Just before bed, I’d checked my tablet, but there hadn’t been any pertinent messages waiting. I’d left a note on Fat Chick’s page saying Knowledge is power and Plan ahead, but I didn’t know if those counted as rules or maxims to live by.
I couldn’t sleep. If I counted midnight as the beginning of the day, I’d damned Bergdorff to hell in the wee hours of the morning. It had been nearly twenty hours since then, and I hadn’t seen any sign of reward or punishment. If my theory was correct about midnight being the witching hour when rewards were handed out, I wanted to be awake to argue with whoever did the handing out.
I was deathly afraid I’d be punished for damning Bergdorff, and that I’d be crippled for life or sent to the outer rings of hell instead of rewarded. Worse yet, I was stupidly hoping that if I deserved a reward, I could ask for the zombies to come back to life.
That was plenty enough to keep me awake despite my exhaustion. I heard church chimes in the distance and checked my clock. Midnight. Nothing happened. I waited. No mysterious entities appeared. I was afraid to look in a mirror. I patted my hair. It was still there. My leg was still whole. I felt normal.
Nothing. Maybe I was only entitled to so many rewards and after that, I was expected to know the routine? But how could I know if I’d judged Bergdorff correctly?
I couldn’t. No judge could. I’d have to live with his execution for the rest of my life. Wincing over that realization, I turned over and collapsed in complete exhaustion.
The next morning, I got up, gulped coffee and a Nutribar, and went in to shower and brush my teeth. I hated facing the mirror and waited until it was good and foggy before I’d stand in front of it.
I opened my mouth to insert the toothbrush . . . and froze.
The crooked gap between my two front teeth was gone.
Shit. I didn’t want any more physical rewards to remind me that I’d sent a man to hell. Every time I looked in the mirror, I could count the number of souls I’d sent to Satan, wittingly or not. And now I knew I’d sent another. Satan was probably smirking.
Dammit, I’d wanted to argue with the tooth fairy, ask that s/he free the zombies instead of rewarding me. I’d wished for it at the time Bergdorff went out the window. What more could I do?
The devil worked in mysterious ways. Or Saturn. Whatever.
Cursing, wondering why I didn’t at least get something useful like a bigger brain for sending souls to their just reward, I got dressed in reasonably professional attire and headed across the street to my office.
My office, an earthly reward I’d earned with intelligence and hard work. I liked that much better than my pretty gleaming new smile. Stupid, useless Saturn.
I started to use my new brass key to open the door but realized it was unlocked. Frowning, I glanced through the glass but didn’t see anything except my empty desk and scattered furniture. I needed to set up a file room and move the file drawers out of sight.
And get new locks, evidently. Bracing myself, I entered.
One of the black suits sat on a desk chair in a far dark corner. I contemplated hurriedly backing out, but this was my turf. He was the intruder.
“Who let you in?” I demanded rudely.
He rose, and, to my utter amazement, I saw he wore a red rosebud in his lapel buttonhole. A red rosebud. And a pink silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. In my experience, goons wore shoulder holsters, not roses and pink silk.
He was relatively young, maybe even younger than me, but male-model handsome, complete with cleft chin and thick head of styled hair. Not my type. I’m not into pretty. I think I would have recognized the rose or the handkerchief if I’d seen them before, but the square face and broad shoulders? Nah, all the goons had them. Why did I have an ugly feeling that he was one of Acme’s security guards? Weren’t they all frogs just yesterday?
“Mr. Vanderventer said I might wait here,” the intruder said politely. “I wished to make my apologies to Mr. Legrande, but I didn’t know where to find him.”
Mr. Vanderventer? Paddy? Or Max?
I immediately donned my suspicious face. Very few strangers knew Andre by any name other than Legrande. Even though the lawyers at the courthouse knew his father, the murder charges had been filed under Legrande. I had no idea if Andre had officially changed his name, but I assumed he had identification. No way was I telling a stranger where to find Andre, since it would also involve his parents.
“I’ve advised my client to stay out of the public eye,” I lied. “Who are you and for what are you apologizing?”
Before he could answer, a frog hopped from under my desk. Well, that answered the question as to which Vanderventer had keys to my door. Uneasily, I snapped on the overhead to brighten the gray morning light. Another frog was chomping down on a spider in the corner. I supposed that was a good green way of cutting down on the pest-control bills. Why had Paddy let the frogs loose in my office?
Was it my imagination, or did my visitor just lick his lips while watching the spider disappear? My stomach did a backflip.
Pink particles were valuable—as a frog-healing agent? One frog had been eating them. . . . Paddy had some explaining to do. Again.
The male model returned his attention to me, although a puzzled frown now marred his wide brow after watching his spider-nibbling brethren. “I apologize. I’m Ned McNamara. I used to work for Mrs. Gloria Vanderventer. I’m one of the witnesses against Mr. Legrande.”
Whoo, boy. I studied him with interest. This was one of the goons who’d been fighting off the old lady when she’d gone over the railing? He didn’t look too dangerous.
Where was my ethics book when I needed it? Should I call Julius? I staggered to the enormous office chair behind my immense desk, collapsed into it, and stared at Ned the security guard incredulously. “What are you doing in here?”
“You’re kind of small for that desk,” he pointed out ungraciously. “If you want to impress your clients, your décor needs better proportions.” He glanced around. “You could use a decorator.”
“Yeah, and fewer frogs. I repeat, what are you doing in here?”
“Oh, sorry. Now that I’m unemployed, I’m hoping for a more congenial occupation, but that’s not your problem. I was working at Acme the other night when Mr. Bergdorff committed suicide. It was a very odd night. It made me aware that I was starting down a road I was no longer willing to follow.” He toyed absently with his pink handkerchief.
“The road requiring taking orders from insane villains?” I asked sarcastically.
“I was paid to guard a wealthy woman and her assets,” he corrected. “But I was not paid to lie in court. And since my fellow witnesses have all mysteriously disappeared, leaving me holding the bag, so to speak, I intend to inform the prosecutor this morning of the truth, and take my punishment like a man, after I apologize to Mr. Legrande.”
Villains could apologize and make amends?
Shouts and cries echoed from down the street, and I twitched uneasily. This was all wrong. I couldn’t process it. And shouts from the direction of the Zone weren’t to be taken lightly. I wanted to get up and investigate, but Andre was my very first case. I couldn’t blow this.
The other witnesses had disappeared? Had Gloria’s other guards also worked at the plant, where McNamara said he’d been working? Gut instinct was damned painful—I’d turned the guards at the plant into frogs. Of course they’d disappeared.
The witnesses against Andre were hopping around under my desk—where their pink-particle-swilling colleague probably had been before he poofed back to himself. Right? Did I want to believe this?