The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (8 page)

Her emotions hardened.  “What are you still doing here?”

He looked up, surprised by the tone of her voice.  “Breakfast.”

“Nervy.”

He appeared genuinely puzzled, which, in Riga’s eyes, just made him a good liar.  “After seeing the gun safe in your closet, I have no nerve at all when it comes to you.  Is that standard equipment for a metaphysical detective?”

 “What did you do to the wine?”  It was magic, she knew, but none like she’d ever experienced.  And the fact that it left her feeling better rather than worse disturbed her, because a part of her wanted it to happen again.

His dark brows drew together.  “Nothing.”

“Then why did I blank out?  Again.  Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

He waggled the pan in her direction.  “You did not pass out last night, and I think I would have noticed.  I’m starting to think you just don’t want to take responsibility for your actions.”

“What actions?  What happened?”  She felt his magic now, there but not there.  It sent a shiver of pleasure up her spine, and that frightened her even more.

“Sadly, nothing happened.  You made me spend the night on the couch, which is, by the way, not as comfortable as my hotel bed.  When are we going to wake up together?”

Fine.  Two could play this game.  “I don’t know what you are, but I will figure it out.”

He smiled, wolflike.  “I guess we’ll be spending more time together then.  Come on, you’ll feel better after breakfast.”  He slid the omelet onto a plate and handed it to her. 

She looked at it.

“It’s just an omelet,” he said.

She took the plate from him and lowered herself onto one of the stools opposite, at the counter.  Neither seeing nor sensing anything amiss (magic or otherwise), she took a hesitant bite.  It was the best omelet she’d ever tasted – the ideal to which omelets should aspire: light, fluffy, tangy, heaven. 

“How is it?” he asked.

“It’s good.”

“That’s all?”  He frowned, looking into the empty pan as if it had betrayed him.  “I usually get a more effusive reaction than that.”

“I’m still conscious.  That’s something.”

He met Riga’s eyes, violet like wine held to the sunlight.  “I don’t know what happened to you last night,” he repeated, his voice low.  “This memory loss – are you sure it’s never happened before?”

She gritted her teeth.  “Only with you.”

“Then tell me about the street lights.  Have you always been able to put them out?”

Riga speared a mushroom.  “Not always.”  It had started, she told him, in college and within a year she couldn’t get within twenty feet of a streetlamp without it going dark. “A rumor started I had a weird electromagnetic field that would give people cancer.  You can imagine how popular I was.”

Donovan burst into laughter.  It rolled through the condo like benevolent thunder.  “Cancer!  The modern day bogeyman.  And do you?  Have a weird electromagnetic field?”

“I found someone to test me – never mind how – and no, they couldn’t find anything.”  The Reiki masters and energy workers had been unable to help.  Riga had turned to a shaman, but things had not gone well there, either.  The shaman still refused to speak to her. 

“Which left dark magic.”  Donovan chuckled.

She felt heat rush to her cheeks.  “Look, I know my problem sounds ridiculous.  It is, in fact, ridiculous.  But it’s hell on a social life.  I can’t go out at night with friends, and night happens to be when most people want to meet up.  Even the magical community thinks I’m freaky.”  Dating was a disaster.  When men found out, they were initially fascinated.  But the strangeness eventually made them wary.

 “I’d love to take you to Vegas.  Imagine what we could do to the Strip,” he mused.

Riga merely shook her head.  He was still in phase one: fascination.  It would end soon enough, and hopefully not before she discovered what he was after.

His lips quirked.  “As super powers go, it’s a disappointment.  But I know you’re not going to give me cancer.  It does explain the metaphysical detective agency though.  Any other powers?”

“I can locate money.  For some reason, checks are easiest, I suspect because the act of writing them leaves a greater psychic impression.  It’s come in handy more than once.”

 “You’re joking.”

“Don’t worry, it has no affect on my gambling ability.  And now that people are moving away from checks to electronic banking, I’m even losing that advantage.”

Donovan looked thoughtful.  “Anything else?”

“Enough about me, I’m starting to bore myself.”  She’d given him enough.  She wanted to learn about him.

“So, tell me about your current case,” he said.

Damn.  He was determined to play the listener today.

 “Have you got a drivers license?” she asked.

Bemused, he ambled to the living room, where last night’s trousers lay across the back of the sofa, and retrieved his wallet.  He tossed it to her, and watched while she examined his license, taking down the details.

“You’re not very subtle,” he said.

“At this point, why bother?”  He was in her home, had once slept in her bed, and though she was fairly certain sleep was all that had taken place in that bed, she couldn’t say why. 

“Would you like to go to the coast?” she asked.  Donovan was involved in the mystery of Helen – she couldn’t explain where her certainty came from but it was there.  She wanted to keep him around.

“I thought we were already there.”

“No, the actual coast, that liminal place where land meets sea.”

He broke into a smile.  “I’ll drive,” he said.  “And you can tell me more about that case and your secret admirer.”

Chapter 14: The Bishop’s Wife

Riga took her time dressing – low-slung jeans, a white tank top, and a white knit bolero for warmth.  Anticipating wind, she tied her auburn hair in a loose pony tail, then slipped into a pair of leather sandals which showed off her movie star-red toenail polish.  Her toes, she noted, were not as perfect as Donovan’s.

If Donovan was annoyed by the wait, he didn’t show it, his eyes lighting when she entered the room.  He hustled her downstairs, where the dog followed them to the glass door.  He howled plaintively when it became apparent he’d be left behind.  Riga hesitated.

“Oh, go on,” Donovan said.

She stuck her head in the entryway and asked the doorman if he’d like her to take the dog for a walk on the beach.  He agreed, delighted his pet would get a treat, and a little wistful that Riga hadn’t offered to take him as well.  He made the dog promise to behave himself.

Riga and the dog bundled into Donovan’s car, a vintage silver Aston Martin.  She would have made a snarky remark about James Bond fantasies, but the car was too beautiful.  She surreptitiously smoothed a hand over the soft leather seat.  “What is it you do in the sin industry, exactly?”

He revved the engine and peeled neatly into the street.  “Casinos.”

They drove south, detouring into a wine shop.  Riga waited in the car and he emerged carrying a wicker picnic basket, which he put inside the trunk.  “No peeking.”

They cut across the city to the Great Highway,
Magic Carpet Ride
blaring on the radio, and then blasted up and over the hill to drop down winding Highway 1.  The dog settled happily in Riga’s lap, panting.  She rolled the window down part way and Dog wormed its nose out.

Donovan shifted gears as the car swung through a tight curve.  “So, tell me about the case.”

Riga told him what she’d told the police, about Herman’s appearance in her condo, Riga’s theory of entanglement, and her determination to keep Pen unentangled. 

Donovan chanced a quick glance at her.  “It doesn’t sound like you’ve got much.”

“A dead body is enough.”

“What’s your next step?”

Dig.  She’d keep chasing leads until she ran out of trails to follow or the case was resolved.

She directed him to a cliff side parking lot overlooking the ocean. 

“Bit windy,” he said.  “Are you sure you’re up for a picnic on the beach?  I know a little trail not far from here—“

She interrupted him, placing her hand lightly on his arm.  “Wait.”  Riga scanned the horizon. 

Donovan drummed his fingers on the leather steering wheel.  “What exactly are we waiting for?”

She absently stroked the dog’s neck.  Dog was in heaven, his eyes half closed.

“There,” she said, pointing west.  A waterspout appeared, dancing across the ocean’s surface.

“Huh.”  Donovan’s brows wrinkled.  “You don’t see one of those every day.”

“Do you have any idea what the odds are of two appearing off the California coast in a two day period?  I was here yesterday and saw a spout as well.”  She shook her head.  “It’s not natural.  Something’s going on and you’re involved.”

“If you say so,” he drawled.  “Can we go now?”

Donovan put the car into reverse, not waiting for an answer.  The rear tires spit sand and they roared south.

He was an expert driver, but Riga clenched the door handle as they whizzed around Highway 1’s curves. 

“So what brought you to San Francisco?” she asked.

“Business and pleasure.  I’m thinking of setting up a partnership with a winery north of here.  And I wanted a break.”

“A partnership?”

“Vegas has gone upscale.  People want more than gaming,” he said.

“You sound like a travel brochure.”

“It’s how I earn a living.”

He did better than earn a living, Riga thought, sinking into the upholstery.

Past Half Moon Bay, Donovan turned down a road that wound into the hills.  It narrowed to one lane, but Donovan didn’t slow, the car gripping the tight curves.  Riga closed her eyes.

Donovan laughed.  “Don’t worry.  We’re here.” 

He pulled the car into a shady lot overhung with oaks.  They were in a narrow valley, at a public trailhead.  Riga got out, stretching her legs.  She leashed the dog as Donovan retrieved the hamper from the trunk. 

He led them down a wide dirt trail, with a creek in a gully to one side and a steep fern-covered hill rising on the other.  The oaks formed a lattice overhead, a verdant tunnel of green.  Donovan branched off onto a narrow path leading up the hill and to a grove of redwood giants that formed a tight circle.  They picnicked in their center, atop a red and black plaid blanket.  Donovan, shoeless again, opened the hamper with a flourish, setting out two wine goblets, china plates, cloth napkins, food and wine: grapes, a selection of cheeses, pâté, and a fine bottle of pinot noir.  He caught Riga eyeing the latter with suspicion.

Donovan tossed her the church key and she caught it one handed.  “Would you feel better if you did the honors?” he said.

“I’d feel better if I abstained all together.”

“Riga, if you really thought I was tampering with the wine, would you be here with me now?”

Riga shuddered.  She knew she would. 

She uncorked the wine and poured two glasses, hesitated, then took a sip.  It was a good pinot, nothing more.

They feasted beneath the tree, the ground soft beneath the blanket.  The dog darted in and snapped up Riga’s pâté.  She didn’t mind, wasn’t a fan of the stuff anyway. 

The creek murmured beneath them, hidden by the trees; at times it sounded like a whispered conversation.  She strained to grasp the words but they faded to babble before she could catch the meaning.

“Pen, she’s a relative?”  He popped a grape into his mouth.

“My niece,” she said.  She followed Dog’s progress in the nearby undergrowth, bushes rustling as he passed and the occasional appearance of his tail, waving like a banner.

“It’s hard to picture you with a family.  I imagine you springing fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.”

“It’s hard to imagine you in Vegas,” Riga said.  His element was here, among the tall trees and wild ferns. 

He leaned back on his elbows and looked skyward.  “I could never live in California.  Too many rules, too many do-gooders coming up with new ones.  It’s stifling.  How do you put up with it?”

Riga sighed, but didn’t answer.  She’d often wondered the same, and several times had tried to leave this land of lotus eaters but always found herself coming back.  A prisoner of the Hotel California, she could never leave.

Donovan detached another grape from the bunch and examined it critically.  “Sounds like Hotel California.  You can never leave, can you?”

It was if he’d plucked her thought out of the ether and she looked at him, startled.

“The Eagles?” he said, his brows arching.  “Hotel California?  Are you alright?  You look confused.”

“Riiight.  I—yeah.  I know the song.” 

He regarded her with mocking curiosity, but when she didn’t continue, he said, “Your theory of metaphysical entanglement – is Pen entangled as well?”

“I don’t think so,” Riga said slowly.  “She never met Helen.  At any rate, I’d like to keep her out of this one.”

“I never met Helen.”  He drew a knife from the basket.  Sunlight glittered off its blade.

“No, but unusual things happen when you’re around, and you turned up just when Helen did. Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, you had to walk into mine,” she quoted.  “Why are there periods with you I can’t remember?”

He drew the knife through a wedge of camembert, offered her a slice off the blade.  She shook her head and he ate it off the sharp edge. 

“Memory’s aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” he said.  “We change them, color them with what we wish had or hadn’t happened.  They fade with time.”

But the DRC, that wine she’d shared with him, one of the greatest wines in the world and she couldn’t even remember it.  The loss of that memory stung and Riga felt a sudden melancholy.

He fingered a tendril of auburn hair that had escaped her ponytail, fallen across her cheek.  “Your expressions are as changeable as the clouds.  What were you just thinking?”

She could feel the heat emanating from his body.  A party of hikers tramped along the trail beneath them, and their voices carried, joking about mountain lions.  She relaxed back on one elbow.  “I was thinking about an old movie called
The Bishop’s Wife
– the original version with David Niven and Cary Grant and Loretta Young.”