Dementophobia

~Chapter Four~

What
The
Even.
Nevaeh lay on Regillion's couch, staring out the living room windows and up at the sky. The stars were muddled, only half visible due to the city lights and the dirty air.
She, Nevaeh, was curled up in a blanket on the ratty thrift store couch of Regillion Demetrius Diegolo, son of the current Ruling Governor of Antico, and presumably the heir and number one candidate for the next Governor. The Ruling Son shouldn't even have a ratty thrift store couch. Why was he living in a run down apartment, in the middle of the low-living sector?
But more importantly, she had used him for a drug drop.
Used him, as a cover, for a drug drop.
Was she stupid or blind?
Or both?
When had he seen through her act?
Nevaeh was the actor. Every drug runner had a different strength or talent they were known by. Some were good at sniffing out new buyers and addicts, retrieving information for Horowitz, calm and level headed in dangerous situations, and so many more.
Nevaeh? Nevaeh was the actor. She was known for it throughout Horowitz's entire realm. That's why she was always sent on the public drops, the ones that happened on the street or in coffee shops, right under the noses of unsuspecting law officers and upstanding people who would arrest her in a heartbeat if they knew what she was doing. That's why she used people as covers, to develop an alias within just a few minutes or seconds, to draw attention away from her contact or her drop.
Regillion had seen through all of it. He said he had looked her up the police database. Had he just been confirming a suspicion, or had he already known and just wanted the scoop on her? Not that her drug running was recorded in detail on her police file. Most of the stuff on there was petty crime or public disturbances. She couldn't get away with not being on the police's radar, and so she painted herself up to be a petty criminal so the law officers wouldn't be watching her for drug running.
That was all well and nice until she used the Ruling Son for a drug cover. Horowitz was right; using people as covers was dangerous. Now it had come back to bite her.
Technically, she wasn't complaining. She was more than happy to camp out in Reggie's apartment or even in a jail cell than go back to Horowitz. She just needed to know how Reggie had seen through her, where she had slipped up. She had to know.

When Reggie got up the next morning and came out of his room, Nevvy was already up, sitting on the couch with her knees drawn to her chest. She looked up when he came out, not sure how to greet him. He nodded towards her.
"Have you eaten?"
"No."
He headed for the kitchen and she heard him pour coffee and water into the coffee maker and turn it on. From the time they had gotten here yesterday until he had gone to bed, Regillion had consumed an entire pot of coffee.
Nevaeh slid off the couch and came to the edge of the kitchen. "Can I take a shower?"
He glanced up, over the top of the open fridge. His gaze flicked to his bedroom door, and then he shrugged. "Sure. Bathroom's the door on the right, in my room."
"Thanks." She snatched up her purse and literally ran to the bathroom, trying not to seem either too desperate or too elated.
The last time she had taken a shower, she'd caught a peeping tom and stabbed him in the hand for trying to see her without clothes on. From what she heard, his hand still hadn't healed and that was a week and half ago.
Reggie probably had hot water too.
When was the last time she'd had a hot shower? She didn't waste time trying to remember.
On her way through Regillion's bedroom, Nevvy paused for a few seconds to look around and take it in. It was messier than the rest of the house, probably because there was more stuff in it. Piles of discarded clothes lay around. His bed was unmade, and didn't look like it had been made—or changed— in quite a while. The top of his dresser was scattered with random junk, and it looked like he hadn't even tried to make the drawers close.
And by the wall beside his bed, was a saddle.
A saddle?
She stepped closer, trying to make sense of the shape of it. It wasn't like any equestrian saddle she'd ever seen. The double girth was way, way longer than it should have been. None of it made sense.
But she had a shower waiting for her, and a hot shower was much more important than figuring out what the confusing saddle was for. Nevvy turned and ran into the bathroom.
The door had a lock on it.
She wasn't sure whether to sigh or laugh or cry as she clicked the lock into place. When was the last time she'd locked a door behind her to give herself some privacy?
Again, she didn't dwell on the thought.
Reggie's bathroom was slightly neater than his bedroom. Towels and soap and shampoo were stocked in a small closet on one side of the shower and rolled washcloths sat in a basket on the back of the toilet.
Washcloths. Soap. Shampoo.
Nevaeh eagerly turned the water on and stripped off her dirty clothes. She could wash her hair with shampoo. The fact that it was for men and was distinctly guy-scented didn't phase her in the least. It was shampoo.
She lathered and rinsed her hair several times over, her scalp tingling from the cleanliness. Reggie would probably never let her shower here again if he knew how much of his products she was using. Nevaeh absolutely did not care. For the first time in ages, she was going to be clean.
When the water began to run cold, Nevvy finally stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in the fluffiest towel she could find and dug some clean underclothes out of her purse. She always carried a mini-survival kit in her purse—one reason why it was so large—and it had been the only thing she grabbed when she ran from Horowitz yesterday. When she pulled on her dirty jeans and shirt, she didn't even complain. The rest of her was clean; dirty clothes were an insignificant problem.
It wasn't until she stepped out of the bathroom and made her way out to the kitchen that she realized how long she must have been in there. Regillion sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee and browsing his phone. He glanced up when she appeared, an amused grin arresting his face.
"Did you enjoy your shower?"
She nodded, somewhat abashed.
"There's bacon in the skillet on the stove, and cereal in the cabinet above the fridge. Help yourself to whatever you want."
"Thank you." She helped herself to the bacon and poured herself a glass of milk before sitting down across the table from him. "Reggie?"
He looked up. "Hmm?"
"How did you...why did you look up my police record?"
Regillion set his coffee cup down and put his phone in his pocket. "To see if there was one and what it said."
She stared at the tabletop, fingernails picking on the edge of the wood. "Where did I slip up?" she asked quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"What did I do that made you want to see whether I had a record or not?"
"Oh." He sat back in his chair. "Well, I saw the bag of powder in your hat the other day. That was sort of obvious. But when you first said hi to me in that coffee shop, you pulled out that donut bag and said it was a week old, then put it back in your purse instead of throwing it away. Also, there were no grease stains on the bag, like you would expect if it had been in your purse for a whole week.
Nevaeh blinked. Two transgressions. Obvious ones at that. Why hadn't she thought of them? Anyone with half a brain would have wondered why she put a nasty donut back in her bag instead of throwing it away. Grease stains hadn't even occurred to her.
What kind of drug runner was she? Maybe it was a good thing Horowitz didn't have her anymore. If she had messed up this bad in just the last week...
She didn't want to think about that.