Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Gus
THE DINER BOOTH’S LEATHER SEAT WAS stiff and uncomfortable.
Just as uncomfortable as the crowded room itself, full of men and women packed into tables too close together.
A line had already formed outside when I’d arrived.
Lucky for me, George had gotten here early, and he was already seated when I’d peered through the window.
His light reddish hair and uniform made him easy to pick out.
Instead of the usual grin and exuberant wave he normally greeted me with, his mouth tugged down slightly at my approach.
I’d been friends with George Baker since elementary school.
Kit and I had gravitated to him, and we’d become inseparable, the three of us.
Sometimes you just knew when someone was like you.
Even before you had the ability to realize how you were alike.
George had always had a worse time of it, though.
Kit and I had each other, and George had wanted to be a Mountie since before I’d known him.
We all had to be discreet, but George had to be pristine—being a mage was already a mark against him according to a lot of law enforcement.
Being queer too could cost him his life.
Sometimes I wondered if being alone was worth it to him. Then again, since Kit, I hadn’t been with anyone else either. My left hand did me fine. I didn’t have time to find someone trustworthy enough to risk a night with.
When I’d told Kit I had a meeting this morning, I’d exaggerated.
I needed time away from him to get my head back on right.
It was too easy to slip into the past when I was looking at him.
When I could feel myself gravitating around him with the same old movements, practically choreographed since birth.
It would be too easy to give into the pull.
The same pull that caused everyone he met to fall all over themselves to know him better.
And after working a failed spell last night and having to telephone Kit about it, I was raw and vulnerable enough to be on edge, even around George. Who knew what would have come out of my mouth if I saw Kit first thing instead.
Once our breakfast was on the table, George peered at me with another uncharacteristic frown.
“What?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows like he couldn’t believe I was making him drag something out of me, but hell if I knew what he was after. “I heard Kit’s in town.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Don’t give me that you son-of-a—” He cut himself off with a quick glance at the family sitting in the nearest booth. “When I came on shift last night, Freddy Corbin told me all about you riding to Kit’s rescue.”
“You had a shift last night? I thought you were off.”
George glowered. “Un-un. Don’t change the subject on me, North. What were you doing over at Kit’s?”
“Technically it’s Ted’s now,” I pointed out, cutting a chunk of sausage. “And I wouldn’t call it a rescue. I checked up on him because his brother’s missing. What was I supposed to do? It’s not like there’s anyone else around to help him out.”
“Yeah, I mean it’s not like your mom lives right next door or any—oh wait.”
Rolling my eyes, I sagged in my seat. “She’s the one who sent me over.”
“Okay. But tell me you’re not involving yourself in the search for Ted and Mary-Alice.”
I stared at him flatly.
“Of course, you are. Self-preservation really isn’t your strong suit, is it, buddy?” George sprinkled salt on his hash and dug in.
“He wanted to hire me. If you talked to Freddy, you know they’re not going to do much. He said he owed me after I found his niece last year before she got hurt, but their tracking spell will be as spectacular a bust as mine.”
“What do you mean spectacular?”
“I mean everything burst into flames, ingredients, maps and all.”
George’s brows flew up. “The maps too?”
Nodding, I paused to take a sip of coffee. “Russ says it must be a hell of a charm or spell keeping them hidden. He’s only run into that a couple times.” I leaned forward, and George did too, catching on that I didn’t want to broadcast this. “He says he suspected at the time it was fae relics.”
“Bunk. No one’s got those. Every mage knows the fae disappeared before the Great War, and they took everything they brought with them. I figure it was a big screw you for ruining their good time with our ‘petty little human squabbles.’ They didn’t even stick around Ireland.”
“Russ says some Irish mages claim a few stayed, but I don’t know if I buy it. Why would they give up being with their own kind for this wreck? Nah. But whatever’s hiding Ted and Mary-Alice is crafty. Someone strong and skillful has to be behind it.”
“Sounds more likely than a fae relic,” George muttered, and I hummed agreement.
“And anyway, even if the tracking spell going wonky interests the Mounties, adults take off for all sorts of reasons,” I went on, sitting back in my seat.
“You’re all stretched thin. About to be stretched thinner if the war’s over soon as they say it will be.
Once our forces start flooding back in, all bets are off.
Kit’s got good reason to believe Ted and Mary-Alice will fall between the cracks. ”
The clink of tableware and chatter around us filled the pause as George chewed and swallowed before saying, “Look, I got sympathy for him, I do. He was my best friend too before he took off. But you were destroyed when he left. You tried, God knows, to act like normal, but an act was all it was. He cut us both out of his life, so why does he get to drag you back in now that it suits him?”
I’d been asking myself the same thing all night, so why did it raise my hackles for George to ask now?
“Because Ted’s practically my brother too.
Because he’s missing and he never did a thing to deserve me turning my back on him.
If it comes at the cost of having to be around Kit, I can cope.
” My voice was too harsh. Hurt flitted over George’s face, and I sighed, feeling like a monster.
He didn’t deserve his head bitten off when he was showing he cared about me.
“You don’t have to worry. I’m not about to—” It was my turn to adjust what I wanted to say out of concern for being overheard.
“To fall back into things. It’s a job. I’m only doing it for Ted. ”
George scrutinized me. I kept myself steady. “Okay,” he finally said. “But don’t make me say I told you so when he takes off again and forgets all about you.”
Holding back a wince that came with that knife to the gut, I looked him in the eyes and lied. “I won’t.”
After a beat, George shifted back to his familiar easygoing self, a wide grin stretching his thin lips. “So, ask me about what I did yesterday.”
My own smile was automatic. “What did you do yesterday?”
“Had to chase a chicken thief down Inglis on foot. This absolute buffoon was running with four chickens in his arms. He kept shouting as they pecked and scratched him. Finally the fu—guy—must’ve decided he couldn’t keep them and get away.
So he stopped just long enough to throw them in my face.
Honest to God,” he said when I started laughing.
“I got a face full of chickens. Look,” he pulled back the fall of hair that curled down to the left side of his forehead revealing a red scratch that stretched up onto his scalp.
“One of them tried to grab on. There’s two other gouges you can’t see.
So there I am with a chicken flapping around on my head and I’m still in pursuit because I can’t just let him go, can I?
Not me, no. I flying tackle him. And then we’re wrestling while this chicken is pecking at both of us.
It’s just trying not to get crushed in the struggle.
Anyway, Tommy Bourget comes running up as I’m cuffing the guy, and he’s trying to get the chicken off, but he’s terrified of birds, so he keeps screaming every time the thing lunges at him. ”
By then I was laughing so hard tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. My face burned with the stares of the people around us watching George gesture madly and my gasping cackles. “Stop,” I choked on another peel of laughter. “I hafta breathe, you lug.”
George smirked, his eyes twinkling. “Serves you right, laughing at my humiliation and pain.”
That set me off all over again, and George snickered at having reduced me to a spectacle.
I hadn’t had fun like this since the last time we’d had a chance to get together.
God knew I needed it. When I wiped away my tears with the napkin and finally settled enough, I asked as seriously as I could. “So then what happened?”
“I had to hand the guy off to Tommy and wrangle the chickens, then walk ten steps behind them while the thief showed us where he took them from. I swear Tommy didn’t relax one darn muscle until the chickens were handed off to the owner and we were a block away.
And you know, two days ago I would’ve laughed at a grown man afraid of chickens, but I get it now. Those things are vicious.”
“You’ve got the scars to show it.”
George pouted. “I hope not. My poor, pretty face.”
Chuckling, I shook my head. “Somehow, I’m sure you’d survive.”
After a few minutes of scraping forks and knives as we ate, George heaved a sigh. “So if you’re dead set on taking Ted’s case, there are a few things you got to know about Mary-Alice’s family.”
“Such as?”
George spoke quietly enough I had to lean forward to hear.
“They were bootleggers, for one. Mages with flexible morals, for another. Made a lot of money off using their magic to run wine down to Maine. Once that empire collapsed when prohibition ended, they struggled. Lot of them turned to harder crime, bootlegging illegal charms and potions. These days, the head of the family runs a gin joint for mages, O’Shea’s.
Only reason they haven’t been busted is this city’s ready to explode.
You were right before. Too many servicemen waiting around with nothing to do, and no amount of canteens or outreach will keep them out of trouble.
Without enough legitimate entertainment to go around, we’re looking the other way on places serving booze so long as they don’t let it get out of hand. ”
I ate while turning the information over. “How closely is Mary-Alice connected?”
“Last night after Freddy told me what was happening, I asked around. Got a source who says she worked there right up until she married Ted.”
“You think someone connected to O’Shea’s came after them?”
“I think it’s a possibility, sure. Could even line up with the letter you said Mary-Alice sent Kit.
If Ted’s got any of Kit’s nosiness he could’ve been sniffing around, looking into something he shouldn’t have with her family.
Maybe he found out the wrong thing about the wrong person and Mary-Alice got scared when he wouldn’t let it go. ”
Maybe. But Ted didn’t have Kit’s curious streak. He was a good-natured guy who didn’t look too deeply into anything that wasn’t his business. Unless he considered her family his business? “I’ll look into it.”
George picked up on the skepticism in my tone. “Yeah, I know, Ted’s not that likely to have gone looking, but could be he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Could be. Hey, you know anything about a guy named Albert Salter?”
Surprise flickered across George’s face. “Sure, the old medical examiner. He finally retired this year. Probably should have a while ago, from what I hear. Why?”
“He sent Kit a strange letter. It’s probably unconnected, but I’m considering all information at this point.”
“Strange how? Threatening?” For someone who claimed to loathe Kit Lovely, George sure sounded outraged and protective at the prospect.
“Not threatening, exactly. More like he was trying to lure Kit into a conversation. He said he had information about Kit’s father’s death.”
Now George really looked confused. “But it was an accident.” The expression cleared up as a lightbulb flicked on for him. “Wait, was he the guy who ruled it one?”
“Think you can check into it and find out for me?” I asked, draining my mug.
The deeply tired look he gave me said he wasn’t looking forward to fulfilling my request. “Yeah, sure, I’ll wade through over a decade’s worth of poorly kept files for you and your new-old best buddy.”
My mouth quirked up. “You could work a little spell to speed up the process.”
“You sure don’t ask for much, do you? I haven’t even slept yet,” he complained, waving a hand at his slightly puffy face and the dark circles under his eyes. “Look at me. Ugh.”
“We’re going to try and see Salter this afternoon. It would be useful to know if he’s yanking Kit’s chain or if he might have a real cause for concern.”
With a heavy sigh and a skyward glance, George reluctantly agreed. “If there’s anything to find, I’ll track it down. Even with a spell, though, it’s a lot to go through. Might not be in time. Either way, you owe me, pal.”
“Just one more thing on a long list to add to my tab, huh?”
George cracked a wry grin. “I’m gonna be a rich man when you pony up.”
Wasn’t that the truth. He’d done more for me than I could ever repay, keeping me supplied with laughter and a reason to do more than work and sleep for months and years after Kit left.
Times when I would’ve curled up and let misery drown me.
Even these days when we were both too busy and short on time, he kept an eye on me and never let me go too long without friendly human interaction.
Anyone on the planet would be lucky to have a friend like George. I was the wet blanket who didn’t bring much to the table. Why he’d stuck it out with me was something I might never understand. Habit, maybe.
I’d always thought Kit was the glue that kept our little band together, but when he took off and George didn’t let me disappear from his life, I’d never been more grateful to be wrong.
Someday I’d find a way to pay him back.