Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files)

L
AST
I
MPRESSIONS

T
HE
M
ARNIE
B
ARANUIK
F
ILES
,

B
OOK
T
HREE

A.J. A
ALTO

Booktrope Editions

Seattle, WA 2014

COPYRIGHT 2014 A.J. AALTO

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Cover Design by Greg Simanson

Edited by Rafe Brox

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-434-2

EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-424-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910391

This time, I am totally
not
letting my editor write this for me, because he'll make me dedicate it to Tim Horton's and Fireball whiskey and the company that makes all my sex toys, and I will die of embarrassment so completely that I won't be able to show my face in a coffee house or sex emporium again. And then I will be bereft of both caffeine and orgasms, and
will
want to die for realsie-reals. (Author’s note: obviously, my editor DID write that bit, because everyone knows I wouldn’t use a highfalutin word like “bereft.”)

I’d like to thank my future Chief Science Officer, Gordon Bonnett of Skeptophilia fame, who is always there to inspire me when I need
him, and to answer my
hey-this-isn’t-quite-science-but-what-if
questions
like an open-minded pro. Someday, when I rule the galaxy, your
giant brain is gonna come in real handy, Gordon; I should maybe keep it in the freezer until then.

I owe a huge thanks to Constable Jack Sawatsky of the Peel
Regional Police for walking me through Canadian police procedures
and investigative techniques. Sorry I got you stabbed on our first
hike, Jack. Thanks for tolerating my ditzy research questions about the
law, life, and death; for letting me drag you from abandoned
graveyard to canal to “crime scene” to haunted tunnel, and for never asking,
“You wanna go
where,
now?”; for never saying “no,” even when the
timing sucked or the weather was hideous or the path was
inaccessible, and for always insisting on going first wherever the terrain was iffy.
Finally, even though I’m fairly certain you’re Batman, if you don’t
stop flicking salt on the table, I will spin-kick your ass through a window. Hey, check me out, threatening a cop in writing. So much sass.

Last but never least, I’d like to thank my long-suffering editor
Rafe Brox, who probably still has a sprained face from all the eye-
rolling I’ve caused. For your patience, insight, fortitude, and sense of
humor,
thank you a million-billion times, Rafe. You are completely
irreplaceable… so don’t croak yet, eh?

[
Ribbit. Soorry.
- Ed.]

For Jennifer

My dark angel, my outlier, my rule breaker, my heart.

MY SHADOW STEPPED
on Sheriff Rob Hood’s all the way across the parking lot, slicing a mismatched but merciful pair of respites
from the glittering mica underfoot. Though it was November and bone-bitingly cold, snow had yet to fall; the asphalt was gritty but
dry. I found I was anxious for the crackle of ice underfoot, the same way I’m always restless for the first wild thunderstorms of spring. The
wind whisked away my breath in ragged clouds, and the chill
seeped through two pairs of socks and my navy blue Keds to curl my toes,
the skin on my thighs chilled and taut right through my jeans and a pair of silk and cashmere long-johns. There might have been a boogercicle forming at the tip of my nose, but it had already gone
numb.

“It’s only four and the sun’s weakening,” I said. “It’ll be dark before supper.”

My companion liked to walk in silence. In fact, the sheriff of
Lambert County could sit on my couch for hours and say nothing at all, and often did. That was okay with me. After all the shit I’d been through,
his familiar presence — non-threatening, yet capable and generally
good-
natured — was a comfort. Fortunately for him, there were few calls
for
serious sheriffing, so he could usually get away with doing it as
much as he did; today, he hadn't.

“That’s the least depressing thing I’ve heard all day,” Hood
muttered
uncharacteristically. More than the swirling red and blue lights of
the patrol cars or the sight of his haphazardly-parked olive drab
Hummer H1, the tone of his voice put me on edge.

“What have you got here, anyway?” I asked.

“There was a standoff. The driver of the truck shot himself
point-blank in the face.”

“Gross. Why’d you call me?”

“It grew back.”

My Keds came to a crunching halt, and I gave him my best hairy eyeball. I'd been practicing it in my bathroom mirror, along with several other facial expressions inspired by Special Agent Heather Golden and her attitude problem. I arched an eyebrow, too. I knew it
was an awesome arch. Totally skeptical and challenging and
dubious of his authority. Unfortunately, it went unnoticed underneath my dark grey knit hat with its chorus line of frogs around the trim.

A white and blue eighteen-wheeler was half-jackknifed across
the road by the tunnel's entrance, its rear axles slewed onto the soft
shoulder with barely five feet of rocky grit between two-lane
hardtop and a thirty-foot drop into the winding Redfern River.

“And when, exactly, were you planning on telling me about that little trick?” I asked. “Is the driver alive?”

“You’re the expert, Mars,” Hood grumbled.

At some point in Hood’s timeline of affection I had earned the dubiously-convivial nickname, “Mars.” It was cute, but I was wary; it’d be far too easy for the tiny romantic hitchhiker in my brain to believe a nickname meant something more than it actually did. I forced myself not to think about it.

“So, where's the not-so-stiff?”

Hood grimaced and indicated an SUV belonging to the State
patrol. In the back seat was a young man with a head of floppy blond hair with a pronounced pink stain and a left cheek like
chipped beef.

“Well, he’s not a revenant,” I said. “It might not be middle-of-summer bright, but it’s not late enough for the undead to be driving around with confidence unless he's got painted-over windows and a periscope. One break in the overcast and
poof.
”

Hood’s Stetson bobbed. “What are the other options?”

“Based on the speed of his recuperation, some form of
lycanthrope, I’m guessing.”

“Don’t guess,” Hood said in a very unfriendly flavor of Cop Voice, the one I forgot he could pull off because he was so
perpetually amiable. “We can’t afford to guess. Lycanthropy can be contagious depending on the phase of the moon.”

Point: Hood.
I was impressed that he knew that, but let him finish.

“I’ve got splatter everywhere, both in the cab and on the road.”

Numbered yellow markers pointed out the globs. I picked out the familiar form of my sometimes partner, Agent Elian de Cabrera of the FBI’s Preternatural Crimes Unit, stepping carefully to one side of the carnage as he came to fall into step beside us.

“Hey, Baranuik. About time you showed,” de Cabrera said, jerking his chin at me. “What kept you?”

“Cut me some slack, Cuban. I was on a date,” I said.

He barked a laugh, which Hood worked hard at not echoing.
“Good one,” de Cabrera said.

“I know, right? What’s a date?” I agreed. “I’d almost forgotten.”

“Wait, like a real date? With a man?” he amended, bending to hear me over the squawk of radios. “A living, breathing man?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, one of those strange creatures. You
should try it yourself. Seduce him with your coffee and dance moves and biker booty. Whatever. He was nice, too.” That was a lie. My date was a total dickweasel; I’d rather stick a lit match in my eye than suffer through another meal with Richard Binswanger. He’d ordered
for me without asking what I liked and spent most of the meal
droning
on about what a drag it was that people envied him so much. I
envied
the people who were at every other table, and who could escape
their lunches without faking epic menstrual cramps or food poisoning. I had already mentally recited half the script of
Spaceballs
by the time Hood’s call came in.