The Dominic Wolfe Tales- The Complete Series Read online

  I shrugged, gave the bag of candy a little rattle.

  Nero sighed. “Damn you. So where is he?”

  I called behind me, where the path disappeared into mist. “Okay, Mr. Jenson. You can come out now.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The trembling form of Mr. Jenson burst into view. “Is she here?” he asked.

  “That’s an excellent question,” I observed. There was, after all, no way to know if Mrs. Jenson had passed through the gate or if she had chosen to linger in the mist, as many of death’s unresolved spirits tended to do.

  “Approach,” barked Nero.

  Mr. Jenson complied, eyes darting to me for reassurance. The old man popped an M&M in his mouth and grasped Mr. Jenson by the shoulder. Abruptly, the gatekeeper’s eyes lost all color, glowing in a way that often reminded me of Storm on the X-men movies. Only Storm was smoking hot, whereas Nero was, um… well, if you can’t think of anything nice to say, and all that.

  “You’re in luck, Mr. Jenson,” Nero announced. “She’s here.”

  The mist churned for a moment as a woman pushed through.

  “Nora!” my client cried. He reached for the woman, who stood just out of reach. Nero held him back by the shirt. “Thank God,” the younger man wheezed.

  “Lyle?” the woman whispered. “Oh no, honey! Not you, too.” Her words collapsed into sobs and her husband tried again to take her into his arms.

  “I’m afraid there can be none of that,” the gatekeeper grumbled. A stone-faced Nero held fast to Mr. Jenson with such conviction that I almost wondered if he was still capable of human emotion. “I can grant you a few minutes and no more. And I must insist that you refrain from touching each other. If the two of you make physical contact for even the briefest of moments, I will make no apologies for the resulting grief.”

  “What happened to you, Lyle?”

  Mr. Jenson grinned. “It’s okay, Nora. I’m not dead.”

  Clearing my throat, I felt obligated to interject. “Uh, that’s not entirely true. You see—”

  Lyle waved me off. “What I mean is, I won’t be staying.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know, I know. Don’t worry about that. What’s important is that I’m here for the moment. And I need your help.”

  “Oh, God. Is it the girls?”

  Lyle cringed, swallowed audibly. “They took Ellie.”

  Nora’s face crumpled with misery.

  The grin long gone, tears collected in my client’s eyes and darted down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I—I tried so hard to keep them safe. They took from the daycare center.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want the video.”

  Nora covered her face in her hands, stifling a groan.

  “Please, Nora. It’ll be okay, alright? Just tell me where it is and—”

  A sob racked the woman.

  Lyle wiped his cheeks, composed himself. “They said they won’t hurt her. We just have to give them the video, okay?”

  I popped a couple of Chiclets into my mouth. This was pretty entertaining—a little sad, but way more interesting than Gilmore Girls lately. Ever since Rory broke up with Dean—

  I mean, um… never mind.

  “It’s in the safe deposit box,” Nora was saying. “I put it in there as soon as Alexis showed it to me.”

  Lyle nodded hopefully.

  “You’ll need a key to the box, though.”

  Lyle frowned. “Where is it?”

  The woman wavered on her feet. “It’s…” Her hand wandered to a locket around her neck.

  Lyle’s mouth parted in surprise, then drooped. “We, um—we buried you with it.” His gaze fell to the chain around her neck. “Wait, can we—I mean, is it even possible to…?”

  It took a second or two to realize that my client was now addressing me. Nora opened the locket with a hopeful expression and a small key tumbled into her palm.

  Shit. “That’s not how it works, Mr. Jenson.”

  “But you brought candy…”

  “I can bring things into the divide, but I can’t leave with anything I didn’t come with.”

  Nero cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him. “Sorry to interrupt, but perhaps you could…” He nodded toward me, just as I tried and failed to blow a bubble. Alas, Chiclets truly did have their limitations. Not to mention the flavor was already fading.

  “We could what?” I had to ask. Suddenly, I got it. “Wait—I could make a mold with my gum. The key won’t return with me, but the gum will.”

  Had there been a cricket population in the divide, it would almost certainly have chosen that moment to draw attention to the awkward silence.

  Nero groaned as if I’d just failed to complete a toddler’s puzzle. “I was going to suggest that you take a picture of it,” he explained. “Do either of you have one of those camera phones on your person? I understand they’re all the rage these days. Perhaps you can use the picture to make a duplicate key.”

  My cheeks burned. Even with me dead, the universe still liked to remind me that I was an idiot.

  “Seriously, Mr. Wolfe,” Nora muttered. “Chewing gum? You’ve been watching too much Prison Break.”

  Guilty as charged.

  So we took a few pictures, using the Chiclets box to establish scale. Lyle pocketed his phone just as I tossed the empty gum box into the mist. Nero tisked in disapproval.

  “Okay, folks,” I grumbled. “Party’s over.”

  Lyle frowned. “Wait, please. One more thing.”

  I gave him my best deadpan stare. He turned to Nora once more.

  “I love you, Nora. Always will.”

  “And I love you, Lyle.”

  “Is that why you’re still here? Instead of going through the gate, I mean? Have you been… waiting for me?”

  Nora frowned. “No, it isn’t that at all. I’m just… I’m afraid of what will happen when I go through.”

  Nodding, Lyle Jenson sighed. “It’s been six days, Nora. Six long days, you know? Maybe it’s time to accept fate, whatever it is. I mean, you can’t just put it off indefinitely.”

  Nero nodded approvingly. “Indeed. Best not to dawdle,” he said, slurring on a mouthful of M&Ms. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to face the music.”

  I watched with detached curiosity as Nora’s face crumpled like tissue paper. “Six days? That isn’t possible.”

  Lyle bit his lip, biting back a surge of emotion. “I’m afraid so, babe.”

  “But… but I just got here, Lyle! Can’t have been more than five minutes ago.”

  Nero chuckled. “Time doesn’t play by the rules out there, my dear. In the mist, that is. Best to stay on the path.”

  I tapped my wrist as if a watch was hiding beneath my sleeve. “Speaking of time, Mr. Jenson, we’re about out of it.”

  My client scowled, then managed to compose himself. “I guess this is goodbye, then. I’ll never forget you, my love.”

  His late wife choked back a sob, tottering on her feet.

  “Ah, babe,” Lyle muttered with a sigh. He reached out to steady her and—

  “No!” Nero cried, too late.

  At once, the gatekeeper’s eyes regained their usual color. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen him look so exasperated—before or since. “Oh, you fool,” he lamented. “You stupid fool.”

  Lyle’s mouth formed the letter O and he shook his head in defiance, as if the damage might be undone by merely denying that anything had happened at all. But what was done was done.

  Lyle turned to me, eyes pleading. “Oh no… what have I done?”

  Nero replied on my behalf. “I’m afraid you can no longer return, Mr. Jenson.” The old man opened the gate and stepped aside in a beckoning gesture. “Come now, let’s get it over with. You too, my dear.”

  “What about Ellie?” Nora cried. “Who will save her now? And what about Alexis?”

  Lyle gave me an imploring glance. “Please—you have to
find Alexis.”

  I bristled. “I don’t find people, Mr. Jenson.”

  “Please, I’m begging you. You’ve got to tell her.”

  “Tell who what?” I wasn’t in the habit of airing the dirty laundry of my profession.

  “Tell Alexis they’re coming. That they have Ellie already. She’s got to disappear.”

  I chewed my lip—which by now had more flavor than my gum—and brooded for a moment. I glanced to Nero, but found no sympathy there.

  “No one to blame but yourself, Dom,” The gatekeeper said. He polished off the last of the M&Ms, then sighed. “Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. Anyway, time’s up.”

  I held up a hand in protest. “How will I find her?”

  Lyle smiled through his grief. “Don’t worry. If you go poking around, she’ll find you.”

  Crying profusely now, the two lovers joined hands and—

  “One at a time, damn you,” Nero snapped. Not a sentimental bone in that decrepit body of his, I swear.

  I didn’t stick around for the rest of it. While my client and his wife boo-hooed over who would go first, I briskly jaunted past them through the gate.

  Don’t misunderstand my rudeness; I felt for them both. Really, I did. But I was also more than a little ticked. So much for getting paid.

  I awoke with the usual sore throat. It would be a day or two before I could carry on a conversation without harrumphing a thousand times. Natalie was at my side, stroking my hair through the car window.

  “Wakey wakey, Sleeping Beauty,” she sang. It was almost completely dark now and she seemed to glow in the dimness. She glanced toward my client, who was quite inanimate, and waited. When the poor man remained in this state, Natalie’s smile fell away like a rock. “Are you freaking kidding me, Dom?”

  “Afraid not,” I hacked. “Hop in. Looks like we got ourselves a body to dispose of.”

  Angrily, she swatted my cheek. I hardly felt anything, of course; I was barely alive.

  CHAPTER 4

  It isn’t as easy as you might think to get rid of a corpse. At least, not for a putz like me. Considering that it was only my second time putting a dead body to rest, I didn’t exactly have it down to a science.

  Twenty grand. I should’ve walked the moment he tossed me that bag of bills. It wouldn’t even begin to offset the predicament he had left me in.

  Anyway, I had some idea of what lay before me, thanks to a recent Dexter binge on Netflix. I could dismember my client and dispose of the pieces in neatly-wrapped parcels. Or just drop him in the river with cinder blocks tied to his feet. Sounded reasonable, if a little cliché; except that I didn’t have a boat. I mean, I couldn’t very well throw the guy over a bridge railing without attracting an audience. Natalie suggested we rent one of those wood chipper thingies. Problem was, while I had a pretty strong stomach for death, I couldn’t say the same for butchering a corpse.

  So, I called in the big guns.

  Otto picked up on the second ring and, before I could say a word in greeting, cut me off. “Not the best time, Dom. Can this wait?”

  Technically it could; Lyle wasn’t likely to sneak off and get into any trouble, after all. But you had to be selfish with Otto; if you gave the guy an inch, he’d take a mile every time. “I wish it could, man.” Harrumph. Cough. “In a pretty big pickle here.” Actually, I wasn’t exaggerating all that much. I mean, I was missing The Walking Dead as we spoke.

  Anyway, I didn’t have to hear the background conversation to infer that Otto—always the lady’s man—had been about to seal the deal before my call.

  “Be there in half an hour,” he said.

  This caused me to frown. “Otto, you live like five minutes away.”

  “I just need to, uh, finish something up.”

  “Come on, man,” I grumbled. “This is important. I need you now, not in half an hour.”

  Otto lowered his voice. “Dom, I’m with someone, man.”

  “Yeah, shocker.”

  His voice rose a little, loud enough for his date to hear, no doubt. “Listen, this girl happens to be really important to me.”

  “Ahhhh, that’s sweet. So what’s her last name?”

  An uncomfortable pause.

  “Is it Doubledee, perhaps?”

  More silence.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re a classy guy, Otto. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “Tell you what, smartass,” he hissed. “Let’s make it forty-five. And there better be a cold one waiting for me when I get there.”

  The line went dead and I smiled.

  Oh, there’d be a cold one alright. That much he could be sure of.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes turned into an hour and fifteen. Natalie paced a rut into the carpet in the meantime, bombarding me with a million what-ifs.

  “What if we left a blood trail up the stairwell? What if Mrs. Yang was looking through her peephole again?”

  “She doesn’t even speak English, Nat.”

  “What about Mr. Leland? He’s always staring out the window.”

  “Oh, c’mon. They guy’s seventy-five; he probably hit the sack before sundown.

  “What if the guy’s car has one of those GPS trackers in it? What if—”

  “Ooh, I got one!” I gasped with hands on my cheeks. “What if you calmed the hell down?”

  My stepsister gave me a wounded glance before plopping to the couch beside me. “Easy for you to say.”

  “How’s that?”

  She shrugged. “Forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  A minute passed in blessed silence before Natalie turned to me again, her gray eyes now full of melancholy. “Do you remember when that kid almost drowned at summer camp?”

  “As in, like twenty years ago? Vaguely, I guess. Why?”

  “Because… I don’t. I mean, there’s a fleeting image of something, you know?” She pushed a ginger lock of hair behind her ear. “There’s like, a placeholder in my mind. But the memory itself is gone. It’s almost—”

  A sharp rap on the door cut Natalie off. And thank God, too. She was really starting to freak me out. Even more than the dead guy.

  As Otto let himself in—with a lazy smile of satisfaction, I couldn’t help but notice—Natalie fled to the bedroom with a scowl. No love lost between those two, by the way. A long story for another time, but suffice to say that Natalie would rather beat herself silly with a dead cat than share breathing space with my best friend. An unfortunate situation, but one that couldn’t be helped.

  Otto went straight for the fridge and popped a bud before offering so much as a hello.

  “Otto, you’re being very rude to our guest,” I chided.

  Stepping back into the living room, his gaze settled on the floor, where Lyle Jenson was rolled in a plastic drop sheet. A smile tugged at the corners of Otto’s mouth. “Is that a human burrito? Man, I can’t wait to hear all about this.” He chuckled. “You wanna make some nachos? I’m suddenly in the mood for Mexican food.” He disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “Nachos are Tex-Mex, not Mexican, you uncultured buffoon.” I cleared my throat, felt a trickle of blood slide down my gullet.

  “Uh-huh,” came his muffled reply. “That’s me.”

  He returned with a bag of Tostitos in one hand and bowl of marinara in the other. “Um, wouldn’t salsa make more sense?”

  Otto smirked. “It would if you had any.” He dove in with a chip and made it disappear without cracking a smile. He tilted the bag toward me. “Not bad, want some?”

  I felt my mouth pucker in disgust. But I was a little hungry. So I gave one a whirl. It wasn’t terrible. I’ve certainly had worse, anyway, and the marinara did feel good on my throat. I went in for another and plopped to the couch.

  “Alright,” I said. “So here’s the scoop.” See what I did there?

  I filled him in, leaving out nothing. Otto finished off the chips while I talked, leaving me with a handful of torti
lla shards that were too small to dip without getting my fingers wet. Douche bag.

  “Seriously?” he balked. “Twenty grand?” Otto gave me a sarcastic frown. “No wonder you can’t afford salsa.”

  “Yeah, well. It may sound like a lot to you, but I’ve got a lot of unconventional expenses.”

  Otto burped and, while disgusted, I thanked my lucky stars it hadn’t come out the other end. He nodded toward the body. “You shoulda left him in his car.”

  “Couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my blood was all over the place.”

  Otto cocked his head from side to side and made a shrill humming sound. “I kinda see your point, I guess. But you’ve never been arrested before, right?”

  “That is true, remarkably.”

  “So the cops don’t have any way of tracing blood or fingerprints back to you.”

  He was right, I supposed. Of course, since I parked Lyle’s car right outside my building, they wouldn’t have to look far. Something in my facial expression must’ve tipped Otto off as I thought this, because at once he leapt to the window and pulled the shade aside. “You didn’t…” he muttered.

  Oh, but I had.

  “You dragged a body up here in broad daylight? Good Lord, Dom!”

  I threw up my hands. “I know, right? I mean, no one even offered to help! It’s a sign of the times, my friend. This damn country is really going downhill.”

  “Are you crazy? Did anyone see you?”

  I waved this off with a smirk. “C’mon, nobody sees anything in this neighborhood.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “You know that as well as anyone.”

  With a grunt, Otto let the shade slip from his fingers. “What kind of car?”

  “Beamer. Dark blue. Keys in the ignition.”

  A single eyebrow shot into an arch. “You serious?” He returned to the couch with a whimsical grin.

  “Yup,” I chuckled. “Pretty sure it was gone before I hit the stairwell.”

  “Well played, sir.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Getting rid of Lyle turned out to be quite a process. First, we dragged him down two floors to the laundry room and forced him through a window that overlooked the alley. There were two dumpsters positioned conveniently below us, yet we somehow managed to miss them both. The body landed with a rustling thwack on the concrete between them.