Other Half (PsyCop book 12) Read online

  Other Half (PsyCop book 12)

  Jordan Castillo Price

  JCP Books LLC (2021)

  * * *

  PsyCop book 12

  Victor Bayne never saw himself as husband material, but after an undercover stint as half of a married couple, he’s willing to give it a shot. Jacob Marks was eager to settle down from the get-go, so once Vic popped the question, the wedding should’ve been smooth sailing. But new evidence has come to light that casts a pall over the whole affair: decades of psychic experimentation and intrigue.

  Contents

  Book Info

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  About the Author

  About This Story

  OTHER HALF

  PSYCOP 12

  Jordan Castillo Price

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  www.JCPbooks.com

  Other Half: PsyCop 12. ©2021 Jordan Castillo Price. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-944779-19-1

  Electronic version 1.0

  1

  WEDDINGS ARE JOYOUS occasions. At least, they’re supposed to be. But ever since we discovered Jacob’s initials in the notebook of the late and unlamented Dr. Kamal, Jacob had been anything but happy. I don’t suppose I’d ever thought planning a wedding would be a walk in the park…but this one felt more like a sprint through a minefield.

  Jacob needed answers—specifically, how his family tree ended up in that book and what it actually meant. Yes, it made sense to do some digging and find out more about his family’s involvement with Kamal. And yes, our wedding would be a perfect excuse to visit…and, incidentally, poke around. But I’d be lying if I said the thought of what we might find didn’t make me want to drop the whole thing and elope.

  In fact, it was tempting to suggest we forget the fanfare and do the deed at City Hall post haste. Unfortunately, once Jacob’s sister Barbara texted us about some extracurricular Clayton activity in hopes that we could attend, there was no way to weasel out of heading up to Wisconsin to announce our “good” news.

  If you’re ever hoping for someone to mother you, just show up in a clunky plaster cast. Not your other half, of course. They soon forget all about the big, heroic sacrifice you made slamming your hand in a car door, and get inured to the sight of you hauling around an awkward and painful burden. Plus, they tend to get sick of it smacking them in the ribs every time you roll over.

  But if Jacob’s mom pampered me before, she positively spoiled me now.

  While Jacob was doing our dirty work, I kept his mom out of his hair. Shirley hovered beside the couch and watched me as I sipped the mug of coffee she’d just put in front of me. “Is it strong enough for you, Vic? Do you need more cream?”

  “I’m good. It’s great. Listen, why don’t you come sit down? Jacob and I wanted to talk to you guys before we go to Clayton’s…thing.”

  School play? Soccer match? Science fair? I’d been told at some point, no doubt, but had forgotten the details on our way up to Wisconsin. Who could keep up with whatever it was we were supposed to endure on behalf of Jacob’s nephew? The kid was so entrenched in various character-building activities, it was a wonder he was even allowed to sleep.

  Shirley paused, and a look of alarm flashed across her face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said hastily. I’m not quite sure she believed me, so I tried for a reassuring smile as I patted the cushion beside me clumsily with my crushed hand. It was mostly healed—these days, it itched a hell of a lot more than it hurt. “No bad news. Really, I’m sure you’ll all be pleasantly surprised.”

  I’ve never been good at doing comfort. I’m told my reassurance-face looks like I’ve eaten something dubious from the back of the fridge and am currently regretting that decision.

  Off in another part of the house, the sound of conversation rose and fell. Uncle Leon and Jerry were engaged in a rambling debate about walleye fishing spots as the three of them made their way to the living room with a few boxes of mementos (and Jacob) in tow. The basement was crammed floor-to-ceiling with all the stuff from three dead grandparents, plus a heap of things that didn’t fit in his grandmother’s assisted living apartment—dozens upon dozens of boxes no one had figured out how to deal with, so they were thrilled that Jacob wanted to take some of it off their hands. An old wrestling trophy protruded from the uppermost box. Jacob set everything down, flapped the trophy halfheartedly in my direction and said, “It’s a lot smaller than I remembered.”

  Jerry took the thing from Jacob and buffed some cobwebs off the little figure in a wrestling singlet. “Yeah, but you really creamed that other kid—and he was an obnoxious, rich-kid, private-school brat. So that’s what’s important.”

  Money is relative. Jacob had always struck me as having come from a higher social strata. College educated. Expensive taste in furniture. Better table manners. But getting to know his family had shown me that while we’d grown up in radically different cities, he and I were both raised in unassuming, working-class households. His parents had both held unremarkable jobs, Jerry in a paper mill and Shirley in an office. And while I frittered away my high school summers dicking around by the railroad tracks and replaying the same four punk rock albums, Jacob had been bussing tables and mowing lawns to save up for his first car. And if it weren’t for a scholarship, the college of his choice would have been well out of reach.

  Jacob took the trophy from his father and they both scrutinized it. They didn’t just look like each other, they moved like each other. And while Jerry was paunchy and graying and not so limber anymore, they still had their moments where genetics couldn’t have been more obvious. Sometimes, during these moments, I felt like I should wonder what my own parents might have looked like. But I was so well-resigned to the fact that I’d never get any answers in that regard that I didn’t think of my birth parents as actual people. Even theoretically.

  Leon pointed to my mug…with his etheric arm. Given that non-physical entities are easily as scary as ghosts, you might think I’d find the term “etheric arm” just as creepy as “ghost arm.” But since I’d decided it was really just a human arm, a normal part of his subtle bodies I was seeing (and not a demonic parasite), it didn’t much faze me anymore. “Say, that coffee looks pretty good. A half-cup would really hit the spot. How much time till we need to leave?”

  Jerry checked his watch as Leon’s etheric arm mimicked the gesture. Jerry said, “Ten minutes, then we’d better head over. Otherwise we’ll be stuck parking halfway out to the cornfield. Unless you take it to go.”

  Everyone seemed so focused on Clayton’s big event that I was sorely tempted to forget about the whole announcement and tell them about the wedding some other time. But I’d already let the cat out of the bag with Shirley, at least
partway. Mothers’ intuition has never been clinically proven one way or another—but Shirley always seemed to know when I was holding something back. And she knew when I was uncomfortable, too.

  The wedding is good news, I reminded myself. Anyone would think so. Good. Freaking. News.

  I gave Shirley a smile.

  It felt pained.

  “Jacob—before we go, you wanna fill everyone in?”

  “Good idea,” he said. “So, Vic and I….” Indecision fleeted across his expression. I saw it on him so seldom, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a put-on. “We decided to make things official.”

  His father and uncle both blinked as if they hadn’t quite figured out what this had to do with a wrestling trophy or a cup of coffee. But his mother lit up with equal parts joy and relief. I can only imagine the potential announcement scenarios that must’ve been playing through her head—and the worst part was, she didn’t know the half of what we dealt with.

  “We were thinking we’d have the ceremony up here,” Jacob added. His father and uncle went wide-eyed as what he was saying sank in. “Next month.” Eyes went wider still. “At church.”

  At the mention of church, the mood in the room ratcheted up from mild confusion to bafflement. Neither of us was churchy...but a church wedding would give us way more opportunity to snoop around in Wisconsin.

  Of course they were all happy for him—for us. But gobsmacked didn’t even begin to cover it. And then, as if to verify that they’d heard what they thought they heard, all three dumfounded relatives turned to me.

  I stared back stupidly for a heartbeat…then I nodded. Smooth. “That’s the plan. Tie the knot. At the altar. Once the cast comes off, anyhow, and I can jam a ring on.”

  I’d figured Shirley might cry, but no, it was Leon. And those tears nearly set off a chain reaction. But he hurried off to the bathroom to save face—old-school Midwesterners like to think they’re a stoic bunch—leaving Shirley to grill us while pretending not to pry.

  “Why so soon? Don’t you need more time to plan?”

  No doubt, but Jacob didn’t handle frustration well. The notebook situation had become so unbearable, and tempers so short, that pretty soon one of us was gonna start sleeping in the car. I said, “We’re going for small and simple. There’s really no need to make a big fuss.”

  “I suppose you’ve talked to Pastor Jill? No? She’ll be real glad to see you again.” Though, apparently, planning a June wedding from the middle of May was no mean feat. As Shirley rattled off a list of things a church wedding would involve—with the caveat that she was sure we had everything under control—I wondered how obvious I’d look if I took a few deep breaths from a paper bag.

  Ideally, so we could have a chance to talk in private and re-strategize on the way to Clayton’s thing, Jacob and I would meet everyone else over by the middle school. But his mother insisted on riding with us. And we couldn’t just leave her at the curb.

  Shirley was brimming with excitement, and as I listened from the back seat, she filled the car with breezy chatter about guest lists and banquet halls and honeymoons. There was an edge to her tone I couldn’t help but notice. A thread of anxiety running through the monologue. I could think of at least a dozen valid reasons she might be anxious, so I was relieved that when we pulled up to the parking lot—within spitting distance of an actual cornfield—she said to Jacob, “This is your good news, but…maybe I should be the one to tell your sister about your big plans.”

  Jacob was about to climb out of the car, but his mother’s suggestion gave him pause.

  Shirley hastened to add, “I’m sure she’ll be very happy for you—especially that you’re having it at church. You know how devout she’s always been. But even though it’s nearly a dozen years since her divorce, her knee-jerk reaction to these sorts of things can be a little…harsh.”

  Jacob didn’t seem particularly convinced. “She’s better off without Derrick.”

  “Even so, being left alone with a baby like that when you were planning on being a family—that’s not something you just bounce back from.”

  Not surprising. Barbara is plenty of things—resilient is not one of them. I’m not one to jump to her defense, either. But even I would admit that the life she’d been stuck with wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.

  We caught up with Jerry and Uncle Leon and headed in. Clayton’s middle school was small by Chicago standards, and there wasn’t even a metal detector inside the front doors. A hand-lettered poster in a rack beside the gymnasium doors clued me in on which specific tortures awaited me. Band concert. But if we were supposed to be listening, at least we’d be spared the discomfort of talking…once the music started, anyhow.

  The gym was half-full of people milling around, either catching up with old friends or finding somewhere to sit. I spotted Barbara right away, standing over a cluster of seats she’d saved for us with her hands on her hips and a “don’t even think about moving my purse” look on her face. I personally wouldn’t have cared where I sat. But since we’d driven all morning to be there, the family was hell bent on all six of us sticking together like glue.

  Between the fact that we’d left at the last minute and the walk from the edge of the cornfield, we’d shown up with no time to spare. This was good. We couldn’t exactly have a lengthy conversation during the concert.

  Jacob’s sister was forty, like me, though she acted like she’d never been anything but middle-aged. Maybe it was her divorce, or maybe raising a kid on her own. Or maybe the stars had aligned to give her a naturally bitchy disposition. Whatever the reason, for as much as Barbara grumbled about never seeing us, she sure went out of her way to make us regret showing up.

  As we filed in and took our seats, Barbara said, “Took you long enough,” and then glared at Jacob and me as if we must be the cause.

  Normally, at this point, Leon would attempt to lighten the mood with a silly remark, or Jerry would minimize the situation, or Shirley, if well enough provoked, would flat-out tell Barbara to stop being such a sourpuss. The fact that all three of them just stood there and smiled at her set off her internal alarms.

  “What?” Barbara demanded of them. “What is it?” She looked at Jacob and me again. It was the same look Jacob got when a bunch of evidence that would let him bring down a bad guy was sliding into place. Genetics. Crazy. Barbara hadn’t just inherited the same dark eyes, though. Mentally, she was just as quick as her brother. “Well?”

  “We’ll talk after the concert,” Jacob said.

  Barbara leveled him a look. “And how am I supposed to concentrate on the music if I’m sitting here wondering why everybody’s being so weird?”

  Her voice wasn’t exactly raised. But it was starting to take on an edge, and the people from the row in front of us were glancing over their shoulders in hopes of getting a more interesting show than they’d bargained for. I wasn’t gonna volunteer any information. If push came to shove, I’d take a bullet for Jacob—or at least crush my own hand to provide a distraction. But Barbara was his sister, not mine.

  Not yet, anyhow.

  Jacob’s practiced cop-veneer slid into place. “It’s fine, Barb. It’s good news.”

  Barbara took in the whole group of us—the over-60 crowd had zero practice in schooling their facial expressions—and again, just like Jacob, she managed to fit a bunch of random looks and a vague reassurance into a cohesive conclusion. “Oh my God. You’re getting married.” And before I could wonder if she was an undocumented telepath, she glared at her brother and said, “Isn’t that just great?”

  I never thought I’d be glad for a middle-school band concert. I’m no maestro, but even I could tell that whatever the kids were struggling through was off-tempo, and sour notes pummeled us with surprising regularity. It saved me from having to avoid saying anything, though, and by the time the band squeaked and squawked its way to a “grand” finale, Barbara had calmed down enough to offer Jacob a sincere congratulations, and he’d chilled out enough t
o accept it. And if I’d been expecting a big reaction from Clayton, I was sorely disappointed. He’d received the latest iPhone for his thirteenth birthday, and he only looked up from the thing long enough to avoid walking into traffic.

  Dinner was hardly awkward at all. And on our way back to Chicago, I couldn’t help but point out to Jacob, “We both expected your sister to say that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, but she managed to resist.”

  “Low-hanging fruit.”

  True. But it deprived me of the opportunity to thank Barbara for handling that fifty percent herself. In the interest of keeping family relations civil, that was probably for the best. “Any luck in the basement?”

  “We’ll see. It’s like a landfill down there. I have no idea what I even grabbed.” Jacob shook his head in frustration and glared at the road. “I was hoping something would go smoothly for a change.”

  Like anything ever went smoothly—but, admittedly, I’d been hoping the same.

  Normally, I would’ve given his knee a reassuring squeeze. Not only was my clunky plaster cast in the way—but the fingers of my left hand probably wouldn’t squeeze so great anymore. Not without a bunch of grueling physical therapy we all knew I’d try my hardest to avoid. “Don’t be preemptively disappointed before we’ve even had a chance to go through your haul. And even if you’ve only managed to grab some old magazines and a bundle of receipts, you’ll have plenty of excuses to go back for more, what with the wedding on the horizon.”

  Jacob sighed heavily.

  Everything was a lot harder with family than it was with mere acquaintances. I hated not giving them the whole truth, but Jacob was beyond invested in vindicating his parents. Unfortunately, it would be a lot harder to do that if they got the chance to reinvent the past. Jacob is a shark. So, I had no doubt he would get to the bottom of things and find out exactly how their initials came to be in Dr. Kamal’s notebook.

  What I dreaded—and what I sincerely hoped never came to pass—was discovering they’d been privy to the experiment all along.