“The kids are all poor,” he said, his voice holding more of an edge. “Well... until recently. A lot of them were connected to trafficking rings.” Clearing his throat, he tapped the paper again with a finger, smearing more sauce on it. “You really should read the whole thing, doc...”
“So why is the United States government involved?” I said. “What was Farraday talking about? Or can you not tell me that part?”
“You’re not listening to me, doc.”
“I am listening––”
“There’s a new kid missing,” Black said, cutting me off. “Not a poor kid.”
I frowned, hearing the meaning there.
My annoyance rose when he went back to eating, pretty much ignoring me all over again. Watching him, I felt myself weighing his words, in spite of myself. So, okay, I got the basics... or I thought I did. Poor kids go missing and it’s shocking and makes headlines, but no one is really up in arms. Then a rich kid goes missing, probably the kid of an expat, given the United States connection, and now the United States government was involved, and somehow they knew Black was working on the case, probably because he still did the odd job for them on the side.
That explained his get-out-of-jail-free card with the Thai police, but not why he got picked up in the first place. Nor did it explain why Black himself looked like a homeless drug dealer when I found him in that Thai police station.
Well, not unless he’d been infiltrating the trafficking rings, looking for the common denominator with the earlier missing kids.
Exhaling in irritation when it occurred to me that was probably exactly what he’d been doing, I folded my arms tighter across my chest, still nursing the lemon smoothie although it was making my fingers numb.
If I was right about even a quarter of that, it still didn’t explain what the hell Black expected me to do about any of it.
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?” I said. “You don’t need me for this.”
“I do need you.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Why am I here, Black?”
He paused long enough to take another big bite of chicken and rice, then shrugged as he finished chewing, wiping his hand on a cloth napkin he’d draped over his lap.
“I brought you out here because I wanted you here,” he said.
I leaned back in my chair, biting back a sharp, almost unreasonable flood of annoyance with him. I knew some of it was my reaction to seeing the burned child, and my anger that he already had some part of my mind working the case for him. For some reason I wanted to blame both things on him entirely, even knowing I’d let myself get played by allowing him to suck me into coming here in the first place. Black apparently knew me a little too well already, if he could get me to fly all the way across the world with a single cryptic phone call.
Forcing the emotion out of my expression, I stared back at the pool, sipping at the lemon smoothie and trying not to think about either him or the case.
He didn’t say anything though, and eventually I found myself looking back at him.
I watched him eat for a few minutes more. After he’d finished chewing a few more bites and washing them down with the second beer, he glanced at me again.
“I wanted you here,” he repeated. “I wanted you to come. I would have thought that was obvious by now, given my reaction to having you here.”
It took a few more seconds for that to sink in.
Then I let out a disbelieving laugh.
“You brought me here for sex?” I said.
“I wanted you here,” he said, his voice harder. He paused in his eating, holding the fork and knife at either side of his plate. “I waited two months. And I meant what I said. I could use you out here... work-wise. Things have gotten... complicated. With the job, I mean. I want you to profile someone for me. Several someone’s, really.”
“Why can’t you just––”
“Without using your sight,” he said, heading me off. “I want to make use of your clinical training, doc. I need this done quietly. No seer skills.” He motioned up and down at me with a fork. “They’re less likely to notice someone profiling them who looks like you. Especially if you dress like a tourist... and if I tell them we’re fucking.”
“Nice, Black. Really nice.”
“You know what I mean. Part of the job is misdirection. Don’t take it personally.”
I fought to untangle his words, still pulling apart pieces of what he’d said earlier. “You waited two months?” I said. “What does that even mean, Black?”
“Do you want to go swimming?” he said.
I blinked at him, then looked at the pool. Returning my gaze to him, I glanced down at the wooden platter. “Aren’t you eating?”
“I’m hot,” he said. “I want to go in. I want you to come with me.”
“You mean you want to gawk at me in a bathing suit,” I muttered.
I meant it as a joke, but a coil of heat left his light.
“Actually I want to fuck you on one of these lounge chairs,” he said, his voice hard. Pausing when I flinched, looking up at him in bewilderment, he subdued his voice, making it more polite. “But since that’s unlikely to happen, given your reaction to me in your room, I’d be content with a more low-key groping and yes, some very intent staring.”
“Black...” I said, my voice openly annoyed.
He rose to his feet, tossing his sunglasses on the table and flipping the shirt off his shoulders. I watched him hang the white shirt on the back of his chair, fighting hard not to gawk at him. Even though he’d lost weight from his stint at playing homeless Bangkok drug dealer or whatever the hell he’d been doing, he still had the sculpted body of an athlete. He looked tanner than I remembered, too.
As he moved with that odd, fighter-like grace of his, I found myself conscious again of the other stares aimed in his direction from lounge chairs scattered around the pool. I wondered how many of those staring would turn down his offer of public sex on their sunbathing towel.
I figured probably not many.
Then he turned his back to me and I winced violently.
Leaning forward in the lounge chair, I stared at the angry red mark at the base of his spine, what looked to be some kind of Asian character inside a circle standing out from his skin. As I looked at it, I experienced another jolt of borderline physical pain, strong enough to make me nauseous. I leaned back, away from him, maybe to put distance between me and his injury. Unlike in the room with Black, there was nothing sexy about this pain.
“Sympathetic,” he grunted. “That’s what they call it. Sympathetic pain.”
“That’s what who calls it?” I said, biting my lip as I looked up at him.
He didn’t answer.
My eyes returned to his back. “What the hell is it? A burn?”
He glanced down at himself.
“A brand,” he said.
“A brand.”
He shrugged. “Initiation brand. I had to agree to it or they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Let you in?” I stared up at him, alarm in my voice. “Let you in where?”
“The club... gang... whatever,” he said, still standing over me, blocking the sun. “I could only push them so much. I had to play along to some degree or they never would have accepted me.” He looked at it again. “It might fade,” he said. “Seers don’t scar like humans, but as I’ve never experimented with burns before, so I honestly don’t know.”
I must have been gaping at him, because my mouth closed with a sudden snap.
Before I could speak, he walked casually away from me and towards the pool, still moving with that odd grace of his. I didn’t take my eyes off him as he reached the pool’s edge and walked in without hesitation, feet first, as if strolling off a cliff.
For a long moment he remained under the water’s surface.
Then, slowly, he glided back up where he breached, shaking his head. When I met his gaze, he smiled at me. The look on his face came close to relief.
“Come in,
doc,” he said, his voice gruff. “Or I’ll drag you in fully clothed.”
Feeling another sliver of heat off him, I flushed.
I did want to go in. I’d wanted to go in since we got up here.
“So come in,” he said. “I can’t possibly be that intimidating. And maybe it’ll get you to stop thinking about those kids for a few minutes.”
My jaw clenched, preventing me from muttering a few more curse words.
Even so, I knew he was right. About the kids, at least.
I fought back and forth with why I was letting him order me around, right before I rose stiffly to my feet, deciding I didn’t care about that, either. I barely hesitated before I tugged the scoop-necked black shirt over my head. I felt Black’s stare as I kicked off my sandals next, then shimmied out of the dark green skirt I’d worn over the suit.
“Fuck,” he said, his voice low.
When I glanced at him, he had his arms crossed on the side of the pool, his chin resting on his hands. He stared at me openly, his eyes running down my body without the slightest attempt to hide any part of his appraisal. Meeting my gaze after he finished looking at me in the black bikini, he spoke directly into my mind.
Tell me how to seduce you, doc. Please.
I felt my face flush hotter, even as I shook my head at him, clenching my jaw more.
Feeling his stare intensify, I chose to ignore it, walking towards the side of the pool, conscious of how much more uncomfortable I probably looked than he had with his cat-like tread. I didn’t wait either but jumped directly in, feet-first, like he had. The shockingly cold water enveloped me, instantly cooling me off and clearing my head. Also like he had, I made my way leisurely to the surface, breaching a full minute after I entered the water.
Sighing, I let myself glide to my back, closing my eyes as I floated.
For a long moment, I lost myself in pale blue water and bluer sky.
I decided Black could piss off.
“Still angry I asked you to come?” a voice asked by my ear.
He was closer to me than I’d expected. Flipping out of the float, I found him treading water only a foot or so away from me. He swam closer and I swam back, watching him continue to look at me. Now he looked primarily at my eyes.
“Somehow I doubt you’ve spent many nights alone,” I retorted. “At least when you weren’t letting criminals brand you so you could play Thai gangster in your free time...”
He chuckled, swimming closer.
Come here, doc... he coaxed in my mind. ...Maybe I need a distraction, too.
I found myself backing into the side of the pool. Remembering what he’d said before we jumped into the water, I felt my nerves rise when he swam closer. He placed his hands on either side of the lip of the pool once he got close enough, pulling himself forward so that he was only a few inches away from me. Then he was more or less pinning me there, his face close to mine when he met my gaze.
“You concerned for me, doc?” he said. “Is that it?”
His voice pulled on me, like he had with his mind in the room. His eyes held mine without wavering, studying me with an intensity that made me nervous.
“Concerned?” I said, looking away. “You mean concerned that I might have to find a new job because my boss is an idiot? Yes, this concerns me. I just bought a downtown parking permit... those aren’t exactly cheap.”
I heard him smile, but he didn’t move away. “I’ll reimburse you,” he said.
I looked up, frowning at his gold eyes.
“Not if you’re dead you won’t. What the hell were you doing with a Thai gang?”
“You already know what I was doing with them. I heard you thinking about it before we got into the pool... which is one of the many things I like about you, doc. I don’t have to spell everything out all the time.” Leaning closer he murmured, “Come on... flirt with me a little. We can talk about the case later.”
Feeling that heat on him intensify, I bit my lip.
“What am I really doing here, Black?” I said.
“I told you.”
“You haven’t told me everything,” I said. “I’m not a complete idiot, Black.”
Seeing him looking at my mouth, I had an overwhelming desire to splash water in his face. Or maybe hit him. I didn’t do either.
“You haven’t told me everything either, Miriam,” he said, his words still measured. “Why should I talk to you when you won’t talk to me?”
“What the hell could I tell you?” I said. “I came out here because––”
“No.” Shaking his head, he cut me off before I could go on. “Drop that, all right? We can talk about that later... we have to go soon anyway.”
“Go where soon? Where are we going, Black?”
“I have a meeting... like I said. I need you there for that.” His eyes roamed down me again, and I felt another coil of that heat off him. “Are you going to tell me how to court you? Or do you really want me to wait for you to come to me?”
I stared up at him in open disbelief.
“Court me?” I said.
His expression didn’t change, but I saw a faint flinch in his gold eyes, along with an even fainter tightening of his mouth.
“Yes,” he said, frowning a bit more. “I thought that was obvious. Is there a different word I should use?” When I didn’t say anything, his voice deepened. “You said no before... but you were with someone before. You aren’t now.” He paused, as if thinking.
His gold eyes met mine.
“You don’t have anyone else now, do you, Miriam?”
“You left,” I told him incredulously. “What do you even care what I’m doing?”
“You’d just been attacked by your fiancé,” he said. “You’d just learned you weren’t human. I thought I should give you time to recover.”
“Time to recover?” I said. “What the hell does that mean? You promised me answers about who I am, Black... and about this world you supposedly come from... that religion Ian might be involved in, and all that ‘pure blood’ crap he ranted about when he tried to kill me. You said you were going to explain all of that to me. I let your lab guys take my blood. I let them put me through a CAT scan, an MRI, a PET scan... and who knows what else with all the poking and prodding and ‘samples’ they drew from me...”
Feeling my jaw tighten, I looked up, meeting his gaze.
His gold eyes didn’t move.
“...I did all of that thinking I’d finally get some answers, Black,” I said. “But no one bothered to talk to me about anything they found in all of those tests... certainly not you. And then you came out here, to do God knows what...”
“I waited,” he said, his voice patient, but now holding a faint edge. “I waited two months, Miriam.” He paused, adjusting his hands on the lip of the pool. “Did I not wait long enough? Or did I wait too long?” The edge in his voice grew more audible. “Do you have someone else now, doc?”
I gave him a disbelieving look.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” I said. “After everything I just said?”
“Yes.” His jaw tightened as he looked over my face. “Why wouldn’t I ask you that? That was the reason you gave for refusing me before. Are you with someone else now?”
I leaned my back against the side of the pool, staring at him.
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “I want to make sure I understand everything we’ve covered so far. You didn’t tell me jack shit about myself or the race stuff, despite the fact that you knew I was worried about it and you’d previously promised to explain it. Instead you left town, coming out here to play Thai gangster and hunt a murderer even though no one really hired you to do it. You waited two months for me to get over my fiancé trying to kill me. Then you asked me out here to have sex with you?”
He frowned, as if thinking over my words.
“Yes,” he said.
I nodded, clenching my jaw. “Back up, Black.”
“Back up?” His eyes grew more puzzled.
“Back up, or I’m going to punch you in the face.”
He pushed away from the edge of the pool, his eyes wary as he treaded water from a few feet away. “You’d rather I hadn’t waited?” he said. “Is that it?”
My jaw tightened more, actually hurting my face.
“You brought me all the way out here because, in your estimation, enough time had passed to ask me for sex?” When he frowned, still looking confused, I nodded, mostly to myself. “Okay. Let’s just put aside the sheer insanity of that thought process for one minute, and deal with the impracticality. In just the last thirty minutes, I’ve seen like six women check you out. I don’t think you needed to fly me out here if sex is all you wanted, Black...”
I lost my train of thought when a significantly denser coil of that breath-choking pain hit out at me, intense enough to arch my back. It took me a few seconds to recover my equilibrium, then a few more to realize that flood of feeling and sensation had come from him.
“Are you jealous, doc?” he said, his voice low.
That pain on him worsened, even as he moved closer to me again.
“Gaos...” he said. “Are you asking me for something? Is that why you won’t have sex with me? You want me to––”
“No,” I said, shoving him back sharply with my palm.
He accommodated me, but didn’t move far that time.
“But you don’t want me fucking humans?” His voice remained low as he glanced around us. When I rolled my eyes, he put his hands back on the lip of the pool, leaning closer to me. “You don’t like it... I can feel it. Why are you lying to me?”
“Are you going to answer any of my questions?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding frustrated that time. “Of course I am. I didn’t forget... I was waiting. I wanted to know one another better first.”
“Know one another better?” I said, incredulous. “That’s not how it works, Black. You have to actually talk to someone if you want to get to know them.”
“Not if you’re seer,” he cut in. “We don’t work that way, doc. Which should tell you something about what I found out about you at least.”
He trailed when I flinched, staring up at him.
In the pause that followed, his jaw hardened, almost like he regretted his words. Then he made that odd clicking noise he did sometimes, shaking his head. Sighing, he murmured more softly, “I’m not approaching you like I would a human, Miriam. That should answer at least one of your questions. I thought it would be easier to talk if we spent some time sharing light first.”
Black As Night: A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery (Quentin Black Mystery Book 2) Page 5