The Mystery of the Curiosities Page 14

  “Why do you want me to have a dog?” Calvin looked frustrated, but managing to even ask one question that kept the conversation going was a plus.

  “Pop says that dogs are good for people who need a little help. Look at it this way… a dog isn’t going to judge you. And you can talk to them.”

  “Talk to a dog,” he stated, not amused.

  “Yeah. If you wanted to get something off your chest but you couldn’t say it to me, a dog will listen and not say anything that you don’t want to hear.”

  “Talking to a dog isn’t going to make me feel better.”

  “How do you know?”

  Calvin shook his head and let out a heavy sigh.

  I took his hands into mine and squeezed them. “Pop said these dogs are even trained to wake people from bad dreams, Calvin. That would help you. If they could stop the dream before it becomes too much and interrupts what little sleep you get….”

  Calvin rubbed my knuckles with his thumb while staring at the floor. “When I work,” he whispered, “there isn’t time for anything else.”

  “I know.”

  “But since I met you, Seb…. All I think about is you. And it’s like you’re not a safe topic for my brain. I focus on you more and more, and it just brings everything to the surface. I don’t know why,” Calvin said with a shaky breath. He let go and put a hand over his mouth.

  I knew why.

  Because he was finally happy. Calvin was terrified of losing that. And loss was what haunted him, even before me.

  “I need to keep working,” he said after clearing his throat and taking the reins of his emotions under control again.

  I shook my head. “We have to find a healthy medium. And we will, I swear.” I reached out and turned his face to me. “Would you mind if I at least met this woman tomorrow?”

  Calvin hesitated but eventually shook his head. “I don’t mind,” he finally answered.

  “Good God, look at the progress we’re making.”

  Calvin smiled.

  “I love your smile. It brightens your whole face up.”

  “Does it? I feel like I’ve been run over by a semi.”

  I kissed Calvin again.

  This was a turning point for us.

  He ran his fingers through my hair, gripping a handful as he deepened the kiss. Calvin’s tongue touched mine and sent waves of pleasure down my spine. Our rough jaws scraped, and the added texture had chills of excitement going straight to my cock.

  I heard an embarrassing moan escape my throat.

  “You okay?” Calvin whispered.

  “Fine. Apparently just in dire need.”

  “Your father is coming back soon.”

  “Don’t care.” I sat up, kissing Calvin again as I moved to sit on his lap, a knee on either side of his hips.

  Calvin groaned against my mouth, his hands running down my back. They stopped at my jeans, and he slipped his fingers in, groping what he could reach.

  “Cal,” I said, nipping his lip and moving to kiss along his jaw and down his neck.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “I want it the other way.”

  He growled playfully and brought his hands around to knead me through the denim. “You want what the other way?”

  “Don’t tease.”

  “You like being teased.”

  I leaned over to kiss him hard. “I want to fuck you.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered, nodding. “I want that. I’ve been waiting for you to bury your cock in me.”

  It wasn’t something I did very much of—and with Neil, all of one time—but every once in a while, I was feeling extra frisky. Calvin had such a perfect ass too. Freckled and muscular and begging to be fucked.

  “You should have asked,” I said, pressing my forehead to his.

  Calvin reached under my shirt and trailed his blunt fingertips along my heated skin. “I like it when you’re confident in what you want. It’s a turn-on.”

  “Everything about you turns me on,” I countered.

  Maggie barked from outside the apartment door.

  Calvin turned his head and took his hands off me. “Rain check.”

  “Christ, I need my own place again.” I rolled off his lap and sprawled out across the couch. I glanced down, my hard-on not getting the message that playtime was over, and I hastily tugged a nearby blanket from the other night over me.

  “Now it’s more obvious,” Calvin pointed out.

  “Shh….”

  The front door opened, and Maggie and Pop came back inside.

  Pop took the leash off Maggie. “How’s everything?”

  “Good.” I tilted my head back to see him staring curiously while removing his coat. “What?”

  “Why do you have the blanket over your lap? Oh.”

  “Oh my God,” I groaned.

  “Not on my couch,” Pop said sternly.

  “We didn’t do anything on the couch, Dad!”

  “Only because I came back. If I find any stains—”

  “Dad,” I whined.

  Calvin smiled as he stood, adjusted his tie and suit coat, and then tapped my foot. “I have to go.”

  “Already?”

  He nodded.

  I sighed and pushed the blanket off before standing. “Coming back?”

  “I’ll probably go to my place.”

  “Probably?”

  “I will go to my place,” Calvin confirmed. “I’ll sleep.”

  “All right….” I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged Calvin tight. “Be safe.”

  He murmured in agreement, petting the back of my head before kissing my forehead. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Nothing stupid, got it?”

  “Have you met me?”

  Calvin grunted. “I should know better.” He let go of me and grabbed his coat as he walked to the door. “William,” he said, pausing to shake my dad’s hand, because Calvin was always a gentleman. “Have a good night.”

  “You too, Calvin.”

  Calvin patted Maggie’s head before walking out the door.

  Pop turned to me. “So?”

  “Let’s go meet some dogs tomorrow.”

  THE DOGS were a bust.

  K4V—K9s for Vets—may not have been affiliated with the VA or received funding from the government, but part of the application process still required veterans to have their PTSD diagnosed and verified by a doctor.

  Which Calvin hadn’t and wouldn’t do.

  Gwen Sutton, the owner of the organization, did let me meet the dogs at least. I think she felt bad for me.

  “Hey,” I said when Calvin answered his phone. “I just wanted to let you know that I met the person who runs the K9s for Vets program.”

  “How’d it go?” he asked, sounding quiet and wary.

  “She’s nice. The dogs were all cool. She started the organization because her brother came back from Afghanistan with PTSD. Her name’s Gwen. She really wants to meet you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I guess you and her brother were deployed at the same time. Maybe you knew him.”

  “There were a lot of soldiers in Afghanistan.”

  I shrugged to myself. I was standing outside of a little restaurant a few blocks from the K4V office. Pop was waiting inside. “Anyway. I think you’d enjoy checking the place out. The application process is pretty straightforward. It’s basically like adopting a normal dog. With just… one extra thing.”

  “What thing?” Calvin echoed.

  I steeled myself. “Vets have to have a note from their doctors.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Yeah,” I said to his silence. “I figured. But I thought you should know.”

  “Now I know,” he concluded.

  Calvin 1, Sebastian 0.

  Back to the beginning.

  “Anyway. I won’t keep you.”

  “Bye, sweetie.”

  “Bye.”

  I pulled the phone away and sighed.

  The call ended and the time fl
ashed on the screen: 9:30 a.m.

  Did I have somewhere to be besides breakfast with Pop?

  I frowned and tugged the restaurant door open. I walked down the aisles of little tables before sitting across from Pop.

  He set his glass of juice down and gave me the Dad-Look. “No?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I echoed. “I’ve barely managed to convince Cal to start talking to me about everything. He’s not ready for a therapist, which means he’s left undiagnosed and untreated. Which means no dog from Gwen,” I concluded. I flipped the menu pages maybe a bit harder than necessary.

  “He’s scared, Sebastian. Be patient.”

  “I know, I know,” I said while looking back up at Pop. “I’m just worried.”

  He nodded and pulled his cell out. Pop held it far away and tilted his chin up, reading like he needed to wear bifocals. He started typing.

  “Want to borrow my glasses?” I teased.

  “Ha, ha. I can see just fine, mister.”

  “Okay, but just so you know, this one is sugar and this is salt,” I said while reaching over to hold up the shakers from the tabletop.

  Pop paused whatever he was doing to give me the hairy eyeball. “Thin ice, kiddo.”

  I grinned widely. “You love me.”

  “Uh-huh.” He finished typing and set the phone aside.

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing. Asking Jeanie at Puppy Pals for a favor.” One of the many shelters my dad volunteered at.

  I was about to ask what sort of favor this mysterious Jeanie was doing for my father, when I suddenly remembered where I had to be. “Fuck!” I reached into my pockets quickly, fishing out the congratulatory note from yesterday.

  Visitors needed a guide to Thebes. Tomorrow, 10am.

  After the heart-to-heart with Calvin yesterday, I had all but forgotten the second address.

  “What’s wrong?” Pop asked.

  “No, it’s fine,” I said while quickly standing. “I just remembered I have somewhere to be.”

  “Where? You didn’t order any food yet,” Pop replied.

  “It’s fine. I’ll grab something in a bit.” I moved around the table to lean down and give him a hug. “I’ll see you soon. Love you!” I called while moving away.

  “Bye, kiddo.”

  I all but ran out the door and hailed the nearest taxi.

  Off to the Met.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANOTHER MUSEUM.

  I don’t know why this psycho was ruining locations that I deeply adored, but I was not happy about the prospect of finding another body in an exhibit. And this clue was pretty obvious.

  Come on—Thebes?

  The Met’s Egyptian exhibits.

  Now the real question was, where would I find the grisly evidence I had been readying myself for the entire taxi ride there? The Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was enormous. I’d spent entire days in the past never migrating to the other half of the museum, simply because there was so much to see and read about in the Egyptian section.

  It was Saturday morning, and despite the doors just opening, the museum was already proving it would be a busy day. At least it would be bustling with tourists and not kids on school field trips. Trying to navigate around a group of thirty twelve-year-olds who had no desire to be there and had never been told to be quiet in a museum was one of my short fuses.

  I bought my ticket and pushed by some of the other people entering the Egyptian wing, ignoring their protests. Sorry, people, amateur sleuth on a case. I didn’t have time to be courteous.

  The first exhibit in Gallery 100 was the Mastaba Tomb of Perneb. Small and cramped, sure, but you could actually get inside the building so someone could have shoved a body in there.

  Nothing on the left—shit—nothing in the right corner either. I hurried back out and turned to stare up at the structure. To the right was the start of ancient Egypt; to the left was the history of the kingdom once the Romans came. I shut my eyes and thought about both halls and what sort of areas could conceal a body.

  And not an ancient one wrapped in bandages.

  I decided to start at the beginning and ran to the right hall. A security guard called me sir and ordered that I walk.

  I played with fire by walking briskly.

  It was hard not to stop and examine the artifacts, statues, and structures as I made my way down the twisting galleries, but I had to find this clue before the museum filled up with people and an unfortunate out-of-towner found a dead guy before I did.

  I pulled out my phone as I made my way past displays of jewelry and textiles. “Calvin,” I said when he picked up. “I’m making a preemptive call.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing yet. Do you always think I’m up to something?”

  “I’d say no if I didn’t know better.”

  “I feel no love.”

  “Seb.”

  “I’m at the Met.”

  He cursed under his breath.

  “Look, I didn’t even remember until this morning. Last night threw me for a spin, you know? But the mermaid—there was another note. It had this address and mentioned some garbage about Thebes, so I’m making my way through the Egyptian wing.”

  “Sebastian, stop right now and turn back. It’s too—”

  “Dangerous?” I supplied before he could. “There’s a security guard in every room. I haven’t found anything yet, but I think you should come now. If this is anything like the other day, give me ten more minutes and I’ll trip over a corpse.”

  “I should have arrested you back in December when I had the chance.”

  “I love you too.”

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  I hung up and stuffed my cell back into my pocket, stopping in a side room full of coffins and more linens. My knowledge of ancient Egypt was limited at best, but Thebes was where the Valley of the Kings was—the final resting ground for nobles and pharaohs. So maybe the clue was kind of like the whale, and I should be looking more at death artifacts?

  But a tour through this room, checking inside the empty coffins on display, proved futile. At least with the natural history museum, the body had been tucked into the one area not carefully concealed to keep the public out. A body inside a coffin or sarcophagus would make sense, but there was no way to get around the glass walls protecting them.

  It was practically empty this deep into the exhibit. People meandered through the dozens of rooms with no reason to rush. I stepped into the next room—the Sackler Wing. The north wall was glass, the morning light shining through. The ceiling soared overhead, and in the middle on display was the Temple of Dendur, surrounded by a reflection pool. The room was actually quite lovely, the water meant to reflect the Nile River and the sloping wall an interpretation of the cliffs of the original location in Egypt.

  One security guard was walking lazily down the hall ahead of me, and one visitor was studying some statues on my immediate right. I had gone through the entire Egyptian exhibit—albeit in a rush—but not found any reasonable location for hiding a body. Except… what about the temple? It was certainly big enough….

  I walked along the side of the reflection pool toward the steps that led up to the structure. Even though it wasn’t a particularly sunny day, the glare on the surface of the water was already making my eyes hurt. I had to look away and study the far wall ahead, so I nearly walked right by the body floating in the water.

  Nearly.

  I jumped backward in fright, even though I had been fully prepared to come upon a dead person. I stared at it from several feet away. It just floated lazily on its stomach, facedown in the still water. I know the museum just opened, but had no one seriously noticed this yet? I mean, it was right there. In the open. I figured I’d at least find the poor bastard crammed into some nook.

  I took a few steps forward.

  Most likely a man, with short, dark hair and a cheap, dark-colored suit. Something was stuck to his back, and when I go
t closer and leaned over the water, it appeared to be a scrap of paper inside a plastic sleeve.

  Fuck. Just like the mermaid advertisement at the other museum.

  I reached out, shaking hand peeling the clue off the dead man’s back.

  “Stop right there!”

  I startled and stumbled a few steps back, dropping the plastic sleeve. I let out a breath as several uniformed officers were heading my way. “You guys scared the piss out of me.”

  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to move back and put your hands on the wall,” one officer said, hand resting on his weapon.

  “Whoa, whoa, wait. Where’s Detective Winter? I called him.”

  “Sir, against the wall right now,” the officer said again.

  I took a few steps back as instructed but didn’t turn in surrender. “I didn’t kill that guy,” I protested, pointing at the floater. “I literally just found him.”

  Another officer was approaching me. His face looked like he’d gotten into plenty of scraps in his lifetime and he knew how to play dirty if it came to that. He ordered me to put my hands up in a deep, booming voice.

  The first policeman pulled his pistol.

  I put my goddamn hands up. “This is a mistake,” I said as brute number two began to frisk me for weapons. He pulled my cell from my pocket, my magnifying glass, and the note about Thebes. “There. See? Not even a toothpick.”

  “Stand down, officers!” ordered a third voice.

  I turned in the direction I had come from, Calvin and Quinn slowly coming into focus. I waved awkwardly. “Hi.”

  “Mr. Snow is not a suspect,” Calvin said firmly. “Hand over his possessions.”

  I took my things back from Broken Nose. “So,” I said, nodding my head at the body. “Found it.”

  “This is becoming absurd,” Calvin said under his breath.

  “How long is this going to keep up?” Quinn asked, crossing her arms.

  I shrugged. “For as long as this killer has P.T. Barnum artifacts to dish out as grand prizes?” I gave Calvin yesterday’s message. “I’m sorry I came here in a rush without talking to you first, but the note said 10:00 a.m. I thought if I waited, other patrons would stumble upon—er—him first.”