A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(107)

“I’ll check with the roommate, hold on.” Then I was listening to silence on hold.

I went to Emma, who was between customers. “I have to go to work, please hug Jamie for me.”

“The hugging is easy.” Then her eyes were less full of smiles and more serious. “But whatever is at work is bad, isn’t it?”

“Don’t try to read me on this one, Emma, because you don’t want these images in your head.”

She nodded, almost briskly, sending her thick hair bobbing. “It’s more your emotions that I’m reading, but I’ll shield harder.”

“Thanks, and thanks for all you’ve done for Jamie.”

She was all smiles again. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

I realized I didn’t have to wait for a picture. “The blonde in the café, what was her name again?”

Emma looked less happy. “I thought you had better taste than that, Zaniel.”

“I do, but there’s been another incident on campus and we’re trying to locate a girl who dyed her hair blond recently and that wasn’t her natural hair color, so just checking before I run off to the university to look.”

“Oh,” Emma said, “it’s Shelby Jackson and she dyed her hair a week ago, or less. Is that the name?”

“I’m waiting to see a second picture to make sure of the face, but now I’ll just check the name.”

“Havoc, sending you another photo,” Charleston said in my ear.

“What’s the name of the blonde?”

“Shelby Jackson.”

“She’s next door to my location, sir.”

“Where?”

“The Cozy Cauldron, it’s a tea and coffee shop just off campus two doors down from the metaphysical shop I’m at.”

“You’re at Harm None?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good shop, now get eyes on Shelby Jackson.”

“Moving that way now, sir, can I tell her she’s in danger?”

“We don’t know that she is in danger, so just keep an eye on her. We’re not supposed to start a panic if it can be avoided. If any demons show up, then the panic will start without us.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, sir, the coffee shop is packed with customers.” I waved at Emma and went for the door.

“I’ll send uniforms your way ASAP, Havoc.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

“Havoc, be careful; the demon or whatever it is just tore the latest victim’s boyfriend into pieces.”

“You mentioned it, Lieutenant.”

“I wanted to mention it a little more forcefully since you’re on your own.”

“Thanks, I understand what’s at stake.”

“Good, uniforms are en route to you.”

“I’m going in.” I reached for the door.

“Keep your phone to your ear and pretend to be having a normal conversation while you order your coffee.”

“Can do,” I said, voice already heartier and guy-guy than my normal. I was dressed like I was headed to the gym in a tank top cut to expose more of my muscles than normal; the usual guy who went with that had a certain attitude. I fell into that attitude and undercover between one step and the next. I was now playing the part of a guy who had been with friends and come back to check out someone that he didn’t want his friends to see him with, or maybe tell his wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend.

“I’m just getting another cup of coffee. I’ll meet you after. What’s with all the questions, honey bunny?” I said.

Charleston said on the phone, “You always did do good undercover.”

“You say the nicest things, baby.”

Charleston chuckled.

I chuckled back like he’d said something sexy. I made it the guy equivalent of that laugh that turns heads in bars. People in the line glanced my way, but the only person I cared about was still sitting in her booth across the restaurant. She was too far away to hear the laugh and she’d been joined by a man who was as tall and blond as she was; Reggie called couples like that Barbie and Ken couples. It had taken me years to figure out that there was a certain amount of envy in the teasing. We’d even talked in therapy about her desire to be blond and blue-eyed as a little girl instead of the Hispanic beauty she was; since I preferred dark hair to blond I hadn’t had much to add to the conversation.

I also knew that Barbie had been a brunette less than a week ago, which would have amused Reggie. It made me want her with me to share the joke. I stopped being the confident dudebro who was trying to cheat and started to sink back into myself. I didn’t want to cheat, I wanted to go home to Reggie so bad it literally hurt.

“Whoever is making you so unhappy on the phone should lighten up,” a woman standing behind me said. She had short brown hair styled to follow the curve of her oval face. The makeup was understated except for the lipstick, which was a red so bright it made her lips the first thing I saw. They looked small and full and kissable, but she needed darker eye shadow to balance it, because I had to fight to make myself notice that her eyes were gray, or maybe I just preferred that shade of lipstick on my wife.

“What’s going on, Havoc?” Charleston asked in my ear.