Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) (5 page)

“Ah! Then you will love what I came up with.” He thanked her for the bottle she handed up and grabbed another few squares of pizza.

Nahia tried not to look overeager as she slid the pizza box off the folder he’d carried in with him. The food had been amazing, and she would definitely be eating more of their food, if their pizza was any indication, but it was the company that had her flustered. She wasn’t normally impressed by guys in suits. They weren’t her speed and usually were more than a little uncomfortable with her choice of occupation. However, when they filled out said slate suit as nicely as Nico did, she could be moved to change her mind.

Her enjoyment of his company wasn’t merely predicated on the fact that he was really,
really
hot with his dark hair and eyes and those shoulders. She generally wasn’t that shallow. It was the conversation, she admitted with a sigh. He was great to talk to, and she didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to him about her work and hobbies, topics that had run off more than a couple people in her life. And while she attributed some of that comfort to the circumstances of their meeting, the subsequent interactions had been no less awesome.

“So what am I looking at here?” Nahia absently pawed underneath the cash drawer before her fingertips found and dragged out her reading glasses. Though she was loath to wear them most of the time, it had been a long enough day, and she could use the help.

Nico quickly boxed up the pizza and set it aside so she could spread the folder out between them, and dragged his stool over next to hers, sitting close enough to bump shoulders. Nahia closed her eyes and resolved to keep herself to no more than two beers, lest she start feeling a little freer to act on her impulses, whatever they may be.

“This,” he said as he pointed to the middle of the first page, “is the tax history of the house. It’s goes back to just before WWI.”

It was hard to pay attention when he smelled more enticing than even the pizza. “Okay. Should you even be showing me this?”

He gave her a sidelong glance and a wry smile. “Eh, probably not, so you can’t keep this. But! This isn’t even the interesting stuff.”

The next page was a handwritten genealogy chart on yellow legal-ruled paper in Nico’s blocky, confident scrawl. She picked it up for a closer look at the history of the single family going back to at least 1901, with notations like ‘stabbed in the house’, ‘drowned in the pool’, and ‘fell down the stairs’. She set the paper on the table between them and removed her glasses. “Is this right? Almost all of the McManus family that had been in the house died unnaturally?” She hoped she didn’t sound too excited when she asked. Excitement over someone’s untimely death could be thought a little unseemly for someone who didn’t hunt.

If Nico minded, he didn’t appear so. “And a lot of them did so in the house. I put a check next to the male members of the family, since the voice we heard was male.”

Nahia leaned over to look where he was pointing on the page, and when she glanced up, they were suddenly close enough that she became instantly ensnared in eyes were almost coffee brown with gold and black flecks. She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth right before he leaned in to do what she didn’t have nerve to ask of him.

It was a tentative brush of his lips against hers, experimental and much gentler than she would have anticipated from him. A quick touch and he was gone again. The second kiss was longer, his hand cradling her face while her own found purchase on his shoulder and braced against his knee as she leaned closer to him. When his tongue swept across the seam of her lips seeking entry, she gave in immediately, melting against him as he deepened the kiss.

Nico had known this had been coming from the moment they’d shaken hands. Her lips slippery soft, her mouth spicy hot, she tasted like heaven, a mix of beer and pizza and perfect. His hand found its way from her cheek to her hair, and he memorized each and every sensation. Her gossamer skin as she leaned into his touch, her sigh when he pulled back to change the angle of the kiss and take it deeper.

He swallowed her breathy sigh as he touched his tongue to hers, reveling in the bite of her nails in his shoulder. His free hand slid from her knee to her waist, moving her closer at the same time she swayed into him. The stool she was sitting on began to teeter precariously, and at the last moment he pulled her to him, pressing her flush against his body between his legs as the stool gave way and crashed to the floor.

They both looked at the fallen chair behind her as it rolled on the ground like it was writhing in pain. His arms were still tightly around her, a hand on her back and one cupping her neck. For her part, she’d yet to move away from him, her cheeks flushed, and touching her swollen lips with a look akin to wonder tinged with a bit of confusion. It started with a snort, his or hers, he didn’t know, a contagious hint of laughter that gave way to full blown giggles as she stepped over to right the chair.

“Okay then, now that we’ve got
that
out of the way,” she quipped, tucking a stray turquoise strand behind her ear and grinning shyly. She set the stool in its original spot, but didn’t take her seat right away, her hands hooked into her back pockets.

“I think I should say I’m sorry.” He met her speculative gaze with a steady one of his own. “Except I’m not.”

Her smile grew briefly, making her dark eyes sparkle for a second before she looked down at the chair. “Good. I’m not either.” She hopped back up on the stool and put her glasses back on, effectively putting some distance between them, though she was still sitting as close as before. “So what are your thoughts on curses?”

The change in topic was a little jarring, but not unexpected. The kiss had bordered on mind-blowing and Nico needed time to process, so it stood to reason that Nahia would, as well. He shifted in the chair to face her, grabbing his mostly empty beer and swirling around the contents. “In theory or in practice?”

Nahia closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest with a rueful grin. Of course he would just go with it. Nothing else about her life had scared him off, so why would she have thought this would? “In theory at this point. There are a lot of people who’ve died in that house in weird, unrelated ways. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

He shrugged and downed the rest of his beer, tossing it in the recycling bin behind her with very little effort. “Odd, yes, but I think it’s the last notation you want to see.” He flipped the list over to reveal the next page, which documented the last five people to die in the residence– a man, his wife, their two children, and the gardener.

As she perused the list, the story got stranger and stranger. “With the hedge clippers?
Jesus
.”

Nico nodded, eyes large with some unspoken horror. “Oh yeah. 1978. That was an ugly one. The clipping’s in the file if you want to look it over.” He paused after he said it. “No pun intended.”

When he said it that way, she was almost afraid to see it. “The whole family died in the house on the same day? Home invasion or something?”

Nico hummed and grimaced, rising from the stool and going to the pizza box for another small slice. “Murder suicide.”

“Jesus.” Well, if she was looking for a reason for the haunting, that would definitely qualify. It would also explain why the spirit was so restless and unhappy. It was also so much easier to deal with than a curse or voodoo. “And the house has been abandoned since then?”

Nico nodded. “Yeah. The bank foreclosed a long time ago, and most of their belongings were sold at auction. No one wanted to live in a place like that.” He reached over and pulled out a stapled sheaf of papers. “I got you the articles and the police reports so you could look through it, if you wanted.” He slid it across the counter to her.

Her fingers touched his as she reached for it, and she caught the quicksilver grin that ran across his lips. She closed the folder, intent on taking it with her to read at home. “Thank you so much for all of this.”

Nico shrugged and rose from the stool, tossing his jacket over his arm and grabbing the pizza box. “You’re very welcome. I’m happy to do it. I’m sorry we didn’t get to review everything tonight.”

As much as she wanted to find a reason to prolong the evening, she knew there wasn’t a lot she could do. Plus she now had a lot of reading and planning to do, in addition to reviewing the evidence. “No worries, I’ll get to it tonight when I get home.” She bent down to pull the remaining beers from the fridge, but froze when she felt his hand on her back. She looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow, finding him making a valiant effort at not staring at her ass. “Yes?”

He closed his eyes and took a step back with a look of self-recrimination. “Keep the beer.”

Nahia stood with smile. “Thank you again.” She could feel the uncertainty radiating off of him as she walked him to her back door. The last thing she wanted was for him to think the kiss wasn’t incredible. Sure, she went straight back into the work. It was that or be reduced to swooning. Still, it hadn’t been a rebuff. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, “Look, I—”

“Let me take you out. Tomorrow night. After work.”

They both laughed nervously at their jumbled simultaneous conversation. He looked at her inquisitively, and she held her hand up for him to continue. “I mean it. You, me, dinner, maybe a movie, whatever you want.”

She didn’t need to think about it, but made a show of staring at the ceiling and tapping her chin with a finger. “I don’t know…”

Nico rolled his eyes and leaned against the door. “You’re killin’ me, here, Nye.”

Nahia melted a little at her name on his lips, like a special caress to her ears. “Okay, Nico. Tomorrow night, call me when you get off and we’ll go from there.”

He smiled triumphantly and cupped her cheek briefly. “You won’t regret it.”

She held the door while he stepped out into the night. Sighing after she locked it, she leaned against it and stared at the ceiling. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Hoping for a mellow day, Nico was greeted with the first of two missing autistic, non-verbal children of the day. It was a double-edged sword for him, because they were hard to work, due to the fact that the victims tended to vanish like ghosts and didn’t speak, not to mention it was at least two hours once they found them to complete all the paperwork involved due to the coordinating agencies. It did not bode well for his date tonight.

He was able to catch his breath about four hours later, child located at the candy store eleven blocks from his house and happy as a clam, harried parents calmed, and the Urban Search and Rescue disregarded. Just paperwork left, but first, dinner reservations.

A little Italian place he knew, where the owners were practically his family, quiet and unassuming, with the best chicken piccata he’d ever had outside of his grandmother’s kitchen. He liked the idea of taking Nahia out, seeing her outside of the confines of the weird little side case they were now working. She was interesting, in addition to being gorgeous, and he wanted to know more about her. Though the kiss from the night before told him plenty.

Nico could remember everything about the moment it finally happened, her dark eyes wide and full of nervous anticipation, her soft lips, her scent like spicy citrus and jasmine mixed. The way her hand gripped his shoulder, her breathy little sigh when he—
dammit
. It was like a cascading loop in his brain that kept running at the most inappropriate times and playing hell with his ability to focus. He scrubbed a hand down his face and blew out a deep breath. He would see her tonight. That was all.

He was elbow deep in his report when his desk phone rang. He grabbed it, shoving it between his chin and shoulder without even looking at the caller ID. “Missing Persons, Detective Verrazzano.”

“You have no idea how much I love hearing that,” the happy voice sighed on the other end of the line.

“Ma!” Nico sat up in his chair on reflex, adjusting his posture after years of admonitions to not slouch.

“So you remember who I am, that’s a good start.”

“Jeez, Ma, I’m not that bad.” His three sisters all lived in the same neighborhood they’d grown up in on Staten Island, not very far from his mother, and thus saw her all the time with their spouses and bevy of grandkids. Though he called every Sunday night, Nico was convinced his mother would be happy with nothing less than daily calls from him, preferably twice. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know. Charlie’s over, she just dropped off the kids and they’re in the backyard with your father working on the treehouse. I swear, he is never going to be done with that damn thing!”

He smiled but didn’t comment, happy to let his mother continue to vent. She didn’t really mean any of it; it was just her way of keeping him in the loop of all the family news. He resumed working on his report, responding and now and then with a well-placed ‘hmm’ or ‘uh huh’.

“Dominic, are you even listening?”

He winced when she used his full name, but was grateful she didn’t bust out the middle one. “Yes, ma’am. Nonna’s tearing up the nursing home with her new boy-toy who is just a shade younger than dirt, Charlie and Tommy are due in December, hopefully before Christmas, you’re hoping it’s another girl because one granddaughter isn’t enough, Jules isn’t speaking to Bea or Charlie because they don’t approve of her boyfriend that you haven’t met yet, Beatrice is almost done with her business degree and needs to find a good husband, and Dad is making you crazy and needs to find something to do since he’s retired besides work on the treehouse.” His answer was greeted with stony silence, but he wasn’t worried, he just kept typing on his report while his mother worked up to a response.

“You do that just to annoy me.” He could hear the pout in her voice.

“No, Ma. I’m just at work and very good at the quick recap.” Barring anything unforeseen, he’d be getting out on time today, which worked out well considering his evening plans.

“Speaking of quick recap, when are you gonna settle down and give me grandchildren? You got a smart-aleck response for that?”

“Control to 2435,” his radio chirped from its spot in his desk charger.

Saved, by the job! “Ma, I gotta go. I got a case coming in.” He grabbed his radio and responded, writing down the information on a free margin of his desk calendar. As much as Nahia was rapidly staking out space in his brain, she was definitely not yet up as a topic of conversation with his mom.

“You know that answer is only going to work for so long.”

Nico fought off the reaction to the look he knew he was getting from over seven hundred miles away. “I know, Ma. I do have to go. I love you.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart.”

Once he hung up the phone, he dropped his head as he collected himself. He knew his mother meant well, even if she had all the subtlety of an earth mover. All he had to do now was make it through his day, and he would be golden. And then his pager went off, and he knew he’d spoken too soon.

Nahia flipped through the pictures on her laptop. It was either that or braid her hair again, and she’d already done that twice. The pictures were from the ghost hunt with Nico, and it was all she could do to concentrate on lighting, time stamps, and matching up with the audio. A labor intensive process facilitated by a slow day and the antsy-ness born of knowing that she was going out with Nico tonight.

Grown. She was a grown woman, and yet being with him, even for a short period of time, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl. It was kind of embarrassing. And the fact she kept coming back to that kiss in her mind was doing nothing to help her get past her acute case of googly eyes.

Nico was so gentle, and for whatever reason, that confused her, but not in a bad way. She wasn’t necessarily into the rough stuff, but he actually seemed kind of hesitant and as awed by the
thing
between them as she was. The connection seemed to grow every time they were in each other’s proximity, a kind of tether or gravity that kept them in each other’s orbits. She’d never felt anything like it and seriously had no idea what to make of it.

Yet, she felt no impulse to fight against it, which was equally odd. Any time in the past when she’d felt any kind of growing affection or intimacy beyond her comfort level, she was out the door without a backward glance or an apology. Relationships, at least the long-term kind, weren’t in her makeup, and she wasn’t upset by that. Now she found herself reflecting and questioning its wisdom. The whole thing made her feel…off, but not in a bad way.

“He must be something else,” a voice behind her startled her back into reality.

Magdalena, Mags to her, Lena to her clients, was Nahia’s upstairs tenant, the clairvoyant and physical medium. She had a talent for seeing things that were hidden and ferreting out information by simply touching or holding an object. As a result, shaking hands really wasn’t an option.

Nahia dismissed the observation with a wave of her hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The tiny redhead in the too-tight jeans and the low cut pink t-shirt gave her a knowing look as she walked over to the counter and hopped up on it, dangling her legs. “Really? So that picture of dust and a small figure in the lower right corner of the frame is really so interesting you feel the need to stare at it for five minutes?”

Nahia raised her chin defiantly and flipped her braid back over her shoulder, even as she moved to enlarge that portion of the photograph. “Maybe it is. Maybe I do.”

Mags snorted and casually put her hands on the counter on either side of her. “Cop, huh?” She turned her eyes up the ceiling in what Nahia knew was her way of communing with her senses. Her frighteningly accurate senses. “Pretty, not local. Tall, well-mannered gentleman, Italian—”

“Okay, knock it off. I get it.” If she let her go on, Mags would soon be telling her his inseam and underwear preference.

With a self-satisfied grin, the pixie hopped off the counter and affected an innocent shrug. “I was curious.”

“This,” Nahia pointed to the spot where her friend had been sitting, “right here, is why we keep you upstairs and away from the civilized folk.”

“Eh,” Mags sniffed as she stepped over to the tapestry that hid the entrance to her upstairs domain and Nahia’s business office. “You’re just mad because I know how often he talks to his mom and how many sisters he has.”

“You know what?” In her growing annoyance, Nahia looked around frantically for something to throw at her friend, finally seizing on a heavy glass paper weight.

Mags’ eyes widened in fear before narrowing shrewdly. “Fine, be that way.” She stuck out her tongue and disappeared behind the vivid tapestry in a flouncy huff, only to stick her head out a moment later. “And be careful when you hunt. Whatever this is,” she inclined her head toward the laptop, “it’s not good. It wasn’t in life and it sure as hell isn’t in death.”

And with that ominous proclamation, her pixie friend vanished again, just in time for her 3:30 appointment. When her client stopped by the checkout counter, Nahia attempted to look engrossed by her pictures, flipping through them, adjusting light, and circling things to examine closely. Before the young woman could speak, Nahia pointed to the tapestry, “All-Knowing Pixie of Doom and Gloom is upstairs, first door on the right.”

As she listened to the footsteps recede up the stairwell, she did what any self-respecting woman would do with a potentially terminal case of nerves. She unwound her braid and brushed it out again.