13. The Red Mackerel #2
My list of matched couples is folded in my coat pocket. Every protection spell I placed still hums under my skin, draining me in slow, invisible threads.
But there is one more protection spell I have to cast.
Unfortunately, it requires emotional vandalism.
The station looks exactly as cheerful as a building full of murder boards, stale coffee, and fluorescent lighting can look, which is to say not at all.
Kelly looks up from her desk when I enter. Her eyes narrow immediately.
Great. I have been perceived by the competent.
“Fate,” she says. “Are you alright?”
“I’d say I’m fine, but I’ve been told the phrase has retired.”
She only smiles. Aware or unaware of the state of Dorian’s relationship with me. I can’t tell for sure.
Her gaze flicks past me.
I do not have to turn to know why.
Dorian is at the far end of the bullpen, standing beside the murder board in a dark shirt with his sleeves pushed up. He looks pale, but upright. Controlled. Furious with his own body for having dared to malfunction.
My heart does something stupid.
Then he looks at me.
Everything in the room narrows.
Last night presses between us: his hand on mine, the hospital hallway, the word professionally, the space we both hated and both kept.
I want to cross the room. I want to tell him the mackerel is innocent. I want to say, Whatever made you sick wanted us apart, and I think we helped it.
Instead, I remember the gallery. The paintings. The applause. The ears. Oh, so many ears. The dark edge curling along our thread.
If public affection triggers the curse, then the town needs to see distance. We cannot give it clarity.
Witnesses need a different story. The walls need a different scene.
So I lift my chin and walk toward him with my brightest, sharpest, most professionally unbearable smile.
“Detective Wolfe,” I say, loud enough for nearby officers to hear.
Several heads lift. Excellent and horrible.
Dorian’s gaze sharpens. “Ms. D’Amour.”
Oh. Formal. Perfect. That will work.
We are apparently fencing with surnames.
“I came to provide supplemental information,” I say, setting the sealed evidence jar on his desk.
His eyes drop to the label.
OFFICIAL DIAGNOSIS UNSUPPORTED. MAGICAL MISDIRECTION LIKELY.
For one second, something flashes in his face.
Relief. Vindication. Fear.
Then he covers it. “You tested the fish.”
“Obviously.”
“You should have told me before coming here.”
I smile wider.
There. That is my opening.
“Don’t humor yourself that I’m here for you. I just needed to get you the evidence.”
The bullpen goes quiet enough for the printer to sound personally invested.
Kelly closes her eyes.
Dorian’s jaw tightens. He looks around the station.
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You were the one who called it. We tried. We failed. It wasn’t a good fit.”
He takes a deep breath. Still slightly unsteady. “Fate, this is not the place.”
“I agree. The hospital hallway was also not ideal, but we worked with what we had.”
His eyes flick to mine.
I try to send the message through sheer panic and eyebrow tension.
Play along.
Please.
Let them see us pull apart.
Let the walls think it worked. Let the curse believe it separated us with its little red mackerel.
Honestly, for a detective, sometimes he is denser than a stone tablet.
Dorian stares at me like I have handed him a bomb disguised as a cupcake.
Not encouraging.
“Fate,” he says, lower.
“No.” I make my voice brighter, colder. “You don’t get to use that voice after turning me into a perimeter.”
A young officer at the next desk suddenly finds his keyboard fascinating.
Kelly mutters, “Oh, this is going beautifully.”
Dorian hears her. Of course he does.
His expression hardens—not staged hardening. Real.
A warning flickers through me.
No. No, not real. Don’t make this real.
“I was trying to keep you safe,” he says.
“I know. You’re very generous with decisions no one asked you to make.”
That lands too well.
His face closes.
My stomach drops.
I push anyway, because the room is watching and I am already bleeding from a wound I made on purpose.
“The mackerel was clean,” I say. “No histamine spike strong enough to explain your reaction. No toxin. Only a faint marker. Something wanted a medical excuse.”
Dorian’s eyes darken. “You could have just called to tell me that.”
“Knowing you, you had to see the evidence,” I say, too sharply.
The words slip.
Not enough to tell him what I’m doing.
Enough to cut.
Dorian steps closer. “Is that what this is?”
Yes.
No.
Please understand.
Please do not understand too loudly.
“This is me delivering evidence,” I say. “Professionally.”
His mouth stills.
The word hits him.
Good.
Terrible.
He looks at me as if I have just confirmed every fear he had in the hospital waiting room.
For one heartbeat, I almost break.
Then the fluorescent lights hum. Someone shifts. A phone rings. The station breathes around us, full of witnesses.
I pick up my empty tote bag.
“I have other follow-ups,” I say.
“Fate.”
Not Detective voice.
Not quite.
My name.
I cannot afford it.
I turn away before my face betrays me.
I make it to the station doors with my spine straight and my magic trembling.
The door shuts behind me.
And the silence that follows feels exactly like a trap closing.
By the time I reach the sidewalk, my hands are shaking so badly I almost drop the tote bag.
I make it halfway down the block before I stop beside a lamppost and press one palm flat against the cold metal.
The station windows glow behind me. Too many eyes.
Too many witnesses. Plenty of chance that the walls, the curse, the town, or whatever ancient romantic parasite has developed an interest in my life saw exactly what I needed it to see.
Distance. Sharp words. Professional titles. A public fracture.
It should feel like success.
It feels like I swallowed broken glass.
My phone buzzes.
Dorian.
Of course.
What was that?
Excellent question, Detective. Please allow me to explain in a way that does not feed a curse, alarm the walls, confirm emotional vulnerability, or make either of us kiss in public again.
Finally, because I am apparently committed to making every possible wrong choice before lunch, I send:
Distance
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
At last, his reply comes through.
Okay. For now.
I stare at the words.
A faint red-gold pulse flickers at the edge of my vision, stretching back toward the station. I send the smallest answering tug I dare.
Not words.
Not confession.
Just enough to say: I am not leaving.
The thread trembles.
For one second, warmth moves through it.
I consider responding.
I don’t.
There is nothing left to say.
For now.
By the time I get back to Mated by Fate, the shop looks guilty.
This is unfair.
The shop has done nothing except exist with its soft sage walls, polished wood floors, cozy consultation chairs, and the faint scent of lavender, citrus, and old magic. The front window still displays the little gold-lettered sign Mina designed for me last year:
Mated by Fate — Love Finds the Way.
Today, it feels less like branding and more like evidence.
Love finds the way.
And reveals it to the killer.
I unlock the door and step inside. The bell gives its usual cheerful chime, which feels wildly inappropriate.
“Read the room,” I tell it.
Sunlight catches on framed client photos along the wall. Couples smiling after first successful dates. Handfastings. Engagements. Bonding ceremonies. Lucien and Isa in front of a bonfire, her laughing, his eyes fixed on her as if the rest of the world had politely ceased existing.
Every picture used to be proof.
Proof that the work mattered.
Now each frame looks more like a target.
I cross to the filing cabinet behind my desk and pull open the top drawer.
The folders sit in neat rows. Color-coded. Alphabetized.
Lucien and Isa. Tala and Decker. Lilissa and Rafe. Mara and Caleb.
My hand stops there.
Mara and Caleb should not be in this drawer anymore. Their folder should be archived, honored, maybe burned under a full moon with salt and apology. Instead, it sits among the living, a thin paper ghost.
I pull out an empty banker’s box from beneath the desk.
If the killer is using my matches as a map, then the map needs to disappear.
I start with the public files. Couples whose ceremonies were announced. Couples who consented to testimonials. Couples with photos on the wall or names in community calendars. I stack folders into the box with hands that feel too calm to belong to me.
This is sensible. This is protective. This is not panic.
Probably.
The bell over the door chimes.
I jump so hard I nearly drop a file.
Mina steps inside holding two coffees, a paper bag, and the expression of a woman who has caught a raccoon operating heavy machinery.
“Oh no,” she says.
“I have done nothing.”
“You are standing over client files with a banker’s box and the face you make before committing administrative arson.”
“I am reorganizing.”
“You hate reorganizing.”
“Not when it is color-coded, labeled, and accompanied by snacks.”
I motion her over.
“This is fear with tabs,” she adds.
I look down at the folder in my hand.
Josephine and Mark.
Widowed. Careful. Terrified to try again.
Matched last spring under a rainstorm and three broken umbrellas.
My fingers tighten until the folder bends.
Mina’s face softens. She sets the coffees on my desk and comes around slowly.
“Fate.”
“I can’t leave them exposed.”
“Putting their files in a box does not make them safer.”
“It makes the list harder to find.”
“You think someone is going to break into your office and steal your client files?”
“I think someone has gotten backstage at a theater, into Lilissa and Rafe’s kitchen, into my cottage plumbing, and possibly into the walls themselves.” My voice rises. “So yes, Mina, I think a filing cabinet is no longer the pinnacle of modern security.”
She does not flinch.
“Then we ward the files,” she says. “We lock them magically and physically. We move the private records offsite if we have to. But we do not pack away your life's work like love is contraband.”