Jack and Djinn (The Houri Legends, #1)(54)

“Unlikely, sure,” Leila said, “but impossible? Didn’t we talk about impossibilities before? From what you’re telling me, this isn’t one or two odd little things. It’s several big things, almost too big too ignore, or to pretend it’s not what it looks like.”

Carson nodded and drank. “Yeah, that’s what part of me says, too. And I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Promise,” Leila said, smiling.

“Better not. But if something goes against everything you know to be true? What then?” Carson felt himself slurring a little. He should slow down on the drinks, but he didn’t want to. He liked the warm muzziness, the gentle floating of his mind. He liked not feeling as uptight about the whole business. Leila was easy to talk to, and easy on the eyes. It was past two in the morning at this point, and the last customer was walking out the door.

Leila considered before answering. “Well, it depends, I guess. If you can’t deny it, if it’s just there and obvious, despite the apparent ‘truth’ of things, then you can’t really keep insisting on what you think is true, can you? I mean, isn’t that just being obstinate? There’s so much about this world and about life that we can’t see, you know? Just because we haven’t seen something before doesn’t make it impossible.”

Leila came around from behind the bar and started lifting chairs onto tables. Carson stood up to help her, a little more unstable on his feet than he’d expected to be. Leila rolled her eyes, pushed him back to his stool, and sat him down. Her hands on his back were warm, the feeling of her touch was electric, sending thrills through him. He wanted her to keep her hands on him, but she moved away to finish putting up the chairs.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Carson said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept what you’ve always thought was impossible.” Leila had moved back behind the bar, wiping bottles with a rag. Carson watched her move, admiring the easy grace of her motions. She was light on her feet, every step smooth, every twist of her body as she performed the closing ritual flowing into the next. There was something airy about her, Carson thought. The idea seemed odd, even to Carson in his tipsy state, but it stuck with him as true all the same. She moved as if blown by a secret wind, like she was a leaf. She had a dancer’s body, he realized. Maybe that explained it. She must be a dancer.

Carson watched raptly as she took her hair out of its ponytail and shook it out to fall in glinting waves around her shoulders. But being a dancer didn’t explain the way her hair floated and fluttered as if blown by a breeze. There were no open doors, no windows, no fans, but her hair was definitely fluttering. That was the word, too, Carson thought. Fluttering.

She was standing at the bar counting the register drawer, her hands peeling bills in quick, sure motions that spoke of years of practice. She was standing still, but her hair was moving. Carson felt himself repeating his thoughts, but he couldn’t help it. He was watching her, mesmerized, and he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. It was weird, all this talking about the case and Miriam and the strange facts, and now Leila was part of the mystery. He considered asking her about her hair, but the words wouldn’t coalesce into a sentence that didn’t sound stupid. Excuse me, Leila, but your hair is being blown by a wind that doesn’t exist? That was just stupid.

Carson finished his drink, handed his credit card to Leila, and signed the slip with a sloppy signature, accepting one last drink. He’d lost count again. There may have been one or two he’d tossed back so quickly that he forgot to count them. Either way, the room was wobbling a little as Leila shut off the lights in the kitchen and locked the drawer in the office, sitting down next to Carson with a Styrofoam cup of Coke. Carson could smell rum in the Coke and on her breath. She was sitting close to him, her shoulder brushing his, her thigh nudging his as she bounced her knee absently. He was acutely aware of every point of contact between them; her presence grounded him, in some indefinable way, keeping his spinning world centered.

“So, what are you going to do about the case?” she asked, toying with a matchbook. She lit a match, watched it burn down toward her fingertips. Before it could burn her fingers, it puffed out as if blown by an unseen wind.

“I don’t know. Legally, technically, what she did was manslaughter. She should’ve reported Ben to the authorities and let them deal with him. But, speaking as one of the authorities, by the time she did that, there’s no telling where he would’ve gone. He might’ve disappeared before we could catch him, and, in reality, there are just too many other cases to investigate. To be honest, I doubt we’d have spent much time chasing him. I investigated his death, but along the way he turned out to be an * who deserved what he got.”

Carson drained the last of his drink, chewing an ice cube as he spoke. “I know what I should do, according to the specifications of my job, but I just don’t think I can. I became a cop to get justice for people. There were other reasons, but that was one of them. Miriam did the only thing she could do in those circumstances, and I can’t make myself arrest her for it. And even if I did, proving anything at all, for her or against her, would be impossible anyway. But…it’s like—it’s ethics versus morals, you know?”

Leila nodded, bumped her shoulder against his. “Hey, all you can do is what you think is right, you know? For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right choice.”