“Hot date?” he asked sourly.
I wondered where he’d heard that term. Most of the time, his language was almost too formal, making him sound like a fussy history professor I’d had at Cal State Northridge who always wore tweed jackets, even if it was ninety degrees outside. I’d dropped out after my second year, realizing that college wasn’t my true path, but some things had stuck with me.
“No,” I said, in tones I intended to be quelling but which merely sounded petulant. “I’m helping Calvin Standingbear with something. That’s all.”
Archie didn’t appear dissuaded by my remark. He sat up on his haunches and glared at me with baleful golden eyes before saying, “The same Calvin Standingbear who took you to his house last night?”
Because when I’d gotten home at a little past seven the evening before, Archie had been waiting right in the entry, tail waving in annoyance at my tardiness. I’d been feeding him his dinner every night at precisely six-fifteen, and he’d been more than a little ticked off that I’d made him wait almost forty-five minutes for his bowl of Special Kitty kibble.
“He took me to his house because it was his fault I fell in the river and got soaked,” I replied crisply. “I already told you that. The rest of it is none of your business.”
Archie’s tail flicked back and forth in annoyance, and he let out a small hiss, but I noticed that he didn’t reply, only stalked off toward the living room, which offered the best chance of a pool of sunlight to lie in at that time of day.
Typical.
But at least I didn’t have to waste any more time arguing with him. I dabbed on some mascara, finished with lipstick, and gave my reflection a careful inspection. It was entirely possible that I was aiming a little above my pay grade by thinking Calvin would be interested in any kind of a relationship with me, but I told myself that faint heart never won hot police chief.
If nothing else, thinking about how I could flirt with him while not really flirting with him was a good way to distract myself from Lucien’s murder.
At that hour, Cloud Coffee was packed. Luckily, I’d given myself some extra time, so even though it took nearly fifteen minutes for me to get two coffees and an impulse buy of a cheese danish for Calvin and a croissant for myself, it was still just twenty minutes to eight by the time I headed east on Highway 70 for my rendezvous.
Instead of parking in the lot, I followed the forest road to the spot where he’d left his San Ramon tribal P.D. SUV the day before. My Volkswagen Beetle didn’t seem too happy about being driven over such rough terrain, but I pulled into the wide spot in the road I remembered without suffering too much damage. A minute later, Calvin appeared and parked next to me.
I grabbed the carry-out tray with the two coffees and the bag of breakfast pastries, hoping as I did so that I hadn’t screwed up by getting him a cheese danish. For all I knew, he was gluten-free and lactose-intolerant.
No, wait — he’d refused my offer of a glass of wine at the store opening, but I knew I’d seen him eat some cheese and crackers, so I guessed I was safe on that front.
“Breakfast!” I said, brandishing the bag.
He removed the aviator-style sunglasses he was wearing and looked at the white paper sack. “I didn’t ask for breakfast.”
“No,” I said cheerfully, “but I was hungry, and I figured I might as well get you something. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back home with me.”
“What is it?”
“Cheese danish.”
His expression brightened noticeably. “My favorite. From Cloud Coffee?”
“Of course.”
He took the bag from me and extracted the danish, then accepted the venti black coffee I’d gotten for him as I reflected that sometimes it was a good thing to have intuition about people. It looked as though the breakfast offering might have softened him up a bit.
For a few minutes, we ate and drank in silence, both of us obviously acknowledging that it was better to get fortified before we headed down to the river. Then he swallowed the rest of his coffee and brushed his free hand on the leg of his khaki uniform pants.
“Almost ready?”
I nodded. “Just a bit more cappuccino for me.”
I drank down the last inch or so of my coffee before stuffing the empty cup in the bag that had held the pastries. Then I held it open so Calvin could dispose of his trash the same way. That matter handled, I headed over to my Beetle and stowed the bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat.
“Okay, now I’m ready.”
He didn’t reply, only tilted his head as if to indicate I should follow him through the cottonwood grove and on to the little beach that apparently was the last thing Lucien Dumond had seen before he departed this mortal coil. Dead leaves left over from the previous autumn crunched beneath our feet as we made our way between the trees. It looked very different that morning with the bright sunlight slanting through the greenery overhead, and I found my mood much lighter than it had been, even if our reason for being there was pretty grim.
We emerged onto the beach, and I took the lead. “Over here,” I said, pausing at the water’s edge and doing my best to point toward the spot where I’d seen the metal object. My boots still hadn’t dried out completely from their dunking the day before, and I really wasn’t looking forward to getting them soaked all over again.
Calvin, however, didn’t seem to care. Or rather, he’d come prepared; he stopped and rolled up his khaki trousers, revealing a pair of rubber work boots underneath. After shoving his pants into the tops of the boots, he strode out to the spot I’d indicated and looked down into the water.
“I see it,” he said. Another slight delay as he also rolled up his sleeves — I guessed that the big, sporty watch he wore had to be waterproof, or at least water-resistant — slipped on a latex glove, and then reached down into the water.
I watched, holding my breath, as he scrabbled around in the mud and rocks at the bottom of the river. It was just deep enough that, even with his sleeves rolled up, he still splashed the edges of the fabric.
But then he pulled his arm out of the water and held it out, hand open. Lying against his glove-covered palm was a round silver medallion, one that was engraved with a stylized half moon on one half and a tree with spreading branches on the other.
My breath sucked in, and Calvin gave me a questioning glance.
“You recognize this?”
I nodded. “It’s the symbol of GLANG.”
“What’s GLANG?”
“Athene didn’t tell you?”
“It didn’t come up.”
All right, then. Still, I wasn’t a member, and whatever suspicious activity the necromancers’ guild might have been involved in, it wasn’t my problem. “It stands for ‘Greater Los Angeles Necromancers’ Guild.’”
“Necro — ” Calvin broke off there, expression dubious. “You’re joking, right?”
“Oh, it’s no joke,” I said. “They’re part of the reason why I ended up in Globe. I mean, Lucien was most of the reason, but he wouldn’t have been nearly as scary if he didn’t have thirty other sorcerers as backup.”
Looking grim, Calvin splashed his way back to shore. Since I hadn’t actually ventured out into the water, all I had to do was take a couple of steps to be standing on dry land. He waited for me there, the silver medallion gleaming in his hand. “He threatened you?”