Sizzle and Burn

peanut-butter-on-toast breakfast and studied the message on the flyleaf of Winter Journey . “I hate to tell you this, but it turns out I may not be an ace psychic detective after all. I still haven’t got a clue what Aunt Vella meant by the references to Wilder Jones’s mask and my birthday.”
    Zack was at the counter, pouring coffee into a mug. “Did Wilder leave any of his things with Vella?”
    “Not that I know of.” She tapped the end of the pen against the tabletop, thinking. “But then, I hadn’t even realized she had an affair with him until Andrew told me. If Vella kept any souvenirs of her time with Wilder Jones, they would be at the Shelbyville house.”
    “You said the basement was filled with boxes and cartons.”
    “Yes. Most of them contain her paintings. I suppose we’ll have to go through them. It’s going to be a job. There must be two or three hundred pictures in that basement. As far as I know they’re all masks.”
    The doorbell chimed, startling Raine into dropping the pen. “It’s six-thirty in the morning. Who in the world?”
    “Got a hunch that’s your babysitter.”
    Zack put down his coffee mug and went into the living room. Robin and Batman trotted along at his heels, ears perked and tails high. They had adopted him, Raine realized. As far as they were concerned, Zack was now part of the gang. She tried to recall the name for a group of cats. Clowder. That was it. Unfortunately it didn’t sound very exciting, let alone cool. No wonder people didn’t use it to describe those of the feline persuasion.
    She heard the front door open and the rumble of a deep bass voice that sounded like it came from the heart of a mountain. She got to her feet, exercising some caution because her ankle was still tender, and went to stand in the doorway.
    A big, dark-skinned man a few years younger than Zack occupied a considerable amount of space in her small living room. His head was completely shaved and gleamed as though it had been waxed. Dark glasses veiled his eyes. A gold ring flashed from one ear. He was dressed in khakis, a dark blue pullover shirt and a battered suede bomber jacket. She caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster beneath the jacket.
    He gave her a smile that could have lit up the stage of a large theater.
    “You must be the client,” he said.
    She didn’t even try to resist the smile. “You must be the bodyguard.”
    “This is Raine Tallentyre,” Zack said. “Raine, meet Calvin Harp.”
    Raine extended her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Harp.”
    “Call me Calvin.” He shook her hand and then looked down at the cats, who were sitting directly in front of him, gazing upward with unblinking stares. “Who are these guys?”
    “Batman and Robin,” Zack said.
    Calvin beamed. “What do you know? Couple of my favorite masked avengers.”
    He went down on his haunches and held out his hand. The cats sniffed his fingers in an assessing manner and appeared to be satisfied. Calvin rubbed their ears gently with one huge hand and straightened.
    “Looks like you’re in the club,” Zack said. “How about some coffee?”
    Calvin’s smile got even bigger. “Excellent idea. Any chance of some food? I’ve been a little busy since I got Fallon’s call a few hours ago. Wasn’t anything to eat on board the company plane except a couple of boxes of doughnuts. Had to share ’em with the pilots.”
    “How do you feel about peanut butter?” Zack asked.
    “Works for me.” Calvin looked toward the kitchen with great interest. “Hell, I’m hungry enough to eat the cats’ food.”
    Zack looked at Raine. “The only downside of working with Calvin is that you have to feed him. A lot.”

Forty-seven
    Z ack used a gadget from his J&J tool kit to let himself into the small studio apartment. He did not expect to find anything that pointed to Pandora as a member of Nightshade but he had learned the hard way not to let the personal get in the way of the logical.
    The tiny space was decorated in what could only be described as High Goth. The ceiling was an elaborately detailed night sky, complete with crescent moon and stars. The walls were painted midnight blue, the window and door trims picked out in a paler shade. The furnishings were eclectic and mostly black punctuated with the occasional bloodred pillow.
    He checked the refrigerator first. One of the things they had learned in the Stone Canyon affair was that Nightshade’s version of the formula had to be refrigerated.