Ink and Bone(23)

Finley was aware of something else then, an almost giddy sense of relief, the sense of a weight being lifted. She’d heard her grandmother describe this, the feeling that came when you were doing what needed to be done. But she wasn’t doing anything. She was just sitting there.

“It’s been nearly a year now,” said Jones. “The Gleasons have hired other detectives before. And Mrs. Gleason? She’s brittle with grief. There’s a lot riding on this for her; she feels like it’s her last chance to find her daughter.”

Eloise nodded, whether in understanding or agreement Finley wasn’t sure.

“She knows the realities of the situation,” said Jones, looking down into his cup. “That a child not found in the first twenty-four hours is likely not to be found alive. But she hasn’t given up. She says that she can feel her daughter’s life force.”

He leaned with a very slight skepticism on the last two words. Finley knew that when Eloise and Jones first met, he’d not been a believer, not at all. Because of their many unexplainable experiences together, he now had a grudging acceptance of Eloise’s abilities. He trusted her, even if he didn’t understand her, Eloise had explained. It takes a big person to accept what they can’t intellectualize.

“Did you take her on?” Finley asked.

She didn’t imagine he’d be here if he hadn’t. But she had learned long ago not to seem like she knew things she couldn’t know. It made people uncomfortable.

“I did,” he said. “I didn’t see how I could turn her down.”

He was a thick man, solid on the earth, the kind of guy you’d call to fix your problems—get your kitten from a tree, watch your house while you’re away, help you find a missing loved one. It seemed to Finley that there were far too few totally reliable people around. People who did what they said they were going to do. People who showed up at the appointed time. That was why she liked Jones Cooper—a lot. He was everything her father wasn’t. Phil was flighty, unpredictable, prone to tantrums. Not that she had daddy issues.

Jones’s brow was creased with concern as he lifted a big hand to rub at his crown.

“You’re going to help?” Finley asked Eloise.

Finley knew that her grandmother was planning her trip to go see Ray, though an exact date had not been set. Soon, Eloise kept saying, as if she was waiting for something and didn’t want to say what. Finley suspected that Eloise was worried about leaving her alone, especially since Rainer showed up a few months ago. Finley had offered assurances; she wanted her grandmother to experience a little freedom, a little happiness. No one deserved it more.

“This one’s not mine,” said Eloise. She held Finley in a kind but unwavering gaze. Finley’s heart did a little dance. “It’s yours, Finley.”

Jones and Finley exchanged an awkward look. She saw a micro-expression cross his face. She’s just a kid. I can’t work with her. All the walls came up inside her. No way, she thought. I’m not doing what you do. Then they both turned their eyes to Eloise, who leaned back in her chair, took a sip from her coffee.

“Squeak-clink is yours,” said Eloise evenly, putting the putty-colored cup down on the table. “I’m just overhearing.”

Finley choked back a flutter of panic, a deep sense of resistance. She hadn’t done “The Work” yet, as Eloise liked to call it, not really, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. At the moment, Finley was thinking about psychology (maybe, probably)—which made her mom deliriously happy. It was a profession where Finley surmised her abilities might be helpful—though she couldn’t say how exactly. It was just an instinct.

The truth was that Finley wasn’t at all sure how she planned to use her “gifts.” The way Eloise lived, a slave to it, constantly in service to . . . them? Finley wasn’t certain that she wanted that for herself.

We are chosen, Eloise said ominously, more than once. We don’t choose. Finley had rankled at the idea of having no choice. The idea of fate, of a predetermined course to one’s life did not jell with her beliefs.

“How do you know I’m not the one overhearing it,” Finley said. She didn’t like the way she sounded, young and peevish.

“We both know it’s you, dear,” said Eloise, putting a gentle hand on Finley’s. “I’m sorry. I’d take it from you if I could.”

There was something strange about the way she said it, something unsettlingly final in her voice.

Finley glanced back and forth between Jones and Eloise. She expected Jones to speak up, to insist that it was Eloise he’d come for, not Finley. Instead, he cast his eyes down at the table. He grabbed onto the edge and gave it a little wobble. It was uneven. He looked underneath, presumably to determine the problem.

“You need to put something under there,” he said to Eloise. “To stabilize it.”

She raised her palms at him to indicate that he was free to do what needed doing but that if it were up to her it would wobble forever.

Jones got up and opened Eloise’s junk drawer, came back with a folded-up piece of cardboard, and kneeled down on the ground with a groan.

“How do you know that squeak-clink has anything to do with this?” asked Finley weakly. She pointed toward the papers on the table.

Eloise smiled, that sad, gentle smile she had. “You tell me,” she said. “Does it or doesn’t it?”