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  Jase did not, in fact, think the guy was making it up. He did, however, think Stan George was an asshole. “So, this woman ran into you while you were on your bike. She was in a car?”

  “No, man, she was just jogging along!”

  Jase paused. “So really, you ran into her.”

  “No! She was... It was dark. She was...” Stan scowled again. “Look, I gave that other guy this whole story already. I know it sounds crazy. But it’s the truth.”

  “Jase,” Reg said from the doorway. “C’mere.”

  “Let yourselves out,” Stan called after Jase as he left. “Close the door behind you.”

  On the front porch, Reg showed Jase the last glittering remnants of something glowing beneath the black-light wand Reg had been using. It disappeared as they watched. Reg shrugged and slipped the wand back into his bag as the glow faded. “Same as the other case.”

  “Not ectoplasm.”

  “No. I don’t know what it is. Lots of stuff glows under the black light,” Reg said with another shrug. “But it stays glowing—it doesn’t fade away.”

  “Did you send it to the team?” Jase ran a finger along the wooden porch railing, expecting to feel something. Sticky, gooey. Something gross. All he felt was softly splintered wood.

  “Yeah, I took some videos and a few pictures. So far, nothing. Eggy and Burt are working on it, but Eggy said she’d never seen anything like it, either. And if Eggy hasn’t seen it—”

  Jase nodded. “Yeah, it’s not in the database.”

  “So it’s something new,” Reg added. He grinned. “Great!”

  Jase laughed at his partner’s enthusiasm and clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah. Great. Let’s go grab a drink and something to eat. Did you get any info on the woman he says ran into him?”

  In the car, Reg read off what Stan had told him. “Says she was about five-six, dark hair, he didn’t know her. Referred to her as ‘dumb bitch’ several times.”

  Jase put the Challenger in gear and pulled out of the cul-de-sac, heading for the Cottage Cafe. It was one of the only places open in the off-season down here at this time of night, unless they wanted to head into Ocean City. Since they were staying in one of the Crew’s condos in North Bethany, he didn’t want to make the twenty-minute trip in the opposite direction.

  “Yeah, he’s a real winner. Any police reports? Anything from the EMT about a woman with matching injuries?”

  “Nope. If she got hurt, she hasn’t sought treatment. From how it sounds, though, that asshole really bowled her over.” Reg tucked his notebook away. “Maybe he’ll get another visit from an angry giant gorilla, teach him a lesson about riding drunk. He lost his license, you know. That’s why he was on his bike in the first place. Asshole. But I still haven’t figured out the tie between him and the guy in the closet, or any of the other cases reported in the past six months. Other than they both seemed kind of like dicks who deserved to get the crap beat out of them by imaginary monkeys.”

  “Arguably,” Jase said, “nobody really deserves that.”

  “No,” Reg answered with another grin. “Some people deserve worse.”

  At the Cottage Cafe, they grabbed seats at the bar, ordered a couple drinks. Talked about the latest case a bit, though there wasn’t much to say about it, since nobody from the home office had gotten back to them with any idea what the glowing stuff was. Reg ordered some wings and rings, and Jase got a burger to go.

  “They have great burgers,” said the woman to his left at the bar. She hadn’t taken a seat but stood waiting for her own take-out order. “I should’ve ordered one of those instead of a salad.”

  “It’s never too late,” Jase said, taking in the fall of her dark hair and a flash of greenish-blue eyes. She had a great smile, though it was hard to tell what the rest of her looked like under the baggy sweatshirt and matching sweatpants.

  Her smile widened. “You know what? You’re right. Hey, Mitch. I’ll also take a Cottage burger to go. Fries and slaw.”

  “Much better than a salad,” Jase said as he grabbed his to-go bag and started to follow Reg out of the bar.

  “Yeah, thanks!” She gave him a little wave.

  Jase gave her one more look over his shoulder as he went out the front doors. Yeah, she was checking him out. For a moment, he considered heading back in to chat her up, but then Reg said something to catch his attention. When he looked back again, she’d turned away. Opportunity lost.

  Not that he had time for it anyway, Jase told himself as he headed out to the car. Not while working a case. And in a month or so, less if he and Reg got themselves together and figured it all out, he’d be gone anyway.

  Still, he looked back again before driving away, hoping maybe she’d be coming through the front doors, but all he saw was glass.

  CHAPTER 4

  Chelle woke from a dream about Grant, her heart pounding. Breath catching. She’d made a tangled mess of the sheets. Sticky with sweat, she pushed the blankets off and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. For a moment, the world tilted, and she closed her eyes, although the room was so dark it didn’t matter if she had them open or not.

  She was sure she’d stumble on her way to the kitchen. End up on her knees, still stinging from her run-in with the bike. She made it into the kitchen without turning on a light, so when she opened the fridge to pull out the jug of filtered water, the brightness made her wince and shield her eyes. She poured a glass and sipped at it, hoping to settle her stomach.

  She hadn’t dreamed of Grant in months, though she still thought of him almost every day. Almost. It was an accomplishment, she thought as she leaned against the counter in her dark kitchen and let the night soothe her. Making it to almost. In the beginning, she’d thought of him every second. Then minute. After a time, she’d managed to break it down to hour by hour, then day by day.

  One day, she would not think of him at all; the thought of this broke her more than anything ever had and was what made her stumble more than any walk in the dark ever could. The glass slipped from her hand into the sink, where, fortunately, it did not shatter the way her heart had already done, over and over again.

  Too many times she’d allowed herself to succumb to this sort of grief, but it had been a long enough time since the last that she was no longer used to how fiercely it could sting. There were choices to be made here. She could give in to it, let the sorrow sweep her away like the undertow in a storm-tossed ocean. Or she could force away the pain and refuse to let it drown her.

  She could write.

  Of course, this reminded her of Grant, too. After all, he’d been the one to code and design the GOLEM writing program, just for her. He’d never made more than the single copy locked into her laptop, and which she’d discovered only a short time ago while cleaning out some old folders. His big plans of making money hand over fist had never been realized. He’d gone to Arizona without her or the program. There’d been many times when she thought of erasing GOLEM—which stood for Genre Originating Laptop Entertainment Machine and had nothing to do with the famous Lord of the Rings character. Although she did think of her laptop as “the precious” sometimes, Chelle thought as she slipped into the chair at her kitchen table and opened the computer lid.

  Her fingers rested on the keys as she closed her eyes, letting her mind open up to the possibilities of new words. A story. A...man?

  A face flashed through her mind. The guy from the bar. He’d been pretty cute. He’d do, for inspiration.

  She opened a GOLEM file.

  She started typing.

  * * *

  The man in front of her kneels, head bowed, to accept the garland of flowers his regent is placing around his neck. Roses in shades of ivory and crimson, her colors. She has sometimes wished to dress in gold and violet, in shades of night or summer sky, but no. She wears re