“The organization that employs me has had a man watching Ammon’s detective.”
Diesel is a sort of cop. At least that’s what he tells me. He works for a loosely organized hierarchy of People with Special Abilities. His primary job was to keep his peers on the straight and narrow. When he was assigned the task of finding the seven SALIGIA Stones, the cop part of his job became secondary.
“I was being brought back to Salem to get you into the museum when you took matters into your own hands,” Diesel said.
“It wasn’t intentional. I was just on a tour with Glo’s new boyfriend. How does Wulf know about this?”
“Wulf has his own underground and his own agenda. Hard to say how Wulf knows things sometimes…he just does.”
“So the idea now is that the coin is somehow attached to the pirate skeleton?”
“Maybe. Or maybe the history of the skeleton will lead to the coin.”
“When I touched the cage I felt a vibration just before it broke loose and fell to the floor. It wasn’t especially strong, and I thought it was probably just my imagination.”
“Honey, your imagination isn’t that good.”
“I happen to have an excellent imagination. Sometimes I imagine my life is normal.”
“Yeah, that’s a stretch,” Diesel said. “So maybe the coin was in the cage.”
“If it was, it had to be hidden somewhere. I didn’t see a coin.”
“Who had access to him?”
“The only one who actually touched the skeleton while I was there was Nergal. I’m sure the EMTs had their hands on him, but I left before they zipped him up and carted him off.”
Diesel unlocked my car and opened the driver’s side door for me. “I have stuff to do,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
—
My house looks like it was sprinkled out with a lot of other houses from the big house saltshaker sometime in the 1700s. The neighborhood is a mix of small houses built by cod fishermen, shoemakers, carpenters, and mariners, and a few larger houses that were owned by merchants and ship captains. Most of the houses still have a wooden sculpture of a golden cod above their doorways, a symbol of good luck. My golden cod was getting a little worn around the fins, and I’d had “paint your fish” in my mental to-do list for a while.
I was later getting home than usual, and Cat was waiting at the door. I snatched my mail from the mailbox, said hello to Cat, and went straight to the kitchen. I poured some kitty crunchies into Cat’s bowl, adding a slice of cantaloupe as apology for his delayed dinner. I browsed through my mail while Cat ate.
Bills, junk mail, more junk mail…Uh-oh. Letter from a publisher. A while back I’d had an idea for a cookbook, Hot Guys Cooking for Hungry Women. I packaged up my ideas and recipes, and my manuscript was making the rounds of New York agents and publishers. Unfortunately, no one wanted it, and I’d come to dread opening the letters that were inevitably rejections.
“What do you think, Cat?” I asked. “Should I open it? Do you have a good feeling about this one?”
Cat was sinking his fangs into the cantaloupe and didn’t appear to care a lot about the letter.
“Okay,” I said to Cat. “Wish me luck.”
I tore the envelope open and read the letter. Rejection. Crap!
“It’s a great idea,” I said to Cat. “And the recipes are perfect. I’ve kitchen-tested them. I don’t know why no one wants to buy my book.”
I went into my small living room and turned the television on. I flipped through channels until I came to the Food Network. I watched a half hour of cooking and moved on to Property Brothers on HGTV. They cooked in an entirely different way.
Cat had followed me into the living room and was curled up on the couch next to me.
“This is what I need,” I said to Cat. “I need the Property Brothers. They work cheap, they always deliver on time, and they’re cute.”
I heard the front door open, and Cat gave a low growl. His ears rotated in the direction of the door, and he listened for a moment. He settled back with his nose tucked under a paw when Diesel and Carl walked into the room.
Carl jumped off Diesel’s shoulder, scuttled over to Cat, and sniffed him. Cat opened his one working eye, and Carl shrank back and wrapped his arms around Diesel’s leg. No one messes with Cat.
“Well?” I said to Diesel.