Heavy Traffic Read online

  Heavy Traffic

  Katherine Kim

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Katherine Kim

  Heavy Traffic © 2019 Katherine Kim. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Follow me on Instagram @katherineukim or on Facebook www.facebook.com/katherineukim

  Cover by Venkatesh at Killer Book Covers

  Created with Vellum

  To my father, who I finally talked into writing his own book! One of us!

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  1

  “So, you get into any good trouble yet?” Julia’s voice held nothing but mischief, even through the phone. The woman was relentless.

  “I’ve only been here for three weeks and you’ve asked me that at least twice already. Besides, it’s hard to get into any trouble that could match last summer,” Caroline laughed. “Nobody here has tried to kill me yet. Well, unless you count the professors and the workload.”

  “Oh yes, your summer full of filing was so exciting.” Somehow Julia made her eyeball-roll very clear over the phone. “Although you did come home from Peaches’ workouts with a few impressive bruises.”

  “I did. Because Peaches thought that if I was going to fling myself bodily into a major spell to disrupt the casting, or hunt down crazy, Nazi vampire poisoners in between filing sessions, maybe I should also know how to throw a punch and take a fall,” she sighed, thinking back to the chipper grin on Peaches’ face every time she hit the mats in the training room. “I’m not sure the filing wasn’t actually a pleasant, relaxing task after all that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Risking your life for the job, being one of the good guys. None of that’s actually any fun at all. You’re in college now! Live a little! How’re the parties? Meet any cute guys yet?” Julia was relentless, and you’d never guess from most of her conversations with Caroline that she was a very successful business executive. Caroline had stayed with her over the summer while she started her internship at the Federal Paranormal Activities Agency, and the woman had immediately taken on the task of showing Caroline what was missing from her till-then fairly sheltered life.

  “Well, my Freshman English T.A. is pretty cute. He’s also got a very serious boyfriend, though, so I doubt I have a shot.” Caroline laughed. She loved this completely ridiculous conversation, and she loved having a friend to chat like this with, so she wasn’t going to complain in the slightest. The last six months had completely changed her life, and she knew that it was for the better, even when including the occasional nutjob paranormal criminal trying to kill her or her co-workers. It was still so much better than high school.

  Her senior year of high school had been the worst. The last hurrah of the group of girls that had harassed her throughout her four years there made her life miserable, and Caroline hadn’t had many friends or allies to fend them off. Add to that no real clear idea of what she wanted to do with her life while she was mostly living in the books she got from various libraries, and it had been pretty rough. College was definitely a different experience, and Caroline vastly preferred it, and Julia was the best friend-slash older sister she’d always wanted.

  “Well, eye candy is still eye candy,” Julia pointed out. “But it’s not very exciting. You’re in college, C! Find a party! Have a few beers! Get sloshed and laid and have some fun! Some excitement! Don’t you have a roommate who knows where the parties are?”

  “How is it possible that you are considered to be a responsible adult?” Caroline laughed again. “And besides, my definition of excitement changed the day I got kidnapped by elf supremacists and helped a Federal Agent vampire save the day. Listen, I’m at my next class now so I have to go. I’ll catch you later, I promise.”

  “Okay, okay. I suppose I should head back to the office myself. I’ve got a terminally dull meeting about budgeting for this next project to survive. We should get together this weekend though!”

  “Sounds good. Later.” Caroline shoved her phone into her bag and shook her head. It seemed that Julia would not rest until Caroline ‘experienced college life to the fullest.’ Right, whatever that meant.

  She slouched into a seat near the back and got her notebook out while other students shuffled in. This class fulfilled her only math requirement for the general ed portion of her schooling, though she’d have to take a few more to get through her Criminal Justice degree, which she was getting so that she could officially apply to work for the Federal Paranormal Activities Agency as a full agent.

  Not that Chief Point was treating her especially differently for being an intern, but still. It would be a pay raise and some pretty decent benefits, and frankly, after fighting wannabe vampire hunters and crazed mages, most desk jobs just sounded painfully dull. Almost as bad as her math class.

  “Excuse me, your name is Caroline, right?”

  The voice asking sounded rough and like it was on the verge of cracking and Caroline looked up. “Yes?”

  Tall and slim and dark blonde, Caroline knew that usually this girl was the sort that made everyone watch her walk past. She also was more often than not accompanied by her friend, who while also blonde and slim and pretty, somehow also managed to almost fade into the scenery. Right now, though, this girl was alone and she didn’t look happy about it. There were dark circles under eyes that seemed haunted, and her voice was full of exhaustion and worry.

  “Um, I’ve seen you around a bit, in class and stuff,” the girl said. She shifted on her feet and wrapped her hand around her other arm. “And at The Drip with those two guys. People say that they’re FBI or something.”

  “Darien and Greg? They’re FPAA, not FBI, but yes, they are Federal agents. I work with them, they’re my partners.” The fact that she was an intern seemed to only make a difference to the people writing her paychecks from all she could tell, so she didn’t bother making the distinction usually.

  “Oh,” the girl’s shoulders drooped and she sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth. It looked like someone needed to take pity on the poor, abused thing. “I was hoping… I need help, but…” Her shoulders slumped further. Caroline worried that the girl might just slide to the floor in misery, right there in the lecture hall, and that would likely cause more problems than either of them wanted to cope with right now.

  “Listen, why don’t we go get some coffee? I’m starving and frankly, this class will just put me to sleep anyway. Some sunshine and food will do u
s both some good and you can tell me what’s wrong. If nothing else maybe I can give you some advice.” It was a lot easier and less stressful to skip class in college than in high school, she thought with a small smile when the girl nodded.

  Caroline ushered the girl out of the dim lecture hall and into the bright Virginia sunshine. Students were everywhere, rushing to or from class. Several of the groups they passed were making plans for the next few days, it being Thursday and the beginning of the weekend according to college students everywhere. The girl beside her shuddered at one particularly boisterous group’s loud decision to go to a party off campus that night.

  “Hey, what’s your name? I’m Caroline, as you know.”

  “I’m Shelly Wilkinson,” she said.

  “I usually see you with that other girl, umm…. Jenny? I remember she got called out in Intro to Psych and impressed the hell out of the whole class by knowing more than she was expected to.” Caroline grinned at the memory. The psychology T.A. had been less than pleased to learn that the freshman she picked was a bad choice to use as an example of a slacker. “I haven’t seen her for a few days, hope she’s not sick or something. Oh!”

  Caroline stopped and stared as Shelly started to shake and clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a sob.

  “Oh, man. Oh no. I’m not good at this,” Caroline glared around the area and spotted an empty bench. “Okay, Shelly. Okay, come on over here and sit down. What did I say? I’m so sorry, whatever it was.” She got the girl seated and dug around the bottom of her purse for a package of tissues she was pretty sure was in there.

  “Her name’s Janine. I’m s-sorry. I thought I c-could hang on and not make an idiot of myself,” Shelly hiccupped her way through her words. She took the tissue pack and dug one out.

  “Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Caroline had no idea what to say. She wasn’t sure what set off this reaction in the first place, but the grief and fear and heartbreak in Shelly’s voice was clear as daylight to her. People walking by cast sympathetic glances as Caroline awkwardly patted Shelly’s shoulder. They probably thought it was boy trouble or something, but this was obviously more serious than that. Nobody went looking for FBI agents after a bad date. “You’re not making an idiot of yourself. And If you don’t want to talk about that other girl, that’s totally fine.”

  Shelly sniffled and took a few moments to get herself back under control. “That’s the problem, though. Janine’s gone.”

  “Gone where?” Caroline blinked. She must have missed something.

  “Gone gone! Disappeared! Missing!” Shelly sniffled. “We went to a party last weekend. You know, just a small one, at a place off campus. It’s really hard to get her to go out because she’s so shy, but this one was mostly geeky, intellectual people, so I thought maybe she could feel a little more comfortable. Push herself a little, you know?”

  Caroline nodded. It made sense, really. Janine wasn’t the only student on campus uncomfortable at those huge weekend raves.

  “I usually go to parties without her, because it’s really not her thing. But I know she’s been feeling left out even though she swears she’s fine. I can see it in her eyes, you know? We’ve been friends since fourth grade, she can’t hide anything from me,” Shelly sniffled again, but her voice was stronger now that she had her story underway. “So I found this party that wouldn’t be the huge booze-crazy sort of thing everyone always goes to, and got her to dress up just a little— and she looked so good— and we went out. And she had fun! She talked to a bunch of people and I actually saw her talking and laughing with some guys! I was so excited for her! She’s so smart and sweet and funny once she relaxes a bit and…” Her breath stuttered and her shoulders slumped as she got to the point of her story.

  “So, I went out back to chat with another friend while they smoked, but I made sure that she knew where I was going and she would never, ever leave without telling me. But when I went to look for her a while later, she was gone. Nobody’d seen her for a while. The guys she was talking to were still there and they said that she went to the bathroom and never came back.”

  “Nobody saw her leave?” Caroline frowned now. Shelly was right, this didn’t sound good.

  “No. I tried to call her but it just rang and rang and went to voicemail, and she wasn’t back in our dorm room either. I looked all night and I finally found her phone and her bag under a hedge near the place the party was, like they’d been kicked out of the way or something.” Shelly’s eyes started to swim again.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  Shelly nodded. “The next day, as soon as I could get someone to drive me ‘cause I don’t have a car. They told me that she’d probably gone off to get laid and just hadn’t come home yet, but she’d never do that. She’s way too nervous about people she doesn’t know very well. Even if she did do that, she’d have told me before she left.” Shelly scowled now and Caroline was actually glad to see an emotion that wasn’t despair or borderline panic. “They talked to me like I’m some kind of idiot. Like college girls are just hysterical drunks who don’t know where they are or who they’re with. I’m sorry, I’m here as a pre-med student, and Janine is going to be a brilliant engineer. We’re not here to get out MRS degrees. One of the cops actually said that!”

  “What a jackass.” Caroline had to take a deep breath and push down her own irritation. The local cops weren’t the biggest fans of the students— and were clearly misogynisitc holdovers from the worst corner of the fifties— and the campus cops weren’t much help if anything happened off-campus. She’d only been there a few weeks and that much was already a well-known fact to her. “Okay. So, here’s what we’re going to do. This party was how long ago?”

  “It was on Saturday, and I looked for her until Sunday afternoon when I tried to file the missing persons report. I’ve been looking for her since then but I had to sleep sometimes, you know?” Shelly looked miserable, like she’d personally caused her friend’s disappearance. “And if I flunk out of school my mom will kill me, so I’ve tried to go to class.”

  “Okay. Right now, we’re going to the cafe and getting something to eat, and you’re going to wash your face and your hands and take a few deep breaths and after we’re fed and cleaned up you’re going to take me to where this all happened.”

  “You believe me?” Shelly sat up, finally, big eyes finally showing a glimmer of hope.

  “I haven’t heard you lie to me yet,” Caroline said. Shelly blinked at that statement and Caroline just grinned and kept talking. “And if the cops don’t want to make sure the students here are safe, then I guess someone should.”

  2

  People staggered and laughed and danced in a drunken eruption of joy that made Caroline feel like swearing off people for the rest of her life. Honestly, this was supposed to be fun, right? It just seemed exhausting to her, and she texted Julia that very sentiment.

  Oh, relax. You’re in college for Pete’s sake! Dance, drink, make out with a random stranger! Just try to have some fun, jeez. You act like you’re forty years old sometimes, I swear. That’s helpful, thanks Julia. Caroline hadn’t wanted to go out without anyone knowing where she was so she’d called Julia that afternoon. The conversation had gotten out of control almost as soon as the word ‘party’ was introduced.

  Caroline wasn’t really here to have fun, though. Well, not primarily. She’d gotten as much information out of Shelly as she’d been able to, then left her back at the dorms, tucked in with some tea and a movie. Shelly swore that she had another friend coming over to sit with her so she wouldn’t be alone, but Caroline was still worried. Janine’s disappearance hit the girl hard, and it had been days since she’d gone missing.

  Caroline had also stopped by the local police station to ask about Janine’s disappearance and had gotten exactly nowhere. The dismissive attitude Shelly mentioned was in full force, with an added dose of patronizing creepiness. Caroline got a seriously bad vibe from the whole station and intended to ask th
e guys at her own office about it when she got there in the morning. Or maybe she should ask the girls there, actually, now that she thought about it. They worked with men in law enforcement every day, after all. Maybe they had some tips for dealing with street-level police.

  “Hey, you’re too cute to be over here all alone,” a guy slurred into her ear. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held his drink up in a sloppy offer to share. “Come dance with me.”

  “Um.” She thought fast. The guy had managed to pin her arm where he leaned, which blocked her access to the magic taser Ollie and the lab guys had made for her. “I’m good right now, but thanks. Just needed to take a bit of a break, you know?” Caroline tried to ease away from the guy but he had a firm grip, even drunk.

  “Aww, that’s no fun.” He leaned his face into her neck and she could feel his breath on her skin, which made it crawl, not that he noticed. Even if his actions and words weren’t clearly gross, she could hear the slimy intent in his voice. “If you want to get somewhere quiet, I live a couple doors down, sexy. I mean sure, the Thursday Night Throwdown keeps going all down the street, but I can lock my bedroom door.”

  “I think I’d rather just get some air, thanks.” Caroline managed to squeeze out of his grip by twisting her shoulder under his armpit to get some room.

  “We could go out the deck,” he said, stepping back into her space and smashing his body into her side. “It’s not safe for girls to go off alone, you know.”