Page 19 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

Tallus

B y ten in the morning, utterly sick with worry and convinced Diem wasn’t coming home, I reluctantly dressed and went to the office.

Nothing had changed. It remained as lifeless as it had been the previous night when I’d checked.

No sign that Diem had been on the computer.

No new garbage in the pail. Every pen and paper clip was in the exact same spot.

His chair hadn’t moved positions. The shade on the window remained pulled, and he only did that when the afternoon sun made a glare on his screen.

He opened it in the morning because Diem liked the birds who perched on the windowsill and sang.

I suspected he fed them, but when asked, he vehemently denied it.

Diem hadn’t come home.

He wasn’t at work.

His Jeep sat cold in the parking garage at our apartment building.

Something was wrong. I felt it in my bones. Diem was moody and prone to instability, but this wasn’t like him .

Numb, I sat at the reception desk and stared at my phone, wanting to call someone but partly convinced I was overreacting.

Diem had often told me that I needed to slow down, think, and stop jumping to instant conclusions.

I could hear him inside my head, and I missed him with unexpected urgency and desperation.

Over the past year, the surly guy burrowed into my chest and made a home in my heart.

I would rather he bitch and moan about my irritatingly childish behavior than vanish without a word.

Our argument was clearly more serious than I realized. Had he gone to a motel? Was he drunk and passed out in an alley somewhere?

Had he been arrested?

My eyes widened. “Oh, god. That’s it. Diem, what have you done?” The possibility was real. When Diem’s temper flared, he sometimes struggled to rein it in. Had he mouthed off to a cop? Punched a hole in a stranger’s windshield?

What about Echo?

I thumbed my phone, spinning it in circles and wishing it would ring. The silence ate at me. Poor sleep added a layer of fog to my rational thinking, and I jumped at car doors slamming and horns honking. When a man shouted outside the window, I launched from the desk to see if it was Diem.

It wasn’t.

I mindlessly checked emails, but the jumbled words were meaningless. I shifted papers from one side of the desk to the other and back, opened a few folders, and closed them again. I sat in Diem’s office and scanned, looking for clues that weren’t there.

When Memphis texted at eleven, our usual catch-up time on weekdays, I ignored him.

At ten to twelve, I called the records department, hoping Kitty hadn’t taken an early lunch .

“Good afternoon,” she sang into the phone with far too much cheer. “You’ve reached the records department at Toronto Police Headquarters. This is—”

“Hey, Kitty. It’s Tallus.” Before she could get a word in, I unraveled.

“Diem’s missing. Like gone. Vanished. Poof .

Please do your witchy magic thing and tell me where he is.

I’ll pay you. I’m ten seconds from freaking out.

Scratch that. I’m ten-plus hours into the biggest panic attack of my life, and I’m about to report him missing, but that feels drastic.

Is it drastic? How do I know if it’s drastic?

If I’m wrong, he’ll be angrier than when he left the house last night, and despite how it looks, I go out of my way not to upset him.

It wasn’t my fault. I swear. There was the stupid card and the money, then the stupid, boring case he wanted to pawn off on me, and I was so hungry despite the food you left me.

“I didn’t share it, by the way. I ate it all like the gluttonous pig I am.

Do you know how moody I get when I’m hungry?

This was worse. I was a petulant little brat.

He said so. He used those words. It hurt my feelings, but he was right.

I can’t be reasoned with when I move into that stage of hunger.

He said things, then I said things, then doors slammed, and he took Echo and left.

He said he was going to visit his nana, but he didn’t come home, and it’s been, like, sixteen hours, Kitty. Sixteen! What am I going to do?”

I whimpered and hugged my phone to my ear, needing my co-worker’s loving embrace more than I could articulate. Or at least advice.

She didn’t speak for a long time, so I whined, “Kitty, please. Tell me what to do.”

“Well, start with a deep breath. I’m sure it’s nothing. Have you checked the office? ”

“I’m at the office. He hasn’t been here all night. There would be signs, and there are no signs. I looked. I checked. I put on my investigator pants, and I swear he’s not been here.”

“You’ve called him.”

“At least ten billion times, and I’ve left over two dozen messages. Is he breaking up with me? Is he dead?”

“No, sweetie. You know how Diem gets. He needs space when he’s processing. I bet he’s driving around the city—”

“His Jeep’s at home. He left on foot and never came back. All night.”

More silence. “Well, that is a pickle, isn’t it?”

“Don’t say that. No pickles. You’re a witch. Do your magic. Can’t you mind meld him or whatever it is you do that makes you all-knowing? Tell him to come home. Tell him I’m sorry, and I’ll never be a petulant brat again. Tell him—”

“Sixteen hours?”

“Yes.”

“Hang on.” The line clicked, and grating Musak came through the speaker. She’d put me on hold.

“Goddammit. I don’t have time for this, Kitty. Come back.”

She returned a minute later. “He’s not answering my calls either.”

“Oh my god. That’s bad. He always takes your calls. Do I panic? I feel like I should panic. I’m panicking.”

“Now, now. I think it’s premature to panic. Let me think.”

“How can you be so calm?”

“Hang on.”

“Kitty, don’t!” But she was already gone again. “Dammit.” The birds on the window ledge cocked their heads. “Shut up. He’s not here. Get a worm or something. This isn’t a restaurant, and I don’t know where he hides the birdseed. ”

They refused to leave—stupid birds—so I slapped the pane, and they scattered in a flurry of feathers. Leaning my head on the cool glass, I peered at the street below, at the traffic, the pedestrians, and the fast-moving city life. Diem was not among them. He was nowhere.

It took seven and a half minutes before Kitty returned that time. “He hasn’t been arrested.”

“Are you sure? I thought of that.”

“Positive. Have you called the nursing home to see if he showed up last night? Perhaps Hazel wasn’t doing well, and he stayed with her or went back this morning.”

I gasped. “That’s it. Oh my god. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s genius. He’s at the nursing home. Thanks, Kitty. I gotta go.”

“Tallus, I haven’t even—”

I disconnected and performed a Google search for Evergreen Estates’ phone number, convinced the answer was that simple. Five minutes later, after being bounced from one person to the next, I hung up and buried my face in my hands as defeat slammed the door on my positive thinking.

Diem had visited his nana the previous night, but he’d signed out at eight thirty-six and hadn’t been back. Of course that wasn’t it. If his nana was unwell, Diem would have let me know, even if he was upset. If his mind was muddled, he would have at least taken my phone calls.

Frustrated and drained, I grabbed my car keys and locked the office. I would check at home one more time, and if he still wasn’t there, I would report him as missing.

** *

The apartment was as quiet and empty as when I left earlier. I completed a walk-through to be sure, studying every detail in case Diem had briefly slipped in while I was away. Nothing. No sign of him. Even the few pieces of kibble in Echo’s food dish remained.

Adults didn’t vanish into thin air. Sometimes, they took off, like wives escaping abusive husbands or teenagers following young love across the country without telling their parents.

Semi-stable adults with semi-stable jobs and Jeeps and bratty boyfriends and apartments and therapy appointments penned on the calendar stuck to the fridge didn’t up and disappear without a reason.

Right?

Right?

Except they did all the time, and maybe they got tired of said bratty boyfriend and decided they would rather take off than endure a single minute longer in their presence.

No. It wasn’t like that. People disappeared for other reasons.

I’d seen the files come through from MPU.

Children and adults alike. Many of them went unsolved, but not Diem.

It wouldn’t happen to my Diem. Not with his size.

Not with his aggressive personality. Who in their right mind would try to kidnap Diem?

Plus, he had a dog with him. A dog was an extra layer of protection, wasn’t it?

Moaning, I collapsed on the couch and considered calling my contact in MPU for advice.

Detective Quaid Valor was best friends with my cousin.

So far as I knew, he was on parental leave, but he would know if my situation warranted filing a report.

He wouldn’t mind talking to me, would he?

I would have to call Costa to get Quaid’s personal number.

That was what I’d do. Call Costa. Contact Quaid Valor.

What choice did I have? I was running out of options.

Before I made up my mind, the phone rang .

I scrambled to retrieve it from my pocket, adrenaline spiking when I considered it might be Diem finally returning my call. It wasn’t. The number for the Toronto Police Headquarters flashed on the screen.

I connected, slumping on the couch. “Hey, Kitty. Anything? Please tell me he’s not dead. I haven’t called the morgue yet, but I don’t want to. I can’t accept it. Not now. Not when we’re finally having good sex.”

“Sweetie, the less I know about your sex life, the better.”

“Oh, shut up. You and your witchy magic already know way more than I’ve ever shared. Don’t pretend otherwise.”