He blew his nose, gathered himself, and said, “I’m a total and complete mess. I’m sorry.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
He tried to smile, failed miserably, and gave up. I noted his shaking hands, and his darting eyes that never seemed to settle on anything longer than a few seconds, if that.
I decided to kick things off.
“What happened to your wife, Henry?” I asked.
“I don’t know. How did you know?”
“Never mind that,” I said, and gave him another mental nudge to drop it. I asked, “Did you hurt her?”
He looked at me sharply. “No. Never.”
I used my demon-given gifts to dip into his thoughts, and slip just inside his aura. Yes, I was cheating. Then again, the sun was also stolen from me, along with Oreos and cheesecakes, fettuccine alfredo and mango margaritas. Or mangoritas, which just so happened to be Allison’s favorite drink these days. So, if the demon inside me—the thing that fueled this supernatural body of mine—could actually give me something back, could actually add value to my life, rather than steal from it, then I would take it gladly. Lord knows enough had been taken from me.
“Cry me a river, Mom,” as Anthony would tell me these days. Kids, they grew up so fast.
Anyway, the ability to read thoughts was a decent trade-off for having to give up dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, not to mention, the ability to quickly discern truth from lies was invaluable to my profession. Now, I no longer had to guess if someone was jerking my chain or not.
Now, as I psychically slipped inside his personal space, without him knowing it, of course, I dipped into his thoughts, which turned out not to be an entirely good idea. The guy was borderline losing it. No, correction, he had lost it. Weeks ago. He’d lost it when his wife had seemingly disappeared at a Starbucks just outside of Orange County, which I had pieced together from his own chaotic memories.
No, not quite chaotic. His mind, I quickly realized, was continuously looping the crime scene. Over and over, even for the few minutes I was inside his mind, he relived his last moments with her.
Sit back, I commanded, relax.
Henry Gleason looked at me, blinked, and then sat back in my client chair. His thoughts calmed a little, and I was able to piece together what I saw. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“Tell me what happened, Henry,” I said, and as he spoke, I relived the scene in his thoughts.
* * *
Henry is waiting impatiently, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel...
His wife has gone inside the Starbucks to grab them some iced mochas. Henry doesn’t even like iced mochas. His wife doesn’t either. What the fuck is an iced mocha, anyway? And why had she insisted they stop here, dammit? Lucy is acting weird today, he thinks. So weird.
He waits in the heat. His window is down. Hot wind blows through the open window. He checks the time on his cell phone.
I hear him say, “C’mon, babe, where are you?”
More drumming. More hot wind.
He turns around, scans through the back window of a truck toward the busy Starbucks. Nothing. No wife. No damn mochas.
More drumming.
Finally, he gets out and pads across the shimmering asphalt. I can feel the heat. I can also feel the panic rising in him. I know from his thoughts that he has waited about fifteen minutes for her. He thinks she’s in the bathroom. Maybe she’s sick. If that bitch is in there talking to someone—especially some guy—he was going to go off on her. Off. Maybe even slap her around a little. Maybe.
As he heads toward Starbucks, alternately fuming and worried, he tries to remember if she had shown signs of being sick. They had eaten tacos earlier. Yes, the tacos. He is sure of it. They had tasted funny to him.
Now, he’s inside the Starbucks. Cool air. People were everywhere. They were as busy as hell.
He heads immediately to the bathrooms. His mouth literally drops open when he sees a girl exit the bathroom because it’s not his wife. The girl avoids eye contact with him and hurries past. He glances inside the open door. It’s empty. He checks the men’s restroom. Empty, too.
I feel his panic. Full-on panic. He dashes out to the lobby, searching, searching. She is nowhere to be found. What the fuck? What the fuck?
Now, he’s asking employees if they have seen his wife. It’s a busy Starbucks. People are coming and going. Workers are making drinks fast, taking orders. Everything is mechanical, rote, all done a hundred times a day, a thousand times a day.