Ghosts of Christmas Past (2 page)

Chapter Two

Lucy wasn't sure which was worse—that she couldn't get Al to admit exactly how much of a dumbass he was being or that she was terrified of him being right.

At this point, she was shocked he'd ever unbent enough to have sex with her in the first place, with his talk of giving her space. He thought she'd change her mind about him. Now that this was real, a normal relationship, he was having trouble because he didn't trust what she felt.

They were together because they had a connection, not because of any weird mess in her head. You'd think he'd know that.

At least, they had a connection when he was around. Okay, so maybe they had two issues. And he was using the second to cover up the real problem, which was he was terrified to truly commit. He made room for her in his place but not in his life, certainly not the way he lived it. He thought she'd walk so he kept her at arm's length except in bed.

Space? Hah!

She drew in a deep breath, the cold air freezing her teeth. She wasn't just hanging around the Double C for Al, as her parents seemed to think she was. She'd built something here, even if she couldn't quite figure out how to square it with her old life. This was important.

Hanging around in that transient-artist place.
Damn Al for saying that.

As she walked the final block, she pulled her fedora lower to stop the snow from dripping onto her face. She'd grown to like hats from her time in costume as Noir. She wore Noir's black leather duster and boots too. Noir was a part of her. She had her name and most of her memories back but she didn't completely feel like Lucy yet.

Were Lucy and Noir the same person?

The blast of air that heated her face the instant she walked inside the colony was a welcome break from that thought.

And then she laughed at the clashing holiday displays that had sprung up overnight in their little art collective. To one side sat a metal tree made of old car parts, strung with blue lights that reflected the chrome and steel, and topped with a Smurf. That had to be Cassandra's doing. To the other side, there was a tree made totally of newspaper clippings. She stepped closer and realized all the clippings talked about atheism and the evils of religion and how even Christmas trees were pagan.

But in the middle? A traditional tree topped by a star, full of handmade paper ornaments. Was it revealing her normal suburban upbringing that she liked that one best? This was the first year she'd celebrated Christmas in a long time. Hell, it was the first Christmas she would even remember since she was seventeen.

Familiar and traditional would be good.

Music blared from the far end of the cavernous artists' residence, formerly a warehouse for auto parts. Wait, that was Christmas music, something that sounded like Frank Sinatra. That had to be Graham. He might also be the creator of the traditional tree.

Cassandra waved to her from behind her latest steel creation, a gray thing of tentacles and…something. It was at least twice as tall as its waiflike creator. Lucy wasn't sure what the thing was yet. She didn't think Cassandra knew either. The sculptress tended to work from the gut, only she used hippie words like “feeling the aura of the metal”.

The rest of the artists were either occupied in their spaces, some behind cubicle partitions, others simply isolated by headphones as they worked. She noticed many of the cubicles were decorated with garland or icicles. There must have been a holiday party last night. That explained why most of the artists were asleep. For a good chunk of them, this was home.

The landlords who'd repurposed this space in an attempt to prevent it from becoming derelict didn't care as long as things were well kept, though living here was probably breaking some zoning laws.

Like anyone cared about that in the Double C. Besides, people living here prevented break-ins. She knew that several residents had expensive audio and visual equipment. Where they'd gotten it, she didn't ask.

She walked past the high windows darkened with the storm's gloom and reached her own corner. She looked over at Graham's workspace. The remains of a book, pages and spine separated, sat on his workbench, which was basically plywood over two sawhorses. In a few days, that book would be transformed into something three-dimensional representing the story inside. The project must be holiday related—red and green paint sat next to the pages.

For now, it just looked like a mess. So was Graham, slumbering under a throw rug on his old couch.

Lucy sat at her stool and ran her hands over the tilted workbench. Her own easel and artist's table, and her own supply of pencils and brushes and crayons and papers.

Her parents had bought most of her supplies, eager to make up for lost time, especially since it'd been an argument about her need to be an artist that had first led her to run away at seventeen. They'd offered to build her a whole studio in their home on the last visit. She had said she'd think about it, but it seemed like a step backward, not forward. She was a full adult now, not an angry teen.

Her mother had nearly cried at her answer. Her parents didn't understand why she stayed in the Double C instead of moving back home. They offered her the studio, the fancy college, anything, really to get her to come back and live closer to them. And she put them off, without being able to explain why. She was caught between here and what they wanted.

This whole mess is my fault.

No, Beth Nakamora had told her to stop with the negative thinking. Yes, she'd run away at seventeen, but she'd been ready to go back home and deal with her parents when she'd been nabbed off the street and made into a lab specimen for six years. Blame her captors for that.

Al would definitely agree on blaming the killers. His broken arm, suffered while fighting her former captors, still ached, especially when the weather was bad. Good thing he wasn't an artist, he'd joked, because some days he couldn't hold a pencil. Never once had he even hinted his injuries were her fault. She suspected that thought had never occurred to him.

Lucy picked up her drawing pencil and flipped open her sketch pad. She'd told him to put the book away because she didn't want to show him the subject of her drawings.

Him.

She liked these last two sketches the best. The first was Al, standing at the entrance to a bank that had been the scene of a horrific crime. His hands were tucked into his pockets and his gun butt peeked out at his waist from the open overcoat. His tie was askew.

His eyes stared at an area marked
Crime Scene
, missing nothing. He stood as she'd first seen him, the first person she'd thought could actually be competent enough and would care enough to give a damn about helping her.

The overcoat, though unbuttoned, concealed much of what he really was. Oh, the broad shoulders were clear but the full physical strength of the man was hidden. What was evident was that whoever he was looking for had better start saying some prayers.

She labeled the drawing
Detective Fixit
, the ironic nickname given to him by other members of the force because he was called in on all the weird cases. Hardly anyone called him Captain James, and she never heard anyone use his full first name, Aloysius.

She flipped to the next page, labeled
Al
. He stood in the kitchen, wearing only his jeans. No shirt, no shoes, plenty of service because he was cooking her eggs for breakfast. Al was
fine
. Plus, he
noticed
things.

And she wasn't normal, anyway. They worked. Even Al had to admit that. For now. He was worried whether they'd work a year or even ten years from now.

“This is your guy? He's black?” Cassandra said from over her shoulder.

Lucy turned. “Yeah, is that a problem?”

“Nope, I just wanted to make sure I had it right,” Cassandra said. “Wait, he's a cop?”

“He's
my
cop.” Lucy flipped back to
Detective Fixit
. “See?” And she went back to shirtless Al. “And this is my guy.”

Cassandra whistled. “Okay, he's a feast for the eyes, but I don't know. A cop? You know what they're like in this city.”

The sculptress was wearing a tie-dye dress today, her long white hair pulled back by a similarly dyed scarf.

“Al's not like other cops,” Lucy said.

“Cops are the man. They're all kinda the same that way.”

“Not Al.”

“Maybe not now. Wait until power corrupts. That's what happens to all of them.”

“You're generalizing, Cassandra.” This is why she hadn't revealed Al was a cop until now. She liked Cassandra but the woman could be pedantic about “the man”. Though, she was right about most of the local police.

“Al would be the first to tell you way too many Double C cops are ill trained, incompetent or on the take. He's been trying to change that since they promoted him to captain, but it's only been a few months. Give him time.”

And Noir had helped him. Quietly, sneaking into homes here and there to collect evidence, using her invisibility to follow around suspects, among other things.

When she was Noir, Al never complained about their relationship. She liked being Noir. But she liked her art as well. Al's work consumed him. She needed her art
and
Noir. Why should she choose?

Cassandra nodded and patted Lucy's shoulder. “If he's your guy, okay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.”

“You'd like him, Cassandra.”

“Maybe I would,” she said. “So, you going to use these sketches in the show?”

“I don't know. You think they're that good?”

“They have life in them. You picked a great subject, even if it wasn't one I'd have picked. He must have been thrilled when he saw them.”

“I didn't show them to him. He'd be…” What? Angry? Embarrassed? Confused?

“He has a problem with your art?” Cassandra leaned against the easel. “Cops can be controlling.”

“Quit it, okay? Al's not controlling.” The opposite, actually.

“So what is it then? If you want a way to mellow him out about these sketches, I know some great sex tips that will have him agreeing to anything in the afterglow. Even for a cop.” She smiled.

“Sex isn't the problem,” Lucy said. “And he loves that I'm an artist. Al thinks…um, I think he thinks I deserve something better in my life. I'm not sure what he means by that. He said something about this being a transient-artist place this morning and asked why I was spinning my wheels here.”

“I've wondered the same myself. This is last-chance saloon, kid. Why would a nice girl from the suburbs hang out with the misfits?”

“I
am
a misfit. I just hide it better than the rest of you.” Al had said she didn't belong with him; now Cassandra was saying basically the same thing.
Ouch.
This morning blew chunks.

“So what's your latest project becoming, Cassandra?” A change of subject was definitely needed. “Are you going to put it in the big show? You're cutting it close with the timing.”

The director of the city's art museum had decided the best way to encourage new visitors was to have the local artists involved. So for six months, artwork from their group and a few others in the city would share space with the classics at the once-great Charlton City Museum of Art. The opening was in three days.

Just because they weren't being paid, it didn't make all this work a waste of time. Art was made to be experienced. Theirs would be.

“You can't rush art, but I'm going to try to have it ready. I'm calling it the
Soul of the Double C
,” Cassandra said.

Lucy tilted her head to get a different angle on the steel monstrosity, um, thing. Sculpture. “It's twisted and eye catching,” she allowed.

“Exactly!”

Cassandra's phone, tucked in a sling around her shoulders, sounded a train whistle. She started fumbling for it. The whistle was loud enough to startle Graham out of dreamland. He rolled over, fell off his couch and woke with a muffled cry of pain. Cassandra rushed over to help him.

Graham waved her off and stumbled to his feet. “I'm fine. Just answer your phone, Cassandra.” He rubbed his eyes, knocking some sleep from them. He scratched his skinny soul patch, black hair against his dark skin. “And keep it down next time, please.”

“It's no louder than your Christmas music,” Lucy said.

“Music isn't the same as a train whistle,” Graham said and frowned. “Cass, what's wrong? I was only teasing.”

Cassandra's face was pale, with her phone pressed to her ear. She attempted to sit on Lucy's stool and missed it, knocking it over. Lucy put her arm around Cassandra and led her over to Graham's couch.

“Yes, I'll call the second I see him. Yes, yes.”

Cassandra put the phone back in her sling and her head in her hands. Lucy knew that look. Somebody Cassandra loved was in trouble or worse.

“Honey, what's wrong?” Graham asked.

“Salvatore's missing. He never showed up for work today,” Cassandra whispered.

Salvatore. Lucy remembered a short, pudgy guy who sometimes visited the warehouse. He'd beamed at Cassandra. Or maybe doted on was a better way to put it. Cassandra said they'd been living together for two years. “Imagine, love after all my years alone? I'm just so grateful,” Cassandra had said.

“Maybe he's just skipping work,” Lucy said.

“No, Sal's very conscientious about work,” Cassandra said. “And I haven't seen him since
yesterday
morning when he left for work. This is bad.”

“Didn't you see him last night?” Lucy asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “I went to bed early and he's been working OT, so I thought he left early this morning to get more done at the office. Why wouldn't he call me? He always calls when something happens to upset the routine. He knows I worry.”