PsyCop 4: Secrets (21 page)

Jacob stayed quiet until he pulled up in front of the cannery. I don’t think he knew he’d just blown my mind. He was probably strategizing the best way to keep Barnhardt on the most nauseating antipsyactives he could find. “I’ll try to be home for dinner,” he said.

“But if I end up running late, you can finish off that leftover Korean in the fridge.” He leaned towards me, and I tried to figure out what I should do. Kiss him goodbye, in the car, in broad daylight? I’d come off as a heel if I looked around first to see if anyone was watching. It didn’t matter anyway; likely as not I was being watched, but Warwick already knew about the two of us, so it didn’t really matter. On the bright side, that was one less awkward conversation I’d need to have someday.

I didn’t hesitate, exactly. I sat there and didn’t move either forward or back. Jacob took that as permission to maul me. He grabbed me around the back of the head and planted a wet one on me. I’d been prepared for a quick goodbye kiss and found myself with a mouthful of tongue. His fingertips pressed into my scalp, and I had a flash of what it would feel like if it was his cock jamming into my mouth instead of his tongue. Who knew I could shift gears from “freaked out” to “turned on” so quickly? It didn’t seem normal.

But then again, I probably wasn’t the best judge of what was or wasn’t normal.

When he pulled back to let us both catch our breath, my mouth felt swollen and hot and my cock was straining against my jeans. “Are you sure you have to go to work right this second?” I asked him.

Jacob stared into my eyes. He looked hungry, like he wouldn’t even make it to the front door, like he’d tear off my clothes and fling me down in a snow bank if I coaxed him into staying. But then he glanced at the clock on the dashboard and shook his head. “Carolyn’s already there. If I’m late….”

“She’ll know why,” I said. “And she’ll probably be pissed, too.” Jacob pressed his forehead against mine. “Will you be here when I get home?”

“That depends on what time you’re coming back. I’ve got a job too, you know.”

“I didn’t know you were scheduled today.”

“I’ve got some loose ends to tie up.”

Jacob kissed me again—the type of goodbye kiss I’d been expecting, this time—and let go of my head. “Then I’ll see you when I see you, and I’ll call you when I can.” I stood on our sidewalk and breathed in the cold, watched it leave my body in a big rush of white vapor, and collected myself. It was harder to be involved with another PsyCop than it was to date a hairdresser, or a college professor, or a record store clerk. No doubt about it. It felt like everything we did, fighting or fucking, or even just talking, was ten times bigger than it had been between me and the other guys I’d dated. Harder. But better.

I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand and sighed. My breath streamed out over the frozen air. I flipped open my phone and memory-dialed Zigler.

“I’m ready,” I said.

I climbed into Zig’s car and he handed me a sticky note without looking me in the eye.

“Well, here you go,” he said.

I opened it up and read it. Steven Russeau. Stefan Russell had reinvented himself, or maybe someone else had done it for him. “If I do a web search on Mr. Russeau,” I said, “will I find anything?”

“Not much. A generic website about his practice. No pictures.” His practice. I reread the note. “Empathic Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Counseling.” There was a phone number and an address downtown. No home address. I felt a little pang, but then I figured that maybe it was for the best. I could always make an appointment to see him professionally…oh, that was just sick in so many ways.

My stomach churned at the prospect of talking to someone else who’d been through Camp Hell, but I told myself it was only excitement. I folded up the note so that some of the sticky was facing out, and I stuck it to the back of my phone so I’d remember to leave him a voice mail later. The only way Stefan would have had weekend hours would be if they’d given him a lobotomy after I’d left. Wait a minute…bad train of thought. Anyway, it’d be easier to leave him a message than it would be to call on a day when I thought there was any chance he’d actually pick up.

“So…the two of us,” said Zig, pointing at me and then at himself. “We’re okay now. Right?”

Was I supposed to be mad at him? What for? I’d been on such a roller coaster ride with Jacob and his vengeance on Barnhardt that I no longer had any idea why Zigler felt like he owed me one. I gave him a sideways look, hoping he’d pin an interpretation on it that would remind me.

He scowled at his steering wheel. I held my ground and kept looking at him out of the corner of my eye. We sat like that for a good minute, minute and a half. And finally, when I thought I was going to be the one to give, Zig said, “I guess I should have said something about those papers.”

Oh. Right. The papers. The ones that every other person I knew had signed, too. Including Jacob.

“There was all kinds of paperwork to do when I started this job, though. Just so you know.”

I vaguely remembered signing things until my hand hurt. I nodded.

“I even thought…I thought that maybe you were taking it a little too far, getting all worked up about the Internet.”

If I were the only one who couldn’t be found online, that would be one thing. But it wasn’t.

It was Stefan. And all of Camp Hell. If none of us who’d come through Heliotrope Station more or less intact could be found on the Web, if even the place itself was invisible, then it was almost as if someone was denying that the whole thing had ever happened.

And that pissed me off.

“But then I got called into Warwick’s office on Friday,” Zig said, “and he gave me three more stacks of papers, for Nancy and Caitlin and Robbie….”

“Cripes. Not your kids.”

“Yeah. And their contracts were even more convoluted than mine, because they’re both minors.”

“How do you explain all of this to them?”

“What’s to explain? Everyone knows what a PsyCop is. I think it’s the first time they’ve been impressed by anything I’ve done since they were in diapers. I’m sure they’d like it even better if I was the Psych half of the team.” He shrugged. “But then I’d have to see all those spirits everywhere.”

“They’re not exactly everywhere.”

“So…my house. Was it? You know.”

No, I didn’t. “Was your house what?”

“Did you see anyone there? Besides my wife and my two kids.”

“Oh. No, nothing.”

Zigler let his breath out slowly and relaxed into the seat. I hadn’t realized how stiffly he’d been sitting. “Nancy had a miscarriage a couple of years before Caitlin was born. Now Caitlin swears that her ‘big sister’ is communicating with her through the Ouija board.”

“I doubt it, given the gene pool and the fact that you’re as non-psychic as it’s possible to be.”

“But you would have seen something like that. Or heard it, or felt it.”

“I suppose. Unless your daughter was actually a precog, and the spirit she thought she was talking with was really a symbol for her higher self. Something like that. I’m not really all that good with….” With much of anything more advanced than the white balloon technique. Damn. I’ll bet Lisa would have loved to play “what if?” with Zigler. And then they both would have told me to get some real training.

Zig was nodding. “A precog. Yeah. That wouldn’t be so bad.” He might not think so if he’d just spent a week with Lisa, but I didn’t mention that.

“Caitlin…she can’t stop talking about you. You made a pretty big impression on her.” I’d kind of thought that both of Zig’s kids were psych-groupies, but when I saw the way he was still avoiding eye contact, I realized that it was probably something more, that Caitlin might’ve had it as bad for psychs as Jacob does. I jammed the palm of my hand against my right eye and rubbed. Poor Zig. At least Robbie wasn’t the one with the crush, though I figured that was a notion I’d be better off keeping to myself.

“So…if that’s everything….” Zig wanted to get me out of the car so bad I could practically taste it. The two of us were even, as far as I was concerned. Of everyone I knew that had to sign a stupid stack of documents to protect my “privacy,” he’d volunteered the most information with the least prompting. And we weren’t even all that buddy-buddy.

“Just one more thing.” I thought I might be able to milk a final favor out of him since he was feeling guilty, and there was a loose end I had to tie up. “I need a ride.” Zig stared at his windshield for a long moment, and then nodded. “Fine. Where?”

“Downtown.”

“Now?”

The longer I thought about it, the harder it would be, and the more likely Zig would back out, too. I sure as hell didn’t want to go there alone. “Now.” I told Zig where I needed to go. He checked his rearview, put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

I swallowed an Auracel and watched the scenery go by while Zig navigated the Dan Ryan.

The ghosts weren’t too thick, but the lanes felt small and close, especially when we passed under bridges and through the tunnel. I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what I was going to say, came up with nothing, and opened them again.

Zig exited the expressway and crept into the maze of one-way streets beneath the El tracks. A train rumbled by overhead, one that let off a dozen or so blocks from the cannery. I didn’t even need him to wait for me. It would be good to clear my head, ride that old metal subway car and ride the Auracel buzz at the same time as I made my way back home.

I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have a lot of things to think about to keep me company. And if I ended up in a car with a ghost in it, I could just get off the train and wait for the next one.

“Do you want me to go in with you?” Zig asked.

Yes.

“No,” I said. “I got it.” I could tell that he got the heebie-jeebies from visitors from beyond the grave ever since we’d busted up the zombie employment ring, but prisons? No problem for a good, solid cop like Bob Zigler. Still, I felt like he’d done his part by getting me there, and now I needed to handle things myself.

Zig let me off at the entrance of the tall concrete skyscraper, and I did my best not to chase after the Impala as he drove away.

I walked into the Metropolitan Correctional Center and showed my badge to the front desk. I hadn’t brought my gun with me since I was off duty, but I did have a couple packs of Marlboros stuffed into my coat pocket. The guards said that cigarettes weren’t allowed in the visiting area, and instructed me to leave them in a storage locker. Damn. There went my currency.

I climbed into the elevator car with a stony-faced guard and it shut a hell of a lot faster than the one at Rosewood. It also had a bunch of buttons and locks and was probably bulletproof, too. The guard was a bulky black guy with the ramrod-straight posture of the cops who’d started multiplying at Rosewood, the ones who weren’t from the Fifth, weren’t from the Twelfth, and who watched me like a bunch of hawks without actually appearing to watch me. I was pretty sure the guard who was with me was actually a guard, since no one but Lisa would know I was coming, and now Zig.

We went up eight floors, then stepped off the elevator and past a visiting room where a baby bawled louder than a cruiser siren, and another visiting room where a guy in an orange jumpsuit sprawled in a plastic chair while his visitor, probably his wife, chewed him out so badly that he must have wished he was back in his cell.

The guard led me to a closed door with a sign on it that said Attorney Visiting Room #3. A perk of being in law enforcement; I got to use the fancy room.

“Your visit will be monitored through the mirror,” said the guard. His voice was gentler than I’d expected. “A hug is permitted at the beginning and end of the visit, but no other physical contact is allowed for the duration. When you leave the room, the inmate will be returned to his cell.”

“As long as I get to cop a feel.” Crap, I’d said that out loud. I hoped the guard realized I was being sarcastic. Gay cops probably shouldn’t joke about things like that. Especially when they’re making contact with scary homophobes that would love to see them dead.

The room was plain—plastic table, plastic chairs, bright lights set into the ceiling and a big two-way mirror. The guard cleared his throat. I met his eyes in the mirror. “That hugging thing is for family,” he told me, “but we’re still supposed to say it to everyone.”

“Uh-huh.”

He dropped eye contact, turned around and left.

I stared at the mirror. I thought for a moment that I saw someone shifting behind it, but then I realized it was only a faint repeater pounding on the glass. If I took another half a tablet, I probably wouldn’t be able to see him at all. But I’d probably be too high to get anything out of my visit, either.

When I’d drunkenly pried it out of Lisa that I knew someone who could tell me all about my so-called “privacy,” I’d had it in my head that she would point to Jacob. He lies like a rug, and thanks to his time with Carolyn, he’d become a master of the misdirect. But, no.

According to Lisa, he didn’t know much more than she did herself. She’d never read all the paperwork she signed since the
si-no
gave her the go-ahead, so maybe he’d had the advantage of actually perusing the stuff. But if there was a big conspiracy with my name written all over it, at least Jacob hadn’t been involved.

If the worst surprise Jacob had in store for me was that he’d had his eye on me since the Horner Park Picnic, I was in pretty good shape. Unless he was planning a surprise party for me later that night, in which case I’d need to kill him.

I somehow doubted that Jacob was busy decorating the cannery and baking me a cake.

He was so focused on getting a court order to keep Barnhardt doped up on antipsyactives that he’d actually forgotten that it was my birthday. Mister Perfect was turning out to be nowhere near as infallible as I’d originally thought.

I considered sitting down, then decided I should probably stay on my feet, despite the fact that I was getting a pretty good buzz on. I hadn’t taken Auracel in nearly a week, so it had hit me hard. Plus I was a little dehydrated from all the whiskey I’d slugged the day before. Just thinking about it gave me a twinge behind my right eye.