Page 51 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes

“D-DICK…DICKWOMBLE.” The loud voice startles us both.

“Afternoon, Dave,” Dusty and I say simultaneously.

I turn my head to find the sweet, little, dark-haired Scottish guy standing a few feet from the end of the table. Locked in a perpetual death cycle since we still haven’t managed to figure out his unfinished business, he looks exactly as he did when he died, soaking wet and minus his shoes.

“Afternoon.” He nods his head and gives us a little wave and a smile. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you.” I smile warmly at him. I really do have a soft spot for him. “Do you have plans for the day?” He usually likes to walk around London, but then again—I glance out the window—it’s more likeThe Day After Tomorrowout there.

“No plans today,” Dave answers, his tic causing his shoulder to shrug continuously.

I reach for the zip on the bag in front of me, which creaks when I lower it.

“Whoa.” I lean back, blinking, and Dusty on the other side of the table mirrors me.

“Holy fucking shit!” She holds her hand to her nose delicately. “Who have you got in there? Pablo Escobar?”

“I think he was more into cocaine than weed.” I cough and peel back the side of the bag to reveal a youngish guy, maybe in his twenties.

“Oh. My. God.” Dusty’s eyes widen. “What the hell happened to him?”

I stare down at the young man. Splinters and shards of thin glass pepper his torso and neck, and a few small pieces are along the side of his face, but more than that, he seems to be covered in big glops of blue goo. Picking up my long tweezers from the tray beside me, I poke at one of the blue blobs to find it’s hardened.

“It’s wax.” I frown. “What on earth?”

“It was a lava lamp,” a laid-back voice answers, and I look up to find the young man in question standing at the end of the table beside Dave, who stares up at him with wide eyes.

“A lava lamp?” I parrot.

“Ian,” he introduces himself, giving me a languid smile and glancing down at his body. “Whoa… Dude, that’s crazy. Is that my body?”

“Um, yeah.” I study him curiously.

He’s wearing the same clothes as the body in the bag: thick sports socks with no shoes, a pair of grey joggers, and a white t-shirt that is covered in blobs of bright blue wax and dozens of tiny rips from the glass shards. Clean-shaven, he has hazel-coloured eyes and mousy brown hair with sun-lightened highlights that falls in shaggy layers around his face and almost to his shoulders. His skin is a tan golden-brown and, ignoring that he looks like he’s lost a fight with a crayon and you could get stoned just from the fumes coming off him, he’s… well, gorgeous. He also has a bit of an accent. American, I think.

“This is so gnarly.”

“What happened?”

“My lava lamp wouldn’t work, so I put it on the stove to heat up the wax so it would start moving,” he replies.

I close my eyes slowly, not quite sure my brain can comprehend the logic behind that statement.

“Let me get this straight.” I open my eyes and stare at him. “The wax wasn’t heating up fast enough to start moving, so you thought you’d help it along by placing it on the hob to heat it quicker?”

“Yeah!” He gives a wide grin like he’s pleased I get his absolutely bonkers logic.

“And it didn’t occur to you that it would heat to a higher temperature than the thin glass could handle, causing it to explode?”

“Well, I figured that out eventually. You know, like, when it did actually…” He makes the sound of an explosion and mimes a nuclear cloud expanding. “Dude, it was insane.” He laughs.

I turn to stare at Dusty, who is standing with her mouth hanging open. “Holy hell, it’s like him and Dave are made for each other,” she mutters.

Finally noticing the little dark-haired Scotsman with pale skin and piercing blue eyes standing next to him, Ian gives him a thorough once-over. His easy gaze starts at Dave’s face and continues down over his soaked t-shirt and jeans to his sock-covered feet which are standing in a puddle.

“Hey, what happened to you?”

“G-got wasted on shots and thought it was a good idea to dive into the Thames,” Dave replies, his eyes wide as he continues to stare at Ian as if he were a unicorn.