I’m not.”
Squinting at her, Sully casually crossed his arms. “Funny. Where are you off to?”
Edie tilted her head to the side and mimicked his posture. “You’re not going home no matter what I say, are you?”
Sully gave her his most unrepentant grin as he tucked his hands in his pockets. She knew him so well. “Nuh-unh.”
Sighing, she leaned against Lillian’s desk. A glimmer of something part amused, part gloating peeked past the steel trap Edie usually kept on her emotions. What was that about?
Most people couldn’t help the way their emotions leaked into the air around them, certainly didn’t expect someone to pick up on them.
The same way Sully couldn’t help being that someone.
Feelings shouted at him or whispered or rippled, caressed, stabbed, often they were nothing but sensation without name.
Strong ones close by almost always caught his notice. Especially when he knew the person.
Except for Edie. She was the only person he’d met who could lock down her emotions at will without making his head throb in pain. So something getting past her defenses was suspicious.
“Fine. I’ll make you a deal,” she said.
Couldn’t be too awful, right? Scratch that. He hoped it wasn’t too awful. “Let’s hear it.”
Her smile turned predatory. That expression signaled trouble with a capital T, always had.
“You can help me close out this case. But tonight, you’re going out on the town.
I’m locking you out after supper and you’ll go have fun.
You’re not allowed to feel guilty or worry about tomorrow.
Do whatever you want. Have one last big hurrah before you go. ”
Frowning, Sully considered it. He wanted in on the case, no doubt about that. And this wasn’t half so bad as what else could’ve come out of her mouth. Things like ‘You have to file the paperwork after’, or ’You have to be the lookout’. But… “I can’t afford to go spend the night somewhere.”
She wasn’t impressed by his weak protest. “You’re an illusionist, Sully. It’s not gonna hurt anyone, and you deserve it. Do something selfish. Everyone should be selfish at least once in their life. So go out and do it.”
‘While you still have a chance’ was left unsaid, but they both knew it.
“I’m fine. But Anne—”
Edie held up a hand to stall him. “She came up with this scheme. I swear. Didn’t I just say something about not feeling guilty? Or was that a fever dream?”
Sully didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply, but the smirk that turned up the corner of her ruby red lips said he didn’t need to. She raised an eyebrow and asked, “So you want in on this case or not?”
He struggled with himself a moment more. Could he really do this for himself? Was it really as good an idea as it felt?
“I’m in.”
Her eyes danced with victory. “Wonderful. Now, let’s go catch a thief.”