72 St. Margaret’s Way Chapter 4
Like he’d suspected, James couldn’t afford two agents to go to the wellness fair the next day. So he decided to just go on his own. Still on comms of course. He’d fucking hear about it if he didn’t.
“How was your date?” he asked Amelia that afternoon as they were both getting ready for their respective cases.
“It was fun,” Amelia replied as she considered two different daggers on the dining room table. “I think maybe I was kind of weird, but Riley seemed happy. And her friends were cool.”
“How were you weird?” James asked, amused, as he scanned the case that had just printed out. Just a follow-up on a house nearby, they could probably bang that out tomorrow morning.
Amelia shrugged self-consciously. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just…They were all so confident and it took me, like, three drinks until I was as confident as them.”
“And do you think they’d be as confident as you running a shift where you’re staring down a unicorn monster?”
“God, I forgot about that thing,” Amelia muttered. “I guess not? They said it was hot that I was your second-in-command.”
“That’s why I promoted you,” James said. “It was good though?”
“Yeah, it was really good.”
“Did you get offered drugs in the bathroom?”
Amelia laughed. “Yeah, but I just wanted to drink,” she said. “Plus I don’t know how you test drugs like Bradley said. Is it a kit?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“You’re not doing drugs in club bathrooms?”
Now James laughed. “I’m thirty-six,” he said. “I can barely have a few beers the night before a shift.”
“Do you think Bradley actually does?” Amelia asked. “He’s even older than you.”
“One – get fucked. ‘Even’ older than me,” James said. “No idea. If I ask about his life outside of work, I get my throat ripped out. As though that ship hasn’t fucking sailed.”
“You should come with us at some point,” Amelia said.
“Won’t my ancient ass ruin the vibe?” James asked.
“Nah,” Amelia replied. “There’s plenty of old people there.”
The idea of dancing in a crowded club was so far out of James’s comfort zone that he almost had to consider it. And something must have shown on his face because Amelia’s lit up. “For real, you have to come,” she said. “There was this guy, Matt, who’s friends with one of Riley’s teammates, Elizabeth. And he’s totally your type.”
“What do you mean, my type? I don’t think I even have a type.”
Amelia considered that for a second. “You know what?” she said. “Fair. But I don’t know, he seems cool and I think you’d like him. And maybe you shouldn’t wait another ten years before getting back out there.”
She had a point. Thinking about Meredith still stung to the point that maybe he should take some time before another actual relationship. But maybe dating a little could be fun.
“I’ll think about it,” James said.
Amelia didn’t argue, she clearly knew that was the best answer she was going to get right now. James swung his backpack over his shoulder. “Alright, I’m going to go grocery shopping down at the wellness fair,” he said. “I have the audio comms, you take the video one. Gabs is going to do both and I’ll return mine before I head out tonight.”
***
The wellness fair was more active today, giving James a bit more opportunity to investigate. He started at the far end of the room, near a set of bleachers covered in snack wrappers and abandoned water bottles, and surveyed the space. That stand with all the amulets was an obvious first stop to confirm the information about the fight before he tracked down the food samples. So he stood and pretended to admire them for a moment before the woman running the stand noticed him there.
“Sorry!” she said cheerfully. “Can I help you?”
“Just looking, thanks,” James said. “Mind if I take a picture? My brother is into this stuff, but I want to see if it’s what he wants.”
“Yeah, no doubt,” the woman replied with an easy grin.
James took a few pictures on his phone. “These are cool,” he said.
“Thanks,” the woman replied. “My sister makes them and I sell them. It’s all for protection, if you’re into that kind of thing.”
“You’re not?”
She shrugged, but still looked easygoing as she rearranged a couple of rings. “Who knows?” she said. “I wouldn’t say no to a little extra protection though. This is the weirdest fair I’ve ever vended at.”
Her eyes widened for a second as she realized maybe that wasn’t the most “customer service” thing she could have said. James laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But listen, if you’re press, please don’t use that. My sister would kill me.”
“Nah, I won’t,” he said. “But off the record, did you see the fight?”
She laughed, leaning in a little closer. “Sure did. They’d passed my booth a couple times, stopped at a couple of us, and seemed fine. Then like two hours later, they’re trying to kill each other in the lobby. Like, literally trying to kill each other. It was horrible. Today’s my last day here and I’m fine with that. I don’t care that I’m losing the days I paid for, I’ll make more money focusing on our store and it’ll be way less stressful.”
James glanced back down at the amulets between them. She seemed friendly enough and the Foundation’s focus on food was weighing on him, but this was definitely still a possibility.
“Do you have a card?” he asked, and she hesitated again. “For the bracelets, not the fair.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Hang on.”
As she tried to pull her card out of her pocket, she bumped a display, knocking the bracelets and their stand onto the ground. James immediately stooped down and got them. “You don’t have to-” the woman started, but he already had them back on the table in their original spot.
“No problem,” James said. “Thanks,” he added as she handed him the card.
The skincare booth beside them was currently being run by a man in his fifties. He gave James a grin as he came over. “Looking for anything in particular?”
James wasn’t huge on skin care beyond the basics, but he had a feeling that putting any of this on his body would lead him into a world of hurt. “Just looking,” he said.
The man watched him, but didn’t offer up any information. “You were talking about the fight?” he asked.
“Yeah,” James said. “Did you see it?”
“Nah,” the guy said, waving him off with an overly friendly laugh. “I wasn’t here. But people have to take some responsibility for their own actions, you know?”
Oh no, he’d fallen into an Uncle Conversation without realizing it. “Right,” James said. “Um, have a good one.”
He moved to a few more booths after that, striking up conversation that was hopefully being recorded back with Gabriella at headquarters. Like he’d dealt with (though on a less severe basis) while she was at Roses Manor in December, she couldn’t talk to him without it being audible to the people around him. But right now things were going smoothly and there was no need for that. And he was almost done with this part anyway.
So from here, he’d get the food samples. But what to do after that? He didn’t feel right handing the samples over to the Foundation and calling it a day. He could maybe interview the owners of the Orson Center. Unless they were the ones doing all of this, in which case that was a terrible idea. As he tried to open his email to check the case file, it refused to load in this cement block of a building. But his cell phone had service closer to the lobby so he called Gabriella.
“Hey, what’s up?” she asked a second later.
“Do you have a sec?”
She laughed. “I’m getting distortion between your phone and the comms,” she said. “But yeah, what’s up?”
“Go into the case file and check the printout. Can you tell me if there’s any interview with the owners of the Orson Center itself? Either individuals or the company behind it?”
He heard movement on the other end. “The other computer’s starting up,” Gabriella said. “I’m worried the comms computer can’t handle me switching windows. Sorry, it might take a minute.”
“Nothing new,” he said. “And it can’t, so good call.”
“What’s it like down there?”
James glanced around. “Tacky,” he admitted. “There’s a few cool things, but there’s a lot and it’s messy.”
He glanced over toward the now-empty bracelet shop and the skin care stand where the sullen woman behind the counter was arguing with a man looking at the soaps. The older man from earlier was nowhere to be seen, but James would rather not interview him anyway.
Even though the Foundation was pretty certain it was food, there were so many other possibilities as he looked around. Was it an aerosol? Sound waves? A fucking hypno-ray with a swirl in the center? But he had to focus. Friday. Deadline Friday.
He needed to get moving with the samples. If it was something in the food, Friday was enough. No need to invite further trouble as long as he stuck to procedure as much as the Foundation would allow him to. He started walking again as Gabs got the computer going.
“Nothing here,” she said. “Do you want me to try to get in touch with Records?”
Records barely existed anymore and they both knew it. “Thanks,” James said. “I’m going to just get the samples now. I can ask tomorrow morning.”
An hour later, James’s backpack was full of food samples. It had been a vaguely interesting hour, outside of the case itself. James learned about various types of light therapy, wheatgrass (a sample went into his bag), the dangers of vaccines (he dipped out of that conversation as quickly as possible), the benefits of various supplements he politely refused to try right then and there (suspicious, and he knew Gabriella was taking notes on that back at headquarters), and even a mini sauna and ice bath combo that could be delivered to his house that afternoon. While still focusing on the food, he realized all of them had possible uses in causing hallucinations or forcing someone to fall in love and marry a stranger.
But Friday. Food made the most sense and he had to get this done by Friday. Or the Foundation might decide having two Worcester County teams was not a good use of money.
As he was walking back toward the door, he spotted a wallet on the ground by the amulet stand. There was nobody else walking by at this moment, so there was no way to return it to the owner. James picked it up, wincing slightly at the sticky dampness on the bottom of it. It must have landed in some soda spilled from one of the abandoned bottles nearby. This place was so nasty.
The amulet stand was still empty, but the greasy-haired, miserable woman from yesterday was back at the skin care stand. James went over and she turned to look at him.
“I just found this,” he said, setting the wallet on the table. “Mind if I leave it with you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Something about this woman set him on edge as she pulled the wallet toward herself, staring into his eyes, unsmiling. “Right,” James said. “Um, thanks,” he glanced at the sign again, where Skin Care by Adele glowed up at him in a simple bold font. “Adele.”
Now she smiled, and that just made him even more uncomfortable. So he turned and hurried away, still rubbing at the soda spill on his hand. The bathroom was out of order here, but he’d just scrub his hands when he got home.
“Got the samples,” he said to Gabriella as he got in his car and rubbed some hand sanitizer on his palms. “We can talk about it more tomorrow. I’m going to come in a little early to get some paperwork done before my actual shift.”
“Okay,” she said. “We don’t have anything prepped for tonight, do you need me to do anything? Night shift is here.”
“Nah,” he replied. “I’m dropping all these samples off at work, then heading home too. See you tomorrow.”
He disconnected the comms and headed out, grateful to be away from this fair for a little while.
***
Adele.
James woke up after another shitty night of sleep with the woman’s name in his mind. Why? Nothing about her had been particularly memorable, so maybe he was just still lingering on the case.
He got in the shower after a quick glance at the clock showed he had two hours until his shift. He could go back to bed, but he could also stop by the wellness fair. Why he would do that, he had no idea. But he could go back and talk to Adele.
Why was he so caught up on this woman? James scrubbed his hair and tried to shake the thought of her out of his head. Yeah, it was unpleasant. But an unpleasant person wasn’t worth dwelling on. But he’d have to go back at some point anyway. He needed to submit those food samples, but that creepy skin care stand might be worth investigating too, along with…
James shook his head as he dried off and started getting dressed. He still had well over an hour until he had to get ready for work, maybe he should eat some breakfast and do some stuff around the house before thinking about it.
He ate a quick bowl of raisin bran and scrolled through his phone for a moment in the sunny kitchen. It was cold today, but gorgeous, and the sun through the glass felt like spring. There was even a bird out on the patio and James watched it for a second before it flew off.
He went back to his breakfast, eating quickly and putting the bowl in the sink. Graham was a good sport about James sometimes leaving dishes until the end of his shift, but if he had a minute, he might as well wash that and both of their coffee cups before he got started. Today was going to be a mess.
He was busy, but it wasn’t like he was running his own business. Not the way that Adele did, with this incredible skill and grace that he could just watch forever. James dried the dishes, put them back, and went to grab his coat, taking a second to check his hair in the mirror.
It needed a cut. Maybe he should get that done before seeing her. No, he only had a little time until he had to be at work. And if he didn’t go see her now, he’d have to skip out on work and the others might not be able to handle things without him. It’d be worth rearranging, but he might as well go now and cut his hair later.
Normally he’d go to work early, but right now he wanted as much time with Adele as possible. Shit, falling in love just complicated things.
