Page 6 of Concluded (The Bureau #13)

T he bench sat atop a rise along the edge of the beach.

“Sweetheart, you need to chill out,” said the pretty woman sitting next to Dee. “I’m half your size—do you really think I’m going to attack you?”

Dee took a few deep breaths and frowned at her. “Size doesn’t matter.”

She threw back her head and laughed, her long blonde hair resplendent in the sunshine.

More than just pretty, she was stunning.

She looked like someone in an advertisement, her skin glowing, her expensive blouse and skirt arranged just right, her teeth white and perfect.

More than that, she looked like someone who spent her days shopping in boutiques, nibbling in twee cafés, browsing the arts section in bookshops, meandering down long sandy beaches like the one currently in view.

“You’re funny,” she said and patted his knee. “I like you.”

“No, you don’t, and you can stop pretending you do. I’m nowhere near your league. I can’t even buy tickets to your league. But you’ve dragged me all the way from Portland to San Diego, and you clearly want something from me. Also, you scare the shit out of me.”

Dee wasn’t normally this honest. But for the past three days his mind had been like a glitter-filled cloud.

It was as if he’d been taking some really strong drugs, except he was sober as a judge.

Which probably meant he’d finally fallen over the edge into insanity—not that he’d ever been all that far from the edge—and he didn’t understand what was going on.

Maybe if he was straightforward, some of the confusion would untangle.

The woman, who’d said her name was Ashley Dunn, gave him an indulgent smile. “That’s sweet of you to say. And I told you what I want. Some of your magic.”

“I don’t know what that means. Why did you bring me here? What the hell is going on?”

Gazing placidly out at the waves, she acted as if he hadn’t said a word.

Dee could have stood up and walked away.

Theoretically. And yes, that would have left him stranded a thousand miles from home, but he’d been in worse predicaments.

He would manage somehow. Yet he remained seated, just as he’d stuck with Ashley over the past days, believing she truly did have something to offer him. An opportunity he’d never have again.

He also believed that whatever that thing was, it would come at a steep price.

The sun felt good on Dee’s head and neck.

Temps here were in the sixties, which wasn’t hot but was a lot warmer than back in Portland.

And the water was pretty. He hadn’t spent a lot of time near the coast, which was a little puzzling because he liked the ocean.

It was beautiful, mysterious, and potentially deadly.

Which, now that he thought of it, also described Ashley.

Dee had been having a surprisingly good day right before she showed up.

A real estate developer had bought a charm several weeks earlier in hopes of speeding up the city’s permitting process, and apparently he’d mentioned his success to a couple of buddies.

One of them, a real estate agent trying to sell a mansion in the West Hills, had eagerly shelled out five hundred bucks for one of Dee’s charms. And on the very same day, another of his pals had paid a thousand dollars for a charm that would improve his kid’s score on the law school admission test. That gave Dee enough cash to cover the rent and even splurge on a large Italian Combo from the pizza place down the street.

And then a beautiful woman had knocked on his door.

People like Ashley Dunn didn’t just come a-callin’, and Dee never gave his address to clients.

But he’d let her in anyway and listened to her little spiel about needing his help, and somehow within a few minutes he’d stuffed a few things into his suitcase and climbed into her Lexus.

That night she drove them only as far as Eugene, not chatting at all along the way, and checked them into a nice hotel.

Separate rooms. She’d ordered in a good dinner for him and then disappeared.

The next day got them to Ashland—another nice hotel—and the next to Sacramento.

And now here they were in San Diego, and he felt as if he’d been inside a dream or in a fugue state and was completely clueless.

“Did you… enchant me somehow?” A stupid question, except if he could work magic, it stood to reason that others could too.

Ashley chuckled and shook her head. “No, sweetheart. Let me tell you something important: I can’t make anybody do anything that they don’t want to do.”

“Um… what can you do, then?”

After regarding him for a moment, she twisted around to face the road instead of the beach.

Cars rolled by at a steady pace, the traffic constant but not heavy.

As Dee watched, an SUV with surfboards on a roof rack pulled over to the side, then two young men got out and started getting the boards down.

Ashley didn’t pay any attention to them.

But when a city bus appeared a moment later, her lips curled upward and her eyes narrowed.

Suddenly the bus accelerated sharply. It narrowly missed the SUV as it took the curve much too fast, and then it flew onward, cutting in and out of lanes to pass other vehicles. Brakes screeched and horns blared, but the bus zoomed away without slowing down.

“What the fuck?” Dee exclaimed. “That driver’s gonna cause an accident.”

She gave a slight shrug. “Maybe.”

“Did you…. How did…. Did you make that happen?”

“I planted a teeny little idea in the driver’s head. Just a suggestion. It wouldn’t have had any effect if he hadn’t wanted to do it. If he was perfectly content just toddling along, my itsy-bitsy nudge would have gone nowhere. But I guess somebody had a need for speed.”

Dee’s heart was speeding too. He began to stand up, but Ashley pulled him back down. “Chill,” she said.

“People might die.”

“People might. But we’re all going to die. There’s nothing you can do about it, and anyway, it’s not your problem.”

He felt sick—but he remained on the bench and didn’t even take out his phone. “How did you do that?” he rasped.

“It’s a talent I have. I can be persuasive when I want to be.” She fluttered her eyelashes in a parody of coquetry, but then her expression shifted and became more intense. “I brought you here to discuss your talents, not mine.”

“I can’t do… that.” He shuddered as he gestured in the general direction of the departed bus.

“Maybe not. But that’s why we’re interested in you—we like to have a variety of skill sets among us.”

He was going to ask who we was, but then he remembered his other recent visitor, Abe Ferencz. “Are you with the, um, Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs?”

Ashley snorted in an entirely undignified way.

“Hardly. I guess you could say we’re competitors.

Although that’s like saying a certain megalithic tech corporation owned by the world’s second richest person is a competitor of some kid cranking out zines on a vintage mimeograph machine.

The Bureau is small potatoes and old, old news. ”

Even though he didn’t want to hear the answer, he asked, “What business are you in?”

“The only one that matters, baby. Here’s the deal.

Every once in a while, that kid with the mimeo might stumble on something interesting.

Something potentially profitable, right?

And then the megalith looks into it. That’s what’s happening now.

The Bureau noticed you, and we want to see if you’re worth noticing.

” She spread her hands as if it was as simple as that.

The logical part of Dee, or maybe the part with a sense of self-preservation, wanted to tell her that the Bureau was mistaken, he wasn’t interesting, and if Ashley could give him enough cash to make his way home, this would be the end of things.

But there was another part too, and it wanted very badly to be noticed. It wanted— Dee wanted—to be something more than a broke-ass ex-con with a few minor magic tricks up his sleeve.

“So, sweetheart,” Ashley said, “what can you do?”

“Charms. I make charms.”

She cocked her head instead of scoffing, and that was already a win of sorts. But also scary. “Tell me more.”

“There’s not much more to tell. They’re good luck charms and the like.

I mean, they’re actually just rocks or sometimes little trinkets I find at thrift shops.

Costume jewelry, maybe. But clients say they want better luck or improved health or something like that.

Some clients are pretty specific, and others just sort of want their lives heading in a better direction.

I tell them the charms can do that for them. They pay me.”

“And do they work, Dee?”

He hesitated before answering. “Yeah. They usually do.” He didn’t mention that the charms also disintegrated into dust after use, because that seemed extra weird.

“Huh.” She squinted off into the distance, clearly deep in thought, while Dee wondered whether he should have done more to upsell his talents.

He also wondered whether Ashley had used her talent to get him to spill his little secret.

If so, and if she’d been telling the truth earlier, then he must have wanted to tell her.

And yeah, he probably had. His clients didn’t know that Dee created the charms he sold.

He always tried to give the impression that he’d found a stash of enchanted trinkets somewhere.

It was a small relief to finally tell someone the truth.

“Okay, Dee. How do you make these charms?”

He gnawed on his lip until it hurt. “It’s something my mom taught me.”