ONE WEEK! Blue Note releases in ONE WEEK.

Here’s one more look into Niels’ world… actually … two. Two more looks.

BUT FIRST… Coming around October, maybe November…hopefully October…The Last Salamander. It’s not a Fractured Prism book, but it is an Elesara Book. We can’t wait to share more about it, as we get it ready for publishing. Also, as we finish writing it…lofty goals lie ahead.

One last word before we publish…Thank you for your support, even if you’re just here for the free stuff. We’re trying to create a world for readers to enjoy – free and paid – as well as something you can take and create your own stories with.

Thank you all, and enjoy these last two sneak peaks of Blue Note.

Chapter Four

Around mid-morning, people trickled in: Li first, then Eddie, then his girlfriend Fara.

Fara frowned at Niels’ plaid ugly couch, and settled on the floor in front of the television instead, ignoring everyone.

“Where’s Jace?” Hattie asked Li.

She asked because Li would know even though Li and Jace weren’t dating – the same way that Niels and Hattie weren’t – and fastidious efforts to ignore their affection for each other were just as transparent to everyone around them.

“I haven’t seen him,” Li said. She had long curly caramel hair that she wore down except for at concerts, where the curls clung to her neck and made Niels glad he wasn’t a girl or an eighties rock star. Most punk rock girls shaved their hair or wore mohawks or kept it in other short styles, but Li kept her hair long. There was a picture of her from October at a party her parents held in Denmark looking like a perfect princess.

Anyone who didn’t know her would never guess otherwise.

Princess or not, he could still call her out on lies. No way had they spent Christmas Eve apart. “You weren’t just with him?” Niels challenged.

“A few hours ago. He said he had to get some stuff. He’ll show up.”

Ja? “We can call him,” Niels suggested.

It wasn’t that Jace was always punctual or that he’d call with updates about his whereabouts. It was that Niels didn’t feel right. Something was off, like an itch.

Niels never ignored this instinct when it hit. The last time he’d talked to his dad, his gut told him he’d never see his dad again. Two days later, they’d gotten the call.

He had the same feeling now.

Li pulled out her phone. “I’ll yell at him,” she said. She had him on speed dial – that was how much they weren’t dating.

She paced, waiting. She called again.

“Maybe he passed out,” Hattie suggested.

His mom came out to the living room with a platter of cookies they’d spent the morning cooking with Hattie. They were fried, not baked, delicious little twists of happiness.

“Do you remember the time he fell asleep in his attic and no one could find him?” she recalled, trying to be comforting. Niels knew his tension was obvious.

“It was disruptive,” Eddie laughed. At the time, he’d been writing a sonata with an actual genuine deadline for a concert he would be conducting in Munich. While everyone else panicked about Jace, Eddie panicked about his sonata.

“You should eat without him,” Li decided, sliding her phone back into her pocket. “I’ll see where he is.”

Like hell she would. If something happened to Jace, Niels wasn’t letting Li go alone. She was softer than she looked, by a lot.

“I’m helping,” he insisted.

Hattie and his mom followed them, promised to keep the food warm and wait there in case Jace showed up.

Niels almost asked them how they planned to get in touch with him if Jace decided to show his face. His mom had no phone – on principle – and Hattie had no phone because she enjoyed frustrating Niels.

Eddie glanced at Fara “Are you coming?”

“Will you just go with me to Thames on Time?”

Eddie’s frown reached his eyes. “Once we find Jace, yeah.”

Her lips formed a pout. “You’re ruining Christmas because he fell asleep.” She jumped off the floor, purse in hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, coldly.

Holy shit. Finally. Maybe they’d actually break up. Niels was going to have to remember to kiss Jace later.

“You know how I feel when I don’t eat,” Fara defended. She held her arm out for him to see. She was shaking, and probably faking. Earlier this week, when they’d all gone curling as a group, she’d talked Eddie into taking her to the ER over a couple of bruises.

Eddie shook his head. “This is how I feel when we can’t find Jace.”

Fara threw her arms up. “Fine.” She stepped closer, puckering her lips toward him. Waiting.

“Have a good rest of your Christmas,” Eddie said. He was tapping out some kind of song on his fingers, against his thumbs. He always played air piano when he was tense.

“Let me know when you find him,” Fara urged. Her eyes filled with tears. “If he’s really in trouble, I’ll call Daddy.”

How generous. She’d call her malpractice attorney daddy and accomplish absolutely nothing.

“Thank you,” Eddie said.

She stuck her lips out again. “Eddie.”

“Yeah?” He ran his hands through his hair, impatient to get going.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked. She batted her eyelashes.

They were never going to get out of here, until he kissed her. This was ridiculous.

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “Can it wait? It can’t be that important.”

The tears in her eyes spilled over. Niels wondered how she did it – practice? Thinking of a dead pet? Worrying she might wear a piece of clothing that wasn’t unique to a party? Most people couldn’t cry on command like that.

“What if I never see you again?” she whimpered.

Eddie looked at Niels for help.

Christ.

Niels snaked his arm around Hattie’s back and kissed the side of her head. “Keep my mom calm?” he urged.

Eddie finally took the fucking hint. “Oh,” he said, and kissed Fara’s lips.

But now Hattie was in Niels’ arm, and he didn’t feel like letting her go.

She solved that problem for him, twisting to face him and stepping away at the same time. “I will. I’ll put the news on, just to make sure we have everything covered.”

“Have a good night,” Fara preened. No one pointed out that it was barely lunch time, because no one wanted her to come back. “I love you, Eddie.” She pranced out the door, oblivious to Niels’ middle finger facing her back.

Even his mom laughed once Fara was out the door.

“Eddie,” Li said, “she’s a bitch.”

Now was not the time for the much-needed Fara intervention.

“Just…” Li said. She exhaled. “Let’s find Jace.”

“She’s not close to Jace like we are,” Eddie explained – thought he explained, anyway. Most things Eddie said about Fara involved defending or validating how much of a bitch she was.

“Ja,” Li muttered.

Niels stalled opening the door to be sure that Fara caught the elevator before they entered the hallway. Before he closed the door, he shared one last grin with Hattie.

Chapter 5

Jace’s apartment was a decent walk, but Niels didn’t want to bug Griff on Christmas, so they walked. His chauffeur/bodyguard worked almost every day of the year, and he was supposedly on call today too, but Niels wasn’t doing that to him.

It was cold, but they walked fast. And they were Danish, so New York City cold didn’t really have as much of an effect on them as it did on your typical New Yorker.

They walked into his apartment – Li had a key because she wasn’t dating Jace – and looked around. Nothing knocked over, no blood anywhere.

“Jace?” Niels called.

Nothing.

Li called him on speed dial again. On the floor, his phone rang.

That was different. He didn’t usually keep his phone on the floor.

“Rend mig,” Li muttered, picking it up.

“Well.” Eddie looked around. “I don’t even know.”

Tears – real tears – welled in Li’s eyes.

Niels rubbed her back. “We’ll find him. There’s like…I mean, look at this place. No one broke in here, the door was locked. He didn’t fight anyone off. He’s probably asleep in a laundry basket.”

She laughed. “Probably.”

They checked all the closets, laundry baskets, under his bed, the bathroom…no Jace.

They reconvened in his living room.

“Do you want me to call the police, or wait?” Niels asked.

Once they called the police, this would become a tabloid thing because of the band’s public visibility.

Christ.

Once they called the police, this would become real – Jace, missing.

“Let’s give it a night,” Li said. “Maybe…maybe he forgot his phone and went to see his mom and got time-lost.”

“And forgot his keys and his wallet?” Niels added, sardonically.

Li deflated against the wall. “Okay. Call.”

“Wait,” Eddie said. “Does his building have a fitness center or anything?”

“Jace?” Niels scoffed.

Jace had been in a fitness center exactly once in his life, and that was to film a music video featuring zombies on treadmills.

It was good symbolism, if a little cliché.

“Could he be at the soup kitchen? I’ll call.” Li paced away from them, acting on the idea instead of waiting for Niels to respond. After a minute, she faced them and shook her head no.

“Okay.” He almost dialed and then looked at her. “Do you want to call?”

Translation: Do you want to fucking admit you’re together, since all of us already know?
“Yeah.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “I can handle it.” Despite this, she didn’t raise her phone or dial or anything. She just looked at Niels, frozen.

Okay, then.

“I got it,” Niels promised, “but they may want to talk to you.”

He dialed. He’d never actually interfaced with emergency callers in the US before.

“911, what is your emergency.”

It was a man. In his mind of expectations, all 911 call center people were women because of an ad he’d seen when he first moved here.

“Ja, my friend is missing. His wallet and keys and phone are still at his apartment.”

He gave the address of the emergency and then hung up.

Was he supposed to stay on the line until police arrived, or was that only for medical emergencies?

Shit. He didn’t know!

“Okay,” he told Li. He tried to sound confident, like everything was going to be fine. “Someone is coming. Two someones.”

“We should update your mom and Hattie.”

Yeah, that would be great, except for one thing. “Hattie is a moron. Neither of them has a phone.”

“Do you want to head back?” she suggested.

“No. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

Eddie checked back into the conversation, looking up from one of Jace’s manga books he’d been reading while they waited. “I’ll go,” he offered.

He left with the manga.

Niels had to not laugh because Li was freaking. Then again, maybe he should laugh so she’d be pissed at him and forget to panic about Jace.

The police had to be buzzed up before he’d decided what to do.

While they waited, he told Li, “Hattie won’t let me get her a phone. Of all the things to put her foot down about…”

“No phone, but an apartment is fine?” Li asked, laughing.

Good. Laughter was good.

“Ja. She’s insane.”

“Are you dating her?”

No. Absolutely not. They didn’t even like each other.

He said as much.

Her lips turned up at the corners, then down: It was too much like how she ‘wasn’t dating’ Jace. “Do you think Jace is dead? Or a hostage?”

He hadn’t even thought of the hostage thing. But they were rich, they were celebrities.

“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “But if he was dead, I think…his apartment would look like shit because he wouldn’t just leave with a murderer. It would look like he’d fought someone off, or it would be ransacked and his wallet definitely wouldn’t be right there.”

There was a knock at the door.

It was a good thing, because it distracted Li from seeing the expression on Niels’ face. How many crime shows had he seen where someone said something lame like, He never would have let a killer in, or she knew better. Next thing you knew, Jace would turn up dead and Niels would stand at his funeral sobbing a clichéd line about how Jace was so full of life before he died. Because, you know, that was the opposite of death. But so many victims’ families said it on crime shows.

He never knew he had it in him to be so mundane. It must be the panic. He forced a deep breath and calm thoughts before he focused on the two police officers Li had just ushered into the apartment. It was a younger Latina and an older white guy.

“You reported someone missing?” the woman asked.

“Ja, our friend Jace Nygaard. “All his sh…tuff is still here, but he’s not. He was supposed to meet us at my place for a Christmas party.” Niels watched while the officer wrote Jace’s name down on a padlet.

“He’s nowhere,” Li supplemented.

“When did you last see him?” the man asked.

Li’s skin flushed. “A few hours ago.”

“He isn’t a missing person for a full 24 hours,” the man said. “We’ll keep an eye out if you have a picture, but he’s probably just out in the city and forgot his…” he glanced at Niels. “Stuff.”

“Aren’t the first 24 hours the most important?” Niels argued.

The woman shook her head. “Not if he’s not really missing. A lot of times, people are just somewhere else and they turn up on their own. He’s probably just at a movie. We don’t have the resources for that.”

Li glared at the ceiling for a second. “What if he was killed?”

“Then his body will turn up,” the woman said.

They weren’t going to do anything. Christ. He was gone and they wanted to wait until tomorrow morning to deal with it.

“It’s Christmas,” the woman said. “Have you-”

Nope, not dealing with this bullshit anymore. He tried to think of something to say that would get them to act. “He robbed a store this morning,” he said, somewhat convincingly.

The man looked at him. “Which store?” he said, a little more than disgruntled. He took out a different padlet and a pen.

Niels tried to avoid looking at Li. “The pawn shop around the corner. I doubt he got caught, but he stole a bunch of jewelry and electronics.”

The woman and the man made eye contact.

Niels closed his fists in anger. Telling off the cops wouldn’t help.

He took a deep breath. “Do you know how fucked up it is that you have the resources to find a criminal but not a missing decent human being?”

“If he’s missing, we’ll look,” the man said. “Right now, he might be at a store or feeding some geese. There’s no sign anyone broke in here, touched anything.”

“We’ll keep an eye out,” the woman promised. With her phone, she snapped a picture of Li’s phone, which had a picture of Jace on the home screen. “Without aggressively searching.”

“How old is he?” the man asked. “Height. Weight.”

“Eighteen. He’s 5’10’’ and weighs about…I don’t know. Christ.” Niels grabbed a napkin and scrawled his and Li’s cell numbers down on it. He passed it to the woman. “Here are our numbers, if you find anything.”

“He weighs about 135,” Li said.

The cops nodded. It seemed like they couldn’t get out of there fast enough. They didn’t even really take a look around.

Niels put his palm on Li’s back. “We should stay here, in case he shows up. Maybe they can bring food over.”

“No,” Li said, firm. “We can leave a note. They might not care, but this isn’t normal; he’s not just going to come home.”

No, he wasn’t. Something was wrong.

“Do you want to stay at my place tonight?” he offered. She could be surrounded by people, distracted.

She nodded.

“We’ll find him,” he promised himself and her, and even Jace – wherever he was.

“Alive,” she breathed.

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