Hidden Things

1

A RINGING PHONE
jerked Calliope Jenkins out of a sound sleep. She fumbled for the source of the noise, startled and trying to blink her eyes into focus. The blocky red alarm clock LED hovered in the darkness like a bad memory, reading 1:43
^•
.

On the third ring, she managed to find the handset and roll it off the cradle into her palm. “H'lo?”

“Calli,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “It's me.”

She smiled and pushed herself farther underneath the comforter. “
Hey
. I thought you'd be home and asleep by now.”

The strange, hiccuped silence of an interrupted cellular connection broke through the call for a moment. “A few things came up; I'm still out on the road, actually.”

“Cripes, really? When—” A murmur drifted from the opposite side of the bed. Calliope half glanced in that direction and lowered her voice. “Hang on a sec.” She got up and padded toward the door to the bedroom, snagging her robe as she stepped into the hallway. “When do you think you're going to get back?”

“I don't . . . Everything's pretty complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Yawning, Calliope shuffled into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door.

“Can't. Too late to get into any of it, anyway. You going to be all right?”

She shrugged, still staring blankly into the refrigerator. “I'm fine, except it's two in the morning.”

She could hear him smile on the other end of the line. “Cranky. You should take a shower and wake up.”

She pushed hair out of her face. “See, this's your main confusion. I don't
want
to wake up. I wasn't actually lying in bed thinking, ‘Oh, I wish someone would call and give me a reason to get up.' I wasn't thinking anything. I was
asleep
. I was enjoying it. I'd like to get back to it sometime tonight.”

“So . . .” She could hear the smile broaden in his voice. “No shower?”

She smiled. “Freak.”

“Hardly.”

“We could use that for the new ads: ‘Joshua White: where mind and gutter meet.' You'd be very popular.”

“Wrong kind of clientele.”

“Because our current client base is so normal.” She frowned at the open refrigerator. “What
are
you working on right now?”

“It's a new one, kind of. I shouldn't have taken it.”

“Obviously.”

Another pause on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Say, I was hoping you could . . . I know it would be a huge hassle for you, but I was wondering if you could talk to Lauren for me and explain what's going on.”

Calliope's eyebrows drew together; she pushed the refrigerator door shut. “You can't call her?”

“It's really all I could manage to call you.”

“Whatever. They only allow you one call before they put you back in with—”

“Seriously.”

She nudged at the raised edge between the dining room carpet and kitchen tile with her toe. “Can we go back to talking about me in the shower?”

“It's all right if you don't want to. I'll understand.”

“You're going to owe me.”

She felt the relief on the other end of the line. “I'm going to owe you huge, Calli. Huge.”

“Yeah . . .” She wrapped an arm across her midsection, pulling the robe close. “That all you needed to wake me up at two in the morning for?”

“That and the shower thing. You're the best, Cal, I swear. Go back to sleep. Tell your guy I'm sorry about the call.”

“ 'Kay.” She glanced out the kitchen window at the pale streetlights. “Just be safe.”

“Don't worry about me. I'm fine.”

“Sure.”

“Safe as houses. Go to bed. Watch out for the hidden things.”

Her attention came back to the phone. “The hidden things what?”

The line was already dead. Calliope turned her gaze back to the window, the phone forgotten in her hand. Seconds passed before she shivered inside the folds of the robe, set the phone down on the counter, and headed back to the bedroom. The red LED of the clock read 1:48
^•
.

The clawed thing took the phone from Joshua. “She sounds . . . nice.”

Joshua snorted; his eyelids, glossy and dark, sagged. “Sure.”

The thing fidgeted, picking at the scraps of clothing clinging to its body. “I'm glad you decided to stay.”

“For now.” Joshua was looking at him, but his eyes were unfocused, watching something far in the past; something better. The wind outside pushed at the walls, tested the windows and roof while the creature watched the man. Shadows and memories and hidden things scrabbled through the darkness, taunting both and filling the space between them. “Long enough to get this straightened out.”

“You mean fix it.” The thing's face twisted; the damaged side a sneer, the other—the one Josh knew—a sad smile.

“I suppose.” Josh settled his shoulders, ignoring his exhaustion. “I made a promise, didn't I?”

“And you always keep your promises.”

He turned back to the window of the empty room. “I try.”

“You try.” The thing's voice was bitter. “Not when you won't—”

“Shut . . .” Joshua's voice was soft. His chin dropped toward his chest. “Just . . . shut up. I'm going to try.
We
will.” He half turned, really looking at the creature for the first time, then looking away. “Maybe we can't.
If
we can't, I'll head home and try to figure something else out.”

“Head home?” The thing's face twisted, caught between anger and a kind of grief that was older and much, much worse. “You
are
home, Josh.” It took a step toward him. “I thought you knew that.” Around it, the snickering, skittering, scraping things grew louder and louder, like locusts in the summer. The sound shook Joshua from his reverie; he looked from shadow to shadow, trying to track the source of the growing noise, his eyes going wide.

“Mikey?”

Thirteen seconds later, Joshua White was dead.

2

THERE WAS COFFEE
waiting by the time Calliope made it to the kitchen the next morning. Not a good sign. Tom's way of starting any kind of touchy conversation involved a preemptive peace offering.

She filled up a cup and took a drink, keeping her eyes on the mug. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Tom picked at his acoustic guitar while his own coffee cooled in front of him.

The guitar was another bad sign; he expected a fight. He'd unconsciously pick up the instrument whenever things got tense, as though using the rigid body as a shield.

“You didn't have to get up—”

“It's no problem,” he interrupted. He turned his attention to the guitar strings. “I was already awake anyway.”

It was a simple enough comment, but gave Calliope all the context she needed. “Yeah. I'm sorry about the phone call last night.”

Tom's eyes, barely visible behind lowered lashes, flicked over her clothes. “I assume Josh made it back into town all right?”

Calliope shook her head. “No, he—” She paused, processing what she'd seen. “Wait, what?” She scowled. “What's wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothing.” His eyes were blue and steady and beautiful and, at that exact moment, annoyed her. He reached for his coffee and took a drink, looking at nothing in particular over the rim of the cup. “You look nice.”

Calliope glanced down at the skirt she had on beneath her usual leather jacket. “You—” She cut herself off. He hated it when she analyzed him. “I've got a meeting with Lauren.”

He dropped his hands and his attention to the guitar strings. “Ah. Lauren.”

Calliope set her own cup down, hard. “What?”

“Nothing.” He tuned a string. “Josh's wife, right?”

Calliope's face and chest were hot, her hands cold. “Yes.”

Tom strummed a test chord. “I'm . . . sure that will be tough.” He glanced up and caught her expression—raised a hand in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, it's none of my business.”

“You're—”

“I don't have any right to comment on late-night phone calls with old boyfriends.”

“We
work
—”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

The tone in his voice—tired the way DMV workers and court bailiffs were tired—stopped her, drained the heat out of her chest. It was the sound of someone who had stopped listening, simply to protect himself.

And Calliope felt exactly the same way.

The kitchen was quiet, except for a few tuneless chords.

“I'm sorry, Tom.”

He searched her face, looking for the anger that usually accompanied this particular dance. His shoulders relaxed. “Hey, don't worry about it; it's a bad morning. I get—”

“I should never have asked you to move in.” She walked out of the kitchen, her voice echoing strangely back at her. “Pack your stuff. Get out of my house. I've got to go. I'm late.”

The house was quiet as she pulled the door shut behind her.

The air around the corner of Bush and Taylor changed when Vikous arrived.

It was a distinctly unmagical place—everything from the streets to the sidewalks to the head-down pedestrians colored in various shades of gray—but for a moment, the air changed: filled with a hush stolen from a magician's audience, thick with the sound of a daydreaming crowd.

A bus roared past a double-parked garbage truck, clouding the air with diesel smoke and timetables, and then he was there—hands jammed into his pockets, leaning against the cheap, painted façade of a three-story building as though he had been there all along—maybe he
had
been there all along, unnoticed. Pedestrians blinked, wondering what they'd been thinking about just then. A few checked their wallets as they walked by.

He was bundled in several layers of clothing under a threadbare trench coat, a hooded sweatshirt pulled up to cover his head and most of his face. Black eyes, shining like coat buttons, watched the building across from him. Watched the Jeep pull up outside. Watched a scowling Calliope Jenkins get out, unlock the door beneath a sign that read
WHITE INVESTIGATIONS
, and go inside.

By contrast, no one was watching Vikous. Passersby failed to acknowledge his presence even when forced to step around his (unusually large) feet. He didn't bother making apologies; did not in fact seem to see the other people on the street any more than they saw him. He watched the door Calliope had entered and for several minutes—almost a quarter of an hour—that was all he did. At 8:42, he pushed himself away from the building façade, shifted his shoulders underneath his coat, muttered something that might have been “time to get to work,” and started across the street.

He'd made it four steps past the curb when a police car pulled up in front of the White Investigations office. Two uniformed officers got out and went inside. Two minutes later they emerged, Calliope (looking even more grim) walking between them, got back into the car, and drove off.

“Great.” Vikous watched them go; it might be accurate to say he stared. “Just . . . great.”

Thirty-five minutes later, Calliope walked into Lauren Hollis-White's private office, under escort. Two men standing off to the side turned toward the door at her arrival. She ignored them and walked directly up to the woman's desk.

“Lauren.” Calliope's jaw was tight, her eyes bright. Lauren herself looked drawn and pale, but unsurprised by Calliope's entrance.

She extended her hand without standing. “Calliope.” Her eyes flickered. “I like that skirt.”

“Thanks,” Calliope said. “What the fuck's up with the cops?”

Lauren blinked, her arm still extended up and out at an awkward angle. She withdrew her hand and sat back. “It wasn't my idea.” She looked over to the two men who'd been watching the exchange. Her voice was clipped and tense.

The younger of the two stepped forward. His dark, curly hair was trimmed neatly and his face was friendly in a sad sort of way. “We apologize for bringing you down here this way, Ms. Jenkins. I'm Detective Darryl Johnson and this is Special Agent Walker.” He indicated the lanky, spare-framed man behind him. “We understand that you left a message with Mrs. Hollis-White's office this morning indicating you had information regarding her husband?”

Calliope nodded. She'd called early, during her drive to the office, knowing she'd get Lauren's answering service. “Is there a problem? I was supposed to—” She stopped. Lauren, staring out the window, had let out a strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Her eyes were wide and damp. Calli turned back to the detective. “What's—”

Agent Walker moved forward. “Miss Jenkins, Joshua White's body was found at approximately six
A.M.
this morning, just outside the city limits of Harper's Ferry, Iowa. Foul play was involved.” The corners of his mouth tugged down, as though he'd bitten into something that had gone foul. “No offense, but we were wondering what you knew about it.”

Calliope dropped into the chair behind her desk and sighed. Afternoon sunlight forced its way in through the dirty window across the room and lit up dust motes floating in its path before it fell, exhausted, across the worn carpet. She glared at the patch of light, then at her skirt. She had no idea why she'd worn it; she'd had no illusions that it would help when she met with Lauren, even before everything she found out this morning.

“Josh wanted me to tell Lauren that he was hung up on a job and wouldn't be back when he expected. He definitely didn't sound like he was in any kind of trouble.”

“You and Mr. White both work in the same private investigation agency, Ms. Jenkins?”

“We are the agency.”

“I see. And do you know the nature of this new contract?”

“No. Josh handled it. I only knew he was headed out of town and when he thought he'd get back, which was last night. I can check the office for records but I think he had everything with him—it was very short notice. Are you absolutely sure—”

“Don't you have family in that area of the country, Miss Jenkins?”

“ . . . What?”

“You're familiar with the area Mr. White was found in.”

“What? Harper's Ferry? Not really. It's hours from my family's place, and I haven't been back there in ten years.”

“Was Mr. White? Had he been in the region before?”

“Yeah. He grew up around there. We drove there, once, a few years ago.”

“What was the nature of that visit?”

Calliope stared at her desk and the stack of envelopes she'd dumped across it when she'd opened the office that morning—bills and junk mail. There was only one message on the machine. Calliope hit the playback.

“Calli, it's Josh.”

The connection was abysmal, even worse than it had been last night. “Listen, things have gotten a lot more complicated. It'd probably be better if you didn't tell Lauren about what's going on, at least until I figure everything out.”

Calliope stared at the machine. The next few seconds on the message were choked with static and nearly inaudible to her, smothered under the too-loud sound of her own breathing and the thump of her pulse. She started to lean closer, turning her head and lowering her ear toward the speaker to pick out anything she could, but the static suddenly cleared, leaving the recording so clear she could make out the rasp of Josh's stubble against the mouthpiece. “ . . . get hold of him and he'll be able to explain most of this to you. I'll see you soon.”