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“I don’t, actually,” I said, answering Robby. “But I know someone who might.”
Chapter 4
Back to the Office
Caleb
My feet dragged across the sidewalk. Somewhere nearby a loud argument was happening over a just-placed parking ticket. The lady’s shrill shouts about being just around the corner made the hair on the back of my neck rise. The pitch poked at the stress headache forming in my scalp like a collection of darkening clouds forming across my temple.
Exhaustion seeped directly into my bones. Not only was I tired from channeling and weaving such huge bursts of mana while I fought for my damn life, but I was also just generally tired of everything. Shit had been going south for me since… well, since I could really remember. Every day was a new day when I’d wake up and wonder how the fuck the world was set to mess with me next. It was like a cruel joke.
Bank account empty? Flat tire.
Heavy caseload at work? A debilitating flu.
Finding one of the missing Moriarty paintings? It was a fake, and now the Crimson Ring was on the same trail.
I couldn’t hold back the dry chuckle as I unlocked the door to my office. The scratched-up bronze plaque above me read “Forrester & Grant,” and underneath that, “Detective Agency” was written in fading permanent marker.
Also, the acronym for our janky little investigative group didn’t escape me. I realized it two months into working at F.A.G.’s spectacular detective agency, and by then, I just did the same thing I did today—rolled my eyes and laughed. What the hell else was I supposed to do?
“Whoa, you look like you’ve been through it,” Peter Grant said, looking up from a crumpled-up crossword puzzle on his cluttered desk. We could only afford rent for a one-room space on the cusp of the Harmony District, pushing right up against the boring and lifeless Concrete District. Our building housed a dozen other offices and businesses, our walls directly connected to a one-seat salon on the left and a tax professional on the right, both of their conversations usually leaking over into our space throughout the day.
“Yeah, it was a mess of a day,” I answered, shoulders slumped as I pulled off my T-shirt, torn and bloody.
I went to my desk and grabbed the duffel bag from underneath it. I had been planning on going to the gym after work today, so I had a spare change of clothes with me. I changed into the blue tank top and white gym shorts, putting my bloodied clothes in a plastic bag and tying it off.
Peter had diverted his attention back to his phone, which lay on top of the half-completed crossword puzzle. I appreciated his lack of a need to dig, to keep to himself, even when his coworker and friend walked into their shared office space looking like he’d run through an impossible gauntlet.
He was an alright guy although we did butt heads quite frequently. Peter had a rough go at things, which could be one of the reasons why we’d connected so well that one night at a smoke-filled dive bar in Santa Monica. We stayed in touch, and when he told me about his idea for an investigative agency, I figured, “why not.” I’d been needing a new direction in my life, and I was always great with details and patterns, getting off on deciphering tough puzzles in my free time. I took the months-long training and received my license the same day Peter opened his doors.
That was two years ago now, and we were… well, we were still here. Our dreams of expanding and growing our clientele were slowly crumbling as business dried up and bills piled like mountains, ready to topple over and suffocate both of us.
Which was one of the reasons why finding these paintings was so important. Somehow, someway, I had managed to snag one of the biggest clients of our entire careers. Davie Montes, a world-renowned tech billionaire who apparently had a taste for rare art and wanted me to bring him the paintings with minimal questions asked. Considering I wasn’t the most white-hat with my techniques—and that this paycheck would be life-changing in more ways than one—I immediately jumped on the gig without asking too many questions of my own.
My office chair squeaked against the scratched pale wood floors as I took my seat, leaning back and touching the wall in a futile effort to stretch out the knots in my back. My entire body was one big knot of tension. I kept replaying moments of today’s earlier encounter in my head. The cultists, the dragon, the close calls.
Shit. Did I bite off more than I could chew with this? And being on the Crimson Ring’s radar… that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. Not with my past.
