Page 27 of Icy Heart, Empty Chest
I ignored him and pressed on. “There is also a possibility that he left a key and you won’t have to pick a lock, which, as we figured out from last night, you suck at.”
“Shockingly, I trained to be a police officer and not a cat burglar,” he sassed.
“I am sure in one of the 10,000 classes they must have made you take, they tell you in order to catch a criminal you have to think like one, right?” I looked over for confirmation and he nodded. “So tell me, you’re a regular ordinary person with no criminal intent, or at least minimal criminal intent.” I put air quotes around minimal. “Where would you put something that valuable?”
He huffed and thought for a minute. “Like you said before, safes, drawers, under other furniture in another container. If you’re really paranoid, you put things behind walls. If I were a betting man, I would say he wouldn’t give it to somebody else no matter how much he trusted them because of what it is and how he got it. We are, of course, making the bigger assumption that it is at his house. We absolutely cannot rule out that it might be on his person.”
“I do actually realize this. I’m just going for the most probable, not every possibility. The only other thing you can’t discount is the size.”
“What about size?” he asked through a furrowed brow.
I rolled my eyes. “Head out of the gutter. I mean, we’re told the heart is roughly as big as your fist, right? But, it’s still an organ. It needs a case, something to protect it. Something sturdy. I can’t believe I forgot about those till now.”
He looked disgruntled, shooting me a cranky look.
“Damien what do you want me to say? That it could be anywhere? I’m working on my knowledge of fae behavior and this industry.” I shrugged.
He shot me another look.
“Your face will stick that way,” I said, sipping my now lukewarm coffee.
“I don’t like this, Cor. Too many uncertainties.”
I put the mug down, resting my head in my hands. I was getting tired of the back and forth.
“How is this any different from your job? No certainties there either.” I argued.
“Have you ever been told that you’re absolutely maddening?” He squinted at me, annoyed.
“At least once a week, twice on weekends.”
“Did you also consider it may break a few legal, moral, ethical boundaries of mine to break into someone else’s house?”
I sent him the stoniest glare I could muster and followed it up with a glacial tone. “You took out your heart. I may have done follow up damage but you were the catalyst here, not me.”
He opened his mouth briefly but closed it and let out a deep breath. I think he knew it wasn’t worth it starting a fight with me right now. Not over this.
“Are you ever going to tell me why?” I folded my hands in front of me.
He put his hand over his scar site. “Not yet, but yes.”
I nodded. “Fair. I can’t ask you to be forthcoming with me if I can’t do the same. Even if I’m dying to know.” Occasionally, I am able to be an adult.
He raised an eyebrow. “You always were a curious little nymph.”
I snorted. “I’m surprised I wasn’t kicked out of more places.”
“You certainly had your interests. I remember that day when you grilled that curator for close to forty-five minutes on his own specialty and he was very confused that a ten-year-old had as much knowledge as a PhD.”
“They used to call me precocious.” I waved my spoon in his general direction.
He snorted. “Because all the other adjectives wouldn’t sum up how scary smart you were at that age.”
I smiled. Despite my mother’s death and my father’s depression, my childhood had been full of libraries, books on end, reading till I got yelled at to go to bed (repeatedly), science experiments, exploration of the universe around me. Collecting knowledge was like breathing for me. My father was my ringleader as much as he could be, setting up obstacle courses in the backyard, looking at flora and fauna in the parks, leaf and flower identification. He reasoned that I’d never be bored when learning, and he wasn’t wrong. I remembered pulling Damien into everything that I did from as early as I knew him. We got into every natural science there was, pulling up rocks, observing animal behavior, planting gardens and vegetables and waiting for them to grow, looking through the telescope on the balcony for constellations.
“We did everything in my neighborhood, didn’t we?” The memory felt nourishing.
Damien nodded and returned the smile. “Up and around every tree, coated in sidewalk chalk and mud, showered in leaves, collecting bouquets of weeds.”
