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Kiara chuckled while digging her keys out of her jeans pocket. “Oh, you know, the old Marines dude who told me my mother was a war spy.”
“Yeah, that’s the one, I guess.”
I frowned at the box in my hands. What was it my father needed to hand to his old friend that was apparently important enough to be delivered by me without any magical armory surrounding the box?
Perhaps the magic lurked on the inside. Many charmed boxes were innocuous because the outer layer protected the magical-lined cloth of the inner chamber. Papa once taught me about boxes that were bigger on the inside, the kind of puzzle containers that made even the supernatural kind scratch their heads.
Up three steps, over a wooden porch, and through a rather hefty door later, I was standing in the right half of the house, in Kiara’s makeshift townhouse. White columns were carved into either side of the fireplace that stood flanked with doorways on either side. Cream white walls and plush eggshell white rugs made the living area seem a lot bigger.
Two pale peach couches occupied the space to the right that sat perpendicular to a coffee table and had a tall lamp with colorful flower bulbs between them. A tall window sat on the right wall with another tall window across from me. Through the doorways was an impressive white and black tile kitchen with chrome accents and appliances. A carpeted staircase on the left led to the second floor, where I imagined there was one giant bedroom.
I didn’t get to see much of this earlier when I dropped my bag off and drove us back into town. Her abode was lacking in creature comforts, so I had to get snacks, and pick up a sensitive package from the supernatural postal store hidden in an alleyway between a hardware shop and an ice cream store.
Kiara lingered near the doorway of the kitchen. “Want me to start prepping dinner?” She held up the plastic grocery bag. “He’ll bring the potatoes prepped if I text him now.”
“Yeah, might as well.” I held the banister of the staircase. “Have you told him yet?”
She lowered the bag sullenly. “No, I…” She gulped. “I figure you can deliver the news to him yourself.”
“I can do that.”
Up I went to the second floor. Yeah, I could do that. Because I had been doing it all week since the center of my world collapsed. Without him, I felt like a moth fluttering helplessly against a mesh screen, trying to find a way back into the soothing night. I wasn’t sure what to do except keep following his instructions.
But what happened when the instructions ran out? What happened after I delivered the box to Eric and went back home?
I frowned when I got to the second-floor landing. On my left was a lavish bathroom, and the rest of the space was a massive bedroom, as I had anticipated. White drapes hung over each of the three windows with a four-post bed caddy corner across from me. Satin sheets, plump pillows, and a few squishy collectibles occupied the mattress.
Everything else was decadent handmade furniture expertly stained with earthy browns and blacks that made me think of fertile forests and rambunctious rivers. A scent lingered up here, something that clung to the wood long after it had been worked. It reminded me of winter mint.
I scanned the room once more, feeling a strange emptiness in me that didn’t feel like it belonged here. Well, the good news was that my best friend was just downstairs. If I got to be too void, then I could just run down there and get a huge squeeze out of her. One embrace could fix the worst feelings. If it persisted, then I could just keep holding onto her until the feeling passed.
But I wasn’t sure if it would ever pass.
Chapter 3 - Eric
My daughter set a beer in front of me, unopened. She knew I liked the brown bottles with the easy-to-drink stuff, so she didn’t huff about it when she grabbed one from the ice-filled cooler at my feet. I scooped up my bottle from the coffee table and popped the cap with my thumb, flicking it clear across the room into the fireplace.
Easy to drink? More like easy to chug.
There was swigging, and then there was chugging, and then there was just plain reckless opening my throat to let the liquid pass directly to my stomach without pause. I decided it was best to get the beer down as quickly as possible so I could handle whatever was coming next. Knowing my late friend, that could be just about anything. Puzzles were kind of his thing.
Although I wasn’t sure what could possibly be worse than hearing that my best friend had passed away from a heart attack.
The curvy woman I saw talking with my daughter—Regina was her name—sat to the right of the coffee table, nestled neatly in the white cushions. Lavender curls hung in tight ringlets around her shoulders and tickled her flowery blouse. Flared slacks made with patchwork green squares of different shades outlined her hips in a way that kept drawing my eyes.
But now wasn’t the time to analyze how Steven’s daughter had somehow grown into a gorgeous buxom woman overnight. Just ten years ago, that girl had been attached to my daughter's hip. The two were inseparable.
We were drinking in the living room of Kiara’s apartment with a cherry-stained wooden box sitting on the coffee table. I just couldn’t help staring at the thing. There weren’t any marks on the outside; just a big steel padlock with a keyhole. Damned if I knew how to open it.
Kiara sat on my left and dug her right hand into the cooler of iced beers I had lugged over from my house. She handed it to me unopened. I flicked the cap off with my thumb, watching the object hurl across the room at the fireplace. It clinked off the mantel and landed on the stony hearth.
Eh, two out of three.
I tipped the bottle back casually, this time to taste what I was drinking. Cheap but effective stuff. Kiara never complained much about the beer. And since her best friend wasn’t complaining either, I wasn’t inclined to offer to pick up anything better.
I pointed at the box with the tip of my bottle. “So, what gives?”
Regina sipped her beer and sighed. “Honestly, I’m not even sure what Papa was thinking.”
