Page 17 of Fluffed and Folded

“Yo,” Tristan said which, using the translations he’d managed to glean over the last few months, Eli took to mean, “Please come in.”

“Hi,” Eli said. He took a seat. “According to all the old timey PI movies I’ve seen, I thought it would be black and white in here.”

“It was, before Josie.” Tristan flicked his hand to the walls, now lined with several colorful paintings in vivid frames.

Eli snickered because it was definitely Josie’s handiwork, along with the framed picture of Tristan and Josie together on his desk, side by side with a knitted gnome with a grumpy expression, its arms crossed angrily over its chest. And yet despite the fact that the room was clearly decorated by a kindergarten teacher, somehow it fit Tristan exactly right, too.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a social call,” Tristan said.

Eli decided to get directly to the point. “You’re a former cop. Hypothetically speaking, if someone told you they committed a crime, would you have to turn them in?”

Tristan’s brows rose slightly, but his voice didn’t modulate when he answered. “Hypothetically speaking, it would go a long way toward finding a gray area, if they were an actual paying client.”

Eli reached for his wallet and slid a dollar over the desk. Tristan took it, studied it in silence a few beats, and then turned his intense gaze on Eli. “What is this about, Eli?”

“Darby, come in here,” Eli called, and Darby poked her head around the corner. She was skittish, some might say vulnerable, and he felt his heart pluck painfully at the sight of her as she craned her neck and surveyed Tristan with one eye. Eli motioned her closer and patted the chair beside him, urging her in. Tentatively she let go of the door and eased her way inside. He noticed that her fingers were white where she’d been clutching the door. “This is my landlord, Darby,” he introduced. “Darby, this is Tristan, my friend’s bo… My friend, I guess. Darby’s having a problem, and we didn’t know where else to go.”

Both men turned to Darby, waiting. Tristan did the impossible then, by softening and leaning forward. “Can you tell me about it?” he asked in a gentle tone that sounded nothing like him. Eli frowned at him, not certain if he should be offended for Josie or himself. Clearly it was Darby having this effect on him, the effect she had on most men, but Eli didn’t think it should work on Tristan, not when he had Josie. But it bothered him on another level, one that felt protective of Darby, and he didn’t like that, either. Darby wasn’t his to protect, could never be his. Just because she had come to him in her time of need didn’t make them anything more than odd acquaintances.

On the other hand, he supposed Tristan needed to be good at reading people and getting them to open up. And if the wayDarby took a sniffly little breath and started to speak was any indication, his tactics worked well.

“I’ve been having some trouble,” she said slowly, softly.

“What kind of trouble?” Tristan asked.

“Some, um, memory problems. Blackout episodes.” She took her eyes off the desk, darted him a glance, and stared at the desk again.

“Do you take anything? Drink to excess?” Tristan asked. Somehow he managed to say it with no judgement, as if merely curious.

She shook her head. “No, never.”

“How do you know you’ve been blacking out?” Tristan asked.

“I don’t think I did, at first. I kept having these uncomfortable sensations, like déjà vu, but worse. Like I’d been somewhere, doing something wrong. And then,” she paused and darted a glance at Eli. “And then Eli caught me in his apartment in the middle of the night. It was sort of like I came to or woke up and realized where I was, but with no idea of how I got there. I didn’t want to think about it, though, to believe something was wrong. So I kind of shoved it down and forgot about it. And then…” She paused and glanced at Eli again, this time unable to continue.

“And then yesterday my neighbor was murdered, one of the tenants in her building.” He glanced at Darby, urging her to tell this part of the story herself.

“I’m worried I might have done it,” Darby blurted in a croaky whisper, then licked her lips.

“Why do you think that?” Tristan asked in the same casual tone. How did he take all judgement out of his voice? It was uncanny, and also a better response than Eli’d had. Last night when Darby made her confession to him, he tried to jump out of bed, got tangled in the bedsheets, and sagged to the ground like a wilting flower.

“The police came yesterday and told me they needed to do a welfare check on a tenant. They asked to be let into his apartment. I agreed, but I felt this sense of dread about it. As I unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside, it was as if I had that feeling again, the familiar feeling. I recognized his apartment.”

“Are all the apartments the same design?” Tristan asked.

“Yes, but this was more than that. I knew what his decorations would look like. And also I…” She swallowed and forced herself to continue, balling her hands to stop their shaking. “I knew he would be dead.”

“What made you think that?” Tristan asked.

“I don’t know. But I was certain. I could picture where we would find him, how he would look.” She bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. It was starting to show signs of wear, becoming chapped and swollen. Eli resisted the urge to reach over and tug it free, but it bothered him in a visceral way to see her so upset.

“Do you remember harming him?” Tristan asked.

She shook her head. A piece of her hair tumbled free and landed on her shoulder. Her hair was tumbly, a thing Eli would never have used to describe anyone else. But with Darby, it was the only applicable adjective. Thick and curly, too much to stay contained, it constantly escaped its confines and tumbled around her. With her luminous eyes and full lips, she was like a cartoon character personified, Princess Peach come to life. Eli felt torn between reacting to her beauty and not wanting to react to her beauty. He did not want to be the sort of idiot who fell for a pretty face. But as he watched her while she spoke and felt all the things her beauty invoked in him, he was fairly certain he was that idiot.I can manage it,he promised himself. Obviously he felt a surface attraction to her; he would have to be dead not to. But he was aware of the attraction and acknowledged that itwas only skin deep. Darby was beautiful; he was a man who was swayed by beauty; ergo he was swayed by Darby.

Admitting his attraction and banishing it to the realm of an unavoidable reaction was a relief somehow, as if he’d given himself permission to acknowledge the elephant in the room. It eased some of the pressure inside him so he felt able to offer an authentic reaction to her, not born of awkwardness or self-conscious avoidance. For that reason when he sensed her current distress, he reached over and rested his hand on her arm, comfortingly, encouragingly. Darby glanced quickly at him and seemed to be reassured by whatever she read in his expression.

“I don’t remember harming him or anyone,” Darby said. “But I also don’t know how to explain the gaps in my mind and the weird things that have happened.”

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