The Hunger Pains (An Eat, Pray, Die Humorous Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “Oh hello, darling girl. How are you?”

  “I’m good. I was just wondering if you know where Earnest might be?”

  “He’s not at home? Have you tried Jay?”

  “Not yet. I’ll call him now.”

  I called Jay.

  “What do you want?” he asked, doing a decent impression of Aunt Alice the time I’d told her she looked nice (I was six and wanted to try on her lipstick). Jay had been suspicious of me from day one, unconvinced I was interested in Earnest for anything but his money. Technically, I guess I was with Earnest for the money, but beneath the geeky, agoraphobic exterior, he was sweet and funny and brave, and I liked him a lot. Even more than Aunt Alice’s lipstick, which I never did get to try on.

  “I was wondering if Earnest is with you? He’s not at—”

  “Nope, he’s not with me.”

  “Right, thanks anyway.”

  I slumped down by the unsalvageable breakfast and failed to come up with any positive scenarios to fling at the fear that was tightening my innards. Earnest was missing. Without either of his safe people. Without either of his safe people even knowing where.

  I could think of only two options. One, he’d relapsed. He’d been clean for fifteen months and mostly clean for three years, but he’d told me once an addict, always an addict, and heroin was the one thing that might overcome his anxiety enough to leave the house unaccompanied. Two, he’d been taken against his will. Neither were good options.

  Mrs. Dunst called me back. “Did Jay know where he was?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to work out what to do.”

  “Sweet cartwheeling weasels. He must have fallen off the wagon again.” She took a big breath and let it out a little shakily. “It’s not the first time, but I always hope it’s the last, you know? What are you doing, darling? Can you help me look?”

  For a moment I was too distracted by the image of weasels doing cartwheels to answer. Considering how cute they were, I snapped out of it pretty fast. “Of course. But shouldn’t we call the authorities? What if he whistle-blew the wrong group of people?”

  Earnest was loaded enough that he could’ve spent the rest of his life gaming, but after getting clean, like his sci-fi heroes, he wanted to fight evil and do good.

  Sadly, the real life version had fewer spaceships.

  He started the website BusiLeaks, which was pretty much the equivalent of WikiLeaks for corporate America: a trusted source of leaked information on misconduct and cover-ups by US companies. It meant he pissed off a lot of powerful people, which is why he hired me.

  In spite of the stories spun by public relations, the cutthroat climb to fame and fortune is more like The Hunger Games than the standards of behavior they teach you in kindergarten. If you can’t outmaneuver the competition, you can always poison them and tell the world it was a tragic drug overdose.

  “Oh dear. You’ve let him fill your head with his paranoia,” Mrs. Dunst said. “Part of his anxiety disorder, the poor dear thing, is that he thinks everyone’s out to get him. The only people who read that website are conspiracy nuts.”

  The conspiracy nuts weren’t so far off. In addition to the well-concealed murders, around a third of those news stories about celebrities ruining their careers while under the influence are in reality carefully planned sabotage. The authorities help cover it up since no one wants to popularize poisoning among the masses.

  Besides, five million hits on Earnest’s last post demonstrated how well respected BusiLeaks was, but I held my tongue. For some reason, he’d never bothered to set his mother straight, perhaps so she wouldn’t realize how dangerous it had the potential to be. How dangerous it might be proving itself to be, right at this moment.

  I didn’t want to think about gentle, anxious Earnest in cruel hands. He’d been unsettled enough by that double yolker in his breakfast a few weeks back.

  I squared my shoulders. I’d give us two hours. If we hadn’t found him by then, I was calling in for reinforcements. My employer, the Taste Society, had all sorts of systems in place for protecting their clients. Most of them were above my clearance level, but they were all discreet and effective.

  First though, I needed to make sure he was really missing.

  I pulled the phone closer. “Where should I search?”

  Worry for Earnest still gnawed at my gut, but having a plan of action helped me dull its sharp teeth.

  I walked up to the first location Mrs. Dunst had assigned to me. Naively, my attention was focused on finding Earnest rather than the fact I was entering a drug den.

  It was a small blue-rendered home in the middle of an overgrown junkyard lot. I stepped over a severed doll’s head, the faded eyes staring up at me as I passed. A mound of tires leaned ominously over the path, and I hurried past those too. Raising my hand to knock, I realized there was nothing to knock on. Only a screen door stood between me and the interior, and the screen had come loose and hung halfway down the frame. No Christmas decorations here either.

  “Hello?” I called.

  A shuffling came from within, sounding more like a huge wounded lizard dragging itself along the ground than a person. I stepped back, unable to see more than a few yards inside the gloomy interior thanks to the covered windows.

  Blinds were a rarity, but the tenants had improvised. The nearest one had a mattress leaning against it.

  Something emerged from the darkness. A human, not a lizard, though the knot of hair on their head could be mistaken for a dead one. I wasn’t sure if they were male or female from the gaunt face and skeletal frame. The source of the shuffling noise was a pair of novelty-sized gorilla slippers, complete with human-looking toes poking through the matted fur.

  “Whaddya want?” The voice was too gravelly to shed any light on their sex.

  “Um. I’m trying to find Earnest.” I held up the photo Mrs. Dunst had told me to bring. It was a six-by-four-inch print I’d nicked from one of Earnest’s photo frames because she’d warned me to leave all my valuables in the car. Then again, the most valuable thing I possessed was the car—a twelve-years-young silver Corvette—and it wasn’t mine. It was a perk of the job. “Have you seen him?”

  The vacant gaze didn’t even flicker toward the photo. “Nope.”

  “Are you sure? It’s important.”

  The person grunted and shuffled back into the gloom.

  I guessed that was a no.

  I slid onto the cool leather driver’s seat, unsure whether to be relieved or not. It was my first glimpse into the bleak horror of what Earnest had escaped from. Would it be better or worse to find him here, out of his mind on heroin?

  What if we couldn’t find him at all? The gnawing worry sharpened its teeth. Was it foolish not to call in the Taste Society right away? But second-guessing myself wasn’t helping anyone. I’d stick with the plan.

  Hoping the lizard person wasn’t indicative of the type of help I was going to get for the rest of my search, I drove to the next address. This one looked more hopeful. The building and yard were better maintained, and heavy metal music blasted from the windows, promising someone was home. It even had a life-size plastic snowman on the lawn, although he seemed to be holding a bong in his twiggy hand.

  A muscular young man answered my knock. I could tell the muscular thing because he’d forgotten his shirt. He noticed my eyes on his chest and smirked.

  I tried to use it to my advantage. “Hi. I’m Izzy. Isobel Avery, I mean. Ernie’s girlfriend.” I pitched my voice higher than normal and made it sound like a question.

  This got a grunt.

  I twirled my finger through my hair and angled another glance at his chest, aiming for hesitant attraction. “Um. He didn’t come home last night, and I was wondering if you’d seen him?”

  The guy looked at my chest too.

  I stuck the picture of Earnest in front of it and was gratified when he gave it his attention. “Nah. Haven’t seen him.” His eyes met mine. “But I can show you a good time while
he’s away, baby.”

  “Uh, thanks, but I need to find him.”

  He bounced his pectoral muscles. “I’ll make you forget he ever existed.”

  I backed away, resisting the urge to run. “Maybe later.” No point alienating the guy. At this rate, he might be my most helpful lead. Plus I was kind of impressed by his muscular control.

  I retreated back to my car and traveled to two different locations with similar results. Which meant Earnest hadn’t bought heroin from any of his old haunts or no one was talking. Then again, given the track marks in their arms and their unfocused expressions, they might have had a deep and meaningful conversation with him five minutes before and forgotten all about it. Kind of like old Mr. Gileppi who used to come to the bakery I’d worked at every Tuesday and tell me about the birth of his new granddaughter. Ten weeks in, I figured he either had a lot of children who’d decided to reproduce at the same time or his memory wasn’t quite right.

  It was painful to imagine Earnest being one of the addicts I’d met today. He was highly intelligent and passionate about helping others. And about gaming. And Cheetos Bolitas. These people had no passion, no personality, no life or laughter. It had all been swallowed by addiction. I was as scared about finding him as not.

  I parked my Corvette outside my second-to-last stop before reconvening with Mrs. Dunst and calling my Taste Society handler. It was an old clapboard building in Exposition Park, marked for demolition. The warped timber door was rough and splintery under my hand as I pushed it aside. With the windows boarded up and the electricity switched off long ago, the interior was even more gloomy than the lizard person’s house. I paused to switch on my phone’s flashlight before stepping inside.

  Hair stood on the back of my neck. Not creepy at all. A thick layer of dust coated everything except for a well-used trail of footprints leading into another room. I followed it, trying not to notice the smaller trails of rat footprints that skittered everywhere or the cobwebs coating the corners. It smelled of stale garbage and dirt.

  I eased through the doorway, still following the footprints, and stopped dead.

  No.

  Rats scurried away from the light to reveal a bundle of clothing. Clothing that looked eerily familiar after seeing the same outfit every day for the past few months.

  Please no.

  I took a step closer. The rats had nibbled on his face, but it was unmistakably Earnest.

  Dear, sweet, geeky Earnest. Best client ever.

  There was no need to check for a pulse.

  2

  I found myself stumbling into the daylight. My eyes watered as they adjusted to the brightness, and I vomited my muffin onto some bluegrass weeds.

  My eyes were still watering as I straightened up, and I realized I was crying. Sobbing noisily, in fact.

  It can’t be true. Earnest can’t be dead. He was only twenty-nine years old. The same as me. I wanted to be lying on his couch, laughing at him while he made up a song to help me remember the “vital takeaways” of the 1950s movie, Forbidden Planet. I wanted to see his hazel gaze widen in abject horror when I admitted to not knowing how to use an Xbox One controller, then light up when I asked him to show me. I pinched myself like it might make the nightmare go away.

  It didn’t.

  Long minutes passed before I could pull myself together enough to call my Taste Society handler.

  “Identify yourself,” Jim answered.

  My relationship with Jim hadn’t improved since our first phone call when I’d tried to win him over with my sparkling personality. Jim didn’t like sparkles. I didn’t like his professional indifference. So I’d made a habit of annoying him just to get a reaction.

  Now, though, I recited the ID number without any commentary. Too upset to be irksome. “Shade 22703. I’m calling to report the death of my client.”

  “Natural or suspicious?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, is there poison involved?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  The memory of his sightless hazel eyes flashed before me. “Yes.”

  Jim grunted. “Right. That’s one thing at least. I’ll send the nearest investigator to your GPS coordinates. Sit tight.”

  The acrid smell of puke made my stomach even more sour, so I retreated to my Corvette. How could this happen? Except for the calculated risk of his BusiLeaks site, Earnest did everything he could to stay safe. Triple-checked his facts before publishing anything. Hired a Shade. Never left his apartment. Was careful who he invited inside. That should be enough.

  Unless he was sick of being housebound and took heroin to overcome his anxieties. Could he have done it to himself?

  It looked that way, but then so did most high-profile murders.

  If Earnest was murdered, had his life ended here, or was it only a dumping ground? I thought back to the footprints. There was an almost dust-free path in the middle where something might have been dragged, but it could also be the result of extra foot traffic as I’d originally assumed. I’d know more if I went in and looked, but I would leave that to the investigator.

  A small voice told me I was focusing on the mechanics of the case to avoid the raw grief inside me. I told the small voice that it seemed as good a strategy as any.

  A knock on the driver’s window interrupted this enlightening conversation with myself before it could deteriorate into name-calling. I saw cool gray eyes and a familiar mouth pulled in a familiar hard line. All the moisture in my mouth evaporated, and I got out of the car.

  “You again,” Connor Stiles said.

  I was a little offended at that greeting from my first-ever client and former investigating partner (okay, partner was a bit of a stretch; he led, I trailed after him asking mostly pointless questions). I hadn’t seen him in three months, but I’d dreamed about him much more recently.

  Refusing to let my disappointment show, I willed some saliva to emerge so I could free my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Merry Christmas to you too.” He was as heart-stoppingly handsome as I remembered. Better, even. “Etta’s missed you.”

  The hard line softened, and he stepped toward me, making my breath hitch. Dark stubble flecked his jaw, and his short-cropped hair had grown out just enough that it was starting to curl at the edges. Downright shabby by Connor’s standards.

  “Is that so?” he asked. “Did anyone else you know miss me?”

  That was more like it. I noticed his eyes were the exact shade as the overcast sky. Then I remembered I had vomit breath. I rocked back on my heels and surreptitiously stuck my hand in front of my mouth to block the fumes. “Hmm. Nope.”

  His business face slammed into place. “Where is your client?”

  Ugh. How could I have been worried about my feelings and my breath when Earnest was lying dead in this stupid dung heap of an abandoned building? I pointed to the gaping door that looked like it could fall off at any moment.

  Connor ducked into his vehicle—a black SUV, of course—and grabbed a flashlight. “Show me.”

  My legs turned to Jell-O as I once again stepped inside the rat-infested walls, and I felt a stab of guilt for not standing vigil over Earnest’s body to keep the little bastards away.

  Connor spotted my hesitation at the second doorway and swept past me. I heard squeaks and rustling, but thankfully his broad-shouldered silhouette blocked the view.

  “You can go wait outside if you’d like.”

  I swallowed back bile. “No. I worked with Earnest for months. I might be able to help.” I knew Earnest better than Connor ever would. Cared about him more too. Maybe it would give me an edge, let me notice something a stranger would miss. I couldn’t flee for my own comfort when Earnest’s justice was at stake.

  Somehow, though, I couldn’t bring myself to step forward either.

  Connor squatted beside the body and put on a pair of gloves. “There’s tissue damage around the needle marks in his arm as well as some antem
ortem bruising which could be consistent with a forced injection.” He patted the pockets. “Phone and wallet are missing, so he might have been mugged, or someone was trying to make it look like he was. It’s also possible the items were looted by a third-party postmortem.” He pulled out a piece of paper. “A receipt for… Cheetos Bolitas? Purchased a bit before one thirty this morning.”

  “They were his favorite,” I said. They were a spicy flavor of Cheetos made for the Mexican market and only sold at a few specific stores locally. “He finished his last packet yesterday, and I promised I’d pick up some more for him this morning, but I was running late and…”

  He’ll never eat them again.

  “He was agoraphobic right? I doubt he wandered out and bought them in the middle of the night just because he’d run out.”

  I wasn’t surprised Connor knew this. He would’ve been briefed by the Taste Society’s research team on the way. They were a group of mysterious tech experts that managed client and personnel data and dug up any information that was asked of them from an undisclosed location.

  And Connor was right. It didn’t make sense. What the hell had happened last night?

  He got to his feet. “I don’t want to disturb the scene any more before we can get a team out to go over it properly. It’s possible he overdosed without any help, but it warrants investigation.”

  He steered me back out to the daylight and made some phone calls.

  I concentrated on not vomiting. Was I feeling sick at the sight of Earnest’s body again? Or was it disgust at my cowardice for not getting closer to see if I could learn anything? I pictured my childhood best friend, Lily, flapping her skinny arms up and down, making chicken noises.

  Connor put his phone away. “Police Commander Hunt of the LAPD is on his way. He’ll want to talk to you since you discovered the body and would’ve been one of the last people to see him alive.”

  I was glad for the distraction. “Police Commander Hunt? Does that mean the Taste Society won’t be handling the case?”

  “No, it means we’ll be cooperating with the LAPD. We don’t have a choice when there’s a fatality. They won’t open an investigation unless the autopsy demonstrates a suspicious death, though, so we’ll have a head start.”