Author's Note
Thank you so much for the reviews! I really do appreciate them. I'm still doing my best to keep up with my self-imposed deadlines. So far, I think I'm doing pretty good! I
You wake up slowly and lazily. No fanfare. And no idea when you fell asleep to begin with. Panic shakes you awake; you don't recognize the room you're in. You stumble to the door before you remember. The murder, the blood, the hours of driving here and there.
Lean against the door, press your forehead against it. Tommy's death feels so unreal. Just yesterday morning you said hello, talked about his newborn grandson. Let yourself hyperventilate for a bit before trying to take deep breaths. Christ, who's going to take care of Peekaboo?
Wait.
Turn around too fast and lose balance. You have no idea where your phone is. Thankfully, that doesn't seem necessary. Mr Jane looks to be asleep in the arm chair. Pulled it back to where it was, away from the desk. His jacket is still on the counter in the small kitchenette.
You dig through the pockets to find his phone; blissfully unlocked. Everyone also is thankfully entered with their actual names.
"Jane where the hell have you been?" Agent Lisbon sounds extremely upset and out of breath. It takes you a second to be able to answer. She sounds entirely different from yesterday.
"Um, Agent Lisbon? It's Skye Benraft?"
"Oh. Oh my god, Miss Benraft I'm so sorry. I thought..." Can almost hear her pinch the bridge of her nose. "What can I help you with?" Voice still has an edge to it, but she sounds much more like the agent you spoke to earlier.
"Sorry, I just—Agent Van Pelt told me to call if I remembered anything and you were the first name I recognized in Mr Jane's phone, uh. He stayed the night. I mean! Jesus no he kept me company? God all of that sounds wrong, shit." Take another stuttering breath.
"I'm sorry, Miss Benraft, but I'm—"
"No, it's—the dog, Tommy had a dog. A tiny black and white thing? God I really don't know what race it is, just that her name is Peekaboo and she wasn't in the house when I was there," you finish with a sigh, run a nervous hand through your hair.
"It's possible the dog just ran off after the murder. The door was left open," Lisbon tries to reason. If it had been any other dog and any other person, you might have been inclined to agree.
"No, no Peekaboo never stayed more than ten feet away from Tommy. He'd walk her without a leash all the time and in the eight years I've been in that neighborhood she's never run away before."
Agent Lisbon is fairly quiet for a moment. You hear a door opening and closing and conversations in the distance.
"Do you have any idea if the dog was a pure bred? Some kind of show dog?," agent Lisbon asks. You frown; it's not hard to recall.
"Uh, actually. Probably, yeah. Yeah I think I remember Tommy mentioning that Peekaboo won a couple shows? He might have been preparing for another show, I—it's not like we talked a lot but that was just so weird that a man in his nineties would enter a dog show. It kind of stood out, right?"
Lisbon makes an appreciative sound on the other end. "Thank you, Skye, that's actually a great help. Was there anything else?" She sounds like a patient mother, now. Calm and collected. Makes you feel like you actually helped. You're not convinced you did.
"Well, there's, I don't really know how to—"
Your conversation is cut short; the phone is plucked from your hands and your heart just about leaps out of your rib cage.
"Lisbon! I'll be busy today. Take Grace with you, I'm sure she'll appreciate it." Snaps the phone shut.
Oh Jesus. You absolutely feel like a wounded gazelle under his stare. His face only seems impassive on the surface; even you can recognize the clenching of the jaw and the deliberate set of the brows. You back up against the fridge.
"I couldn't find my phone I didn't go through your stuff I swear I just, I remembered something and I figured you'd have someone's. What... what are you doing?"
Confused, you watch Mr Jane grab and throw his jacket over his shoulder. Pulls out a pair of aviators from god knows where. He grabs your messenger bag and throws it at you. You only barely manage to catch it.
"You're phone's in the side pocket."
"Where are we going, though? I mean I'm not exactly dressed for anything?"
Turns around. You don't like that toothy grin in the slightest.
"You are going to be putting your newfound knowledge to good use."
Questions bubble up and out of you like water in the parking lot. You hadn't given much thought as to what kind of car you would be traveling in. You'd assumed something like the CBI SUV agent Van Pelt drove yesterday.
"Is that an actual Citroen? What year is it? My parents called this a fish tank but it looks kind of nice? Whose soul did you sell to be able to afford gas for this thing? Does it still have the original engine block? What about the paint job?"
Jane makes an attempt to answer as many of your questions as he can. Eventually, he stops trying, simply lets you go on until you stop yourself, realize you've been rambling and shut up. There's nothing malicious about any of it. It's almost indulgent.
The car itself is actually more comfortable than it looks, which is honestly saying a lot. You settle into comfortably and completely forego asking where you're going. You probably wouldn't get a straight answer anyways. You do, however, have a few more unrelated questions.
"When did I fall asleep?"
Mr Jane seems to mull this over a bit, tapping out a beat on the steering wheel. "Around two this morning, I think," he answers easily, keeping his eyes on the road. There's an expression you can't quite read on his face. "You don't remember?"
You shake your head. "No, I just..." You trail off, frowning and trying to remember something. Anything. "I remember your asking what I know about cold reading, tells and non-verbal shit but like. Not really... anything after that?"
He lets a beat pass. You have two simultaneous realizations in those few seconds.
"Wait, you. Did you hypnotize me?" You make sure to make your disbelief clear. Jane looks at you for a second. Again with that self satisfaction. "Why?"
"To see how prone you are to suggestion," he explains. The tone in his voices make you feel like this is a conclusion you should have drawn naturally, by yourself. How the hell.
"And?"
"Not very, stunningly."
You want to be offended. But the answer surprises you, too. You would have thought that your willingness to believe in hypnosis and suggestion would make you especially susceptible to it. You're almost relieved to hear that isn't the case. You sink back in your seat, look off to the east. Dark clouds rolling in on the horizon. It's a little eerie.
"If I ask, will you tell me where we're going?"
You aren't sure if that was a chuckle or a scoff. "Probably not."
For two hours, you're mostly left to yourself and your phone. When you first check it you've got about 20 missed calls and just as many text messages. Some from concerned friend, most from the bookstore owner. For the first half hour, that's all you do. Reply to messages and make calls. Everyone seems distraught that you stumbled upon a corpse, and the store owner insists you take a week off, maybe two. Whatever time you need, she says she'll pay you for half of it. Least I could do, she says.
You're most of the way to sleeping when Mr Jane pulls over at a diner. A little non-descript place off the interstate, looks family owned. You aren't given an explanation.
"Please tell me this is a food stop," you ask. Complain, actually; you won't lie. You're starving. You can't remember the last time you ate anything substantial.
"I don't know about you but I'm craving a good burger," Jane replies, and again you feel like you aren't actually being told anything. Or getting answers.
You're seated at a comfortable booth by a plucky waitress. She talks too much. Thankfully, Jane takes care of most of the small talk. You nod when appropriate, but otherwise keep quiet. He orders for you. You'd be offended if he hadn't actually asked for scrambled eggs and bacon with a cup of coffee for you. Coffee sounds like just the thing you need right now.
When the waitress comes back some time later with both food and coffee (bless her and the cook they are saints), Mr Jane pipes up, rests a hand on the woman's arm. You can't help but frown; that's a trick, right? Something nags at your memory, but you can't quite wrap your mind around it just yet.
"Have you heard about a murdered dog owner, out here?"
Your jaw drops. That... you did not expect that.
But the waitress suddenly has a gleam in her eye. A true gossip. Figures; small communities have fast-traveling news. You, however, can't connect the dots to Tommy, his missing dog and this waitress in the middle of relatively nowhere on the way to who knows where.
"Oh my—yes, I did! Poor old man," she puts a hand over her heart and looks genuinely crestfallen. "Johnny or Tommy or something, right? He'd stop by here every couple months with this cutest little dog! Black and white, a uh, what's it called again."
"Havanese, right?" Jane has eyes only for the waitress. You can't say she doesn't notice. She looks flattered by the attention.
"Yeah, that's it! Havanese! Cutest little thing, like I said. We're a nice spot for those dog show people when they come down. We're one of the only dog-friendly diners around here, yeah? So a lot of people will stop by on their way to Paso Robles." The waitress seems blissfully oblivious to the handful of patrons shooting her either interested or displeased looks.
Jane leans in. You begin to wonder what it is about people and pretending they have a secret. Jesus.
"I heard," he starts, hushed tone, looks around as if to make sure no one else is paying attention. Everyone is. You sure are. "That it was that one crazy killer. The one that started in Fresno?"
The waitress gasps, mostly shocked and entirely captivated. "No way!" She startles herself, looks around, lowers her tone. "You're kidding, right? Why would anyone kill a poor old man over a dog?"
Mr Jane shrugs and begins nursing what you assume, by now, is a mug of tea. The waitress—her name is Mindy, you think, but the nametag is awfully faded—turns to you with a shocked expression. You can't think of anything else to do but shrug as well.
"She's the one who found the body," Jane whispers, and you can feel you chest and neck turn red.
"Oh. Oh my god. Oh my god," Waitress Mindy brings both hands to her mouth and completely forgets about the pad and pen she was holding. They clatter to the floor, but no one seems to notice or care. "Oh sweetie, I can't let you pay. that's terrible. It's on the house, don't worry about it."
And then she disappears through the doors to the kitchen.
You glare at Mr Jane.
"That was completely and wholly un—"
"It wasn't completely unnecessary," he cuts you off, that toothy, wolfish grin on his face again. You're torn between finding it charming and annoying. Maybe limited exposure makes it more endearing. "Now we know who killed Old Man Tommy."
You pause and frown. You also wonder how fast you'll develop wrinkles with how much you've frowned in the past two days.
"Wait so. There's a serial killer in California, from Fresno, who, what? Kills people with prize dogs? That makes no sense?" You're almost too incredulous to touch your eggs. Almost. You try not to think about what happens to the dogs. Shove some bacon down your throat and pretend it was never an animal.
Jane patiently sits in front of you, sipping his tea and occasionally having a bit of eggs on toast. Alright, so he's trying to let you figure this out for yourself. You have no idea why, but alright. What the heck? Some brain work will keep you distracted enough to forget a corpse in rigor mortis.
"Kills the owner, goes after a show dog. Probably doesn't kill the dog; I mean, if you go through the trouble of eli...eliminating competition?" You get a raised brow in response. Okay, close, but a little off track. "Well the dogs aren't getting kidnapped to be used in shows. Judges would notice that the same dog is showing up under a different owner and trainer. Right? Unless..." You trail off, biting down on your fork.
"Unless what?," Jane prompts, leans back in his seat and throws his arm over the back.
"Okay but saying that the judges or the registration staff are in on it is some conspiracy theory BS though, right?" You pause. No reply. Passive face, not even a raised brow. You deflate. "Oh come on, that can't be right."
"You tell me, Fortune Teller. What do the cards say?"
You hate the condescending tone, but take out your deck of cards regardless. You're not liking the feeling of being a pet project, but even you can't deny that this is the most excitement you've had in years.