Page 8 of Icy Heart, Empty Chest

you shit a brick. Trust me. Half of this likely came from your files. We can talk about a witch-hunt for your mole later, in between the conversations of all the thieves I know who were let down by cops before they started their lifestyle.”

He looked like he would argue back but just flared his hands in front of him and said, “So what am I looking at?”

Gods. Did he have to smell good too? This case just gets more unfair. My retainer is going to have to be ungodly. Get to a warm beach somewhere and forget on a hammock with a strong drink.

I took a telescoping backscratcher and pointed to my first picture.

“The buyer that my fence delivered your heart to is Dr Aaron Ziedlin. Smart guy. Top ten medical school, medical oncology residency with surgical oncology fellowship. Over twenty years of education brought him from the bigger cities to us and our much smaller children’s hospital.

Last year he became chief attending on the pediatric oncology service. ”

Damien studied the picture of the small balding man with glasses, looking every bit the professor.

“Nice pointer,” he snickered. I pouted. I wanted a laser.

“No interrupting,” I snapped. “Approximately four months ago, he started reaching into the market looking for almost anything related to healing. Maybe magic could succeed where medicine failed? Not sure of motives exactly but the bottom line is when your witch put out the heart a few days ago, I already had an offer lined up from him. He offered one of my partners and I a nice sum in order to obtain it from her. I went to the witch, passed it on, the money cleared in my account the next day.”

He was glaring at me. I glared back.

“Do you want the truth or not? Anyway. I started digging into him. Ziedlin’s, post-doctoral thesis was the interface between magic and medicine, and in what fields they cross over, down to the cellular basis.

I’m assuming he meant to try it with oncology, it’s forty-eight pages without bibliography and I have yet to read it fully.

By my timeline, it’s been five days. He hasn’t done anything to it yet because you’re still alive and sitting in my kitchen.

But our window is closing, statistically. ”

I took a large map from the pile, placing it side by side with the one on top.

“This is the hospital. And this is his new house. In a few days, he’ll be away at the big surgical conference a few cities over for a few days.

In all likelihood, he’ll store it under lock and key at one of them.

It is entirely possible to keep it off-site but for a legitimate doctor to reach into the illegal side of things, my gut tells me that he’d want it in one of the two places he frequents the most, safe from other people. ”

“Home and the hospital, makes sense,” said Damien thoughtfully. “How did you get these blueprints?”

I shot him a look and clasped my hands in front of me. “Let’s just go under the assumption that nothing on this table was gained legally. Are you going to be OK with that?”

He sighed and released the picture. “I doubt I have a choice and I’m desperate.”

“Smart man.”

He sat forward with his waves bouncing around his face. “What are you thinking

for the timeline?”

“The conference starts Thursday night, into Friday and Saturday. At a bare minimum, we need to scope out his house and search the hospital. The hospital won’t be terribly complicated.

Swipe a badge and you have your fill of the place if you go at the right time.

The house will be harder.” I rested my head on my hand, thinking.

“In what way?” he enquired.

“Individual security systems, dogs, other people on the property like family or cleaning services, other mechanical hazards and the time it takes to look around and figure out where they put things. Usually art is displayed, which is easier. I hate safe-cracking, ’cause I am not good at it.”

He was staring at me again.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Just never thought I’d hear you say that.”

“Me either,” I admitted.

“Are you wearing makeup? You never did before,” he asked suddenly.

“I didn’t look my best thing morning. You can tell? Am I smudged or something?”

I got up and headed to the bathroom. The light foundation I put on was still in place. “How could you tell?” I called.

“Dunno. I just could, between this morning and now.”

“You are far too observant for your own good,” I muttered and headed back to the table.

“As I was saying. I think Thursday night we should visit the hospital, spend Friday night at his place. We have Saturday as a backup, just in case.” I rolled up some of the blueprints and put them off to the side, smoothing out the stack of hospital ones.

“This is the wing he works in and where his office and laboratory is.”

Damien took the print from me. “Two different floors?”

I nodded. “Ask one of the maintenance guys at the precinct if you could borrow

their uniform. I’ll have my own.”

“Not security?”

“We want as little attention as possible,” I reminded him. “People tend not to pay attention to those who scrub floors or plunge toilets. It’s an oft forgotten, overlooked job.”

“Agreed. They deserve far more credit.”

“It’s about a half hour walk or shorter cab ride, whichever way we go.”

“You forgot the third option.”

I turned my head confused. “What third option?”

“Ride on my back.” When I didn’t answer he took on a bemused smile. “Did you

forget I was a kelpie?”

I blinked slowly. “I’ll admit I didn’t put your horse form in my initial list of assets,” I said seriously and we both burst into laughter.

It felt good to laugh after all the drama.

I needed it. Damien in his horse form was formidable.

He could shift back and forth, carry heavy loads and he stood out being green.

I considered it for a second then countered.

“Is that the most conspicuous option? A giant-ass horse galloping through the streets?” I questioned.

He squinted. “Did you just call me bulky?”

I eyeballed him. “You’re muscular now. I haven’t seen horse form in a few years but you were pretty big back then.”

He smirked at me.

I rolled my eyes. “My two points are, could someone recognize you in horse form? Could you have a rider? I don’t weigh what I did in high school.

” I glanced down at my thighs, which bore the stretch marks of weight gain/loss.

Working in a cafe surrounded by pastry had not been the most conducive to my health and let’s just call my hips slightly “curvy” despite not adding to my smaller cleavage.

The gods were cruel and the treadmill was crueler.

“Is that a joke? I’ve helped pull damaged cars off of people before.

Your skinny ass isn’t a challenge.” He looked up thoughtfully.

“To your first point, yes it’s possible to get noticed in kelpie form.

There are only so many light green horses around.

A couple walking in dark clothes into a kid’s hospital would draw less attention.

” He turned to me. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“The holy trinity of beer, water or coffee.”

He snorted at my phrasing. “Beer then.”

I got up and sauntered to the kitchen, bringing back a beverage. It was hard not

to feel comfortable around him. Being around him was like the first warm rays of sun after winter. At one time he was my best friend in the world and then high school hit and fucked everything up.

After I put his down, I circled back around for mine.

“Changed your mind?”

“Yup.” The cap popped off with a satisfying plonk. “I need to relax,” I admitted.

“Why?” He suddenly looked wary of his own presence.

“All that stuff with my father last night brought me to a bad place.”

He paused with his beer halfway to his lips. “You know I wasn’t trying to hurt you, right?”

“I know. Grief is weird. I’m not sure I ever fully processed it.

” I took a swig and started to tear at the label on the bottle.

“You know, after he got out of prison, I had to start dropping classes. I was working part time at The Magical Beans, weekends mostly, but he came out just a shell of a person. I tried to take him to the doctor, museum, to the park, hell, even grocery shopping but he didn’t want to go.

He’d just give me a little grimace and shake his head.

I know he could talk, but it was just few and far between, usually at random.

All I could do was either work, or stay at home taking care of him.

He was shattered. Didn’t say much most days, slept too much.

I put up cameras at the house to keep track of him.

I’d had to force him to eat and shower, like leading him into the bathroom and turning on the spigot. ”

Tears started to well up. He got up to grab the nearest blotting implement, a paper towel, which I took gratefully.

“Whatever you think of me now, which I’m not sure I want to know, just think back to how often I was at your house when we were younger and how often I said I wished your dad was my own. I loved him too, Cora.” What passed for sorrow for him was etched all over his face.

“I know! I was drowning. I couldn’t bail you out. I couldn’t even bail me out.”

“Why didn’t you ask for help?” he pleaded. “I could have done something.”

“I couldn’t. You weren’t there! Not after everything that happened.”

“What do you mean?” He had a serious gaze on.

“In school? How could you forget?” The sadness turned to livid anger, redness flushing through my light blue skin.

“Cor, I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. The thing at the lake?”

“The thing at the lake was the last nail in the coffin.” I put down my empty beer. “Did you honestly not know your friends were torturing me?”

Damien’s light green skin paled more. “I’m sorry, what?”

My incredulity was rising. “Freshman year was our last year as real friends. Sophomore year was bad, junior and senior year, I almost dropped out.”

My hysteria was rising. “How did you not know?”

He was completely pale and in total shock. I realized that it was genuine. He didn’t know. But I couldn’t do anything about that now. I had to protect me.

“I think you should go now. I’ll text you Thursday.”

He opened his mouth and closed it, nodded and made haste toward my door. I closed it and locked it after with tears streaming down my face.

I’m eighteen and I’ll be graduating soon.

I’m looking at Damien. He grew tall like his father, put on pounds of muscle.

He looks like a dream for any girl. Not me though.

Have to let that crush on him die. He’s giving hugs and handshakes, wrapping up the last few days.

I hope to see him in the future. If he left some people behind, I wouldn’t hate it, either.