Black Box Inc. Read online

Lassa and Sharon came in, and I gave them a nod as I chowed down on one of the cheeseburgers Travis had gone out to get me. But no towel. He got me cheeseburgers and fries, but only a couple of napkins. Pretty sure he thought he was being funny.

  Joke was on him, though. Not like being drenched in blood was gonna stop me from eating everything he brought.

  “What the hell, Chase?” Harper snapped as she put the very large pistol back inside her jacket. “Care to tell me how you got from your place to here?”

  “That’s a lot of blood, all right,” Sharon said as she made a beeline for the blood and leaned over the pool that had become a sickly dark brown. Blood was a bit of a draw for Sharon. “Twelve pints, at least. Oh, most certainly.”

  “It’s gone off, dude. I can tell that from here,” Lassa said as he leaned against the wall by the door. He waved a hand in front of his face.

  “Yes, I noticed that, as well,” Sharon said. She circled the pool as she jotted notes into her phone. “Very old blood. Hasn’t been stored properly.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Harper snapped. “Chase? Talk. I dropped you at your place, double-checked the security hexes, then . . . what?”

  “No clue,” I said around cheeseburger number five. “Like I told Travis, I was at Taps & Tapas, then I woke up here.”

  “You don’t remember any of the ride home?” Lassa asked.

  “Not off, exactly,” Sharon said, in her own little blood world. “Something else. Perhaps not human? No, it smells human. Strange . . .”

  “I remember only what I’ve said,” I said to Lassa. “Taps & Tapas. Here. Asking a ton of questions isn’t going to—”

  “Asking a ton of questions might jog your memory,” Harper snarled.

  She was taking the situation personally. Heads of security don’t like it when the person they are supposed to secure ends up not being so secure.

  “Sorry,” I said as I wolfed down my sixth cheeseburger. The fries were long gone. Harper glared, then began to walk the perimeter of the loft again. “Ask away.”

  “What’s the last memory you have of Taps & Tapas?” She ran her fingers along a windowsill and sniffed the tips. “The very last.”

  “I had to pee,” I said and belched. The burgers had filled that gnawing hole, but they weren’t settling so great. “I went to the bathroom.”

  “No one’s come in or out of these windows,” Harper said. “No trace of any essences. After the bathroom?”

  “We left,” Lassa said. Harper stopped in her tracks, but didn’t look back at Lassa.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Continue your Sherlock thing.”

  “That’s right. You bailed on me,” I said, remembering that fuzzy detail. “I came out of the bathroom and you guys had left. I was going to call you to see what the hell was going on, but I got distracted when I started saying good-night and apologized to the staff again . . .”

  Another memory floated by.

  “Left?” Lassa asked. “What are you—”

  “Don’t interrupt. Let him think,” Harper said. “Chase?”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Iris. Iris came out to talk to me.”

  “Yell at you, more like,” Travis said from his leaning spot in the kitchen. He’d been very quiet as soon as everyone else had gotten there. “Unless you and Iris have a different dynamic now. You ask her out yet?”

  Lassa snickered. Asshole.

  “You did?” Travis asked.

  “Not the time,” Sharon said, letting me off the hook as she finally turned her attention away from the blood.

  “You’re probably right, she came out yelling,” I said as I struggled to recall the conversation. Nothing returned to me except for a brief double image of her face. My stomach lurched, and I bent over, ready to throw up the cheeseburgers.

  “Chase?” Travis asked.

  “Chase? Are you all right?” Sharon asked.

  All eyes were on me as I stood up. I closed mine and let the pain and nausea pass, then pointed at Sharon.

  “Call the restaurant,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. She had her phone out and was dialing Taps & Tapas instantly.

  “Yes, hello, is Iris in?” Sharon asked when someone picked up. She nodded. “This is Sharon Spaglioni with Black Box Inc. There might be a—”

  She stopped talking as her eyes went wide. Someone was upset on the other end of the conversation. Very upset. I couldn’t hear the exact words, but the tone was coming through loud and clear.

  “Oh, oh, I see, yes, yes, please give him my number,” Sharon said. “Oh, I know. This is very troubling. No, no, we’ll cooperate one hundred percent. Yes, the number I called with. Yes, I look forward to hearing from him. Good-bye.”

  “That sounded bad,” Harper said.

  “Didn’t sound good,” Lassa agreed.

  “Iris was last seen talking to you last night,” Sharon said to me. “When the kitchen crew went looking for her to lock up, all they found was blood on the sidewalk. You were gone, Iris was gone.”

  All eyes went to the pool of blood on the floor.

  “This is goddamn messed up,” I said as I rubbed my forehead, smearing burger grease across my brow. “Why can’t I remember what happened?”

  “Could be a spell,” Harper suggested.

  “But he doesn’t smell hexed,” Travis said, giving Harper a look that I couldn’t decipher.

  “Can we get back to the fact that Chase thinks we ditched him?” Lassa asked. “Because that is not how it went down.”

  Sharon’s phone rang. We shut up.

  “Black Box Inc. Sharon Spaglioni speaking,” she answered.

  Her already ashen face went even more gray. She locked eyes with me as she nodded and listened.

  “Yes, Detective Willitz,” Sharon said. “I completely understand.”

  “Oh, damn,” Lassa mumbled. “The big boy is in town.”

  “Shhh,” Sharon hissed. “What? No, not you, Detective. One of my colleagues was making noise. Right, right. No, of course. Yes, he is here. I am standing right in front of him. He would be more than willing to come in and speak with you, but I suggest you come meet us first.”

  She cocked her head as she listened to Willitz’s response. Her left cheek kept twitching, which meant Willitz was being less than nice on the other end.

  “Detective Willitz, you know us,” Sharon said. “Have we ever not cooperated in an investigation before?” More cheek twitching. “Okay, I will give you that one. Yes, and that time, as well. Oh, come now, no need for that kind of language. The Sylva incident was a local screwup and not our doing. The record will show that was all sorted out, thank you very much.”

  She winced and pulled the phone away from her ear for a second. A little piece of skin came with it.

  “Uh, you have—” Travis began to say, but stopped when Lassa coughed and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Detective!” Sharon yelled. We all jumped. “I am sorry I raised my voice, but you will most certainly want to meet us at our current location. A reason? How about several pints of blood? Is that reason enough?”

  Her entire demeanor changed. Sharon loved having the upper hand. She smiled and gave us all a wink.

  “Yes, I will text you the address as soon as we hang up,” Sharon said. “I look forward to seeing you.”

  She ended the call and typed out the address, then tucked her phone into the pocket of her crisp business slacks.

  “Willitz, huh?” I said, then belched. The burgers were still threatening a revolt. “Things escalated quickly if the state police are involved.”

  “This all happened last night,” Harper said. “Why would the NC Department of Extradimensional Affairs be in Asheville this fast?”

&nbs
p; “Unless the dude was already here,” Lassa said. “Different investigation?”

  “Or this is part of something bigger,” Sharon said.

  “All great thoughts and musings,” Travis said as he clapped his hands. “Sounds like you have this in hand. I’ll be leaving now.”

  “You’re going?” I asked. “You just got here. You came to Asheville for a reason. You said you went looking for me.”

  “I did,” Travis said. “But it can wait. I’m in no hurry this trip.”

  “You really should stay,” Sharon said. “You found Chase. I am positive Detective Willitz will want to interview you.”

  “Oh, I am sure he would,” Travis said and laughed. “But there is no way I’m getting sucked into this. There are nightmare dimensions that are more enjoyable than dealing with the bureaucracies you have here. I’ll be taking my leave and call you later.”

  “Travis,” I said, my voice hard.

  “I said I’ll call you later,” Travis said. “You deal with this.”

  He walked to the door and gave Lassa a pat on the chest.

  “I’ll definitely be calling you,” he said as he left.

  “That guy has always had the hots for you,” Harper said to Lassa once Travis was gone.

  Lassa shrugged. “I am who I am. Yetis are known for our animal magnetism.”

  “And slutty behavior,” Harper said. “Not judging. More power to you, you omnisexual stud.”

  “Can we discuss Lassa’s sexual exploits later, please?” Sharon said. “Or, better yet, not discuss them? We have to get our stories straight here.”

  Harper stopped what had to be her fourth security sweep of the loft and stared at Sharon.

  “What stories?” she asked. “None of us know anything. We’ve been here an hour and are as clueless as when we got here. There are no stories to get straight.”

  “I mean about last night,” Sharon said. “Detective Willitz will be asking us each where we were and what we did after we left Taps & Tapas.”

  “You guys will have to be the experts on that,” I said.

  “You came out of the bathroom,” Harper said, crossing her arms over her chest, her focus on me. “Sharon had paid the bill and was trying to apologize to Iris, but Iris wasn’t having any of it.”

  “She was royally pissed, dude,” Lassa said.

  “Yeah, I have my own memories of that,” I said.

  “We left, went to the parking garage, I undid the hexes on the car, and we drove you home,” Harper said to me. “That’s the end of your story, apparently.”

  “You also took me home, then what?” Sharon asked. “We need to have these details locked down, people.”

  “I went home,” Lassa said. “Had a satisfying bowel movement, then fell asleep reading the latest Vogue.”

  “The one with Einstein’s ghost on the cover?” Harper asked, her brow furrowing.

  “That was last month’s,” Lassa replied. “This month is an exposé on Nessie and her involvement in the Scottish crown’s rise and fall over the centuries.”

  “I hear she’s a real bitch,” Harper said.

  Lassa shrugged. “She has an attitude, yes, but so would you if you were trapped in a damned loch for hundreds of years because of some punks screwing up a fertility ritual.”

  “Good article?” Harper asked.

  “Please!” Sharon shouted. She smoothed her blouse and took a deep breath. “Please. Can we focus?”

  “Yeah, guys,” I said. “Sharon is trying to save us all a lot of headaches, and mine is finally going away, so cut the banter, will ya? I mean, it’s great you two are chill enough that we aren’t all DEFCON two and shit, but let’s not break Sharon before the cops get here.”

  “I am glad you are feeling better, Chase,” Sharon said to me as Lassa and Harper each gave me a snotty sneer. “Now, we know your story.”

  “Not much of a story,” Harper said.

  “And we heard Lassa’s story.”

  “Is that all?” Harper asked him.

  “Yeah,” Lassa said. “I drooled so much that I totally ruined three pages of the magazine. Not that it matters, they were ads for gryphon hide boots.”

  “What designer?” Harper asked. “I need new boots. These are getting worn out.”

  “The boots do not matter,” Sharon said. “Harper? Where were you last night after you left us?”

  “I hit the South Slope after dropping all of you early night losers off. Short Coxe Alley,” Harper said. “I took about six hundred bucks off some leprechauns in craps.”

  She pulled up her shirt sleeve and showed us several long scratches.

  “They weren’t very happy about losing,” she continued. “Killed two of them before I could get out of there. The little bastards are lucky they regenerate.”

  “If only we could all be so lucky,” Sharon said as she patted the very expensive strawberry blond wig she wore. You’d never know it wasn’t her real hair. Sharon was very proud of her wig collection. You kinda had to be when you were undead in a world of the living. “And after that?”

  “Closed down Horrible Hops,” Harper said. “The bartender downstairs hit on me for like an hour, so he can corroborate my alibi. He can also corroborate where I was this morning. His place.”

  “Nice,” Lassa said. “Get it when you can, right?”

  Harper responded with a knowing nod.

  “Good-looking?” Lassa asked.

  “You haven’t seen him? Oh, yeah, very good-looking,” Harper said. “But he doesn’t swing both ways like you, big guy. Sorry. He only goes for the vag.”

  “Oh, my God!” Sharon yelled. “Why does this have to be so hard?”

  “If it was easy, Shar, we wouldn’t need you managing things,” I said. “And please, stop goddamn yelling, okay?”

  “He’s right,” Lassa said. “We need you to keep our collective shit together.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Harper agreed.

  “Okay, okay,” Sharon said more to herself. “Harper? What’s the bartender’s name?”

  Harper stared at Sharon for a couple of seconds.

  “Nice,” Lassa said once more.

  “Harper, as the person in charge of security, how could you go home with someone and not know their name?” Sharon asked, aghast.

  “I don’t need a name to defend myself,” Harper said.

  “Or to get off,” Lassa said.

  “Guys,” I warned as I watched Sharon twitch. “Quit with the goddamn BS. Game time, got it?”

  Harper pulled out her phone. “I’ll call the brewery and ask. Give me a second.”

  By the time she was done chatting with the day manager of the Horrible Hops Brewery, there was a knock at the door.

  Lassa reached out, opened the door, and Detective Carl Willitz, clichéd rumpled suit and all, came in with four state troopers behind him.

  “Chase Lawter? You are under arrest for the murder of Iris Penn,” he announced.

  “What?” I exclaimed as I wiped burger bun crumbs from my chest. “What the goddamn hell are you talking about?”

  “Her body was found an hour ago in a dumpster behind the federal building,” he said.

  “Oh my God,” Sharon gasped as her hands went to her mouth.

  “What?” Lassa, Harper, and I chorused in unison.

  The troopers came at me, and I held out my hands, warning Lassa and Harper off. Last thing we needed was to get in a fight with the cops, especially state cops.

  “Why do you think I did it?” I asked as my hands were yanked back and cuffed. “Me being the last person she was seen with is not enough evidence to arrest me. And since when do you have dibs in Asheville? This should be handled by local homicide.”

 
“Then you admit it was homicide?” he asked. “And you admit you were the last person she was seen with?”

  “I admit you can kiss my goddamn ass,” I snapped.

  Willitz was middle-aged, with olive skin and a receding hairline that could be fixed with a decent haircut. Instead, he was going for the skullet look. He was in horrible shape, but that was expected for someone who spent life going from desk to car and back again. He was probably going to die of a heart attack within the decade, but maybe not.