Telling Truths

By Nani Nicks

During a cold winter, a package is found to contain an arm. A real arm, unidentified and accompanied by death threats. The real mystery is the recipient, a PI with more than a snarky attitude up her sleeves. For a start, she claims her lawyer is a vampire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nani Nicks
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310788673

Book preview

Telling Truths

Book One of the Investigatrix Series

Nani Nicks

Published by Nani Nicks at Smashwords.com

Copyright 2015 Nani Nicks

Cover Art Copyright 2015 J.R. Nicks

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

I’m warm, comfortable, and someone’s ringing my doorbell. Figures. It’s not that annoying a doorbell, and I can ignore it. I snuggle deeper into my nest of blankets and hope it’s at least March. The doorbell stops, and I’m allowed a moment of relief before the burglar alarm goes off. That I can’t ignore; the undulating, high-pitched shrieking of my burglar alarm was designed to wake me up if someone tries to get in my house.

Stumbling onto two feet, I hope I look human enough to answer the door. My dragonhide coat is on a hook on the back of the door. Once my arms cooperate, I pull it on and leave, stumbling down the stairs. At the front door, I give the command to kill the alarm. Had to do it at the point of entry, otherwise the spell has a two-minute snooze feature. I unlock the door and yank it open. I just register the child hanging on the button when a man is looming up beside her, having cut across my yard to see what she was up to.

Clare, nobody’s home.

I should have made an illusion to match his words, door closed and nobody home, except I was still asleep. I had reasons not to worry about defense and such, so I’d left my brain snuggled up under my blankets.

She is, Clare says in a soft voice, innocently confused about her daddy being wrong. I’d say she’s about six; she’ll get over that soon enough.

He looks to his left, as his left side is to my front door while he talks to Clare, sees me and smiles sheepishly. I wave and reach out to unlock the screen door, locked to confuse teenagers who might think they could break into an abandoned house for some fun.

I’m home, I was just sleeping.

He looks at his watch, and I look past him. Snow. Sunset and snow. It is so not spring yet.

It’s after three p.m., he says in a disbelieving voice, but I have a ready answer.

I work strange hours.

I thought the house had been abandoned for the winter. Frowning man doesn’t want to let this go.

I work strange hours, I come and go through the back, and I don’t have any family that necessitates decorating for the holidays. And yes, Alex, he’d like to buy a clue.

We didn’t mean to disturb you. Clare noticed this letter fall out of your mailbox and I told her to put it between the doors. He doesn’t add that he doesn’t know why she was ringing the doorbell.

The screen door wouldn’t open, Daddy.

That’s true, I had it locked. But why didn’t you just put it back in the mailbox?

He looks at me, his brain making connections that I probably don’t want it to make. You’ve had a package sticking out of your mailbox for the last week. I guess the mailman pokes stuff in around it, but this came loose.

I offer a smile to Clare. Can I have my letter, my little mail carrier?

She giggles as she hands it to me and I glance at it. I’ve just won a million dollars, provided I spend two million getting it out of their hands. I beat back the desire to set fire to it, and toss it into the basket that catches my mail.

This was very important, Clare. Thank you for being nice enough to bring it to me. Now, I guess I should go see about this package.

There’s a pair of rubber boots by the door and I fight my way into them and an overcoat. Clearly, it isn’t a fashion parade that heads for my mailbox. Clare follows me because anything new is exciting in her book. Her dad follows her because anything new in his book is a threat to his kid.

There is a package, about six inches longer than my mailbox. It’s not so big around that it didn’t fit in the box, even though it’s square, so I guess the mailman didn’t feel he needed to bring it to the door. There are other letters crammed around it, so I grab a few of those and pull the package out. Closing the mailbox, I set the package on top of it and wonder what Clare wants from me now. I shove the letters in my coat pocket and glance at her dad.

He suddenly understands and clears his throat. She loves getting mail, and finds packages irresistible.

I’ve got reservations about opening the thing in front of her, since I didn’t order anything and don’t know what it could be, but, I do want to sleep until the snow melts. With kids, it’s important to pick your battles. Shifting the package, I look and don’t see a return address. Not a good sign, so I check the postmark. Mailed from Kansas, and I don’t know anybody that likes tornadoes. I go for it, popping the twine and running a fingernail through the tape. I have to move aside some decorative holiday tissue paper to see the arm inside. Real arm. Fingers curled into a loose fist, probably to make it fit into the package better, sawed off at the elbow. No identifying marks on the visible top of the arm.

What is it? Clare asks, and I fold the flaps back up.

It’s a Halloween decoration I ordered that got lost in the mail.

Let me see! Clare loves Halloween; I can tell from her excited squeal.

But then you wouldn’t be surprised by it next Halloween.

Oh, Clare says in a very disappointed way. She sees the adult logic and knows she won’t win against it, whether it’s true or not.

One of the envelopes in my pocket was larger than standard, so I dig it back out. A quick glance and I hold it out for her. Clare, this is a letter that you can open. It’s a good cause and they send out stickers and cards, trying to get people to donate money to them. You can keep the stickers and everything, I don’t need them.

She perks up, but looks to dad for approval.

Take it in the house, you need to warm up.

Clare grabs the envelope and runs into the house to the left of mine. I expect dad to follow her, remove her snow clothes, and clean up the trail she made. He stays put and looks at me, setting my instincts ablaze.

You going to call the cops? he asks in a calm voice.

About your kid handling my mail and trying to break into my house? I’m genuinely confused, but he gets irritated.

About the arm in your mailbox. He’s trying to stay calm, but the way he’s enunciating each syllable lets me know it’s an effort.

Oh, that. Like I said, Halloween décor.

He’s not six, and he’s not buying that line. Lady, I know plastic when I see it. I also know the look on your face wasn’t annoyance at a decoration arriving four months late.

If you take October as a month of those four, that means it’s January. If October doesn’t count, then it’s February. Either way; not March.

Well, it’s not an emergency, since you say the arm has been here a week.

I’ll call; save you the trouble of looking up a phone number. He sounds irritated, but I can’t imagine why. He’s got a cell phone on him and dials 22, which means the cops are on his speed dial. Mike? It’s Dean.

A pause while Mike expresses his pleasure at hearing from his friend, daddy Dean.

Snow day canceled classes, and my neighbor got an arm mailed to her.

A pause while Mike expresses his confusion over that statement.

Real arm, no return address.

I figure Mike is trying to think of a good reason to not come check this out. It’s ridiculously cold out here. Looks like three feet of snow, and there’s only one path of tire treads on the road in front of my mailbox, so the snow just invaded us.

Who you bringing with you?

Whatever poor slob that actually made it into work today, I’d imagine.

He’s good. See you soon. Dean hangs up and looks at me. I think he’d like to glare but sliding off his phone to end the call takes the anger out of his gestures. Miss, how much sleep did you get?

November first to whatever today is probably isn’t the answer that will get him to go away.

Just a few hours. But since the cops are coming and I haven’t touched the inside of the box, can I go brush my teeth and change clothes?

Technically, he could hold me here until they arrive, in case I’ve got trace evidence on me. He thinks about it, so I start shivering. I’m not really dressed for the weather; poor pitiful me.

They won’t be long, so you should hurry.

Thanks! I smile, but stuff my hands deeper into my coat pockets so he knows I’m cold. I am, and I hate being cold. So why do I live in a place with winter? Creature of habit, I suppose. Maybe a deep-seated need for trees. Deep-seeded, heh.

At any rate, I go back into my house and toss off the overcoat. As I toe off the boots, I look at the mirror in the entry way. When I’m awake, I look in it before leaving. I didn’t do that a few minutes ago, so now I’m stuck with whatever face I put on when I woke up. 5’8, with five feet of blonde hair. Her again. I spent so much time as her that she’s my default setting when I shift to human without thinking. She’s also the image that shows up if I Google my real name, so I’m not the only one unable to let go.

Fortunately, the hair was under the coat, so I can adjust it to just past shoulder length and Dean won’t notice. He’s a cop of some sort, that’s obvious, but he’s still a guy. Only two hair lengths have mattered to guys over the passing of time, I have hair and I don’t have hair. He’ll dismiss any concerns about my hair as unimportant. Sexist, maybe, but still historically accurate.

For now, I have to get ready for guests, the kind of guests who get paid to snoop around and look for anything out of the ordinary. But I’m prepared for that, and can do this kind of spell in my sleep. Lucky me, since I’ve still got that just-woken-up fog about me. I decide to start at the top and work my way down, so I head up to the second floor.

From the back of the house, I’ve got three stories and a really large window for a back wall. From the front, I’ve only got two stories. This isn’t magic, but a neat little architectural trick based on the slope of the ground. The stairs that lead to my third floor are mechanically movable, so that anyone can transform the stairs into a walkway to look out the large window. Might sound excessive, but it keeps creatures who can’t fly from wandering into my nest.

It took the guys who built this house an hour to make this transition, but I can do it in three minutes with the help of some magic. Could probably do it even quicker if I electrified the set-up, but then there’d be a record somewhere of it. This is one case where my paranoia outweighs my need for speed. Give some people any tiny detail that’s out of place and they’ll keep picking until the whole thing unravels. I have a feeling Dean is one of those people, so I’ve got to do this right.

In the master bedroom on the second floor, I flip back the covers and make the bed look slept in. A quick wind spell adds wrinkles to the sheets and knocks the dust off the surfaces. I put a spell on the house before I went to sleep, making the surfaces too slick for the dust to stick to. Spells that got rid of the dust as it fell were too much effort and required constant magical input. I also splash some water in the sink and shower nearest the master bedroom. My metabolism hasn’t woken up enough for me to have to pee yet and changing into my human form to answer the door cleared the smell of sleep from me.

On the first floor is my office, and it gets a dusting. When the cops find out my purported source of income, they’ll want a client list. Fortunately, that list is already divided between the stuff they’ll believe and what really goes on. In the kitchen, I dust and start a pot of tea. I have Darjeeling at the ready, so I don’t accidentally make the ones that require milk. I planned on sleeping for the six months of winter, so I finished off or threw out all the perishables before I started. That’s a mistake you only make once.

I’ve got the right amount of sugar in my mug when the doorbell rings. I glance in the hall mirror and adjust things. I’m dressed warmly and the ends of my hair are damp, from where I washed my face. No makeup, because I didn’t have time. I plaster on a confused smile, because I missed my chance to be scared when I opened the package.

Hi, guys. Dean’s not with them, so I can relax a little. They also don’t have the arm, which I have to ask about. What’d you do with the, um, package?

Couple of guys from forensics came and got it. Do you mind if we come in?

Yes, but I’ve spent fifteen minutes getting ready for it, so you might as well.

No, come on in, it’s terribly cold out there. I’ve just put the kettle on, as our British friends say. Could I offer either of you some tea?

They glance at each other, as if it was un-American to drink tea. I didn’t sleep so long that I went back in time, and have to swallow my irritation. I head for the kitchen to find something good to swallow, and they follow me. They both pull off their coats, and one loosens his tie. It’s my house; if I want it at 85 degrees, that’s where it’s going to be.

Could I have some ice water? one asks, and the other chimes in before he finishes.

Sounds perfect.

Sure. Have a seat at the table, we can talk there.

I find some glasses and dig some ice out of the freezer, kind of surprised the ice hasn’t melted into a solid clump from lack of use. Filtered tap water is in a pitcher in the fridge, so I set the glasses and pitcher on the table before pouring up my tea. Our British friends would be appalled by the way I make my tea, but such is life. My coffee pot, dedicated to tea, twelve cups of water and two teabags, when allowed to steep, makes a better cup of tea than a coffee shop. I sit across from the two guys, and it occurs to me I didn’t even ask for ID.

I didn’t get your names! Where are my manners? A big, giant request for proof of identity and they see it.

I’m Detective Mike Shoemaker, this is Detective Peter Isaacs. They both flip out badges with practiced hands, and tuck them away before anybody unfamiliar with a badge would have a chance to know where to look. What’s your name?

I faked a cough while I thought about it. What was the name on the mail I was getting? I hoped this would be the toughest question of the interview. Nancy Andes.

What do you do for a living? Mike asks, while Peter writes.

Yeah, a much easier question, simply because it was true. Private investigator.

Cue the significant looks between the detectives. Instantly, I’m a wannabe cop, who couldn’t make it at the academy or follow all the rules. And by sneaking around and taking pictures of people cheating on their spouses, I have a mile-long enemies list.

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