She took him past the security door, signing him in with the cop working reception.
Walking him past a wide bullpen full of desks, she took him down another hallway and into a windowless conference room. Despite the drab interior, which consisted of a beat-up, cheap oak table and some gray fabric chairs, he felt a bare whisper of relief it wasn’t a formal interrogation room.
Then he noted the cameras nestled in both windows, the microphone set up on one end of the table, and realized it was an interrogation room, if a slightly more disarming one.
She left him there, still without saying anything.
Dags sat with his back to the wall, frowning around at the equipment, and a CPR poster on one wall, along with a row of what looked like precinct maps.
Kara reappeared with two cups of coffee, one in each hand.
She gripped a tablet and a yellow legal pad under her arm.
She didn’t ask him how he wanted his coffee, or even if he wanted coffee.
She just plunked a cop-blue “I Heart the LAPD” mug down in front of him, filled most of the way to the brim with black coffee.
Setting her own mug down carefully so she wouldn’t drop the tablet or legal pad, she placed those two things on the nicked wooden table in front of her. While she took her seat across from him, she dug a hand into a jacket pocket, producing a handful of sugar packets, creamers, a few swizzle sticks, and tossed them down on the table in front of him.
Dags gave her a grimace.
“Really?”
She shrugged, unapologetic.
“No one’s making you drink it, Megedagik.”
He flinched, spilling a little of the creamer he’d just ripped the top off of. Giving her a hard look, he finished dumping it into the mug.
“Nice death stare, Dags,” she observed wryly. “How do you think I found you? Your name was on an old lease for that property. A lease that expired, by the way… and predates the current owner.” She paused, looking between his eyes, as if looking for a reaction in his face. “Are you squatting there, Dags?”
“No,” he said, raising the mug to his lips.
Taking a sip, he grimaced again.
He supposed it wasn’t bad as far as police station coffee went, but he was a coffee snob.
“Why am I here, Kara?” he said, laying his arms on the table.
He saw her eyes flicker to his forearms, where part of his tattoos peeked out past the slightly pushed up sleeve of one arm. Tugging the black T-shirt back down to cover the detailed feathers tattooed there, he frowned harder.
“Are you going to tell me?” he said. “Or is the horror of being here, being subjected to your shitty coffee, supposed to break me? Cause me to confess to something I didn’t do?”
“Do you have to be a wise-ass about everything?” she muttered.
Flipping back the leather cover on the tablet, she swiped the glass front with a finger and hit in a password.
Dags memorized it without really meaning to: “ShOOTeMUp69.”
Cute. Could they possibly have picked a more cop-stereotype password?
At least it wasn’t Hitler numbers or something.
Kara pulled up a video file. Before she hit play, she reached into the inside pocket of her jacket, pulling out a transparent evidence bag, which had a cell phone inside.
Recognizing the phone, Dags tensed.
Shit.
Well, that answered the question of whether or not he could get away with lying about being in that alley.
When he glanced up, Kara was watching him look at the phone.
“You ever seen this before?”
Dags gave her a flat look. “I’m sure you know the answer to that already, Kara.”
“So you’re not going to answer me?”
“It’s mine. You already know it’s mine.”
Stupid. Usually he carried a burner while he was working. Everything about the night before had been a fiasco, though. That didn’t even get into all the things that went wrong that weren’t his fault.
“It’s mine,” he said, his eyes flickering back to hers. “I was there. We’ve established that. Okay?”
“So you know what I’m about to show you?” she said, frowning. “On the video?”
“Not really, no.” He flipped a hand sideways. “I can guess.”
“You can guess,” she said.
He gave her another flat look.
“So you admit you were there?” she clarified, quirking an eyebrow. “You’re freely admitting that was you? That you were the third person those cops saw in the alley?”
Dags motioned at the phone in the plastic bag, as if to say, Duh.
“I told you,” he said. “I just told you that, Kara.”
“Can you explain?” she said, her voice back to patient, her cop-interrogation voice. “How the hell did you do that? Because I gotta tell you, Dags… I was about to call up a few special effects guys I know after the uniforms showed me the footage. I wanted to know if someone in the movie business could explain it, because none of my people could.”
She paused, as if waiting for him to speak.
When he didn’t, she sharpened her words.
“The uniforms on the scene sure as hell couldn’t explain it, Dags. But they verified it looked like you when I showed them your photo.”
“Thanks for that,” he muttered.
“Don’t blame me,” she warned, raising her voice. “You left your phone there, for crying out loud. Right there, in the middle of the alley. They’d already called the provider and ID’d it as yours. They did that before I even got in this morning. I don’t normally work this kind of case, remember? I’m only in this because of you.”
Seeing him frown, she sharpened her voice. “Even without the phone, it would have come out, Dags. There was video. Did you expect me to obstruct an investigation for you?”
“Why does it matter if I was there?” he said, throwing up his hands. “I didn’t do anything illegal, Kara. Hell. I was trying to be a good Samaritan. I wasn’t working. I was just trying to help someone out when I came upon a bad situation⏤”
“Yeah,” she said sourly. “We both know how many ‘bad situations’ you seem to find yourself in, Dags. You’re like a magnet for ‘bad situations,’ aren’t you?”
“You’re going to blame me for that?” he growled. “Look. I get that I probably should have stuck around, given a statement, but I wasn’t legally obligated to do so…”
He trailed, seeing the incredulous look on Kara’s face.
“…I didn’t do anything wrong,” he repeated, louder. “Anyway, the woman was there. She should have told you everything.”
“‘The woman’?” Kara’s tone reverted to cop-voice, colored with more than a tinge of sarcasm. “Is that the best you can do? Are you about to tell me you don’t even know her name, Dags?”
“Know her name?” He stared at her. “No. Christ. How would I know that?”
It was Kara’s turn to stare.
“Seriously? You have no idea who that was?”
“No,” he said, even more incredulous. “Why would I? I barely said two words to her. I fought the guy off, told her to call the cops once he was down. I told her to get the hell out of there… numerous times, actually. She didn’t listen to me, though⏤”
“You really don’t know who that was?” Kara sounded like she believed him now, but she was looking at him in full-blown disbelief. “Asia Jackson. You’ve never heard that name before? Seen her before? Never?”
“How many times are you going to ask me that?”
“I just find it hard to believe you didn’t recognize her, at least⏤”
“Why?” He frowned at her. “Did she go to our school or something?”
Kara frowned harder, studying his eyes.
“I really can’t tell with you, you know,” she said flatly. “Either you’re a disturbingly good liar, or you truly are living inside your own reality⏤”
“Just tell me who she is
, Kara.”
“You weren’t there on behalf of a client, were you, Dags?” Kara’s voice grew more pointed. “You weren’t working with the guy who attacked her? For example?”
That time, Dags stared at her for real.
“What? You’re not seriously asking me that?” He paused, fighting to think. “Did he tell you that? Because it’s bullshit, if so. I’d never even seen the guy before last night⏤”
“Did he tell us?” Her eyes grew genuinely confused. “Dags, we don’t have him.”
“What?” Dags frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t have him? He’s not still unconscious, is he? Is he in the hospital?”
Her mouth twisted in a harder frown, even as more confusion rose to her eyes.
“Dags, he disappeared the same time you did. They thought maybe your lightshow was some kind of distraction. That you gave him cover so he could get the hell out of there.”
Dags just stared at her for a beat.
His forced his eyes away when the beat ended, turning towards the table as he fought to think. He felt like he’d been hit in the head again.
The guy was gone?
Dags had been sure the cops would have scooped him up. Usually demons didn’t risk exposure. They wanted to stay on Earth, in their human bodies, for as long as they could, so they didn’t do anything to call attention to their demon nature.
For the same reason, they generally went along with law enforcement unless they could get away unseen, whether via murder or some other method. With that many cops and lights on the alley, Dags just assumed the guy would be in a cell this morning. He’d more or less counted on it. He’d planned on scooping the guy up when they let him up, performing the ritual then.
How had he gotten out of there unseen? Was he some kind of super-demon?
Could he fly, too?
Dags frowned down at the table.
No, it was probably a lot simpler like that. It probably went down like Kara said. While the cops were all staring up at freakshow fireworks thrown off by Dags, the guy must have seen his chance and made a run for it.
It was the only thing that made sense.
“Maybe we need to start from the beginning,” Kara said, breaking into his thoughts.
He looked up, and she stared back at him, her full lips pulling into a harder, more cop-like frown.
“Maybe you need to tell me all of it, Dags,” she said. “From the beginning.”
She stood up as she said it, walking over to the recording equipment.
It occurred to Dags only then that she hadn’t switched it on before.
In the same instant, it hit him that she was still trying to cut him a break.
She’d talked to him off the record first, maybe because she was still trying to figure out how badly he was going to incriminate himself before she hit “RECORD” on the official transcript. Which meant she still didn’t want to see him get in trouble, even if she knew⏤strongly suspected anyway⏤that he wasn’t telling her everything.
Thinking about that, he frowned.
“Do I need a lawyer, Kara?” he said.
“I don’t know, Dags. Do you?”
He scowled. “Don’t get cute. I don’t want you recording me without someone else here, okay? I need to have a lawyer here if you want to do that.” Pausing at her returning frown, he added, “It’s not you, Kara. I don’t think you’re trying to screw me. But this is either a ‘friendly chat’ or it’s an official statement. If you want to record me, or have anyone else listen in, I’m not saying another word until my lawyer gets here.”
Kara stopped in mid-motion, releasing the microphone she’d just grabbed.
Exhaling in frustration, she set the heavy mic-stand back on the table. She glanced briefly at the walls, in the direction of both of the cameras he’d already located.
“Are you hungry?” she said, exhaling a second time as she turned to look at him.
Dags frowned, staring at her.
“…Because I am,” she added, her voice casual. “I could murder a stack of blueberry pancakes right now. And this coffee isn’t really doing it for me, either.” Pausing, she jerked her chin towards the conference room door. “There’s a pretty decent diner across the street. What do you say? I’m buying.”
Seeing the meaningful look in her eyes, he frowned.
Her voice turned patient. “If I decide we need to do this for real after, you’ll get your lawyer. You want to get some food first? Or not?”
Turning over her words, he nodded slowly.
“I’m starving,” he admitted, raising his eyes back to hers. “You better be telling the truth about that diner. And about breakfast being on you.”
Blinking at him in surprise, she let out a disbelieving snort.
That time, she almost smiled.
Chapter 5
P.I. For Me
He still didn’t know if Kara had actual video of him flying, much less of the wings bursting out of his back.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he could ask her.
He turned options over in his mind, trying to think of how he would explain that to her, if she had seen it. He fought through more and less plausible explanations for the wings, for them appearing like that, out of nowhere. He had to come up with a semi-believable story before they got to the diner and she showed him the video.
His adrenaline spiked more the longer he thought about it.
It spiked higher than it had fighting that demon the night before.
This was the shit he genuinely hated, though. This was the stuff that kept him up at night. Being afraid he’d end up in a nuthouse, or worse, in an underground government black-site, getting cut up by some freak with a scalpel and a Pentagon security clearance.
His heart was already pounding when the voice shouted at him.
The loud, distinctly female, distinctly not-Kara voice cut through the uneven mutter of talking and telephones in the wider bullpen.
It also jerked his mind violently back to the present.
Whoever they were, they stood all the way across the bullpen from where Dags and Kara were making their way back to the security door.
Until that exact instant, Dags hadn’t been entirely sure anyone knew he was there, apart from Kara. He hadn’t noticed any eyes on him when they walked in.
The voice shattered that illusion.
Worse, she made it pretty much impossible for him to pretend he hadn’t heard her.
“HEY!” she shouted across the crowded bull-pen full of cops. “HEY! YOU! ANGEL-GUY! ARE YOU LEAVING?”
The room fell silent.
Dags froze.
In front of him, Kara froze.
Every cop bustling around the bullpen froze, too.
Unfortunately, only after Dags halted, mid-step, did it occur to him it would have been far better if he’d just kept walking. No matter how unconvincing it might have looked from the outside, at least he could have gotten out of there.
It felt far too late for that now.
Apart from a few ringing telephones, the bullpen remained silent.
Everyone in the wide-open space, along with a few higher-ups inside glass-encased offices, stopped what they’d been doing to stare. They didn’t stare at the crazy woman screaming at him from across the bullpen.
They didn’t stare at Kara, although a few glanced at her.
No, they were staring at him, Dags Jourdain.
Wonderful.
He’d really been hoping to end this day on the mental radar of half the city’s police force. After last night especially, being called “Angel-guy” in front of a bunch of uniform cops was just the cherry on the fucking sundae of his whole, terrible morning.
Damn it.
But she’d already shouted. He’d already stopped.
They were already staring at him.
It was too late to do much of anything but what he did, which was turn his head in the direction from which the voice came.
The woman Kara ID’d as
Asia Jackson stood next to a low metal police desk, wearing the same clothes he’d seen on her the night before. The realization brought a brief whisper of sympathy, at least in the split second before she began walking purposefully towards him. The cop at the desk closest to where she’d been standing followed her with his eyes, a slightly alarmed look on his face, maybe from the sheer aggressiveness of her strides.
Maybe the cop thought she was going to attack Dags.
Looking at her, watching her stalk towards him on what had to be four-inch heels, Dags briefly wondered the same. She must have gotten a lot less sleep than he had, but she certainly didn’t look it. He could only think about blueberry pancakes and coffee, at some point hopefully followed by a nap, assuming he didn’t end up in a jail cell after this, and this woman looked ready to do battle.
Asia Jackson looked ready for a full-blown brawl.
She walked right up to him and jabbed a finger into his chest.
“YOU,” she said, her voice openly accusatory. “Where did you go last night? Why did you leave me alone with all this bullshit?”
He stared down at her incredulously.
“Leave you alone? All of what bullshit? I knocked the guy out. The cops came. What the hell did you need me for?” Remembering all the eyes on the two of them, he glanced around before lowering his voice. “I tried to help you. I did help you. If you’d gotten out of there when I told you⏤”
But she blew past that, like he hadn’t spoken.
“They tell me you’re a P.I.,” she said, motioning behind her, presumably at LAPD-dom in general. “As in, private investigator. Is that true?”
He gave her a dubious look. “Why?”
“Is it true or not?”
“Why?”
“I want to hire you.”
Dags’ frown deepened. He glanced at Kara, who managed to look both annoyed and amused by the situation at the same time.
Looking back at Asia Jackson, Dags once more fought to think. Kara seemed to think Dags should know or recognize this person.
He didn’t.
I, Angel Page 4