Constance (Constance #1)(26)

Locking herself in a coffee shop bathroom, she stripped to her underwear and washed in the sink with paper towels and hand soap. The perfume samples she’d scavenged from the drugstore helped mask the smell of the dumpster a little, but only a little. When Awaken the Ghosts had been on the road, Con had grown accustomed to guerilla personal hygiene. Stephie called it a French bath. Tragically, the three boys in the band hadn’t shown much interest in soap. Con remembered the awful way Tommy would smell after a few days cooped up in the van. It had driven her crazy at the time, but now with the benefit of distance, she almost felt nostalgic for the toxic cloud that trailed after the band’s keyboardist.

Her hair didn’t go nearly as well. The back of her head had fused into clumps in the Palingenesis womb, and she couldn’t even get the hairbrush through it. She should have bought a pair of scissors instead. Scratch that, she’d need a machete to make any meaningful progress. Last came makeup, which, again, was a struggle for her hands as she applied foundation and eye shadow to mask the weird perfection of her newborn skin. Muscle memory seemed to be taking the longest to relearn. When she stepped back to assess her progress, she knew her dream of a movie makeover wasn’t in the cards. Not totally tragic looked to be the best she could do. She hoped it would be enough.



She was nearly an hour late to meet the detective from Virginia. The inside of the restaurant was all dark wood and gloomy lighting that made it feel like instant midnight. The lunch rush was in full swing. Every stool at the bar was taken, as were most of the tables, mostly parties of three or four, but several men ate alone. Con realized she didn’t know Darius Clarke from Adam. Everyone looked like a cop to her. Probably were, too, since the restaurant was only a few blocks from the courts and MPD headquarters. Either that or the cheap-suit convention was in town.

Toward the back, a Black man in a blue suit waved her over.

“Darius Clarke?” she asked, sliding into the booth across from him.

He nodded, not pausing from his lunch to offer her a hand to shake. “Trouble finding the place?” he asked, mouth full.

“Sorry. Trains were delayed.”

“DC,” he said with the enthusiasm of a man who’d found an undiagnosed growth on his back.

Up close, she realized he was younger than his voice. No more than thirty. Some people just got a head start on being old bastards, and Darius Clarke seemed ready to be fitted for a rocking chair, a porch, and a view he didn’t much care for. His short, meticulously groomed beard drew to a sharp point, and black glasses framed sharp, incisive eyes. It lent him a stern professorial aspect. A harsh grader who took pride in never giving an A.

“What,” he asked, brow furrowing, “is that smell?”

Didn’t look like the perfume had done the trick after all.

“Ethiopian food,” she said, implying she’d had it for lunch.

“What’d you do, bathe in it?” He dropped his fork operatically, appetite apparently gone, and pushed the plate away. Wiping his mouth with a corner of his napkin, he looked her up and down. More than looking. Analyzing.

“Something the matter?” she asked.

“Never seen one of you up close,” he said, as if she were an attraction at a carnival and he’d paid for a ticket to gawk at the freak.

His matter-of-fact tone shook her, but at the same time, she preferred he say it to her face. Growing up mixed, it had always been the whispers just out of earshot that got under her skin the most. Whatever it was he was thinking, better to have it out in the open. That way, at least, she knew exactly what she was dealing with. Still, it didn’t prevent her temper from flaring. She didn’t have a long history of biting her tongue, but she recognized that running her mouth wouldn’t get her anywhere. Instead, she gave him what she saw he wanted, lowering her eyes and apologizing a second time for being late. It did the trick. He relaxed now that he thought they’d established who was in charge.

She reached for the menu. “Would it be cool if I got something to eat?” Despite her big breakfast, she was already hungry again. It wouldn’t kill the Commonwealth of Virginia to pick up the tab.

He snatched the menu away. “Hey, we’re not having lunch. This isn’t a date. I need you to answer a couple questions, and then I’m getting back on the road. I’m late as it is.”

“Come on,” she said, giving him her biggest eyes. “I’ll eat fast.”

His expression indicated he was distinctly unwooed. “Feel free to order whatever you want. After I’m gone.”

He set a recorder on the table between them and recited his name, his badge number, and the time, date, and location.

“Initial interview with the clone of Constance Ada D’Arcy.” He said clone the way other people said pedophile. “How old are you?”

She sat there and said nothing. At least he had the dignity not to repeat his question; she’d give him that much. He stopped the recorder, tongue searching his teeth for any scraps of his lunch. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to antagonize him, but she had the feeling that if she let him bulldoze her, it would become a habit fast.

“I thought you had Ethiopian,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’m malnourished.”

“Fine.” He dropped the menu back in front of her. “What do you want?”

Con flagged down a passing waiter and ordered the first thing she saw on the menu, not wanting to give the son of a bitch the chance to change his mind. It had been a minute since she’d had meat loaf. What was it they said about beggars and choosers?