Page 37 of A Breath of Life
Had he been arrested?
My eyes widened. “Oh, god. That’s it. Diem, what have you done?” The possibility was real. When Diem’s temper flared, he sometimes struggled to rein it in. Had he mouthed off to a cop? Punched a hole in a stranger’s windshield?
What about Echo?
I thumbed my phone, spinning it in circles and wishing it would ring. The silence ate at me. Poor sleep added a layer of fog to my rational thinking, and I jumped at car doors slamming and horns honking. When a man shouted outside the window, I launched from the desk to see if it was Diem.
It wasn’t.
I mindlessly checked emails, but the jumbled words were meaningless. I shifted papers from one side of the desk to the other and back, opened a few folders, and closed them again. I sat in Diem’s office and scanned, looking for clues that weren’t there.
When Memphis texted at eleven, our usual catch-up time on weekdays, I ignored him.
At ten to twelve, I called the records department, hoping Kitty hadn’t taken an early lunch.
“Good afternoon,” she sang into the phone with far too much cheer. “You’ve reached the records department at Toronto Police Headquarters. This is—”
“Hey, Kitty. It’s Tallus.” Before she could get a word in, I unraveled. “Diem’s missing. Like gone. Vanished.Poof. Please do your witchy magic thing and tell me where he is. I’ll pay you. I’m ten seconds from freaking out. Scratch that. I’m ten-plus hours into the biggest panic attack of my life, and I’m about to report him missing, but that feels drastic. Is it drastic? How do I know if it’s drastic? If I’m wrong, he’ll be angrier than when he left the house last night, and despite how it looks, I go out of my way not to upset him. It wasn’t my fault. I swear. There was the stupid card and the money, then the stupid, boring case he wanted to pawn off on me, and I was so hungry despite the food you left me.
“I didn’t share it, by the way. I ate it all like the gluttonous pig I am. Do you know how moody I get when I’m hungry? This was worse. I was a petulant little brat. He said so. He used those words. It hurt my feelings, but he was right. I can’t be reasoned with when I move into that stage of hunger. He said things, then I said things, then doors slammed, and he took Echo and left. He said he was going to visit his nana, but he didn’t come home, and it’s been, like, sixteen hours, Kitty. Sixteen! What am I going to do?”
I whimpered and hugged my phone to my ear, needing my co-worker’s loving embrace more than I could articulate. Or at least advice.
She didn’t speak for a long time, so I whined, “Kitty, please. Tell me what to do.”
“Well, start with a deep breath. I’m sure it’s nothing. Have you checked the office?”
“I’m at the office. He hasn’t been here all night. There would be signs, and there are no signs. I looked. I checked. I put on my investigator pants, and I swear he’s not been here.”
“You’ve called him.”
“At least ten billion times, and I’ve left over two dozen messages. Is he breaking up with me? Is he dead?”
“No, sweetie. You know how Diem gets. He needs space when he’s processing. I bet he’s driving around the city—”
“His Jeep’s at home. He left on foot and never came back. All night.”
More silence. “Well, that is a pickle, isn’t it?”
“Don’t say that. No pickles. You’re a witch. Do your magic. Can’t you mind meld him or whatever it is you do that makes you all-knowing? Tell him to come home. Tell him I’m sorry, and I’ll never be a petulant brat again. Tell him—”
“Sixteen hours?”
“Yes.”
“Hang on.” The line clicked, and grating Musak came through the speaker. She’d put me on hold.
“Goddammit. I don’t have time for this, Kitty. Come back.”
She returned a minute later. “He’s not answering my calls either.”
“Oh my god. That’s bad. He always takes your calls. Do I panic? I feel like I should panic. I’m panicking.”
“Now, now. I think it’s premature to panic. Let me think.”
“How can you be so calm?”
“Hang on.”
