Cold Love: A Cillian Canter Mystery (Cillian Cantor Book 1) Read online

  He had just jotted down Amanda’s progressively violent and recurrent nightmares and was about to describe her increasing tendency to burst out in sobs at any reference to her past, when the phone rang. He picked up his smartphone and swiped his finger across the screen. It remained black. Pressing the power button didn’t change that. Of course, it’s dead, he remembered. And yet he once more heard the ringing of a phone. It came from somewhere in his bedroom; the close proximity of the sound was unmistakable.

  “Huh?” he said out loud, looking around himself in bewilderment. He didn’t have another phone anywhere in the apartment, at least… The landline? How is that possible? Cillian wondered. That number should have been discontinued by now. He jumped up from behind the desk, leaped over the bed, and bent over the nightstand on the other side. After blindly reaching behind it with his right arm, he managed to interrupt the next ring by picking up a dusty handset that was connected to an even dustier telephone with an old-fashioned curly cord.

  “Who is this?” Cillian mumbled into the receiver.

  “Your new client, I hope,” a confident and lively feminine voice answered.

  “How did you get this number? I don’t even have this number!” Cillian grumbled angrily.

  “You would, if you would simply call your cell phone with it.” The caller’s voice sounded about equal parts informative and jesting. “But let’s just say I have a knack for IT.”

  “How is this number still working?” Cillian wanted to know. “It was registered under the name of the previous tenant, and he died before I moved in here two years ago.”

  “Mistakes were made, obviously” was the cryptic answer.

  “Cut the crap, will you? I don’t have the energy for this nonsense!” Cillian shouted.

  “But you do have the energy to bellow like that? Fine, have it your way. All work and no play. Perhaps someone at the telephone company canceled the subscription but forgot to disable the number. That, or someone hacked into their system and temporarily reactivated a discontinued account. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Despite the fact that the young woman on the other end of the line—she had to be a young woman from the sound of her voice, Cillian decided—was obviously making fun of him, the unlicensed PI couldn’t help thinking that she sounded rather… nice.

  “So are you a hacker? What is this, what’s your game?” Cillian asked in a calmer voice.

  “I don’t feel like playing games with you anymore. You seem like a sore loser.” She giggled.

  Cillian was about to start screaming insults through the phone, until it struck him that doing so would only confirm her claim about him being a sore loser. She probably didn’t even realize how right she was though. It wasn’t just that he was down on his luck and had become rather petty. Looking at how his life had turned out, it would be obvious to anyone that he was a complete loser, plus he was sore in every possible way. Mentally, physically, emotionally.

  “I will have to agree with you on that one,” he replied despondently. “So please get down to business, if there is any business to get down to.”

  “Business is a strange word for it…” The voice sounded rather pensive all of a sudden. “But sure,” the unknown caller continued, with renewed optimism. “Are you aware of your cable TV subscription, or is that also a remnant of the previous tenant?” There was no trace of sarcasm in the voice this time.

  “I am aware of that one, yes. Why?” Cillian was dying to get some clarity. So far every new answer of hers had been more confusing than the former.

  “All right, then please turn on channel nine and wait for the last item in the newsreel, which should start about three minutes from now. That professor was my father, and I am pretty damn sure it was not heart failure that killed him. I have evidence. If you are interested, meet me at Asgard, A-S-G-A-R-D. I will leave within an hour from now, if you don’t show up before then.”

  “Where is—” Cillian started. But before he could finish his question about the location mentioned by the mysterious caller, she had hung up.

  Chapter Four

  At ten minutes past midnight, Cillian Cantor was once again riding the subway, direction: downtown Chicago. As it turned out, Asgard was a bar somewhere in the city center. He had looked it up online. The pictures hadn’t been promising; it seemed to be some kind of shady cellar establishment in a dark alley that was a notorious spot for enthusiasts of public urination.

  So why the hell was he going there? Cillian wondered, as he closed his eyes for a moment because he felt drowsy and the fluorescent light inside the train bothered him. But the lights didn’t trouble him as much as the fact that he didn’t really know why he had chosen to head out into the freezing cold on a snowy night like this, just to meet a strange woman who had somehow contacted him on a landline—which had been presumed dead by Cillian for years—and who may or may not have an actual case for him, a job which he didn’t need anyway thanks to the generous Baldwins.

  The newsreel mentioned by the caller had been a little intriguing, but not spectacularly so. Apparently Reinhart Erdmann, a tenured professor from Germany who taught political science at the top-ranking university in the city, had been found dead in his office earlier that day by police officers responding to an anonymous call. According to the coroner who had examined the body, the cause of death was heart failure. Cillian had naturally been curious why Erdmann’s daughter suspected foul play regarding her father’s death, and what kind of “evidence” she supposedly had against the official report. But that was not the main reason why Cillian had wanted to meet her. There was something about her, something in her voice that had caught his attention in an unfamiliar but pleasant way from the moment he’d picked up the phone and heard her first reply about being his new client.

  Yes, if there was really something to what she had told him, it might make sense to take her case, Cillian thought suddenly. Perhaps working on a proper case like an actual murder, an undetected one even—as opposed to another “cheating spouse” disaster or “missing pet” fiasco like the cases he’d handled recently—would be a good way to sharpen his mental faculties. It might even inspire him to see Amanda’s disappearance in a different light, which in turn could help him find a new lead in his fiancée’s case. No, that was too farfetched, Cillian argued with himself. While it might feel nice to tell himself that this case could help him in his search for Amanda, it was not his real motive for getting on this train heading downtown. It was something else. Closure maybe. Yes, that could be it; a petty need for closure regarding the identity of the woman who had disturbed him in his nightly meditations, because he simply couldn’t accept even more loose ends in his life. One missing fiancée was most definitely more mystery than he could handle. At any rate, he would find out soon enough if meeting Erdmann’s daughter would change anything. The train was about to arrive at his stop. Time to meet the truth.

  The alley leading up to Asgard did not disappoint in repulsiveness, and the bar itself was no better than Cillian had expected either. A windowless hole full of questionable characters, most of them loud, drunk, and obnoxious. There was one noticeable exception though. In the back of the smoky room, at a small table between the bar and a defunct cigarette vending machine, sat an attractive young woman with straight ash-blond hair, bright red lipstick, and smoky eye makeup. She had just taken a sip from a Long Island Iced Tea or some similar drink, and as she lowered the tall glass he noticed her striking outfit, a low-cut 50s style black flared dress that exposed her pale, slender neck and delicate arms. That must be her, Cillian reckoned. Or is that just a pathetic case of wishful thinking? As he walked toward her, she raised her eyes and send him an ironic smile. His first judgment had been correct; there could be no mistake that she was his mystery caller.

  “A little late, aren’t we, Mr. Cantor? I was just about to leave,” she said, with a trace of mischief in her voice.

  It was one hour and ten minutes after she had told Cillian to meet her a
t this bar. He had missed her one-hour deadline on purpose. After arriving at the top of the stairs leading down to Asgard twenty minutes ago, he had hesitated to go on. Entering the bar within the timeframe set by his caller might make him seem submissive or even spineless in her eyes. During their conversation over the phone, she had been fully in control. For even though it was evident that she wanted something from him and not the other way around—the fact that she had contacted him testified to that—he had been asking all the questions, and she had made him feel completely at her mercy by providing only snippets of answers at her own leisurely pace, like a sadistic prison guard feeding bread crumbs to a starving convict. He didn’t want to resume their interaction on the same unequal footing as before, so he had decided to face the freezing cold for a little longer and go down to meet her only when it was well past her deadline. Since he was sure that there was only one way out of Asgard, he would be able to spot her on her way up the stairs if she decided to bail after exactly one hour.

  “No you weren’t,” he replied with more confidence than he had expected of himself. “Your glass is only half-empty.”

  “Under different circumstances I would have passionately argued that it’s half-full, but as things are, I don’t have any reason to be optimistic.” Her tone matched her words. “However, I must admit that I was simply waiting for you to come in.”

  “What do you mean?” Cillian asked, immediately losing his cool. How did she know I was outside?

  “Big Brother is watching you,” she said in a low, ominous voice, while struggling to keep a straight face and pointing to a CCTV monitor behind the counter, which was just visible from their angle and showed live footage of different areas in and outside the bar, including the top of the stairs where Cillian had been waiting.

  “The hell with it,” Cillian blurted out. “I wasn’t made for mind games.” Twenty minutes in the snow for sixty seconds of imagined fame, he lamented. It had been barely a minute, and she was once again calling the shots.

  “I get it though,” she reflected sarcastically. “A headstrong detective like you can’t let a self-assured woman get the upper hand. God knows what might happen.”

  “Screw that,” he said with a sigh, as he took off his coat and joined her at the table. “I am a pitiful man in many ways, but I am not a misogynist. I just didn’t want you to walk all over me.”

  “I wouldn’t dare in these heels.” She chuckled, while moving her legs out from under the table. Considering how self-conscious and calculating she seemed, he hardly thought it was a coincidence that she happened to reveal her see-through tights in the process of showing him her black stiletto heels.

  “Forgive me for not introducing myself, but you already know my name. May I know yours?” Cillian asked in an attempt to demonstrate how utterly uninterested he was in the smooth skin under her tights.

  “Sure, I’m Rose,” she answered, offering him her hand. Cillian felt some of his courage returning, as the handshake was a lot less awkward than he had feared.

  “All right, so your father…” Cillian paused. He wanted to get down to business as soon as possible, but he didn’t want to appear completely insensitive to her loss either. “My condolences,” he said instead.

  “Thanks,” said Rose, a little timidly. “I can understand that you want me to get to the point, but I need to know if I can trust you first.”

  “Sure, I can appreciate that, but there is little I can do to assist you with that. I mean, I don’t even have a PI license.” Cillian didn’t see the point of hiding that fact. If she was a cop—and she sure didn’t look like one—she would already know about it anyway.

  “I was aware of that. In fact, it’s exactly why I approached you.” Rose had lowered her voice to close to a whisper, despite the fact that no one else in the bar would be able to hear her over the drunken screams and laughter that constantly echoed around the room. “I can’t risk dealing with anyone who is dependent on the government in some way, either through direct employment or a license that has to be maintained. So you are perfect for the job—I just need your smartphone.”

  “You can have it, but the battery’s dead,” he said as he handed her the phone. He didn’t get what she needed it for, but he didn’t see the harm in handing it over as it contained no secrets.

  “I thought as much,” Rose mumbled, taking out one of her small, round, black stud earrings and using the post to open the SIM tray on the side of Cillian’s phone. Then she took out his SIM card.

  “What do you need that for?” Cillian asked.

  “Evidence” was her answer, as she turned around to rummage through her handback that was hanging on the back of her chair, took out a smartphone, used hear earring to open the empty SIM tray and put Cillian’s card in it.

  “Your SIM code, please,” she asked mechanically as she turned on the phone and put it in front of him on the table. Within a couple of seconds a number pad appeared on the screen. The moment Cillian had entered his SIM pin, Rose snatched the phone from his hand.

  “Sorry,” she said coldly when he looked up at her in wonder. “I have to be sure.”

  “Of what?” he asked, but Rose didn’t seem to listen. Her attention was fully fixed on the smartphone screen.

  “We’ve got a signal,” she said after a few seconds, putting the phone in the middle of the table with the screen facing upward. “This is it, your moment of truth.”

  Cillian was about to ask her what the hell she was talking about when the phone started to vibrate.

  “Five new text messages,” Rose concluded after picking up the phone. “Not bad, considering the fact that hardly anyone texts anymore these days. Never heard of messaging apps?”

  “My parents haven’t. And they’re the only ones I keep in touch with nowadays.” Cillian didn’t know why he bothered explaining himself to this peculiar woman.

  “What about your clients?” Rose wanted to know as she pressed some digital button on the touchscreen. She seemed to be opening and reading the messages.

  “As of this morning I don’t have any active clients. And apart from my parents and a handful of old clients, no one has my number,” Cillian clarified. He just couldn’t help himself.

  “My father did,” Rose said with a restrained sadness in her voice, which reminded him of how Amanda had sounded on the rare occasions when she mentioned something about her past. Rose was holding the phone out to Cillian, close enough for him to see the message displayed on the screen. It read:

  Mr. Cantor, I am in urgent need of a detective who operates independently of any law enforcement officers, and if my source is correct, you fit that description. My apologies for contacting you like this, but I am short on time. Please call me when you can. I’ll make it worth your while. Greetings, Erdmann

  The time stamp showed the message had been sent the night before. Once the full meaning of it got through to Cillian, he was at a complete loss for words. Rose’s father had texted him before his death. If Cillian hadn’t been so stupid to forget taking his phone charger to the stakeout, he would have received the message on time and might have been able to help a man in need, instead of wasting his time observing an innocent workaholic, just to milk some easy money from a wealthy, neglected spouse. He was such an inconsiderate jerk. Cillian looked at Rose with remorse.

  “I am so…” he started, but she cut him off.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t have saved him. At most you might have ended up…”

  “Murdered like your father,” Cillian finished.

  Rose sighed, casting down her eyes to avoid his sympathetic look. Cillian could see tears forming in the corners of her eyes. After a moment she looked up again, with a straight face.

  “You passed the test, by the way,” she said in a businesslike tone. “I knew my father had sent you this message, so I expected you to bring it up after watching the item about his death on the news. The fact th
at you didn’t meant that you either hadn’t received it yet, or that you were hiding something and therefore that I couldn’t trust you. I needed to make sure which option applied.”

  Rose seemed sincere, but for Cillian her account raised about as many questions as it covered.

  “But how did you get a hold of his phone?” he asked in a low voice. “Didn’t he have it on him when he died?”

  “He did, but…” She looked apprehensively around the bar. “I can explain everything,” she suddenly said in a resolute voice, taking up her glass and downing her drink in one gulp. “But first we need to get out of here. Please put on your coat, and here”—she was handing him her earring—“turn off the phone and take out your SIM card. Don’t put it back in your phone, just keep it in your pocket. You never know.”

  While Cillian did what he was asked, Rose got up from the table, collected her purse and coat, and walked over to the bar. She caught the attention of the bartender and leaned over the counter to whisper something in her ear. The bartender nodded and threw her arms around Rose to give her a firm hug. As Rose walked back toward Cillian, he saw the bartender enter a door behind the counter with a “STAFF ONLY” sign on it.

  “Come,” said Rose, reaching out her hand to Cillian. The move annoyed him, for after the motherly way in which she had told him to put his coat on, it now seemed that she wanted to treat him even more like a child by taking him by the hand and leading him away. Before he could ask what she was up to, the lights and music in the bar suddenly turned off, leaving them in pitch darkness.

  “What the…” Cillian was completely perplexed, and instinctively he reached for Rose’s hand.

  “Follow me,” she whispered, so close to his ear that he noticed the faint smell of alcohol on her warm breath. “We only have about a minute.”