Crime Spells Part 32

But she'd had one. She'd had human parents.

The way the girl looked at her, Addie could tell she had so much more to say-all of that rage Addie expected and feared the night the Fae had come for her, it lurked below the surface. It would come out eventually. And Addie would bear it.

Jennifer gave her the brown paper package.

The mirror inside looked the same as the one the girl had handed her a million years ago.

"I want you to have it," Jennifer said.

Addie waited until the girl had gone and then some, afraid to look, afraid of what she might see.

In the wee hours that night, she took the chance.

In the looking gla.s.s, she saw her kitchen. The table set for tea. And Mike, gazing back at her. She couldn't hear his voice out loud, but she heard it in her heart.

"I'm working on a way out for you, Addie," he said.

She couldn't think of one that didn't involve making a deal with a heavy price, the kind she'd never want him to pay. Because she loved him. In whatever twisted way she was able, she loved him. She had nothing of her own here to hold onto, but she could hold onto that.

She wanted her life back.

If he was going to help her get it, she'd give him everything she had. That's what you did with high stakes, with people you loved. The people you treasured.

Mike would have to hope for both of them. It had never been and would never be her strong suit, even now.

Despair was her particular magic, after all. She'd find a way to use it.

She's Not There.

by Steve Perry.

n.o.body is immune to Glamor.

No In the ten years she'd had the talent, Darla had never come across anybody who had seen through it, far as she could tell. Old, young, men, women-it fooled everybody, every time.

Not that she'd need it here: Fifteen feet away, the widow Bellingham snored fully dressed upon her bed. The old lady had put down a bottle of very expensive champagne earlier at the party, and Darla could probably could bang a Chinese gong and not rouse her, but still...

She opened the last drawer of the jewel box, her movements slow and careful. The smell of cedar drifted up from the intricately carved wooden box, which was probably worth more than Darla's car.

Ah. Here we go...

It was an oval pin about the size of a silver dollar. Inset into the platinum were thirty-some diamonds, fancy yellows, the majority of them a carat or so each. Not worth as much as clears and nowhere near the value of the intense pinks or fancy blues encrusting the pieces in the top drawer, of course, but that was the point. These were good stones-good but not outstanding-and with what she could get from her fence, plenty to keep her going for six months.

One-carat gems of this grade were easy to move.

She limited herself to a job every three or four months, enough to keep her below heavy police radar-or at least it had done so for eight years.

Truth was, it had been almost too easy. Never a really close call. At first, it it had seemed a grand adventure, but it wasn't long before it turned into just a part-time job, no more exciting than shopping for fruit at New Seasons Market. Go in, pick out the organic apples you like, leave-without paying-and take a few months off, ta dah!

Disappointing in a way how easy it was, though certainly better than working for a living...

Six or seven million in fine jewelry here, and that was just the daily-wear stuff. The really good pieces would be in a bank vault somewhere.

Darla wrapped the pin in a square of black velvet and slipped it into her jeans pocket. She slid the jewelry box's drawer closed.

As always, she was tempted to clean the box out, but she knew better. Unique pieces were hard to move, worth only what the loose stones would bring, unless you wanted to mess around trying to find a crooked collector, and that was risky. This particular pin? It might not be missed for weeks or months. The top drawer stuff sure; the bottom drawer? Maybe the widow would never even notice. When you could go in and plunk down a million bucks for a brooch or a necklace without having to look at your checkbook balance? A pin worth a couple hundred grand? Shoot, that was practically costume jewelry.

So, she'd take just the one piece.

The perfect crime, after all, was not one where the cops couldn't figure out who did it; it was one the cops never even heard about.

Darla uttered the cantrip just before she pushed open the stairway door into the apartment building's lobby. When she stepped through, she looked the same to herself, save for a slight bluish glow to her skin that told her the Glamor was lit.

The guard at the desk looked up. "Morning, Mr. Millar. Early start today, hey?"

Darla grinned and sketched a two-finger salute at the guard.

The armed man touched a b.u.t.ton on his console, and the building's door slid open. As she left, Darla waggled one hand over her shoulder in what she thought was a friendly gesture. Silently, of course. Her Glamour fooled the eyes but not the ears-if she spoke, she would sound like a twenty-something woman and not the sixty-something man she had picked as a disguise.

She had been careful coming down the stairs to avoid the surveillance cams, too, since her trick wouldn't fool them, either.

When the real Mr. Millar exited for his morning walk, the guard wouldn't say anything-he wouldn't want anybody to think he was crazy.

It was a fantastic thing, her trick, even if it had a couple of drawbacks: She had to touch somebody before it would work on them, and she had to do it within a day, since the effects of the touch faded away after that. Still, it was impressive.

She had no idea why or how she had come by it. She had been found in a dumpster as a baby, raised in an orphanage. The words to the cantrip were from a dream she'd had on the night she turned sixteen. Eventually, she had come to realize that, somehow, the dream had come true.

Magic? No such thing, everybody knew that. But here she was. She'd wondered about it over the years. She'd cautiously nosed around in a few places, but she never found any other real magic, only people faking it. Why did it work? How? She didn't know. Still, you didn't have to be a chemist to strike a match, and apparently you didn't need to know jack about magic to use the stuff. Case in point.

Worrying over the reasons might drive her nuts if she let it, so she didn't try anymore. She just thanked whatever G.o.ds there might be for bestowing it upon her, and that was that.

She had a car, but she seldom used it on a job where public transportation was available. She walked to the bus stop. The TriMet driver would see her as a white-haired j.a.panese man, since she had touched his shoulder earlier in the day when she'd ridden the bus in this direction. She would exit six blocks from her apartment and walk home. n.o.body could connect Darla Wright to the expensive Portland penthouse occupied by the widow Bellingham, even if the woman ever did notice she'd been robbed.

Smooth as oil on gla.s.s, no muss, no fuss, just like always, and she planned to sleep in until at least noon.

Life was good.

Darla strolled into her neighborhood Starbucks, next to Fred Meyer's, and inhaled the fragrances of brewed coffee and freshly baked pastries. She was scouting for a fattening cherry turnover she figured she'd earned, when she b.u.mped into a good-looking guy of about thirty who stopped suddenly ahead of her in the line.

"Oh, sorry," he said, turning to steady her. "My fault." He smiled. Nice teeth. Black hair, blue eyes, rugged features, pretty well built under a dark green t-s.h.i.+rt and snug jeans. Three or four years older than she was, but that was nothing.

"No problem," she said. She returned the smile.

Ice cream, she thought, looking at him. To go with the pastry, hey...?

No... She couldn't. Not today. She had to meet Harry at two, and she'd slept past noon, so Ice Cream here would have to wait. Business before pleasure.

There were plenty of other men in the pond, and she was going to have free time to do a little fis.h.i.+ng, lots of time...

Nothing as obvious as running a p.a.w.n shop, Harry had a guitar store, a hole-in-the-wall place twenty minutes from Portland, in Beaverton. Beaverton was where Portlanders went to buy fast food and shop at the 7-Elevens, a bedroom community that had once been swamps and filbert orchards and beaver-dammed streams.

The guitars at Harry's ran from a few hundred bucks up to ten or fifteen thousand on the high end, mostly acoustic and cla.s.sicals, and the place actually did a pretty good business. Today being Sunday, the shop was closed, but Harry answered the bell at the back door. She waited while the four big and heavy locks snicked and clicked, bolts sliding back, and the door, made of thick steel plate, swung quietly open on oiled hinges. Trust a crook to know how to protect his own stuff.

The shop smelled of wood, and some kind of finish that was not unpleasant, a sharp, turpentiney scent.

"Layla. How nice to see you, as always."

Even Harry didn't get her real name. Darla was very careful.

"Harry. How business?"

"I can't complain. Come in. Some tea?" He was seventy-five, bald, thin, and wore thick gla.s.ses that kept slipping down his nose. He thought she was hot, though he'd never made a move on her.

"Thanks."

She sat at a table while Harry made tea. "Oolong today," he said.

Eventually, he sat the steaming cup in front of her.

"So, kiddo, whaddya got for me?"

She produced the pin, opened the velvet wrapping.

"Ah." He picked it up, pulled a loupe from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, held the pin up to the light. "Quality stones. Nice cuts, nothing outstanding. Say... fifty?"

"What, did I get stupid since you saw me last? Eighty," she said.

He smiled. "Might go sixty, because I like you."

"It's a steal at eighty, Harry. Two and a quarter for the bigger stones, and maybe another ten or fifteen for the little ones. Plus seven, eight hundred for the platinum. Pus.h.i.+ng a quarter million, and you can pocket half that."

"Honey, we both know it's a steal at any price, but since I'll have to fly down to Miami to move the rocks, sixty is a gift. You know how I hate air travel."

"Miami? What's wrong with Seattle?"

He pulled the loupe off and put the piece onto the table. "Too warm for Seattle. Even broken up, thirty stones this close will have to moved a few at a time. Could take me months. Who has that kind of time at my age?"

"Warm? The, uh, previous owner doesn't even know it's gone."

"Alas, dear girl, I'm afraid she does. Mrs. Bellingham, widow of the late Leo Bellingham, owner of steel mills and s.h.i.+pyards, right? Probably pays her boy toys more than this bauble is worth, but she has definitely missed it."

Darla shook her head. "How could that happen? And how do you know it?"

He shrugged. "Maybe today was inventory day. Or it was a gift from a special friend with sentimental value. Who can say? All I know is, I talked to Benny the Nod this morning, and he said the Portland cops had come to call upon him early, waving a picture of this very item." He tapped the pin.

"Sweet Jesus," she said.

"I doubt He would have any part of this, hon, though you can t.i.the if you want. So, sixty?"

"Yeah, well, I guess. Sure."

They drank more tea, and he prattled on about some new cla.s.sical guitar he'd just bought, Osage Orange this, cedar that, Sloane tuners, a genuine Carruth, look at the little owl inlay here-it all flowed into one ear and out the other. How unlucky was this? That the old woman had discovered the theft within hours of it happening? That cost her at least twenty thousand dollars!

There was just no justice...

As Darla drove her British racing green Cooper Mini convertible along TV Highway back toward Portland, she relaxed a little. Yeah, okay, her latest theft had been discovered too quickly, but she was still sixty thousand dollars richer. Harry's cash, in used hundreds, was tucked away in her purse right there on the pa.s.senger seat. Life was still good. The sun was s.h.i.+ning, the top was down, it was a lovely June afternoon, and she was free to spend the next few months lazing about, doing whatever she d.a.m.ned well pleased. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, hey?

She stopped at the light next to the Chrysler dealers.h.i.+p on Canyon Road, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as the Beatles sang "Hey, Jude" on the oldies station.

A heavy-set teenaged boy in baggy shorts and a sweats.h.i.+rt with cutoff sleeves, a brim-backward baseball cap pulled low, his feet shod in big, clonky, ugly basketball shoes, strutted across the road in front of her. She couldn't see his eyes behind the dark shades he wore. Oh, please, kid! Who do you think you're fooling?

When he was almost past, on the pa.s.senger side, he pointed behind her and said, "Holy s.h.i.+t! Look at that!"

Darla turned to see what had impressed this wannabe gansta kid.

She caught a blur in her peripheral vision and turned back just in time to see the kid snag her purse- "f.u.c.k-!"

Darla put the car into neutral, set the brake, and jumped out of the car. She chased the kid, but he had a head start, and he was a lot faster than he looked. He put on a burst of speed, and she lost him behind the car dealers.h.i.+p.

And what what she have done if she'd caught him? Kick his a.s.s? She didn't know anything about martial arts. She had a nice folding knife, but unfortunately, that had been in her purse, too.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h!

By the time she got back to her car, there was a line of traffic piled up behind it. She stalked back to the car, gave the finger to the fool behind her laying on his horn.

f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k!

Sixty thousand dollars!

The h.e.l.l of it was, she couldn't do anything about it! She could hear the conversation with the cop in her head: Ah, you say you had sixty thousand dollars in cash in your purse? What is it you do for a living again, Miss?

s.h.i.+t!

So much for the idea of six or eight months of goofing off. She was going to have to find another score. And soon. She was pretty much tapped out. She'd been counting on last night's job.

No f.u.c.king justice...

Darla remembered a line she'd heard somewhere, when some reporter was interviewing a famous robber. "So, Willie, why do you rob banks?" And his answer had been: "Because that's where the money is."

Probably never said that, but it made the point-you want to see who has the bling, you have to go where they flash it.

Which was why she was at a posh reception for some famous author at the Benton Hotel in Portland. Once she was past the gatekeeper, having him see her as somebody who showed up at these things that he knew by sight, she became herself again, but she had to look the part, so she had dressed up for it. Heels, a black, slinky dress, a simple strand of good black pearls, her short, dark hair nicely styled. n.o.body inside would bother her, though the crowd was thick enough that somebody patted her on the a.s.s as she squeezed through on her way to the bar. Apparently that cherry pastry hadn't added enough weight to matter.