by Nancy Holder
“I’ll catch you later,” Vincent said to her stiff, angry back. She raised a hand to show that she’d heard.
“Great to meet you, Vince,” Wilson said. “Let’s do sushi soon.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Vincent ground his teeth and saw himself out.
CHAPTER FOUR
GREENWICH VILLAGE, 5 P.M.
Inside the apartment she shared with Cat and, occasionally, Vincent, Heather Chandler thrust her weight onto one hip, took a step, and pushed out her other hip. Then she sipped her Sauvignon Blanc.
On the floor, a dozen tiny pieces of green fabric fluttered like autumn leaves. There were scraps everywhere, and a half-finished moss-colored handkerchief skirt she had ultimately decided was way too Halloween Gypsy lay on the sofa. A bottle of red wine was open and breathing, but Heather had decreed that they could only drink white while working on her pieces. Also, they could only eat white Cheddar cheese and white crackers. The crackers were kind of crumbling everywhere but she’d get out the vacuum in a sec.
“See? Like that,” she said to her audience as she took another sip. She was getting a little sloshed. “You’re walking the fashion runway. Not guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
“Sweet darlin’, that is exactly how I am walkin’.” Walker Chastain, who worked as a photographer at the Silverado Academy of Design, also holding a glass of wine and munching on nummy cheese and crumbly crackers, demonstrated his walk. Tall and lanky, he took one precise step forward, and then another. He was no fashion model, but he was fluid sex appeal. Plus he was a strawberry-blond edging into ginger, so very tasty. He even had nubs of red hair on his toes. Hazel eyes with gold flecks, a dusting of macho facial hair. And the most adorable freckles.
He was swathed with chartreuse raw silk, the bodice featuring an off-center, plunging neckline and slashed dolman sleeves inset with sand-colored muslin, then captured in a bamboo bustier. Heather had dyed the bamboo strips in green tea. The skirt—a second one, of chartreuse—she wasn’t sure of yet. She had pinned it up to Walker’s shins—her model, Bai Mei, was about an inch shorter than he was—but she hadn’t yet discovered the design of her design, as Rudi, her silks teacher, would say.
Walker was the only person who had seen her creation thus far. She was entering it in the New Looks competition and it was going to be a winner. She already knew it because a bamboo corset? That was a whole new level of look. The prize was a photo spread and a “Designer to Watch!” write-up in Couture Bleu magazine. Cat and Tess had been working a case at the magazine when Cat had found Vincent. So it was very cool that Heather had a chance of being discovered there herself.
“My lack of walk is because I don’t have any hips. Or chi-chis.” He cupped his chest with his hands. He had great pecs. Beneath all the silk, his body was ripped. He had an actual six-pack, an attribute far less common in New York than back in Miami, where people walked around half-naked so you had to work at it. In Miami, a formal affair meant you wore something over your bathing suit. And flip-flops instead of going barefoot.
“Walker, fashion models don’t have hips or chi-chis. And no one says chi-chis. They are boobs. I mean, breasts.” She poured him a little more wine in the hope of loosening him up. Maybe she was expecting too much. Walker was so talented it was hard not to imagine that he was good at everything. She had met him when he’d come to shoot her class’s models in their silk pajama pieces. The pictures he’d taken of Bai Mei were fantastic.
After that, it had been a matter of trading business cards—she was still working part-time as an events coordinator and her boss had been looking for a good photographer—and about a week after the New Looks competition had been announced, he’d texted her to meet for coffee. He loved Il Cantuccio, the Chandler women’s go-to for all things caffeine, which only added to the yes of him. They’d been going out for two weeks now, and she was truly touched by the interest he’d been taking in her project.
“Try the walk again,” she urged him.
He pushed out his hip. He had the cutest butt. “We say chi-chis in the south,” he said. “We have a more polite aesthetic.”
Heather grinned and rolled her eyes. “‘Polite aesthetic.’ If this was a sitcom, you’d be my stereotypical gay best friend.”
“But it’s not a sitcom, darlin’. It’s real life.” He gave her a long, slow grin. “And you know that I’m not gay.”
He seductively slid the corset around his chest to reach the linen fasteners she’d invented just for the piece. They intersected and formed square knots that would not pull apart unless you pinched them together. Another fashion first. She was born for this. He undid the first one and rolled his hips in a circle.
“Way not gay,” he murmured, sipping his wine. He undid another fastener and rolled his hips the other way, as if he were circling a hula hoop. As comical as his striptease was, Heather couldn’t help a little tremor of excitement. In addition to a body to die for, Walker totally knew his way around the bedroom. After having her heart broken back in Florida, Heather was up for someone who thoroughly enjoyed being with her and told her she was beautiful at exactly the right moment.
“Walker, please, we need to work. This is my entry,” she said, and he smiled languidly.
“Maybe we need to work on mine.” He waggled his brows and unfastened another loop.
She giggled. This was fun. She loved having fun.
“And you need more wine,” he added as the corset began to slide to the ground.
“Oh, careful!” Heather cried. “I’ve spent a hundred hours on that!”
She swooped down to retrieve it, nearly spilling wine on it, and as she straightened, the chartreuse skirt splashed to the floor like a waterfall. Walker stood proudly in his underwear, all the more endearing because they were clean baggy boxers with a splash of red paint on them. He painted. He was a serious visual artist. He was amazing with oils, and she loved that he worked late at night in his boxers. She hadn’t been to his place but he’d told her it was a cold-water flat, like a garret back in Paris. He was quirky and artistic.
“Careful with the hundred-hour dress,” he intoned, and gently lifted her creation off the floor. He carefully folded it and held it out to her with a bow. She curtseyed and took it from him. Then he drained his wine glass, set it down, picked her up in his arms, and carried her toward her bedroom.
“Entering the hallway,” he said. He turned. “Entering your bedroom. Entering…”
She kissed him. He returned the favor. Then he carried her to her bed and set her down. Blissed-out, Heather arranged her fashion items on her nightstand and held out her arms.
“You’re the best,” she said.
“Boom-ba-ba-boom.” He thrust his hips from side to side. The mattress dipped beneath his weight.
“We left kind of a mess in the front room,” she said.
“Later, busy brain. Hip thrusters, we are go for launch!” He kissed her again.
And again and again and again.
This cannot be more perfect, Heather thought happily. All my planets are in alignment. Nothing’s going to mess this up.
* * *
“Hey, buddy,” Vincent said on the other end of the line. He was in the Bronx, waiting his turn to investigate the Patel crime scene. “Are there any cameras at east one-sixty-first? I’ve been looking and I don’t see any.”
J.T. sat at command central in the once-abandoned gentlemen’s club that was his, and formerly Vincent’s, home and hacked into the highly illegal-to-use surveillance system as he had done so many times before. Maybe now that Tess was the precinct captain, she could bail him out if he ever got arrested by the NSA.
The keyboard clacked like a concerto as he searched. “That’s a big negative, big guy,” he said glumly. “Guess no one is interested in what goes on in such a high crime area.”
“I detect a hint of sarcasm.”
“Sara’s dating this guy who just got tenure. For research into bioluminescence. I mean really. Ha
sn’t it all been done?”
“Except that you don’t care about Sara,” Vincent said, “because you’re with Tess.”
“Am I?” J.T. grabbed a gummy worm and bit off its head. Which maybe was its tail. “I never see her anymore. We don’t talk.”
“She’s under a lot of pressure because of her promotion,” Vincent reminded him. “And you know the one-twenty-fifth is under the microscope because of all the dirty laundry. Remember when your research wasn’t going well? After Dolly the sheep got cloned and then it all went south? There was a long stretch there when we barely spoke.”
“So you think I’m overreacting,” J.T. said. A little flicker of hope warmed his sad heart. “That Tess is just preoccupied and I’m… not.”
“Something like that. She’s got so much going on, you know?”
“And I… don’t.” He grabbed another gummy worm. Bit hard down on its gummy midsection, savoring its gummy guts.
“It’s like the old days,” Vincent offered. “Before all the insanity.”
Back to square one. Me lonely and you… not back to square one.
“Yeah, insanity,” J.T. said. “Who needs it?” His phone signaled another call. “Hey, hold on, someone’s on the other line,” he said, and switched over. “Star Command.”
That got a chuckle. “What if it hadn’t been me?” Tess asked.
“Well, Vincent’s on the other line and I don’t get a whole lot of calls. So the odds were good.”
“About that,” she began, and then she cleared her throat. “I envy you. My entire day has been phone calls and meetings. If I’d had two seconds to think I would have given this to you hours ago.”
“I’m listening.” Something to do. Yay.
“Cat and Vincent got a phone number this morning that we think may have belonged to a Muirfield whistle-blower. Private X. Apparently he was in Afghanistan and he wants to talk. Our IT is coming up empty but I know you can go where no geek has ever gone before.”
“Roger that, Jean-Luc,” he said.
“Now you’re getting obscure.” She gave him the number.
“I’ll run it,” he promised her. “Jean-Luc was on Star Trek. He was Next Gen.”
“Thanks. There’s too many Star Trek shows. I mean, aren’t they all pretty much the same? What has Vincent got?”
Pretty much the same? A cold wind blew inside the gentlemen’s club.
“He can’t go in yet. The CSUs are still in there.”
“Will the trail go cold for him?” Tess asked with a hint of worry in her voice.
“Not this fast. As I’ve said before, Vincent can track prey across the Sahara for, like, a year. And that’s only a minor exaggeration.”
“I still find that creepy. Okay. Call my cell but only if you get something, okay? Cat and I are going to have coffee.”
“Nice gig,” he said tightly. How long had it been since they had gone out for coffee? Or for anything?
“Not really. We’re having it in my office. I have some groveling to do. It won’t be pretty. Luckily I’m so busy that I have to keep it short.”
He was intrigued. He wondered what was up. “So, will you have time for dinner tonight? I can go back through the history of Star Trek with you.” He tried for a light, casual tone.
“It’ll probably be Chinese at my desk. Right now there’s a very large angry crowd in front of the precinct demanding to know why we aren’t doing more to stop these homicides. I have to go out there and make a statement.” She grunted. “I might have to skip coffee with Cat.”
“That’s… too bad?” he guessed.
“No. That would be good. It might give her time to cool off.”
J.T. blinked. “What’s going on? Are you two—”
“Gotta go.” The call ended. J.T. grunted unhappily and switched back over to Vincent. “Tess just told me there’s another demonstration in front of the precinct.”
“That’s bad,” Vincent said. “All these murders. Remember Beth Bowman, Catherine’s friend?”
“The reporter Gabe killed? By ripping out her heart?”
“We spun that one that he was committing vicious murders and trying to pin them on me. But he’s dead and I’ve been exonerated.”
“I follow where you’re going,” J.T. said. “There’s no way to deflect these cases. Someone’s going to figure this out. If you detected a beast presence when you were with Aliyah Patel, there’s going to be evidence at the crime scene.”
“Unless this beast is different and the lab equipment doesn’t have the right markers.”
There was a beat. Then at the exact same time, both of them said, “Or unless someone else switches the samples out.”
“New beast, new beast-maker. New conspiracy,” Vincent said. He sounded tired.
“We never seem to run out of them, do we.” J.T. was not posing a question. “Maybe in this day and age we can’t expect this just to stop. Digital files, info clouds… back when Rebecca Reynolds wrote out her journal in longhand, beasts could be kept a secret.”
“Not really. Her beast, Alastair, was burned at the stake,” Vincent reminded him.
“Tess called to put me on the phone number you got this morning,” he said. “A ‘Private X’? ‘Private’ as in ‘for your eyes only’ or ‘private’ as in ‘army’?”
Vincent was silent for a moment. J.T. waited for yet another dire revelation.
“It’s about Lafferty,” he said with guilt and self-loathing in his voice. J.T. would recognize those qualities anywhere. Vincent had been quite the brooder before Cat had come into his life.
“Lafferty. What about Lafferty?” J.T. asked cautiously. When his best friend stayed mute, J.T. hunched forward, as if Vincent were sitting on the other side of the desk instead of spying on NYPD CSU. “Vincent, we’ve been over this. You had no way of knowing.”
“J.T., you don’t think… could this be Lafferty?”
“What?” J.T. was so shocked he rose from his chair. It fell over backwards with a crash.
“I mean, if they did something else to her. I thought she died. I thought I saw it. But maybe she survived… and went into hiding like I did but then something happened. Something more. Maybe, I don’t know, she’s here looking for me. Because of our past. Because of… what I did.” He sighed. “I mean, what I didn’t do.”
“No, Vincent. We’ve been through this.”
“But that was before the letter.”
“No one has actually told me about the letter,” J.T. said.
“I have a picture of it. I’ll send it to you. Hold on.”
J.T. held. Vincent’s photo arrived and J.T. opened the letter up on one of his computer monitors. He read it.
“Karl Tiptree,” he said. “I think I’ve come across his name in research somewhere.”
“Cat and Tess are investigating, but if you can make any connections that’d be great,” Vincent said. “I went to that crime scene back when he was murdered. I had no sense at all that he’d been killed by a beast, J.T. None. But today, when I carried Aliyah Patel to the ambulance, I knew she’d been in the proximity of a beast. Maybe that means there are two beasts besides me. One I can sense… and one that I can’t.”
“Oh boy.” J.T. rested his hand on his forehead. “After this, can we all, like, go on a sabbatical or something? A cruise? With lots of drinking?”
“It does seem like we can’t catch a break,” Vincent agreed.
“We’ve been involved in more homicide investigations than there are people in the state of Wyoming. I know. I checked.” He clicked his keyboard and zoomed in on a grid of NYC traffic. “I can’t give you camera footage but I can say that the entire block where the attack occurred is completely blocked off. Which sounds redundant. Block and block.”
“It’s like a war zone,” Vincent said. “I went up on a rooftop but the angle was wrong. I can’t get into the abandoned warehouse across from the apartment building, either. Police presence.”
J.T. heard the change in
his voice. Vincent had repressed the guilt and remorse and was concentrating on solving the case. That was what Vincent lived for now—justice. And Catherine, of course. J.T. was glad his friend had found love, and a renewed sense of purpose, but he himself was beginning to question his own place in all of this. Tess had once urged him to be “less Robin, more Batman,” but in the meantime, Vincent had fully embraced his inner Caped Crusader and J.T. wasn’t even Robin anymore. He was the guy back at HQ doling out the information. Pretty much all the important superheroes had an IT guy: Professor X, Ron Stoppable on Kim Possible…
He ate another gummy worm and stared down at the phone number. Why give someone a bogus number? Two answers came to mind: one, the number hadn’t been bogus when it had been given; two, someone was keeping track of the location of phones used to call the number.
“Or three, it’s a code that they’re expecting someone to crack,” he said aloud. “The wrong phone number.”
“Yeah,” Vincent said slowly. “They had to figure Mr. Riley would go to someone. The army, or the police… But which side are they really on? Are they trying to get justice for Lafferty or dangling a baited hook to see who will bite? Putting Karl Tiptree’s name in, too, and mentioning a serum?”
“So they’re upping the ante? Doling out clues?” J.T. picked up another gummy worm, then went for an antacid instead. “Vincent, it sounds to me like they’re trying to draw you out.”
“But no one knows about me,” Vincent began, and then he sighed. “Someone always knows.”
“Maybe these guys are an old Muirfield cell, even.” The antacid powdered his mouth. He grabbed another. “I’m getting fond of the ‘trap’ theory. There had to be reports about Lafferty in the infirmary. Cat’s mom probably wrote them. They were observing you guys all the time. They’d know you went to visit Lafferty in the infirmary. They probably overheard her… asking…” He trailed off.