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“Sure,” I said, because what the hell, she was chatty and it never hurt to ask. “Did that dancer, Naomi Allison, come in last night? Have they done any work on her yet?”

“Oh, she got priority because she’s not local and her troupe’s supposed to leave Monday morning.

The boss came in to look her over, it was so weird.

But that’s all I know. They said it looked like her heart got ripped out or eaten or something.

What is this, a horror movie? Like those zombies at Halloween.

We keep a shotgun in the morgue now. Can you imagine? ”

Creepy-crawlies crept up my spine. I hadn’t thought about what a morgue would be like during Seattle’s brief but extremely unpleasant flirtation with the walking dead.

Probably not worse than the graveyard, but still bad enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.

I was not good with the undead. “Actually, yes. I’m surprised you remember that.

” People tended not to, or more specifically, to attach some kind of mundane explanation to the utterly impossible. It was a sanity-saving measure.

My new friend evidently wasn’t overly concerned with how her sanity was perceived by others.

“Kind of hard to forget when the fridge doors burst open and people you were just examining come crawling out. Everybody who was here went nuts trying to fight them. The boss chopped one of them up with a scalpel. Do you know how long that takes? I had a bonecutter, it worked better. But we don’t talk about it very much because who would believe us?

” She gave me a suddenly suspicious look, like I’d deliberately drawn her out and would now mock her. I raised my hands and shook my head.

“Most people wouldn’t. I’m glad everybody here was okay.” I hesitated. “Everybody was okay, right?”

“Yeah.” She shivered, threw it off and launched in another direction: “Anyway, so the big boss looked at the dancer and you could see him thinking, everybody thinking, that it was something as freaky as the zombies, but who was gonna say that out loud? I don’t think they’re going to release her body before her troupe leaves.

It’s too weird. They’re going to keep looking for why her heart’s gone.

I hope they find some kind of acid attack or something. That would at least make sense.”

I crooked an unhappy smile. People by and large didn’t want to believe in magic, but there were at least a few of them out there who didn’t have inherent magic, and who still hunted things that went bump.

This girl seemed like she could be one of them.

I wondered what she’d say to that, but I’d learned my lesson: telling the truth just made people think I was crazy.

Even somebody who’d fought zombies was probably unlikely to accept the truth.

I’d had to, but I was sort of in a league of my own, and I’d gotten to where it all more or less made sense. “Unlike zombies.”

“Totally. So I wish I could be more help, but that’s all I know. And, um, Detective Walker? You won’t tell anybody I told you all that, right?”

“My lips are sealed. Thanks.” I went back out into the afternoon feeling more lighthearted, if no more illuminated about the status of any of the cases I was unofficially involved with.

Daylight made my eyes hurt, a shiny reminder that I hadn’t slept since the previous morning.

I slumped in Petite’s driver seat, trying to think of anything at all I could do which would be useful on any of the cases, and woke up seventy minutes later when my cell phone blared its obnoxious ringtone through the car.

“Somebody called in for you,” my buddy Bruce from work informed my panicked grunt of a hello. “Said it was personal, so I thought I’d check to see if I should put it through. Her name’s Tia Carley.”

“Never heard of her,” I said tiredly. “Okay, put her through. Thanks, Bruce.”

“No problem.” The phone beeped twice, and then a woman’s vaguely familiar voice came over the line: “Miss Walker? Detective Walker, I should say?”

“Yeah.” Nobody called me miss , which triggered recognition. “Ms. Carley? From the dance concert?”

“That’s right!” Delight swept her voice. “I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me.”

“Did you know your name means ‘Aunt Carley’? Uh. I mean, I mean. Yeah. I remember who you are. I’m sorry, I just woke up.

” I sat up, one hand knotted around the steering wheel, and blinked furiously at the world beyond Petite’s hood until my brain started to function a little better.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Carley? Have you seen a doctor?” That seemed well-nigh impossible, since I’d only told her to the night before.

“Maybe let me buy you a cup of coffee, since I woke you up. And no, no, I haven’t, I can’t until Monday at the soonest, but I hoped you might not mind telling me a little more about what you did.”

I slumped deeper in Petite’s seat. “You can’t go to a doctor and tell them what I did, Ms. Carley. They’d never believe you.”

“Oh, I know. I want to know for myself. I don’t want to harass you, but I’d like to hear a little about what you do.”

“You’re not a reporter, are you, Ms. Carley?” I already had one reporter on my case, though that one had bitten off enough of my world to actually back away a bit. I didn’t need someone who wouldn’t.

“Please, call me Tia, and yes, I did know what my name means. My nieces call me Auntie Chuck, because Carley is derived from Charles. My family’s not normal,” she said cheerfully.

“But I’m not a reporter, just someone who believes there’s more to this world than is dreamt of in most philosophies. Could I buy you a coffee, Detective?”

Gary had quoted that line the morning we’d met, and I’d used it on Rita Wagner just yesterday.

At least, I thought it had been yesterday.

Either way, its use disposed me more kindly toward Tia Carley.

I breathed, “What the hell, I could use the caffeine,” and more clearly, said, “Yeah, okay, sure. Where can I meet you?”

“I’m downtown right now. At the Elliott Bay Bookstore, maybe?”

Just a few blocks from where Lynn Schumacher had died. I rubbed my eyes, nodded even though she couldn’t see me, said, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” and made it downtown in twenty.

Tia Carley was waiting for me, a newspaper pinned to the table she’d staked out by a cup of black coffee and a muffin that looked suspiciously bran-y.

No wonder she had such a terrific physique.

I waved hello and went to order the largest latte they had available, and eyed the sweets cabinet, trying to remember when I’d last eaten something that wasn’t a doughnut-based life-form.

Tia appeared at my elbow, paid for my coffee and said, “The lemon muffins are especially good.”

“Which is why you’re eating something wholesome and poppy-seeded, right?

” I ordered a lemon muffin anyway, and a prepackaged turkey sandwich for dessert.

Food in hand, we retreated to Tia’s table and I took a couple fortifying slurps of coffee before saying, “People don’t usually want to know about what I can do. ”

“How many of them have just been told they’ve been healed from early-stage breast cancer?” Tia kept her voice low, which I appreciated. “I don’t even know if I said thank you. Is it something you can teach someone to do?”

I shook my head. “You’re welcome. And I’m not sure, honestly. I have an aptitude for it.”

Disappointment flashed through her eyes, but she contained it in an instant. “It seems like something that should be taught, if it can be. Can I ask, though—? You wear glasses. And you have a scar.”

I touched the scar on my right cheek, then automatically pushed my glasses up. “Not everything wants to be healed. Somethings are in the genetic code, I guess, or have emotional importance that outweighs the need to be physically perfect.” I sounded very mature and wise.

Tia, however, looked skeptical. “If I had something wired into my genetics, I’d want to be able to control it.”

I remembered the odd spur in her DNA, and bit my tongue on saying “You do.” It took a moment to find something else to say, but fortunately I had coffee, a muffin and a sandwich to occupy my mouth with.

I alternated between the first two while I ripped the sandwich packaging open.

Turkey and limp lettuce exploded over the table, and I sat there a moment, chipmunk-cheeked with muffin and gazing in dismay at the mess I’d made.

“Sometimes,” I said around the mouthful, “screwing with things that don’t want to be screwed with has an effect kind of like that. Especially where magic’s concerned.”

Tia didn’t look like she believed me for a second, but she put the sandwich back together with a grin. “Still, it must be amazing to know you can control your own body that way. I do yoga, but it’s not the same at all, is it?”

“I couldn’t do a yoga stretch if you paid me, so I don’t know.

Mostly, though, it’s not really about controlling what my body can or can’t do.

It’s trying to help others whose bodies or spirits are failing them somehow.

” I sounded so much like I knew what I was talking about that I started to think I’d been replaced by Folgers Crystals.

“I know there are local classes in shamanism, which is the basic practice I’m starting from.

You could look into those, I guess, to see if you have any skill for it yourself. ”

“How long does that take?”

I ducked my head and chuckled. “I don’t know.

I started studying when I was about thirteen.

” Never mind that my studies had lasted about fifteen months and then had gone on violent, determined hiatus for more than a decade.

The idea that she wanted a time frame suggested she probably wasn’t all that well suited to pursuing a healer’s path, but I didn’t figure it was my business to say so.

“Oh.” She looked dismayed, but then smiled. “I suppose I should get started, in that case. At least by taking some classes. What’s it like, healing people? Changing them that way?”

“Scary. Wonderful, when it works. Exhausting. It’s not something I would have chosen, but I’m getting better at it.

” I bit off that last confession, wishing I hadn’t made it.

People, even curious polite people I’d healed recently, probably didn’t need to know about my doubts.

Or maybe that was exactly what she needed to know.

“Worth it,” I finally said, more quietly. “It’s hard, but it’s worth it.”

Tia gave me a broad, excited smile. “Then that’s all I need to know. Thank you, Miss—Detective—Walker. Joanne. May I call you Joanne?” I nodded and her smile got that little bit much bigger. “I feel like I’ve been looking for a path for a long time. Maybe you’ve helped me find it.”

I smiled back, but worry sank a pit into my stomach. Whatever my talents were, I was certain nobody should be looking to me as any kind of guidance counselor. We chatted a while longer before I made my escape, wishing I’d never agreed to meet her.