Free Some Kind of Magic by R. Cooper Page B

it.”
    “Ray,” Cal made a sound. A rude one. “Nasreen will do
    whatever she has to for Audrey. Surely you sniffed that out?”
    Ray turned to look out the driver"s side window. He
    didn"t answer right away. He strangely didn"t want to, but
    Cal was waiting. He turned back. “I didn"t think they were
    sleeping together.”
    “They"re not. Audrey is… I don"t think… I don"t know. I
    don"t understand humans sometimes. And they aren"t the
    only ones….”
    “Really? All that insight and you"ve drawn a blank?” Ray
    hadn"t. He looked at Cal in the dark and thought about
    Audrey. Like looking into a mirror . “Maybe she"s….” He
    couldn"t say worried, because that wasn"t it at all. “Afraid.”
    There was a gasp. “Why? Why, when they both want it
    so much?” Cal"s voice broke and the sadness, even for
    others, made Ray shift to be nearer to him. But he bit down
    so he wouldn"t respond. “What"s there to be afraid of? There"s
    no reason at all to suddenly…. Or is it sudden?”
    Ray glanced over. Cal"s longing was so intense
    sometimes. Like waves of memory that hit you for no obvious
    reason.
    Cal straightened, and for a second Ray almost thought
    the air tightened, like a spell was being worked.
    “Remember when we met, Ray….” Cal had never been so
    hesitant. Almost never. Ray felt himself grow warm, and as
    though he could feel that, Cal shook his head. “Not exactly
    then, but a little later, when you were so beautifully naked
    and just red all over with embarrassment and—”
    Some Kind of Magic | R. Cooper
    68

    “Cal,” Ray warned. But of course he vividly remembered
    that night, and Cal"s words. Ray Ray. Look at you. Look at
    you. You can… just drag me… anywhere. Anywhere you want
    to take me, and I"m there. There you are, and here I am. Just
    take me.
    That probably wasn"t what Cal was talking about. But
    Ray didn"t feel like reliving the past right now.
    “The case.” He grabbed at it.
    “This case or the one we had then?” Cal floundered for a
    moment then yanked himself back upright. He was
    breathing hard. “Right.” He whipped out a pink box. Cookie
    sticks covered in strawberry cream. Sweet, sweet strawberry,
    mixed with the clean warm scent of him and that
    want/need/want that never went away around Ray. It made
    Ray want to crush strawberries against Cal"s mouth. He
    inhaled and pulled at his tie. Cal didn"t seem to notice. “That
    list of his enemies.”
    “Yes?” His answer was short, but Ray was starting to
    think Cal ate around him deliberately to push him over the
    edge. A stick went in and out of his mouth before he
    crunched it. Ray could close his eyes, but he couldn"t stop
    breathing .
    He grabbed at the seat then loosened his collar.
    “I read those files.”
    “ All of them?” That was a distracting thought. But then,
    Ray instantly reasoned, with the amount of sugar in him Cal
    had to be borderline manic. Add to that his natural
    brilliance, and it was no wonder his father had worried that
    he would need to be grounded.
    “Yes, and your name came up a few times. Arresting
    officer, etc….” Cal cleared his throat and put his treat away.
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    69
    The sign of tact from him made Ray suddenly very nervous.
    “Also… also two of them are already dead. Accidents, the
    reports said. Whoever investigated only noted them as
    accidents.”
    Ray had read that too, glancing over it because the
    investigators hadn"t flagged them. He hadn"t read cause of
    death. He sat up.
    “Broken necks?” He asked, but Cal was already
    nodding. Ray"s breath whooshed out of him, but he looked
    straight ahead and refocused on the station, some officers
    smoking outside, others milling around between shifts. “My
    name is probably there because I make a lot of arrests.”
    “Branigan on the hunt.” He jerked his head to the side
    and saw Cal"s small, wistful smile. “You"re probably right.”
    “But….” He couldn"t not mention that. “I"ll tell