A Fairy Tale by Shanna Swendson Read Free Book Online Page B

return to the blissful oblivion of his sofa.
    Sophie went with the two men to the door. “Once you’ve looked around, would it be okay if I stayed in Emily’s apartment?” she asked.
    “That depends on what we find there,” Tanaka said. “It may be a crime scene.”
    “You think you’ll find her body in there,” Sophie inferred.
    Tanaka flinched at her directness. “That is a possibility. The fact that no one’s seen her since last night doesn’t mean she didn’t come home last night.”
    That didn’t stop Sophie from following them down the stairs. When Tanaka turned to glare at her while Michael unlocked the door, she said, “I know I can’t go inside, but I have to know.”
    “Wait out here. You, too,” he added to Michael. “In this case, you’re a civilian.” It didn’t take Tanaka very long to go through the studio apartment. He came back to the door a moment later. “She’s not here,” he announced, “but I can’t let you in until I’ve checked things out.”
    She nodded her assent. “Maybe I’ll go find something for dinner. I’ve been traveling all day and I’m suddenly starving.”
    Michael reached through the doorway and took two keys off the row of hooks just inside Emily’s door. “Here’s Emily’s key to my place, so you can let yourself in when you get back,” he said, handing it to her. “And this one opens the front door.”
    “Thank you,” she said before running upstairs.
    Once she was gone, Tanaka said, “You wanna help me poke around?”
    “I thought I was a civilian here.”
    “Now I know it’s not a crime scene, and you’d know better than I would if anything’s different or missing.”
    There wasn’t that much to search. While Michael scanned the one-room apartment for anything that seemed out of place, he asked, “So, Tank, what did you think of her?”
    “Very pretty, in spite of her feet. Great legs.”
    “That’s not what I meant. Don’t you think she’s kind of, well, odd?”
    “Oh, you mean the woo-woo stuff? That ‘feeling’?”
    “That, and other things.” He heard the front door close, went to the window, and saw the ballerina umbrella gliding rapidly down the sidewalk.
    “Well, quite frankly, she scares the sh–heck out of me. That was one freaky stare. Her eyes are weird.”
    “You’re allowed to curse in front of me. I won’t tell anyone.”
    “Then I’d be lying, and I’d be corrupting the Reverend Saint Michael into lying, and that’s worse than having to put a dollar in the jar.”
    Michael had long since given up fighting his department nickname and all the nonsense that went with it, so he asked, “What’s weird about her eyes?”
    “Didn’t you notice? They’re two different colors. One’s blue and one’s gray. I thought it was just the light at first, but the way she was staring at me, I couldn’t help but see it. It was like I saw a different face depending on which eye I focused on.” He shuddered.
    Michael couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the situation. “I never thought I’d see the day someone could make you sweat in an interview.”
    Instead of responding to that, Tanaka said, “Emily must be old school—a landline and a machine,” and hit the “play” button on Emily’s answering machine.
    “Hey, Em, it’s Sophie,” Sophie’s voice said, sounding much less steady than Michael had heard it so far. “I know it’s really early, and you probably hate me for waking you up if you’re there, but I got one of those feelings again, like when Daddy died, or that time before with you, and I’m on my way to New York. If you are around and I’m just being silly and paranoid, call my cell. I’ll be changing planes in Atlanta, so that’ll be your last chance to tell me to turn back. They’re calling my flight now, so I have to go.” Her voice took on a strained quality, like she was close to tears. “Call me, Emily. I love you.”
    The call clicked off, then the robotic voice of the